Mildred's Makeover

Just so everyone won't think my life is totally bleak all the time, my daughter gave me a makeover not long ago.  This old gal can still rock it when I have to! Unfortunately, the times I have to rock it aren't that often anymore. After she did this to me, she instructed me to go to Lowe's and pick up a contractor (I don't do bars or online dating and I desperately need a lot of home repairs done.) She assumed I'd work something out in trade. To that thought, I just rolled my eyes. Aren't I getting a little too old for those fun and games? Besides, is the barter system still used in this country? If so, what's the going rate for home repairs? 

A Rose By Any Other Name

Mother's Day is tomorrow and I'm not going to the cemetery.  I can't.  I sit here and feel my mother with me each day and that's enough. I don't need to go visit her.

I wish I could say I'm in better shape than I am, but I'm not.  I feel like I have emotional diarrhea. How's that's for an image to get stuck in your head?  Now, all I need is some emotional Imodium or Pepto Bismol.  I can get happy and pink all in the same moment! Seriously, I woke up this morning and I was crying. How can a person cry in their sleep? I don't think I was dreaming or if I was I don't remember what I was dreaming about. I just feel drained and lost all the time. 

I wish I could say it's all is due to my mother's death, but I don't think it is.  I think it's me. If it was self-pity. I would kick myself in the ass and get on with it, but this goes way beyond simple self-pity. This fearless creature known as Mildred Ratched is actually scared and for the first time in her life she's absolutely clueless. I'm a basket case and just a step shy of being a blithering idiot.

So, I soothed myself by getting my hands extremely dirty. I mixed up a batch of cow manure, peat moss and dirt from my compost pile to plant some flowers, then I watched all the birds play in my backyard. Now, I sit here in my living room (I'm taking a break with a Coke and a smile) and the birds are singing so loud I can hear them.  They must want me to come back outside??? If that's the case, they want me to fill their bird feeders. I guess I should go make them happy...

AN EMOTIONAL CUTTER'S LIFE - PART III

I had lots of friends growing up. When I say "lots" I mean they were a virtual cornucopia of people. I didn't hang out with just one group. I hung out with everyone.  My closest friends were my neighborhood friends. They were the people I had grown up with and who knew me best, but even they didn't know what lurked just below the surface. They seemed to accept me warts and all...even though they didn't see all my warts. My first love was a neighborhood guy. We had quite a torrid love affair when I was 14, but when you throw drugs into the mix it colors the purity of a first love. Plus, at 14, I knew absolutely nothing about matters of the heart. My heart was torn between two people at that time. Isn't it always? ha! I took the easy way out of all my problems and left. That was my entry into promiscuous behavior and life on the streets as a hippie. Yes, I ran away from home and kept running away until I was sent away first to what was then called a reform school. When I ran away from there and I was caught months later, I was sent to a drug rehab until I turned 18. Back then, I was a regular Harry Houdini. When I finished drug rehab, I moved from Maine to Florida to start a new life.

My new life consisted of going back to drugs and getting pregnant at 18. The added bonus was that I didn't bother telling the guy I was pregnant. Then 3 years later I got married to an alcoholic, but I didn't know that he was an alcoholic before I married him because we didn't live together before we got married. I had two children with him and divorced him several years later, but I managed to sneak in an affair. That affair turned into a serious relationship before it ended almost 3 years later. I was heart-broken over the affair ending, but not the marriage. Mark Elder, I'm sorry for being such a shitty wife, but you not only sucked at being a husband you have failed miserably at being a father. You have children that you have ignored and neglected all their lives. They're adults now and you have lived in the same city most of their lives and you have made no attempt to be in their lives. What a poor excuse for a man you are! What a poor excuse for a human being you are! What a waste of flesh you are! Now, getting back to the affair I had...I failed to mention that the affair was with the brother of my closest friend and when the affair started it damaged my friendship with her because I was married. She knew how unhappy I was in my marriage, but she couldn't get past the fact that I was married. She had been my maid of honor and even though she didn't really like my husband and I was having an affair with her brother due to her Christian beliefs, she backed off from our friendship because she didn't approve of what I was doing. It hurt to be judged, but I knew what I was doing was wrong, also. Karma is a real bitch. The affair ended. He ended up marrying someone else soon after and I, well...I spun my wheels and things went from bad to worse! 

Being the child of an alcoholic, I didn't want to do that to my children, but ultimately what I did to them was much worse than subjecting them to life with an alcoholic parent and for that I bear so much shame, sorrow and regret.  When the affair/ended I took my 3 young children and moved away. Shortly after moving, I got involved with a career criminal and that relationship lasted 5 years. I affectionately nicknamed him "the Anti-Christ" and that should be all I should have to say about him and my time with him. During that relationship I managed to divorce my husband. I finally fled my relationship with the Anti-Christ with my 3 children and with what I could pack in my car.  To this day, I still wonder if I might get a "slap on the hand" like I have several times in the past.  It's been years, but with him you really never know what tomorrow may bring.  He's already done things 15 and 20 years after I left. So why not now? Maybe he's mellowed in his old age, but I've never met an Italian male who mellows very much with age.  If anything they get more dominant and mean.

I then had a period of utter PTSD. To say I was broken was an understatement, but I found a way to go on. I was 35 years old and fucking clueless! The kids and I moved back home. What a step backwards that was! After awhile I started dating this guy and the relationship was a very unconventional one...at least for me. We had NO physical relationship, yet he monopolized all my time for over two years. When I look at it now and I ask myself why I allowed that to happen, I do know the answer. It gave me the time to heal that I needed. Basically what we had was a friendship and when I finally thought I had gotten to the point of needing more I gave him the option to shit or get off the pot.  I simply told him I had enough friends. He didn't jump at the opportunity so I moved on without him.

I met my second husband very shortly after that during one of his many manic episodes. Wow! Is all I can say and that it was like meeting Superman until it wasn't. Of course, I didn't know he was bipolar or something was amiss at first. Have you ever seen the movie, Mr. Jones with Richard Gere (1993)? Loving a mentally ill person isn't easy. To watch their struggle and to struggle with them is a journey no one should have to make together.  It's a cruel, blood-sucking monster and when it's done there's usually nothing left. One day I came home from work and the house was empty and the bank account was cleaned out. Shortly after, he filed for a divorce and that was the end of that relationship. It took me a long time to get to the point of being able to say that he actually did me a favor by leaving me. At first, I kept thinking how could he do that to me? I stood by him through shock treatments and when his own family wouldn't have anything to do with him. I supported him and put a roof over his head when he was so disabled that he couldn't work. I put up with all his bullshit and yes, he put up with mine, too.  When he got bad and turned completely away from me, I was still there for him. The lights no longer were on inside. He no longer would touch me or talk to me. All he wanted to do was watch television all day and night. He was transfixed on old shows. The same episodes played over and over again until I thought I was going to lose my mind. One time, I got naked and stood in front of the television and all he did was ask me to move. At least he said something. I continued to stay married to him and then he was gone.  After he left, I started to spiral out of control. I lost myself and didn't care. I don't know if I've ever really cared come to think of it.

The next several years were a blur of online dating if you want to call it that. Basically, it was just constant hook-ups and nothing more. I didn't want or need anything more. My good old addictive personality traits found sex to be a worthy replacement addiction. Oh yeah, I always toyed with it as an addiction, but never totally jumped into it until then.  Risky behavior had become my new middle name. I even spread my wings and got into being paid for phone sex. There was one guy I got to "know." He was a pilot for Continental Airlines and was a regular client. He actually wanted to talk...imagine that! That was long ago and who knows if that man is still alive or not? If you're still out there, I'm out here too. I hope you've continued to soar high and are happy til the bitter end.  

Then came the coup de grace of 2005 that put me in perpetual time out.  It was time to get off the crazy train I was riding and the only way I knew how was to stop everything. It's funny how no one has ever questioned me why I did that. No one seems to see how lonely I am being a hermit and how I ache to be loved. I hate not trusting myself or my judgment. I look towards the future and all I see is more emptiness. Where there once were adventures now stands nothing. I really can't say how long this penence will last before I feel I have atoned for all my degradation. Can't someone just dunk me in a vat of holy water 3 times and hang me out to dry instead? At this point, I don't think there is any point left. And that fills me with a profound sadness.

AN EMOTIONAL CUTTER'S LIFE - PART II

Perhaps I should start Part II with my definition of "emotional cutter." An emotional cutter and a drama queen share many of the same characteristics, but their motivation for their bizarre behavior is at opposite ends of the spectrum. Whereas a drama queen creates situations in order to call attention to themselves, an emotional cutter may perk along for awhile with everything going well and then BOOM! It happens! An emotional cutter can't stand serenity, so they will rip the scab off the wound just to feel alive. Happiness is a foreign feeling...pain is what we feel comfortable feeling and there's nothing like feeling pain to let yourself know you're still alive. As I teeter on the edge, I poke and prod and make myself miserable and blame myself for all sorts of things. The drama is like it is with a drama queen, but unlike our "drama queen" cousins, we suffer in silence and many times, not a soul will see our pain.  We're masters at covering it up like a cat working diligently in a litter box.  We skillfully cover that pile of crap we call life and wear a smile while we suffer in silence.

When you're young, you can only hold things in for so long before the pot boils over. And when the pot boiled over in my case, everyone just scratched their heads. Of course, it was much easier to just label me as a "bad kid" at that point, but I wasn't a bad kid! I was never a bad kid. Sure, I always had a bit of a rebel in me, but I wasn't bad. I just always had a mind of my own. Is that a bad thing?  I started doing drugs to dull the pain and I kept doing drugs because being comfortably numb worked. Are you acquainted with being comfortably numb? My comfortably numb almost killed me. My comfortably numb almost tore my heart from my body and locked it in a dark dungeon where no one could hurt me. It was my safe place. I felt nothing. No pain! No fear! No hate! No anger! But no joy or pleasure or love either. Emotional bankruptcy is void of everything and anything, but it's a safe place to hide out until either you're forced back into the land of the living or you perish forever. 

My mother wasn't what I would call a a warm, nurturing person or at least, that's how I saw her. She was an only child and I don't think she was equipped to handle difficult situations like raising four children while dealing with an alcoholic husband. I don't think many people are suitably equipped for that task. I think like most people who fall in love, they go into the relationship with unrealistic expectations.  Life is wonderful until reality hits. In my mother's case, I believe when reality hit, it made her angry and bitter. Instead of focusing on what was in front of her, she became encapsulated in a cloud of her own angst. Listening to her talk about life on Walter Street, it was always all about her own pain. It was as if my brothers and I didn't exist or our pain was less important than hers. A few times over the years, I'd get frustrated from listening to her synopsis and I'd remind her as she recounted those years from what we all refer to as "the hornet's nest," that I knew the story too well because I lived it, too. I'd let her rave on about what a son of a bitch my father was and at the end, I'd make her say one nice thing about him. That always rattled her!

She didn't hug me much. I guess she didn't hug any of us very much that I remember. She screamed a lot. Just ask anyone in the neighborhood. Anyone not knowing us would have thought we were the children from Hell. She also loved to whack the bejesus out of all of us, but I remember the last time she tried to do that. I was old enough by then to stick up for myself. When she was about to hit me with something, probably a hairbrush, I grabbed her wrist and I told her not to ever hit me again. The look on her face was priceless. A true Kodak moment! I'm sure if I could ask her about it now, she'd claim she doesn't remember it, but I remember it too well. I think it's when Mildred was born. Mildred is pretty fearless and a force to be reckoned with when needed. From that day on, I did things my way. It seemed to amuse her when she'd tell people that I stopped listening to her when I was about 12 years old. Oh yes! Her attempt to control me was a total failure and that beat of a distant drum she claimed I heard was more like a whole symphony. Her need to control things that were out of control continued, but it no longer affected me until much later in life.

I have to admit that it did my heart good to see her life change when she married my step-father. He treated her well and tried to give her everything she wanted. The struggles she had once faced were behind her and she was finally able to bloom. Yes, her dream of becoming a fashion designer was gone, but instead she became an artist. Living life under totally different circumstances seemed to make all the difference in the world. Yes, she still had those "only child" tendencies, but she didn't scream and wasn't angry all the time. It was nice to see her in a different light. When she and my step-father had first gotten to the point of needing someone to live with them, my adult daughter volunteered. About three weeks after she had moved in, I got a phone call at work from my daughter where she announced to me that she now understood why I did drugs when I was younger. To that lightbulb moment of hers, I first laughed and then, I responded by telling her that her grandmother had mellowed out in her old age and that she wasn't the same person now as she was then when I was a teenager. 

AN EMOTIONAL CUTTER'S LIFE - PART I

My mother used to tell me that I was so shy when I was a little girl that I would cry if a stranger would look at me. I really can't imagine living a life where I felt like that, but lucky for me, I have no conscious memories of being that way or feeling that way. I eventually blossomed when I started school. I discovered I had a mouth. The gift of gab was magically bestowed upon me and I transformed into a storyteller and the class clown all rolled into one lanky-legged little girl. 

My safe place growing up was never at "home."  My safe place was in an imaginary world I had created in my bedroom where I could transport myself to other realms and be other people or things. It was easy! I'd just open the door to my pink wooden closet on wheels, carefully push the buttons I had drawn on the inside of the wooden door, climb inside the closet, shut the door and transport myself somewhere else. Then, instantly off I'd go on my merry way. It was like reading a book, but only better until my mother would holler for me or at me...and out of the pink closet on wheels I would come. Blasted back to reality with a thud, I would jump out of the closet with a half-glazed look on my face. Undoubtedly, I had done something wrong...yet again! I would sigh and trudge my way downstairs to find out what I had done wrong this time and suffer the consequences.

I can't say I really know what love is because it's not something I've ever received in abundance. That's not being said from a place of self-pity, but it's a statement of fact pure and simple. My childhood was no better or worse than many girls or boys who grow up in alcoholic families. I struggled from having a distorted self-image that continually convinced me how ugly I was coupled with the negativity that was always shouting at me telling me I wasn't worthy of being loved. I was awkward. I felt stupid and I just wanted to be one of those pretty girls. My self-image was reinforced by how I was treated by my family. My mother never took me under her wing and molded me into a "girlie girl."  Isn't that what a mother should do with her only daughter? For Christ sake, my daughter is a princess. She's beautiful in every way and has always been since the day she was born. When I was growing up, my mother wouldn't dream of leaving the house unless she was dressed to the nines. Me? Not so much! I was the rebel. Go figure! I became a hippie. No make-up. No frills. I was tall and skinny. A pair of jeans and bare feet were great in my eyes. I always told people I had natural beauty and didn't need anything to enhance myself. Some people actually bought that bullshit! Now, I jokingly tell them it's a handicap to be beautiful. I think perhaps, that may be the truth.

I've always wondered what it would feel like to be able to look in the mirror and like what you see or at least be okay with what you see. I've never been okay with what I see. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying I'm completely fugly, but what I see and what other people see are two entirely different things. AND then there's the matter of what's on the inside. OMG! That shit is scary! That's the kind of shit that makes people nutty. "We" have to keep that shit in a locked drawer NEVER to see the light of day. 

One of the worst things my mother ever did to me was when she got it in her head how darling I would look with a Twiggy haircut and she made me get my hair cut like that. I was 11. Puberty hadn't quite hit yet.  I already was shaped like a boy.  What she did gave me the kiss of death. It was horrible and I had absolutely no say in the matter. I was so traumatized. It was truly awful. I know! I know! Suck it up! Right? But when you're young stuff like that matters. Stuff like not being listened to matters. Not having anyone to talk to matters. Looking like a boy when you're a girl MATTERS. I wanted to be cute and I wasn't. If my mother had been kind, she would have featured her tall daughter as a model and made her feel beautiful instead of awkward and homely. She should have slapped some make-up on me and enhanced some of my features and then turned my face towards the mirror and told me that I'm beautiful. That never happened and I often wonder why she never attempted to let me know I wasn't ugly. Did she not know how I felt? Couldn't she see it?  All the while this minor bullshit and pre-teen angst was happening, I was struggling dealing with sexual abuse. So I suffered in silence. The ugly duckling waiting to become a swan suffered in silence. It was my self-imposed prison for which the sentence was indefinite.

This was in a time when NO ONE talked about stuff like that. Yes, sexual abuse happened back then. It's always happened and unfortunately, will continue to happen. On some level, I instinctively knew I needed to just keep it to myself and "protect" the person. So, I sacrificed myself to protect someone else who didn't deserve protection or my loyalty. But why did I do that? If this makes any sense...although I feared and hated what the person was doing to me and yes, I also hated that person, but on the other hand, I also loved that person. I was just a child and I was torn.  My loyalties were torn. I was so confused.  I didn't have anyone to talk to and even if I did, what exactly do you say? How do you slip something like that into a conversation when you don't really understand what's happening or why it's happening. OMG! That child inside me still cries at times! Sometimes, I lay awake at night and I get flashes of old memories and feelings. That little girl still lives and she has lived a war-torn life. The battle scars may not be visible to the naked eye, but they do exist. When I look in the mirror I see the scars. When I look in the mirror I feel the scars and when I close my eyes I feel the fear.

FOREVER

Yesterday, while I was sitting here I suddenly got inspired to write a poem. I know! Poetry! YUCK! Hey, you have to run with inspiration when it strikes, no matter what direction it takes you in, right? So, humor me by holding your nose and reading my heart-felt words. Mildred is really trying to heal and come home...

It's a good thing I was by myself when I wrote this poem because I cried the whole time I was writing it. Yes, I actually wrote it and didn't type it. There's something about holding a pencil that seems to stir something in me, but it's difficult to stay inspired with a snotty nose and tears dripping all over the place. Somehow, I managed to find the "right" words and finish the poem. My first draft I emailed to my "bestie" and of course, she thought it was lovely. But, I'm wondering if she thought it sucked if she would have told me to go back to the drawing board and keep working. That thought brought a smile to my face... 

Forever

 One moment she was breathing

And then nothing filled her eyes.

I can’t prevent the ending…

Forever

She gifted me with life and love.

Now, outstretched while growing cold.

And from her death tears erupted…

Forever

 My whole life changed that moment.

And my heart won’t be the same.

Still somehow, I march forward…

Forever

 A crushing grief weights my soul.

While trying to drown the pain

 Prevents this crevice from closing…

Forever

You never thought I listened.

While you showed me who I am

I hope you knew I loved you…

Forever

 As time grew near to free you

My heart was opened wide.

That moment remains eternal…

Forever

 The moments when I need you.

You tell me to reach inside.

I get my strength from you…

Forever

You’re all around me always.

A deafening silence holds you there.

You will live on inside me…

Forever

I know how things must happen.

Reality stares me in the eyes.

Until someday I join you…

Forever

 And while my heart is healing

I still have these tears to cry

But each sunset brings a sunrise…

Forever.

💔

by Mildred Ratched

22 Feb 2021