The Eternal Parental Question...

Why?

As in...

Why did you lie to me?

As in...

Why did you just do that?

As in....

Why did you do that again...ten minutes after we talked about not doing it?

As in...

Why are you not doing what I told you to do 20 minutes ago?

As in....

Why is there a wet towel on the couch?

As in...

Why didn't you answer your phone when I called you to come home?

As in...

Why do I find myself repeating myself...but mostly it's just

....

Really? Why? Why did you do that?

I'm really just too exhausted to even consider the real or hypothetical answers to these questions...

Finally...

Why did my parent's have to be so right about everything after all????

It's not Mother's Day...but

I appreciate my mom. I appreciate her for a number of obvious reasons that anyone who has met her will already know. I am finding that as I age I appreciate my mom in a different way. I appreciate my mom because I am the most recent version of my mom. It's a little bit shocking, really. People always told me I would grow up to be my mother, but and no offense mom, I thought, "Ok sure, I will be my mom, but I will be a much cooler version of her!"

As I progress on this journey of step-motherness I realize a few things:

1. My mom is was and always will be pretty darn cool.

2. I am not nearly as cool as my mom is or was.

3. I find that the most annoying things that my mom said to me were the most true and I regurgitate them often.

4. When my mom said she didn't like to give me consequences for my actions, she really didn't like giving me negative consequences for my actions.

5. Sometimes when I thought that my mom got a kick out of my frustration with her, she really did.

6. My mom actually did know better.

7. I really did listen to my mom, even or especially when I was pretending not to, or really didn't want to listen.

8. I used to think to myself, "My mom doesn't know how good she has it since I could be such a less well behaved child."

a. I was probably the most challenging child

b. I was definitely the most challenging child.

9. My mom was way more patient than I gave her credit for.

10. I am proud to be just like my mom and grateful I had such a good one to emulate.

If my computer had wings

I would throw it! Procrastination is my best friend and my worst enemy. I put off homework to write my book, only to find I still had homework due this week. I loved writing and now I hate writing because this writing makes my head ache...and yet I still sit click click clicking away on the keyboard of my little laptop. Why is that...have I just not had enough? Do I just really want to have a computer screen induced migraine? I don't have a good answer, but I do know that I am going to put this down now. .....

Wait nope, I just came up with an answer.

I don't put the laptop down because even though my eyes are strained, and my head is pounding, my wrists are aching and my fingers feel like rubber bands...I need to get MY thoughts out of my head, not my teachers thoughts, not my classmates thoughts, my thoughts. I need to clear my head and that is so important to me that I trudge on just to write this stuff down. And I know it's not entirely profound or humorous, but I am starting to find that once I start writing and rambling, it's kind of an exponential reaction, there is just SO MUCH TO SAY! And it's not just sometimes, it's all of the time. I have spent the whole day pushing my own thoughts out of my head and they are irritated, they want to be heard...so I push my fingers to type a few more letters, my eyes to spell check as I go and my head to forget that it hurts so that these pesky not even remotely deep thoughts can spew themselves all over the digital page.

Okay thoughts, you have the floor you get your way, we are still on the computer...stand up be heard......

........

.......

.......

Well, that was anticlimactic...but I better take my cue before my brain kicks up again...then again at this rate I hope it is off until at least noon tomorrow!

And now I wonder, can a person be addicted to writing? And if so is that a bad addiction?

Countdown to Jamaica

I can really only seem to think about 3 things lately:

1. I'm going to Jamaica

2. I'm going to Jamaica

3. I so fit into size 8 pants, dresses and skirts!

Wait so that's not entirely true, because while thinking number one always leads to thinking number two and number two inevitably leads to thinking about number 3 ... Well number three leads me to number 4 which I dare not actually write, but I am going to have to write it down because if I don't you won't know what number 4 is and then you'll just wonder what the point of me rambling about nothing is, or maybe you won't. Number 4...number 4 scares the bejeezies out of me because number 4 is like the center of the commitment universe...you're all bored and asleep from my circular nonsense ramblings...okay here goes:

I can really only think about 4 things lately:

1. I'm going to Jamaica

2. I'm going to Jamaica

3. I fit into size 8 pants, dresses and skirts...

.....

....

.

4. What if I get knocked up in Jamaica and then I don't fit into size 8 anything?!?! What if the only thing 8 about me is the fact that I'm a food monster that 8 everything in the house??

And now it's out there...Number 4, I wrote it down and thought about it...the universe is starting to conspire I can feel it...

And now we meditate....

I'm going to Jamaica...

I'm going to Jamaica...

I get to put a stamp in my passport.

What if I get knocked up in Jamaica and the only thing that get's stamped is the stretchmarks across my belly??

Total meditation fail. And I thought step-parenting was tough.

School is in session

I'm back in school after a 2 quarter hiatus. I don't think my two quarters off did any favors for my drive, but I'm back in the saddle, wobbly and too tired to do more than meander, but I'm here and that's something. The problem I don't think is so much about not wanting to be in school as it is that I just finished this amazing month of writing. I participated in NaNoWrimo (www.nanowrimo.org) and it was FAh bU lous (hear that in a high pitch voice)!! I love writing fiction, and what's more I feel like and I might be stretching, but I feel like I am good at it. I feel completed by the act of writing and that, well that's just AWESOME! I feel like I have something stable to hold onto that is mine and mine alone. I got so much support from my husband too, what a phenomenal feeling that was. So now, all I want to do is write and not the boring discussion boards and essays that are required to finish a Masters degree, oh no, I want to write amazing and exciting works of fiction ... oh and if someone could pay me to do that, that would be awesome too.

Life as a step-parent progresses. It's gotten easier since I have found more "me" things, and not just the trite superficial "me" things like a manicure and pedicure which don't get me wrong are absolutely necessary to maintaining sanity, but what's really made it easier has been the writing, that's the "me" thing I needed. Of course the fact that I have started running and working out on a regular basis doesn't hurt either.

Step-parent school is always in session and lately it's interesting. I have a hard time relating to my stepdaughter because she is rushing into puberty like her pants are on fire, and I was much more reserved about going through all of those changes. In fact I once told my mom that I would never grow up, have my period, wear a bra, have sex or lose my mind over a boy (that last one just seemed utterly ridiculous to me ...of course until I did lose my mind over a boy...but that's a story for another day). She on the other hand, can't wait and she has all of these precocious questions that I never would have bothered to ask because well, I didn't really care and I think a part of me figured that hey, as long as I didn't think about it it might not happen....my poor parents, that kind of thinking can't lend itself to a strong belief in your child's future success.

But back to the point, she asks all of these questions and it's okay because she actually is very matter of fact about it, so it's pretty easy to put my biologist cap on and speak scientifically about it all, but still I get a little frustrated...seriously when did I get nominated to do this job? I really thought that being a stepparent I would get a little more say about the roles that I had to fill in these kids lives, but it's becoming more obvious, and probably should have been from the beginning, that there are just some things we don't get to choose. I chose my husband, I chose my stepkids, I don't have any regrets, but it really seems like I keep getting stuck with all the hardest and most awkward jobs. I thought that's what parents were for...there's no parent in steppar...oh...right...I guess there is.

And I Write..

Well, my attempt at maintaining the blog has been flacid. On the other hand, I wrote a novel. My bitter angry ravings of a stepmother who lost herself in her marriage and stepkids have dwindled to fleeting frustrations. Writing it turns out, is the best medicine for me. I am better, my family is better and my marriage is better. I am finally in a place where I can see the sun, I can feel the ladder and I know that everything is going to be alright.

Truth

A stunning moment of power and brilliance tonight, I need to find my truth. I have been drowning in the weakness of lies and it is literally killing me. I'm sick all the time. Exhausted, angry, bitter. I have turned my back on the one thing that is guaranteed to bring me the joy, confidence and brilliance that I am capable of radiating. I am not this person. I have been blaming everyone but myself for the truth I gave up so easily. Why would I or anyone else for that matter let go of something so precious. The only true power is in truth. I found a well of strength and control within me, it sprang out of anger, but exposed something deeper, that only I was able to see. I held on to a power and a resource that has been quiet for a long time. I thought that I could only be unhappy because I could not help someone to see that self care and self love build the strongest mutual love. I thought that meant I had to live without, the sense of strength and joy that I create within myself. I do not. I will not. I choose how I feel. I choose how profoundly others are able to affect me, I CHOOSE and because of that I hold the strength and power of my joy and that cannot be taken away it can only be given away. This time, I will not let it slip so easily from my fingertips. I have to work harder than before to hold onto that truth because I am surrounded by so much negative energy, I am loved by people who do not want to provide strength to themselves, I will get through it and it will get easier for me. I will not cower because someones weakness has turned them into a hateful monster. This is MY life and I will not be bullied anymore.

How Did I Get Here...and other ramblings...

Just a few days more than two years ago I became a step-mother to two very adoreable children. I was excited, joyful and saw a future filled with bright happy bonding moments as we all navigated the paths that would begin to define our contemporary family. I joked with my new step-daughter about being her "wicked stepmother" and all the warts I would have to grow to fill the job description. We both thought this was a funny joke. Somehow, through a series of evolutions and events I have become the Wicked Stepmother. My goal with this blog is to figure out how I lost so much of myself, to reconnect with my joy and hopefully to reverse the process that created the wicked stepmother in me.

Have an apple my pretty...

After two years of being a step parent, I am succumbing to the dark side. I think I'm losing my mind.