Tagged: my dad

Things I’m Afraid to Tell You: Link Up Your Posts

Michele at ODNT clued me into this little blog meme/linkup/phenomenon called “Things I’m Afraid to Tell You.” And I thought – oh yeah, here’s a good meme for Honest Mom!

I’m not afraid of telling you all much, obviously. My blog name says it all. But I have only been writing at this blog for six months, so there is still plenty to tell!

And like Michele, not all my confessions are heavy.  Some are kind of funny or odd.  But one or two are a bit bombshell-like. So here we go…

1. I am a closet science fiction fan. I am a bit of a geek deep down. In fact, one of my top 5 movies is the 2009 Star Trek movie. My dad was a computer science guy and my mom was a math teacher. There was no way to escape it.

2. I pick at the edges of my fingers and the heels of my feet. Gross, I know. I think it’s part of my anxiety issues.

3. I grew up a pretty devout Catholic but I am so pissed at the church – and have been since the pedophile scandal broke – that I can’t bring myself to go. And I feel a big hole in my life because of it.

But I can’t belong to an institution that is so broken that it put a greater priority on protecting pedophiles than protecting children. And the fact that women are second-class citizens, gay people aren’t truly accepted, priests can’t be married … all this drove me away.

I am really struggling with the fact that Anne will be in 1st grade next year and she should start Catholic religious education and make her first communion in 2nd grade. I don’t know what to do about this.

4. Sometimes I wonder if I drink too much wine. And I worry a little. But not enough to stop having a glass almost every night.

5. I’ve never been a big Seinfeld fan. Some episodes are great but most of the time I am watching an episode, I sit there, detesting the characters as I watch and thinking how, in real life, I’d avoid them at all costs.

6. I almost always have dirt under my fingernails because I am a gardener and can’t keep my hands out of the dirt.

7. I don’t know how to do a cartwheel.

8. When I wash my hair, a lot of my hair falls out and I wipe it onto the shower wall. I almost always remember to throw it away when I am done showering. Almost.

9. I have a half-sister who I found out about the day after my dad died. I don’t know who she is or where she is. And I don’t think I’ll ever find out.

10. I grew up in a house filled with yelling and fighting. My father was an alcoholic. I once heard him tell my mom if she left him, he’d “get” me to get back at her. I used to sleep covered up by my stuffed animals so I could hide. My father humiliated me at my 8th grade graduation and at my wedding rehearsal because he was drunk. Despite all this, my relationship with my dad improved after I got married and had kids. He suddenly died in 2010 and it makes me so mad that most of my life I struggled with hating him, and just as he was mellowing out, he died.

11. One of my girls has ears that stick out and I live in dread of the day she gets teased about it. I am afraid I will cry in front of her on the day she comes home and tells me it happened.

12. No one has ever hurt me as horribly as the guy I dated for almost two years in college. I did not truly get over the pain of our breakup until about a year before I met my husband.

13. I like being the center of attention.

14. My house will never be truly clean and organized, and even though this is most people’s plight, I HATE IT that I have an “office” that is just a room filled with crap and I even if I do ever get around to cleaning it that means the basement or garage or shed or playroom or whatever is still a mess and I find this completely OVERWHELMING. I have a really hard time enjoying the little accomplishments and always end up thinking about what I haven’t done rather than what I have accomplished.

15. The first live concert I went to was New Kids on the Block. Not REM. Even though I tell everyone it was REM.

I could go on and on …. but I’ll stop now…

7/4/2012 : I found the source of this meme and wanted to give credit where credit is due! Jess Constable at Make Under My Life started it. Her friend EZ at Creature Comforts and a bunch of her tweeps ran with it. And the meme was born…

I think we may officially be round 5 of this linkup? Who knows, but it’s cool to be part of the movement.  :-)

*****

New to Honest Mom? Get the backstory on why I write naked.

I blog about my high-maintenance kids, write about dealing with depression, I do the memoir thing, and sometimes, I can be kinda funny.

Thanks for visiting!

Am I preggers? And other stuff rumbling around in my brain

It’s been an interesting 7 days around here.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a little while, you may know I freak out every month, thinking I’m preggers. This month is no exception. I am currently wigging out. Which makes me super pleasant to be around. Just ask Hubs.

And there is NO REASON to freak out. I mean, I had an ultrasound last week (checking for fibroids, which I have none of, yay!) and there was no little fetus in there.

But of course my brain is all, but what if you were just pregnant and they couldn’t see the little bug?

And so – I’m freaking out. I’m waiting. And watching. And freaking out. I am resisting using a pregnancy test because even if – when – it’s negative, I won’t believe it. So why spend the cash? Right? Right?

The other thing that’s been on my mind is Father’s Day. My dad unexpectedly passed away two years ago, so Father’s Day is a bag of mixed emotions for me.

It’s a fun day because my husband is pretty much the best dad EVER, and we love telling him that all day long around here. We host a party for my husband’s side of the family, and this year’s was probably the best one ever. Perfect weather, great food, I was prepared and got to actually hang out, and everyone stayed all day long.

And yet, it’s a strange day because my dad is gone. But Father’s Day has always been a strange day for me.

I haven’t really talked about my relationship with my dad on my blog, just the emotions I have been dealing with since he died. I tend to avoid thinking about that part of my childhood.

But when I read Kim’s post about imperfect Father’s Days, I paused. In it, she says, “It’s okay if you can’t be found spending hours searching for the perfect Father’s Day card … because of an imperfect relationship with your dad.”

That’s exactly how I feel.

My family is a card-sending family. My mom keeps Hallmark in business. Even if the world stops selling paper cards, the woman will stockpile them so she can still send cards to every conceivable relative for every conceivable holiday for the rest of her life.

So it was a given that I had to send cards to her and my dad for every conceivable holiday. Including Father’s Day.

So every upcoming Father’s Day (and my parents’ anniversary, but that’s another story) during my adult life, I spent uncomfortable moments at Target staring at the cards, wondering what to send my father.

I usually ended up picking something funny because my dad liked funny cards. And there were no cards that said what I wanted to say:

I really thought I might have hated you for many years, but now I’m not so sure.

I am starting to forgive you for making my childhood so miserable so often.

I am happy you are mellowing as you grow older and I am finally getting to know you and understand why my mom married you in the first place.

Hallmark doesn’t make those cards. Because even if someone wanted to send them, no one wants to receive them.

So, yeah, I get what Kim was talking about. And yeah, I’ve been feeling anxious and down and generally yucky over the past week.

But I’m getting through it better than I have in the past.

Anyway. Today I have lots of random things to do – put together end-of-year teacher gifts, go to Target (and resist buying 10 pregnancy tests), cook dinner for a friend who just had a baby, do laundry, dishes, etc. etc. etc.

And through it all, I’ll be waiting. And wondering.

And I’ll joyfully update you all on Facebook when I have an update. Because I know you’re waiting with bated breath, right? God knows I am.

*****

New to Honest Mom? Get the backstory on why I write naked.

I blog about my high-maintenance kids, write about dealing with depression, I do the memoir thing, and sometimes, I can be kinda funny.

Thanks for visiting!

Looking for help on what to do: Anniversary of my dad’s death

This is going to be a short post. Because I’m asking for your help and I don’t want to blather on and on.

This weekend is the second anniversary of my dad’s sudden death. And I don’t know what to do with myself.

I’m not sleeping. I’m starting to panic. I don’t know how to mark the day or what to do. Or what not to do. I can’t do nothing and act like it’s a normal day. But I’m at a loss.

I think last year was easier in some ways. My husband and kids and I went to my childhood home and hung out with my mom. We went to my dad’s favorite restaurant and had a nice dinner. My mom and I made a beautiful planter for his grave.

It was hard, of course. Really sad. But being at places that had my dad in them – his house, the restaurant, even the cemetery – gave me a tiny amount of peace.

This year I am not going to be there. I am hundreds of miles away.

My mom will be alone. I feel horrible about that.

I was hoping to spend the day at home, outside, gardening in the shade garden my dad created for me. But it is going to be cold and raining.

The only thing I can think of is going shopping for garden things for the shade garden (a bench, a fountain, something like that) but that doesn’t feel quite right.

I can’t go to church. I will spend the whole time bawling and everyone will stare at me and I don’t want that.

I don’t have siblings to connect with. Well, I have a half-sister, but that’s another story.

I feel lost. I am getting very anxious. I don’t know what to do.

I am dreading the day and afraid I am going to spend it sobbing, hiding from my children, aching for the 24 hours to pass.

Do you have any ideas on what I could do this Sunday? Have any of you lost a parent? What do you do on the tough days like the day of the parent’s passing or birthday?

Any ideas would be most appreciated, whether you’ve been in this situation or not. I’ll reply to your responses in the comments (something I normally do but I’ve been overwhelmed lately and falling behind).

Thanks so much – JD

Will my 3-year-old kick butt on her report card?

Yes, my 3-year-old gets report cards. New England is competitive, didn’t you know? We start tracking them early here.

Can’t tie your shoes by age 4? Not destined for greatness. Reading Dr. Seuss fluently at age 4? Great potential for Phillips Exeter.

Ok, so I exaggerate. A little. Because in Grace’s case, the report cards are more like photocopied assessment-type things. They evaluate whether she uses her manners, recognizes letters, and doesn’t throw too many blocks at other kids’ heads.

But back in the fall when I was looking over Grace’s little report card, I realized something with horror.

I was looking for the “bad” marks first.

I wasn’t looking to see what she had accomplished. I was looking to see what her teachers thought she wasn’t accomplishing.

And this is when I also realized I was channeling my dad.

I started thinking about the days when I dreaded getting my own report cards. Not because I thought I did poorly. But because I knew when my dad saw them, I’d feel awful, no matter what I accomplished.

I always felt like I was never good enough no matter how hard I tried. “That’s great you got an A-, but I thought English was your best subject. Why not an A?” “A 3.6 GPA? Why not higher? I thought this was an easy semester for you.”

My dad was a complicated man. He was a genius. He came to this country from Hungary at age five with nothing except his family and a few trunks of clothes, not speaking a word of English. Twelve years later he went to MIT on a Fulbright scholarship. But his collegiate career didn’t go the way he wanted it to go, for many, many reasons. And he never graduated.

I understand now that my dad wanted me to have everything he didn’t. He was, in his way, trying to get me to always try harder, keep doing better. He just wanted me to succeed.

But his tactics didn’t mesh with my personality. I just wanted some recognition of how hard I was working. How much I accomplished. What I was doing well. I didn’t feel I got that from my dad until I was an adult. I always felt not good enough. And I don’t want to do that to my girls.

I want them to know how proud I am of what they achieve. Focus on the positive, and then when the time is right, discuss what can be done to help them improve in areas that need improvement.

I’m sure it’s easier said than done. But that’s my goal. And given my lineage, it’s probably going to be hard for me.

So this time I will fight the hereditary urge to look first for what needs to be improved on Grace’s report card. And I will remember to give my big, proud girl a big, proud hug.

Then, in a secret, sound-proof room, Hubs and I will dissect the report card, course-correct where necessary, and devise a brilliant plan for Grace’s path to Harvard.