Loving His Potential & Liking His Instagram Posts

Here I sit ‘liking’ yet another post on my ex-boyfriend’s Instagram page. I have been on Instagram for years yet he has never so much as mentioned my IG page, let alone followed me or even liked one picture I have posted. He has not even liked a picture of my stupid cat that he loves. But I continue to support his artwork by liking his posts. Why do we, as women, give so much to men who do not reciprocate? It is easy…. Women fall in love with a man’s potential, in spite of their actual behaviors and actions. It is in our DNA, it is what we do.

For every man I have ever loved or been in a relationship with,  I can say without a doubt that I was more in love with his potential than I was with his actions. He may have never told me I am beautiful, or rarely mentioned the future; he may not have been able to pay for a good date night, but dammit I was giving him love. I was giving him gifts, giving him my full attention… hell, even giving him blowies… ‘cause I just knew he loved me. I knew if I just kept giving him more and more he would come around and want to commit to a future with me. He may have had only a couple of positive traits but I was convinced he could be a great long-term lover. I believed in him. I believed in his potential.

Believing in someone does little to change their deeply seated desires. If a man doesn’t go into a relationship mentioning forever, or at least mention it by the six month mark, give it up! And, it can’t just be talking about forever, they have to demonstrate they mean it. They cannot be talking about living together but when you mention bringing your beloved China cabinet say things like, “But you wanted to be a minimalist, remember?” This is a red flag that they really don’t want to give up their 273 t-shirts or the half-dozen different sporting equipment collections they have and NEVER use but feel the need to display around the house. Clearly they are trying to prove something to someone (“I play sports… dahhhhhhh….”) all the while they can’t prove to you that they are really thinking of a forever commitment with you by simply moving some shit six feet so you can bring in the cabinet of precious keepsakes you have from your dead grandma and late-friends.

Yet, there I was sticking with a man who talked the talk, but couldn’t walk the walk. And it was the third go-around in that relationship. I was simply in love with his potential to be my forever mate. I mean, we got along wonderfully 99% of the time. We loved a lot of the same things, enjoyed being together and he was even good with my teenage daughter. You know, the one I had spent 16 years raising to have the potential to be a good adult. I had already raised one before her that proved (mostly, except for that dropping out of college thing) that all my hard work paid off… that she has potential to still be a successful human being in this crazy-ass world. Yep! I was a good mother. I didn’t give up on my kids’ potential.

Women (now I know there are men in the same boat) are tasked with raising kids to have good morals, values, work ethics, and to become loving parents to their own kids. We look at each of our kids and foster their talents and skills to give them the best potential. We display their artwork on the fridge. We work harder where they may fall short on skills. We nurture them to be the best humans they can be and we are never supposed to give up on them and their potential. NEVER! They are our children. So, how far fetched is it that we do the same thing with the men in our lives? We see their potential, we try to foster it and wait and wait for them to buck up and blossom into the wonderful mates we feel they can be. Problem is, they are 45 and so set in their ways they most likely will never change.

A man may be in love with a woman, he may really strive to be with her forever, but when it comes right down to it he really enjoys his bachelor lifestyle where his whole house is his man cave. He can have an entire hallway wall painted in chalkboard paint and three skateboards leaning against the walls of the dining room. He can spend his money on electric bikes or life-size butler dolls and he definitely doesn't need a woman to use common sense about how putting siding on the house and replacing the windows will be good investments.  He can stay up late, do whatever he pleases without having to entertain a woman. He really doesn’t want to have to report to anyone. And heaven forbid if he has to actually pretend to listen or care about your life for longer than a few hours at a time.

Yet, we as women keep convincing ourselves that his words indicate potential, all the while his actions indicate perpetual dating. Nope! Not for me! As hard as it is, we sometimes have to recognize the red flags and put up our own white flag. We have to surrender to the fact that he isn’t going to come around if he hasn’t yet. We have to recognize our own potential to move on with what we want for our future. I love my ex, yet I don’t love that our futures are not aligning. I don’t love that the more I lean in, the more he leans away. I don’t love that I have to choose to move on without him, leaving the man I love because he can’t just be honest with me, let alone with himself. Then again…. I have potential to live the future I want without being held back by someone who can’t live up to the potential I see in them. And, I guess I still support his potential in a small way by liking his art on Instagram, a sort of modernized alternative to hanging it on the refrigerator.

From Hero to Black Sheep

How did I go from playing the Hero and Mascot role of a family to the family member who feels like I don’t belong in the family? Throughout my school days I was involved in student council, cheer, clubs, debate, and did well academically. I went on to be the first on both sides of my family to go to college. I worked several jobs throughout college and became a social worker (shocker, the Hero child of a dysfunctional family went into the helping field). So, how did I go from having the role of distracting others from what was going on at home, to being the family member who always is the odd-person out? It is complicated and I am still wrapping my head around it, but this is exactly what I am: The Black Sheep of the family.

I was an ‘oops’ in a couple of teens lives. They both dropped out of school and were married. It was the right thing to do for both of them. This year they will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary and I turn 45 about about 6 months after. My sister was born a couple years after me. My parents were hard working blue collar workers. My childhood came with its share of dysfunction, as many families do. Being the oldest child, I became a protector of my sister. We have had talks about this later in life and I don’t think she realizes the lengths I went to in order to distract her from some unsightly scenes. It seems I played the Hero role of a dysfunctional family for the beginning part of my life.

Though many cannot cite the source of the Roles of a Dysfunctional Family, they most likely have heard of them. There is the Dependent (the centerpiece; often an addict), the Enabler (often the partner or caretaker of the addict), the Hero (one who seems to distract from the family with accomplishments), the Scapegoat (one in the family who gets negativity and blame), the Lost Child (doesn’t rock the boat), and the Mascot (usually funny; again a distraction from the centerpiece). Only speaking of myself, I was the one who stayed busy, was hardly home, and who excelled socially and academically. I was also a Mascot, in a way, with my sense of humor and antics. I did anything I could to not allow the community spotlight on what was going on at home. Though we never talked about anything negative to outsiders, some people knew. At one point I had a coach that came to me after I couldn’t afford a team jacket (honestly, I was more afraid to ask for the money for fear of the guilt game) and explained to me what I was dealing with in simple terms.

The term alcoholic was one I rejected due to typical stereotypes. No one hung out in bars or lost their job over their alcohol use. No one had been arrested. No way could anyone be an alcoholic. My coach explained that someone who had to drink everyday to the point of passing out was an alcoholic. It was an epiphany for me. More importantly someone saw what I dealt with and understood. On the flip side, someone knew our secret, too. The secret was then held at a higher level of protection. I continued to distract everyone around me in order to not let others know what was going on at home. Of course, that wasn’t all that was going on at home. Where there is one issue other issues are close by. I have often said the alcoholism wasn’t what affected me the deepest and I still harbor resentment for the actions of others in my household.

Being a child that felt like they had to put on a “razzle-dazzle ‘em” show to keep the spotlight off unflattering problems, and later a teen that had to be very active and chose to be away from home as much as possible, I became very independent. I worked as soon as I could and I was at friends’ houses as much as possible. I was always involved in something at the school. I also tried to find the love and affection I was missing from others, often boys. I had to be strong. I had to prove I was ok so no one knew others in my life were not. Even when I was hurting or scared, I put on a facade that proved otherwise.

It is no secret that social workers often had a rough upbringing, which is most likely why I became a social worker. I was going to save others from the unhealthy ways of life. I wanted to make others feel that they were not alone in whatever harsh realities they came from. After 20 years of being in the field and some tragedies in my personal life, I realized I needed to save myself. I had spent so much of my life giving my energy to others that I had a limited supply left for my loved ones and even less for myself. In the midst of my career, through a rocky marriage and a couple kids, I became even more independent. I was the strong woman many turned to professionally and personally. Though my family had been there for a lot of my marriage trials and tribulations my ex-husband took care of everything around the house. I never had to call my parents to ask for help. Once divorced, I still rarely called to ask for help.

I am a prideful woman and to admit I need help is like a punch in the gut to me. I would rather try myself and fail than allow someone else, especially family, to do it for me. I’d rather pay money (I often didn’t have) than ask for free help. If something went wrong in my house I called a professional. The most I really asked of my family was to help me move. Hiring movers is expensive, though I did hire a company to move my large things the last move I made, which was the first house I purchased all on my own.

Now that I own a home I hire everything done professionally. Though long before this I started to realize that my family hardly ever visits me, hardly ever offers help and seems content to not worry if I am alive or dead. My only sibling has a disabled child that my parents help take care of. Both my parents are retired and therefore they have the time to sit with my niece at my sister’s home. I have two kids (one now lives a couple hours away) that I have had primary custody of for over 9 years. My parents rarely offer to see them and rarely offer help with the needs my kids may have, whether a ride to or from school or a doctor’s appointment. I also do not ask for their help often, though my ex-husband has become almost absent from their lives. I am content to do it all myself.

My self-sufficient ways have painted me into a corner. I don’t ask for help therefore help is never offered to me. When I do need help and swallow my pride enough to ask, they are often too busy to help and I am not a priority. A vicious cycle began years ago. When I ask for help and feel rejected, I decide I won’t ask again and the animosity grows. I have pulled away from communicating with them due to this sense of irrelevance to them. I feel as if I am the black sheep of the family. I hear about them doing things together and feel sad that I do not get asked. My sister has a live-in companion for many years. I have lived with just my kids for over nine years and am sometimes alone altogether. Why don’t they want to spend time with me so that I do not feel lonely? Because I am rarely lonely. I have “family” that are chosen friends.

Early in my divorced life I realized that I had a lot in common with other women and needed support from those who understand the struggles. My sister was divorced but her child is not typical so sometimes cannot relate to what I deal with. My parents have always had each other to lean on. I have no one. I do it alone. My friends, who understand the issues, have become my family. We get together a few times a month to commiserate. This, I am guessing, leads my family to feel as if they are not needed. I am either too independent or have the people I need. Again, this perpetuates the distance between us.

I am getting used to feeling like my family is close, sans me. I cannot depend on them and they know I am always busy. I do not need them. Therefore they are not there to be needed. Don’t get me wrong, if there was something major I needed my parents would come through for me. But day-to-day living leaves me feeling like I am alone in life. I recognize the path that put us in this situation has been traveled by all of us and I am to blame just as well, but I also recognize that I am blessed to be a strong woman and to have wonderful people in my life. I have what I need and know I always can count on someone if I need something more serious.

It is Bananas... but for a reason!

“I need bananas,” my 15-year-old says as I come downstairs.

“Then get up and go to the store with me,” I reply.

“No! I don’t want to go!” She says from a four-hour-nap fog.

“Fine, then I am gonna take a couple dollars of yours and go.”

“You are not going to use MY money” she retorts.

“It is YOUR school project! I just came from the gym! You have been sleeping all evening… and I have to go buy bananas with my money!?”

Spoiler Alert: She didn’t get the damn bananas! But she drove me bananas!

Teens can tear you down in a matter of seconds. The internal struggle I had over this was defeating: She needs bananas for a school project. I didn’t get them (oh the guilt). But I was at the gym and hate going to the store in gym clothes (if I am in spandex it is because my ass was sweating)! I should have remembered. Ugh, but work was crazy and I forgot (more guilt). She forgets to do chores all the time! She needs to learn to be proactive. But I want her to do well in school. Seriously?! She was asleep for four-hours (anger starts) while you were working and taking care of your health. Now she won’t even ride along to get them. And wait!!!! Her money is HER money and MY money is HER money!? Oh hell no! F*ck those bananas!

Honestly, there was much more to this whole story. I tried to help her figure out what else she could use for the project. She refused to talk to me and started plugging her ears with every question. Yes, my 15 year-old was plugging her ears like a 4 year-old and telling me to leave. So, like the good Mommy I am, I left!

At my significant other’s house, with my “kill me now” look, he validated me by replying to my story with, “Then she doesn’t get bananas!” Thank goodness he agreed because I felt like the worse mother in the world. This seems to be the norm at this stage in my life. 

My oldest child and I had our issues, but once she matured enough to develop a sense of reason, she became the mediator between my youngest and me. Now that she has moved away for college we have no one to step in and calm both of us. We can go on and on and until one of us walks away it won’t stop. It makes it very hard to deal with when we are in public shopping and neither of us can escape the other as I am sure half the county can attest to.

Having her sister leave was hard on her. Having been diagnosed with two chronic diseases at 14 was hard on her. Not having a social life outside of the home is hard on her. Having a rough relationship with her father is hard on her. But all of this is hard on me, too. I need a break. I am a single mom trying to do it all alone. My ex-husband, has seen her two or three weekends the whole school year. So, it all falls on me: the medical appointments and bills, the worry about her health and diet, the school work, the expensive specialty food, the everyday teen expenses and decision making, the discipline. It all is on me and I feel under-appreciated by her.

I am sure every person raising a teen feels under-appreciated. The question all of my friends ask is, “Why does my teen drive me crazy?!” My answer has been this: Teens drive us crazy so we WANT them to move out at some point!

I know many twenty- and thirty-year-old people who still live at home. I even see some people and think, “she is gonna let that kid live with her forever!” I will not be that mother! I want successful adult children that I can say I raised. I want them to learn the hard lessons in life that make them stronger and more apt to take on the world and win! I want to be alone, hopefully with my lover, some day and look forward to visits from my kids and grand-kids (maybe even look forward to them going back home).

Don’t get me wrong, I will help my kids in anyway I can. I have had my share of times I had to move back home after a break-up or divorce. But they were brief. My parents were not my friends. They were my parents. The problem I see with so many single parents is that the kids and the parents are so close that it makes it hard to want them to leave. The parent feels they need the support of their child for emotional reasons. But, I had my daughter as a support (I mentioned she was the mediator in the home) and she moved out and guess what….. I am fine! Yes, my youngest teen and I fight. Yes, I miss my oldest child. Yes, she may come back home one day. Yes, I will be sad when they are both gone. And…. YES, it IS the norm for teens to move out, spread their wings and become their own person with their own lives and hopefully families. And yes, I will be there encouraging my kids to let their kids move out and spread their wings.

My kid is only 15 and we have over two more years of her living at home. I love her more than life and know it will get better. She is going through a rough time and it is hard on both of us. We learn, we grow and we deepen our love and respect for each other. She is a strong kid and will soon be a strong young adult. But until then we will fight, argue, disagree and naturally she will drive me bananas!

How Did I Become THAT Mom?

     Gluten-free, Vegan, Keto…. These words make my head spin. It seems you can’t escape the recipes and updates on Facebook. When in a restaurant there is inevitably someone asking, “is this gluten-free? Do you have Vegan….? Have you tried the Keto diet?” Along with those statements come many eye rolls from others. Often it was me; I would shake my head, roll my eyes and make an off-handed comment to whomever was with me. Alas, in roughly the last 5 months I have become THAT Mom who asks about a gluten-free menu.

     From the time my daughters were born, both were very picky eaters. A healthy diet has never really been a norm for them. So when my youngest, at 14, started having bowel issues I chalked it up to poor diet. We began with vitamins and fiber to help her many bathroom trips a day. I had the backing of everyone in our lives who knew her love of chicken strips, chicken nuggets, french fries and peanut butter sandwiches. What about veggies, you ask… so did she. She didn’t care for or about them. Fruit wasn’t even part of her diet. Unfortunately, her symptoms progressed over the next month and a half. A coworker finally said, “She cannot sh*t herself all the time; get her to the doctor!” So I did. We went to Urgent Care and it was that day I was made aware she had blood in her stool by hearing her tell the nurse. I felt like the worst mother in the world. How did she not tell ME this? We were sent home to collect a sample. This was when my life changed drastically. There was blood… LOTS OF BLOOD! I panicked and we ended up in the Emergency Room at the insistence of Urgent Care staff.

     After about a month and half wait after our ER visit, we finally got to see a Pediatric Gastroenterologist. No other doctor would even touch her since she was only 14. He quickly did labs and got us in within a day or two for surgical testing. They probed her from the top and bottom and we were told she had two chronic diseases: Celiac Disease and Ulcerative Colitis (UC). Both would be life-long struggles.

     The more severe of her issues was the Ulcerative Colitis. She was immediately put on steroids and several other medications due to a her body not absorbing needed nutrients. At one point she was taking 19 pills a day. Some pills have since gone and we are still trying to find the correct treatment for the UC, which will be a struggle for a while and a lifetime regimine. Celiac disease is only treated by a strict gluten-free (GF) diet. Sounds easy enough, right? Well for my kid, it actually was. We found foods that were premade substitutes for foods she loved, even pizza! Her tests for Celiac disease are getting close to a good level, but the real struggle of being GF had only just began for us.

     Being GF at home is manageable. She has her own foods, labeled to avoid cross-contamination, her own cooking equipment and her own counter space that we keep gluten products away from. We have wonderful apps on our phones that allow us to check foods that are not already conveniently marked GF (many are clearly labeled) and even apps that find us restaurants close to wherever we may be that are rated by other GF people. Easy, yes? NO! It finally hit me that I was THAT Mom when we were in a large city for her doctor appointment.
The first restaurant we entered that was provided by the “Find Me GF” app did not have GF food on the menu and employees who were clueless as to whether or not foods were GF. We settled on a pizza restaurant, again suggested and rated well on the aforementioned app. But as we stood in front of a buffet style assortment of toppings and I watched them flop the lump of GF dough onto a press, I began asking THOSE question I would have rolled my eyes at just half a year ago. “Is that a GF dedicated press? Is that a GF dedicated pan? How do you avoid cross-contamination of the sauce? Is that cheese GF?” OMG! I was THAT Mom!!!!!!

     I would like to think that we are in a society of tolerance, but I see the funny comic strips where Jesus is surrounded by his disciples as they ask, “Is there mercury in that fish?” “Is that bread gluten-free?” I understand that we humans have probably caused our current medical issues with modification of foods and growing methods. Unfortunately, I cannot take away my daughter’s disease. I have seen the issues she has had from both UC and eating just a small amount of gluten, after she eliminated it from her diet. It is not pleasant. None of use want to be sick and in a restroom half the day feeling like our insides are a hot mess. As a mom, there is nothing I can do to permanently help her. Prevention of symptoms is my only tool. Therefore, I will be THAT Mom if that is my only “superpower” in the injustice she has been served. I will ask questions, I will hold up a line, I will walk out, I will educate, I will ignore the eye-rolls and comments because I am her only Mom and advocate… and I will take one for the team. Good Moms do what they need to for our kids even if someone is saying, “Ugh, she is THAT mom!”

Cultivate Positive

Currently my personal mantra is, “Cultivate positive, revel in it, move on and continue to treasure that memory.” It has been a struggle to walk away from great experiences while remaining happy. Once the good experience ends I begin to focus on the negative aspects, such as, “why don’t I make more time for fun?” Or “Why is life so difficult?” and even “Why doesn’t he want more with me?” I get hung up on expectations I have for the future instead of being grateful for the wonderful time that I had.

I recently started to get to know someone and thought I would be interested in pursuing a relationship with him. He had some intriguing talents that I have always found desirable in a man. He invited me to go camping one night and I gladly accepted. We had a great time but I realized he missed his old lifestyle that he had claimed to be moving away from. The problem was, his old lifestyle would not fit into my current lifestyle...nor my future goals. So, I walked away from a wonderful weekend focusing on the negative feeling of disappointment. Why? I knew it wouldn’t work, but allowed myself to focus on the let-down of another failed relationship attempt instead of basking in the fun, exciting, positive experience we had shared together.

Positive experiences seem to come more sporadically in life as we get older. We begin to fall into a pattern of simply ‘living’ and then have to put forth effort to make new, fun, and exciting experiences. The camping trip was just that: fun, loving and new. Even if I knew from the beginning, which I did to an extent, that it was a short-lived “fling”, why not enjoy it for what it was? Besides, what else would I have been doing that weekend other than working on a house I had just purchased? It was exciting to live in the moment, enjoy the company and feel at one with nature. I have always been drawn to living mindfully, but do not often practice that “in the moment” focus. I fall back into the confines of expectation. 

On the heels of this experience, an ex-boyfriend and I decided to get together on a casual-basis to enjoy some adult time. Our sex life was always wonderful, so why would I refuse to relive that? Expectation would want me to think that things would move into a relationship, yet I have thus far resisted obsessing over that and have done well by simply enjoying the fun, positive and warm trysts. I have had to remind myself that what we had was good, yet fell apart quickly and confusingly.  Even if I want to be back to the happy relationship we once had, it is perfectly fine to allow the random times of happiness without looking ahead and assuming it is leading somewhere. Even if it is just one good night, it is better than a boring or bad night. It has felt freeing to live in the moment and to accept the positive!

I have shared my mantra with my friends who know I am a bit of a free-spirit because I do what I want and do not need anyone’s acceptance. I hope they can take some wisdom from my stories and create happier, more fulfilling lives for themselves. That is my goal. I want more positive, happy, and healthy experiences. I want to reduce the expectations that seem to leave me disappointed and often overshadow the good in life. There is good to be had every minute and we should be grateful, but when there is something that can be more positive we need to soak it in, store it in our memories and relive those memories as often as possible. We seem to have enough struggles and therefore deserve all the positive we can get in life.