To start off, a little about me:
I'm a 41 yr old wife and mom with a terrific husband of 19 years, and a wonderful teen-aged kid.
I've struggled off-and on with depression since I was a teen. After some spotty treatment (and hating the way the drugs made me feel--the ones that made me feel anything), I worked with an outstanding therapist for 8 years. Then she died, horribly.
Dr P, as I shall call her, really helped me out a lot. She didn't judge, she understood where I was coming from, she called me on my bs. She knew her stuff. She helped a lot of people actually, many of them for free. Someone decided to snuff out that light.
Then last year a friend, an otherwise wonderful mom I knew, hung herself. I understood. Oh, I could never do it. I just don't think I could face the great beyond with the destruction of my family on my conscience.
It's coming up on 3 years now since Dr. P died, and I've been feeling the darkness pretty strongly lately. I used to tell her everything. Now, I'm just a big faker. I'm alone a lot, which gives me plenty of time to wallow, and makes it easier to keep the depression a secret.
So anyway Dr. P used to always encourage me to journal, so I'm going to start doing that here (sorry, Dr. P, that it took me so long to follow your advice). As always happens with the loss of someone important in your life, so often I find myself with thoughts or in situations where I think, "I wish I could share that with ____ !" So I'll just share here.
Hmmm, a little more about me. I like to cook, which is often complicated by my fear of grocery shopping. I am a neat freak and also a terrible housekeeper. I think I'm a pretty nice person, although most people irritate me on some level.
My other hobbies include: sleeping, crying, reading, and terrible reality television. I have two wonderful dogs named Chip and Babs.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Bad Mommy!!!
I am the parent of a 14 year old girl. As such, I am supposed to be her role-model for good behavior. Honestly, this sometimes terrifies me because when I was her age I did some stuff I don't want her to do.
For one thing, I was a terrible student. I almost flunked out my senior year of high school after I neglected to show up for an entire semester of band. I was just that I had finally OD'd on the clarinet (to this day I cannot stand the sound of one). And my bad attitude also caused me to become sick of my fellow clarinetists, the rest of the woodwinds, really, not to mention the brass section and the crazy band director. All of this at 7 AM! So I just bailed and did what I wanted--slept late/fixed extra big hair (it was the 80's)/nurtured my budding coffee addiction.
Luckily for me, the vice principal was unaccountably understanding, letting me off with a warning and a written report. (God bless him for being such an enabler; my parents would have killed me!)
So, by the seat of my pants I was off to a college where I found that for many classes, showing up for the syllabus + reading the text + taking the scheduled exams = good enough grades. Although, twenty years later I still have that stress dream where I'm back at school and an exam has been moved up, or a classroom reassigned, and I missed it.
Unlike me, my daughter is a terrific student. She can't get enough of books and learning, writing and science projects. Lately I've noticed her perusing college-search sites, making lists of fancy-pants dream schools. So far, it seems she's more than willing to put in the hard work it will require to get there.
For 8 years she did a very nontraditional, mostly home-school program, but this fall she started 9th grade at a more traditional charter school. This has been an adjustment for her dad and me, but she is thriving. Her grades for the first quarter were stellar.
Ok so generally, I try not to be the "Do as I say, not as I do" mom, but boy did I fail at that today!!
Of course, my dd has her 14 yr old girl moments. This morning, PMS reared its ugly head (accompanied by bloat, cramps, teariness, and wardrobe indecision). Yes, all things we women just have to learn to deal with in life. But when you're in 9th grade, such tribulations can be SO fraught with emotion.
So anyway, morning preparations were delayed by a few wardrobe changes, followed by my insistence to sit down for a hot cup of tea and a couple of Advil. I fell back into my old home school mode--Spanish could wait. As a result, we were "DUN DUN," late for school, for the first time ever.
As I found out, school lateness means you have to escort your kid to the office and sign them in. But when I got to the "Reason for abscence" part of the sign-in sheet, my pants became engulfed in flames.
You see, I didn't think my darling girl would appreciate the classmates signing in/out after her reading "cramps, bloat, and temporary emotional fragility" next to her name. So, without thinking it through I just dotted down "orthodontist," like the parent two lines up had. My daughter just raised her eyebrows, and I shrugged.
Wow. So the receptionist leveled her gaze at me and extended her hand for "the excuse note?" And I was like, "Note? Do I need to write a note?" And she was like, "No, YOU need a note FROM the ORTH-O-DONT-IST, otherwise I CAN-NOT excuse her TAR-DY." Ah, of course. Oops!
So, being unused to questions and accountability of this nature, I explained, "Well, I'm her mom and I'm signing her in, that's all you need to know; please shove your tardy up your..." Ok, that was just in my head.
In reality, I mumbled something like, "sure, ok" as she handed me a post-it with the school's fax # so I could go take care of that right away.
ACK! High school flashback! I predict a resurgence of school-themed stress dreams, because I shuffled out of there totally feeling 17 again, caught ditching first period.
Since I'll be conveniently forgetting to have that excuse note faxed over, I'm curious to find out how the UN-EX-CUSED TAR-DY will affect my daughter's academic career. And oh well, I guess I won't be running for PTA president anytime soon. Which is their gain, really.
For one thing, I was a terrible student. I almost flunked out my senior year of high school after I neglected to show up for an entire semester of band. I was just that I had finally OD'd on the clarinet (to this day I cannot stand the sound of one). And my bad attitude also caused me to become sick of my fellow clarinetists, the rest of the woodwinds, really, not to mention the brass section and the crazy band director. All of this at 7 AM! So I just bailed and did what I wanted--slept late/fixed extra big hair (it was the 80's)/nurtured my budding coffee addiction.
Luckily for me, the vice principal was unaccountably understanding, letting me off with a warning and a written report. (God bless him for being such an enabler; my parents would have killed me!)
So, by the seat of my pants I was off to a college where I found that for many classes, showing up for the syllabus + reading the text + taking the scheduled exams = good enough grades. Although, twenty years later I still have that stress dream where I'm back at school and an exam has been moved up, or a classroom reassigned, and I missed it.
Unlike me, my daughter is a terrific student. She can't get enough of books and learning, writing and science projects. Lately I've noticed her perusing college-search sites, making lists of fancy-pants dream schools. So far, it seems she's more than willing to put in the hard work it will require to get there.
For 8 years she did a very nontraditional, mostly home-school program, but this fall she started 9th grade at a more traditional charter school. This has been an adjustment for her dad and me, but she is thriving. Her grades for the first quarter were stellar.
Ok so generally, I try not to be the "Do as I say, not as I do" mom, but boy did I fail at that today!!
Of course, my dd has her 14 yr old girl moments. This morning, PMS reared its ugly head (accompanied by bloat, cramps, teariness, and wardrobe indecision). Yes, all things we women just have to learn to deal with in life. But when you're in 9th grade, such tribulations can be SO fraught with emotion.
So anyway, morning preparations were delayed by a few wardrobe changes, followed by my insistence to sit down for a hot cup of tea and a couple of Advil. I fell back into my old home school mode--Spanish could wait. As a result, we were "DUN DUN," late for school, for the first time ever.
As I found out, school lateness means you have to escort your kid to the office and sign them in. But when I got to the "Reason for abscence" part of the sign-in sheet, my pants became engulfed in flames.
You see, I didn't think my darling girl would appreciate the classmates signing in/out after her reading "cramps, bloat, and temporary emotional fragility" next to her name. So, without thinking it through I just dotted down "orthodontist," like the parent two lines up had. My daughter just raised her eyebrows, and I shrugged.
Wow. So the receptionist leveled her gaze at me and extended her hand for "the excuse note?" And I was like, "Note? Do I need to write a note?" And she was like, "No, YOU need a note FROM the ORTH-O-DONT-IST, otherwise I CAN-NOT excuse her TAR-DY." Ah, of course. Oops!
So, being unused to questions and accountability of this nature, I explained, "Well, I'm her mom and I'm signing her in, that's all you need to know; please shove your tardy up your..." Ok, that was just in my head.
In reality, I mumbled something like, "sure, ok" as she handed me a post-it with the school's fax # so I could go take care of that right away.
ACK! High school flashback! I predict a resurgence of school-themed stress dreams, because I shuffled out of there totally feeling 17 again, caught ditching first period.
Since I'll be conveniently forgetting to have that excuse note faxed over, I'm curious to find out how the UN-EX-CUSED TAR-DY will affect my daughter's academic career. And oh well, I guess I won't be running for PTA president anytime soon. Which is their gain, really.
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