Birthday Hell

Quick background before you read today's post:

My family (husband & children) moved to this are 5 years ago in search of a better education. I had my kids at a Waldorf School. That sucked big time. Love the education, hated my kids teacher for shaming him daily.

That was a pickle.

So, now we're nearing the end of 2 years of homeschooling and we have decided to enroll them in a public school. I have 4 children, two of which are school-aged. I had a birthday this week, 33. People see me as kind, patient, fun, loving & easy going- always positive, forever the optimist. Oh what they don't see...


I'm having an incommunicado week- not on purpose, just trying to stitch together a sentence or two without weeping. It's so stupid. I have a great life. What's my problem? I'm trying to focus so hard on all that I have. I really am grateful! I do so appreciate all the beautiful gifts I have in my life. So why the tears? Why am I in this place? Why can't I shift my focus? my perspective? my story?

I have everything I need and more.

I spent my entire birthday crying. Sobbing. Weeping like I was trying to save the freaking whales with my blubbering. I'm in such a funk- so much emotion is rising to the surface as I reflect on my life. It started the night before my birthday & it's beginning to clear a bit (fake it till you make it, right?). Birthdays have been tough for me b/c they bring up childhood birthdays, which historically, not so stellar. My father forgot year after year & my mom, well, she was more the child than I was. She had an aneurysm just prior to my 5th birthday. She's living in a group home and I am her guardian. The honest truth is, my mother died when I was 4 and now, I could really use a mom. I have now connected with the orphaned child in me that feels like they have no mentor, no protector. But, on the outside (when I was growing up) I looked the part of a kid who had everything they needed.

This is all hitting a bit too close to home at the moment.

So, this year I'm sitting with letting go of some that stuff. My father & "mother" forgetting my birthday (again) didn't help. I'm certainly not dependent on their approval, it just set the wheels turning down this shit bag of a road. It feels good to swear. Also, this sending my kids to school makes me feel like a failure...to them and myself. A big fat lazy failure with an embarrassing lack of patience. The real kicker is I really like this (public) school. I didn't have any of these feelings until now. This is exactly how I felt when we left the Waldorf school. Well- there's a lot more in both cases, but I'm distilling it down. I feel like my kids will not get the education I want for them b/c of me. I've done something wrong. I don't deserve to have fill in the blank.

How do I underscore the level at which I feel a failure?

Let's see. The state of our home life is so far out of my control- it's chaos 24 + 7. At the end of each day I recount all the moments where I've been ignored, yelled at, called every name you can think of...and then I go over how my kids interact, their lack of boundaries, their work ethic. Then I tally how much we accomplished- rather, how much we have yet to do. It's a sad state of affairs.

Then I go to, "WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!!??"

So, I'm letting things go.Flipping the script- been reading Byron Katie. I'm not reacting. I'm doing everything I want them to do but won't. Guess how that's turned out? FYI, I started this on my birthday- retarded, hello? I am no longer the chore minder, the referee, the "mean teacher". Great right? I'm taking the charge out of it (also been reading a lot of Pema Chodron). I'm rising above the feeling to react to that voice. I am not reacting to my fears of them attending community college-- or worse-- community service.

Oh no. Nope. Not at all.

I am now their servant, their maid, their chauffeur, their personal chef & audience to their many & frequent fisticuffs as I bare witness to the piles & stacks of unattended school work.

The inmates are running the asylum!


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Please god. Give me a fucking manual! Even just a tiny glimpse into the future will do...just to see how it turns out? A tiny glimpse? OK. I'll settle for the manual.

god? <>

uh...god? you there?

Byron Katie? Pema? Super Nanny? Anybody?
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I am so far gone into the land of ill equipped- these are desperate times. Where's the grandmother with all the sage advice? And why now, that I'm cashing in the homeschooling chips do I have this new (but familiar) flutter of anxiety over what I'm gonna be when I grow up? I was still, settled even when I identified as a homeschooling mom. Now there's all these questions. Questions like, "What am I going to do now that the kids are all set up?"

Ggood fucking question.

Better yet, what do I want to do? AND, why exactly did I feel more settled as a homeschooler? It certainly wasn't a place where I felt confident in what I was doing. So then, what the hell is it? And why can't I just be their mom? Why do I feel like I am a big fat loser if I don't have another identity? And, how exactly am I going to get through the rest of the school year and summer when I don't know how I'm going to get through lunch?

Wow. There it is. Thanks for listening.