Tag Archive for 'family'

Aggressive and Silenced Voices

“Please don’t look at me that way.”
“What way?”
“With that look of anger and disappointment followed by silence.”

I told Fife Senior I’d rather he do what his daughter did earlier than to have a look followed by the cold shoulder. He’s given me the cold shoulder before.

“Are you angry with me? You can tell me if you are. I can take it.” As I said it I thought to myself, that’s not true. I can’t take it. I hope he’s not angry with me. He waited for a second then said, “I’m not really angry at anyone. I just want you guys to stop arguing and fighting.” I wanted to add, “But Daddy I it wasn’t my fault. It was Princess Fife, it was her. I was a good girl.” Since he actually said what was on his mind without joking or avoiding me I figured I’d just validate and let it go.

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Intoxicated

I’m not afraid to love but I am afraid to be loved. For some reason that phrase has played in my head for the last hour or so.

In other news Princess Fife (deep sigh) is at it again. This time she asked her father King Fife if she could have one of my, yes my little space heaters. King Fife asked me and I said no. He said, “Those are my heaters.” I told him that technically they are his heaters but they’re under my care until I move so no, she can’t have one. He said I can’t use 4 at one time. I told him that’s not the point. If she wants a heater she can go buy herself one. He looked rather shocked. I added that he may not be able to tell her no but I sure can. I wanted to sing song the word no but I resisted the temptation. I also barely held back a small victory dance made special for the no-no song.

Later in the evening I walked into the kitchen and King Fife turned his back to me. There was a sting of pain because it was obvious he’s upset. I said, “Are you not talking to me?” he said, “That’s right.”

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Storms, Power and Family

About noon yesterday we lost power due to heavy winds and rain. I slept through most of  the storm itself. When I got up I could see trees down, lines down and everything. I stood dumbfounded by all this then  POP  the lights went out. They came back on around 2AM Monday morning.

The only way I could try and get myself to be okay with being in the dark by force was to remind myself that not only will I get power again but I also have a dry home with walls. I still have all my stuff, nothing has been washed away or damaged. The only thing I’m going through is a short power outage. It helped some but man it was really difficult to sit in the dark. I have a ton of candles so I lit them and sat them around. A few hours in I turned on the MP3 player and hooked it up to some speakers that power off the player and then did a bit of sketching in the dark. Those should be interesting to see in the light :-)

One thing that made it difficult was when Fife Jr. got home around 7PM he came in upset about his ex. who he’d just argued with. He starts yapping because he had called to make sure she was okay only to find she’s okay enough to argue. He said he’d been calling around to check up on people then he turned his head sideways and asked how long the lights had been out.

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The Princess That Never Was

It’s interesting that the Fife family prefers girls to boys. Barney Fife Sr is not partial to his son. He clearly prefers both Princess One and Two to Prince Fife. That is so disheartening because it puts Fife Jr. as well as the two grandsons on the outside. Fife Jr. said to me the other day that he really wanted to a girl so she could be “Daddy’s little girl.” He has a seven year old son. He was disappointed that he didn’t get a girl. My goodness, I hope his son doesn’t ever find out.

My family hates men but they also hate women. It was made clear to me that little boys are dirty and disgusting and that men are worse. I’ve said it before that my sister and I were made to say each morning in the mirror, “Men are pigs.” The mother drilled into us that men are pigs. She also drilled into us that women are petty, not to be trusted and will turn on you like a lion. Where did that leave me? I wasn’t a “dirty little boy” but I would most certainly grow to be an untrustworthy, petty little lonely bitch. I say a lonely one because she said women drive other women away with their attitude problems and constant competition.

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What Is Rightfully Mine?

I just spent the last 3 hours with Barney Fife Junior talking about only two things, love and what it was like to grow up with a father who has Asperger’s syndrome. BF Jr. is one passionate individual. He’s also a dreamer. He told me he wants the fairy tale. He wants to be the bread winner with a wife and kids he can spoil. He kept saying, I want to be a man. The more he talked the more he sounded like a little boy. I could hear so clearly that what he wants is to fill the hole he has from being an abused then adopted child into a “strange” family. He wants the original family he never had. His issues with being abused and adopted into a family where the father has AS and the mother has serious personality disorder issues makes him obsessively seek what he never had. He wants what he feels he should have gotten.

There are few individuals who would forgo purchasing their very first Harley Davidson to buy their 15 year old step son a 4 wheeler and his wife a new car, especially when there’s nothing wrong with the 4 wheeler he’s got and the car she’s got. There are also few people that would beiso willing to chase this fairy tale that they’d allow their wife’s best friend and 3 children to move in only to take over their financial needs. BF Jr. did these things. He wanted all these children to have him as a stable father figure. I listened and gave as much feedback as I could without stating that he’s chasing his past. How on earth could I say that when I do the very same thing? He needs to fill the hole of not having the father he needed and I need to fill the hole of not having the mother I needed. Why are things always so clear to people looking in from the outside?

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I’m Not Part of This Family - Part 1 of 2

Wednesday’s therapy session was no doubt excessively hard triggering an entry like no other on this blog. I put myself in the shoes of the abuser and hers in mine. I scared myself with how angry I was but I also realize to write what I wrote shows less fear for her than I’ve ever felt before. Years ago a therapist asked me how I’d seek revenge on my abuser if I could. My mind couldn’t even go there. He then scooted a chair beside me and said, “This is your mother, tell you what you want her to know.” I froze in sheer panic. My reaction was so strong it caught us both off guard. I laughed it off but I had to ask him to move the chair back. The most I could say against her at that time was, “Maybe I’d like to see her in a coma.” That was all I could say against her. Only in one dream of mine have I hit her. My fear of her has always been great so to actually put myself in a position of power over her instead of being the victim is quite significant.

In the session Dr. D and I talked about all the details that were in the angry revenge letter to my mother. After hearing some of the details he commented that so many of my family members carried on the abuse but I didn’t. He asked me how I did it. How did I end up not being an abuser. So there I was sitting on the floor, Captain Crunch’s head was in my lap and I just told him straight.

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I’m Not Part of This Family - Part 2 of 2

I may have separated myself from my family of origin and I may not be an abuser but I’m not unaffected by the abusers thinking process. A person cannot survive torture, rape and other abuses from an early age until the age of 20 and somehow avoid ever having those types of “punishments” cross their mind when handing down punishment to a loved one. What I mean is this, as a survivor of these things I was taught when bad this is what happens. Take for instance the time I broke the oriental umbrella. My mother was so angry about that she got out the dowel rod and swore she would whip the palms of whomever broke it. That’s what I learned punishment was. Punishment is severe, it gets the point across the first time and then you don’t deal with that behavior anymore. When it came to fit throwing as a toddler how did she break me of that? She tossed a bucked of ice water on me. I stopped fit throwing. Punishment was severe and immediate. That is what I learned.

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Taken For Granted

I jokingly said that I hoped a friend of mine survived Christmas because she’s had some major stuff pop up during the last few holidays. She had the water heater go out, the next major holiday the stove went out. Christmas Eve her oldest brother died. I was shocked when I got the call….absolutely shocked. What shocks me more is the amount of pressure on her to keep her family together, to console a widow, brothers and sisters, write a eulogy and attend a funeral. It’s crazy the amount of pressure on her to keep her family moving. They’re a large family, all well employed, all successful as the world defines it but only one person keeps that family running. They depend on her for everything and she serves them unwaveringly. I wonder if anyone in the family has asked her how she’s doing or told her how sorry they are for her loss? I wonder if they all just lean on her for support, for meals, for laundry, for everything and look over the fact that she herself is one person caring for a multitude? It is amazing how people forget her needs. Someone else may buy the bread but it is her that puts the butter on it and it’s her that warms it and sets it on the table and makes sure it goes down just right. How one can be taken for granted at that level is simply mind blowing.

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The Perfect Family

In therapy today we talked family and children and the ideal parents have of how their children’s lives will turn out. She talked about how her grandchildren would do this and that. She had the typical ideal for her children but that got interrupted when I went down my own path. Even when I had foster children I didn’t allow them contact w/ her. Even w/ foster children she didn’t get what she called “make believe grandchildren.” With focus on family and tradition right now, it being the holiday season, it’s no wonder the subject of family is on my mind.

Some of the family ideals were of my own doing. I mean heck, even though she taunted me about liking boys, made fun of me, the idea of marriage always appealed to me. I thought of it as another form of service. I was good at service. I’d be good as a wife I figured. I figured it would be perfect. We’d have the perfect house, the perfect children. I’d be the perfect wife and we’d all be…well, perfect. I loved the idea of keeping a home and raising children but I hardly ever spoke of it. On one hand she made fun of me for liking boys, on the other hand she said never to marry and then other times it was all she talked about, grandchildren and family w/ her at the helm. She’d build a house for me and my husband but she’d have mother-in-law quarters. She’d be right there w/ me to raise the children. Whatever! I still thought about marriage but there was no way on earth she’d be part of my household.

All of this makes me wonder if anyone can ever be prepared to let go of hopes they have for their child or if anyone can ever really come to peace with the fact that the ideals their family had and they themselves had won’t really come to pass now that they’re not in the closet? Can that really be something people accept, that what they want for their kids on a personal level won’t happen as they planned it? The picture won’t be as perfect as they imagined.

I understand why people make such a big deal about coming out. I understand why it’s on their mind front and center. There is pressure to conform in so many ways, but most of all cultural conformity, falling in line with what the rest of society wants for you holds pressure many yield to. That’s why we marry, why we settle down and have a family only years later to go, I can’t do this anymore. Then the family we started is hurt, our friends and our birth family are stunned, disappointed, angry because we lied to them all those years. Why wouldn’t we? Telling the truth means letting down so many people. It’s not that I’m in favor of staring a family w/ the opposite sex when you know full well you’re gay. I’m just saying I understand why it’s done. I understand not wanting to have to come out and go, “Um, remember all the plans you had for me as a child? Remember all the jokes you made about my kids treating me how I treated you, all the payback comments and things like that? Well, forget it cause I won’t be having any kids naturally.” Or, “I’m an only child and you wanted the bloodline to continue but unless we go surrogate that’s not going to happen. Sorry to disappoint you mom and dad, sorry to embarrass you before the church and your friends but all the plans you had for me are going to pot cause I’ve chosen to not go down the path you laid for me.”

When you tell someone you’re gay you also have to contend w/ what happens at parties and get togethers. Is someone going to feel uncomfortable changing in front of you now? Will there be jokes about the need to change in separate rooms? Will your girlfriend’s no longer want to have little get togethers with you? Will there be jokes made as they try to come to grips with how you’ve suddenly decided to not lie about your preferences? It happens. It happened to me. I wonder how many other people experienced this? Sometimes the jokes are to help ease their own transition but it doesn’t mean the jokes don’t sting. Sometimes the jokes are to say, “I’m okay with your decision to come out” but it doesn’t mean the jokes don’t sting. Understanding doesn’t make my discomfort level decrease.

There is more to being gay than being attracted to the same sex. You have to deal with dashing hopes and ideals and you have to somehow accept that you can’t live up to their ideals anymore. This is why coming out is such a big deal and why so many people take so long to do it. Ideals, family, culture, disappointment in self and disappointing others, I struggle with that. I’ve yet to make peace with it. It’s a little bit hard to find it when all I see of families on TV are the husband, wife, child and little puppy dog. That’s the family picture I see on TV. That’s what is widely accepted as family.

Now I’m going to go a little off topic and discuss how it as that people say they don’t care if I’m gay as long as I don’t toss it in their face. On a daily basis heterosexuality is shoved in my face. I doubt it would matter if said I don’t care if you’re heterosexual as long as you don’t toss it in my face. I can’t get away from it. Your songs, your movies, your commercials, your billboard advertisements shove it in my face every second of every day. Hell, your laws are even written to protect you, they don’t but they’re written for heterosexual couples. Try going to the police w/ a matter of domestic violence with same sex couples and be taken seriously. Try having a union and get medical insurance to cover you and your loved ones. Have your partner die and be told you don’t get anything at all because you’re not legally seen as his or her wife/husband. I may keep my homosexuality out of your face but every single part of my day involves dealing on some level w/ heterosexually biased materials and laws. I may keep it out of your face but you sure as heck don’t know how to keep it out of mine. And people wonder why coming out is so hard.

That’s all I got to say about that.
Oh, wait, there is one more thing. I finally got the nerve up to ask the cab driver to take a different route so we don’t pass Blossom’s house twice a week. That was getting kind of old. It makes missing her and staying away from her even harder when I pass her house twice a week.

J of A

Tradition- Random Memory Friday

At Wally World the other day it didn’t register WHY a man stood beside the door ringing a bell. I only noticed he danced around with his headphones on. I wondered what was on his ipod but other than that I didn’t think about the fact that he stood there because it’s the holiday season. He wanted donations for the United Way. I got that but still, I wasn’t thinking along the lines of the holidays. I don’t celebrate them so I suppose I see things differently. I have to remember that even if I don’t think in those terms many others do. I have to try and remind myself (via email notification) that many of my friends will be kind of busy with family and friends. I wouldn’t want to call on Wednesday or Thursday expecting a friendly chat only to find that I’ve interrupted their celebration.

Can someone really totally and completely forget the holiday right up until the day of or even past it? Think about this for a minute, say you’re driving a car. You get in, you put the keys in the ignition, you look both ways and you pull off. That’s what drivers do. But suppose you don’t drive. What do you do? You immediately walk around to the passenger’s side door. You don’t go for the driver’s seat at all. It’s unnatural to do so. You’ve never done it before. You go for the seat you know, the seat you’ve always taken. You might be wondering, but with that darned holiday music and the trees all over, commercials about the perfect gift you can’t possibly be that dulled to the holiday season. People that don’t drive see cars everyday. They see different makes and models. New ones come out at certain times. They may even appreciate one make and model over another but it doesn’t mean they’re in the same mind set as a driver. Toyota advertises it’s big sale. Honda tries to out sell Toyota. The advertisements are everywhere. But still, if you’ve never driven are you really paying that much attention to car advertisements? Advertisements or no, if you don’t drive you all but block out information about driving if it doesn’t pertain to you on a personal level. They come every year with the coloured eggs, fright masks and holly but since that information doesn’t pertain to me I do what comes naturally, I go for the passengers side door. It’s normal for me.

This brings me to feeling down or blue on holidays. Since I don’t celebrate them then it’s just another day for me. I have no real mood change due to holidays. I get up, I take my shower, I drink my coffee, I start my day. It’s routine. Holidays for me are the same as Toyota sales. I’m no happier the days leading up to the sale, the day of the sale nor the day after. I’m not “a driver” so my mind all but blocks out that information. My brain looks for information it can compute. I go for the passenger side.

Since I was a kid the holidays have snuck up on my family. There’s a standing joke that there’s an R & S Holiday Mistake. (The R is her maiden name and the S was her married name.) It’s no secret that my mother’s cooking could be counted as abuse. Since she didn’t want to eat her own coking we ate out a lot. When we ate out we ate well. No fast food, no happy meals or Red Lobster type stuff. We ate well UNLESS it was Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter. Our regular spots were closed so our options were limited. To Denny’s we went. Since she forgot to go to the store (she was riding not driving) we ended up with no food in the house and nothing to eat every single solitary holiday growing up it was like that. So, every single solitary holiday we ended up at Denny’s. It became tradition for us. She’d swear she would remember next year but nope, she forgot and so did my sister and brother. It snuck up on us so there we were at Denny’s every holiday, every year. I have to wonder sometimes if she loathed the thought of having to cook some horrible meal she’d have to eat so that’s why she forgot to go to the store. Either way, we laughed at the dinner table at the worst restraint in the city. Ah, I hated that place. The food isn’t that great, the booths were sticky and back then they weren’t really that friendly to person of the darker persuasion. However, somehow we made that day laughable and fun. It was like any other meal though. There was no special thanks given, no special food to commemorate the day. It was another meal for us, another car ride we were not emotionally attached to. So, please don’t think this was our holiday meal. We ate and we went home and did what we always did.

I look back on that and laugh because it was like dang it we were suppose to remember. But we never did. I don’t think of that time as a bad time. I remember it fondly. To start calling it the R & S Holiday Mistake was just too funny. Many times there wasn’t a can of green beans in the house. The woman knew she couldn’t cook so why even try? That was quite the blessing, her taking us out instead of forcing us to eat her culinary disasters. I have a feeling one of the main reasons I cook every meal (if at all possible) is because I ate out so much as a child. I managed to break the tradition because of my love for cooking at home so this year and last year and the year before I did get into the passengers seat, so to speak, but I had a safety belt. I had food in the cupboard. No Denny’s for this girl. I’ll have something homemade, something warm and inviting just like yesterday and just like today, warm and inviting. Then on Tuesday I’ll get an email reminding me that Wednesday and Thursday I need to make room for other traffic.

 

Austin’s August

Tradition- Random Memory Friday
Friday, November 16, 2007-11:18PM EST