by Band Back Together | Sep 14, 2010 | Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Sexuality |
I was recently asked by someone who has recently separated/divorced, if, in my humble opinion, she can be considered to be “re-virginised” after only having sex about four times in seven years. Now take note ladies, because some of us have been here or are sitting here miserable and depressed, thinking the worst…
HELL, YES SWEETIE! ….and that’s a really good thing. Read on.
You see, I’ve been secretly joking for years that by the time a woman has gone without sex for a few years or more, she shouldn’t be considered frigid or past it. Au contraire! It’s probably healed over ‘down there’ and she should be considered a ‘Born Again Virgin’!
And, boy are these BAV women dangerous.
Firstly, there’s all that pent-up sexual energy just waiting to be released. Then there’s the fact that these women have probably been in a miserable relationship (cos they’ve not been getting any for starters, as well as dealing with loads of other shit) and are just bursting at the seams to have someone show them some loving, physical attention. Add to this the women who find themselves in this situation and single again, are generally in the age bracket where they’re considered to be in their sexual prime and BINGO they’re suddenly, footloose, fancy-free and hot stuff!
Here’s the icing on the cake – you’ve reached this wonderful status of the BAV in an era where it’s far more socially acceptable to go find yourself a younger man! So stuff the old bugger that you were with and go for a younger version. I was amazed and stunned when I became single again and got continually propositioned by outrageously young men. First I thought that it was all a joke, but seriously the number of young men wanting to hook up with older women is unbelievable.
Actually, a discussion with someone whom I had reprimanded sternly after they’d shocked me with a hot (and unprintable) proposition, made it all very clear. I asked what the hell it was with these young guys who pursued older women. Where they perverts or something? “Well” came the reply, “If you can get yourself a cougar, then you’re the man cos it’s like a badge of honour, a real education…..you know what I mean?”
I told him to bog-off cos I knew his mother. Which of course I didn’t, but he was so young that I might have. Now, I’m not suggesting that you go off and become Mrs Robinson or give out ‘cougar badges’ or anything, but hell woman, you could go for something just a snip younger than your last model and do your self-esteem the power of good.
Take it from me, there is nothing quite so good than to be told by some handsome hunk of a younger man that they find you sexy and beautiful. So, rejoice in your Born Again Virgin status and think of it a the re-birth of not only the rest of your life but your sex-life too. Get out there and shine like a star, cos the sky’s the limit and you’re rocket fuel baby!
by Band Back Together | Sep 13, 2010 | A Letter I Can't Send, Grandparent Loss, Grief, Guilt, Help For Grief And Grieving, Hospice, Loss, Stroke |
Dear Grampa,
I don’t know if I will ever be able to live down the guilt that I feel for abandoning you in the end. I should have gone. I should have called. I should have written.
When the stroke hit, I felt like my own life was falling down around my feet. I was barely hanging on to my own sanity so I said a few prayers and cried a few tears as you lay in that hospital bed over a thousand miles away. I took the rest of the day off of work to feel sorry for myself and to soothe my sense of loss but I didn’t go. I didn’t call. I didn’t write.
Time went on and you went home. Gramma did her best to take care of you with some help from Dad and your other kids and my cousins. I cried when I talked to Mom about the difficulties you were facing. You had to learn how to let other people do things for you instead of being independent like you always had been. I felt better with the sense of urgency gone so I didn’t go. I didn’t call. I didn’t write.
It was a Sunday when Mom called. You were in the hospital again and it wasn’t looking good. Your kidneys were failing. They were going to let you die. I cried and I cursed Mom for waiting to tell me as you’d been hospitalized days before. I went to work the next day, numb and angry but still I didn’t go. I didn’t call. I didn’t write.
You slipped away on a Thursday, two weeks before my birthday. I got the voicemail from Mom just before I went into a meeting at work. It was all I could to keep the tears from my face as my boss yammered about something or another. I sobbed all the way home, grief and guilt overlapping in my tears. I didn’t go. I didn’t call. I didn’t write.
I don’t know if I kept myself from your funeral because of the expense (which is what I told everyone), out of selfishness (I’ve never been good at dealing with death) or to punish myself. By staying away, my guilt is complete. I didn’t go. I didn’t call. I didn’t write.
My Grampa, I have eulogized you in my heart: You were a mean, ornery old bastard that said what you shouldn’t and stepped on plenty of toes, but we never doubted that you loved us. You taught me my first swear words and gave me my first gun. You were the hardest working and most independent man I’ve ever known and I will miss you for the rest of my life.
I’ve never believed in communication with the dead, so my pleas for forgiveness must fall on deaf ears or be lost in the air. Still, I wish I could tell you that I am sorry that I didn’t go and didn’t call and didn’t write.
I will love you always,
Stephie
by Band Back Together | Sep 12, 2010 | Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Guilt |
My parents broke the news to me and my brothers when I was nearly 17, about five years ago. We kind of expected it, really; as my mom said, “We would argue over what shade of blue the sky was.” I’d spent plenty of car rides with my mother where she angrily ranted about my father, always apologizing at the end, and me saying that it was okay, I understood.
My father wasn’t, and isn’t, a bad man. I think he has problems coming to terms with that sometimes, but he isn’t. He’s strict, and he has high expectations. But I think he’s just as lost and confused as the rest of us, trying to do what he thinks is right for everyone, and until lately that meant to the exclusion of himself. His well-paying job kept us more than comfortable, but he loathed it; business trips every few months became once a month became twice a month became every week. He hated it, and he still hates it.
My mother was, is, more laid back, and prone to leaping without looking. Which, I think, is how they came to be married so quickly after their first failed marriages. I was born into the world with a half-sister already eight years older than me, and a half-brother legally adopted by my father who was only a little less than two years older than me. My little brother followed three years later. Then my mom became a nurse, and bounced from job to job, looking for what made her happy.
Nothing really did.
And so I sat in the kitchen with my brothers, listening to my parents going over the reasons I already knew, and I cried anyway. Because my mom was moving out, and my life turned upside down.
I was leaving for college soon, anyway, so my mom’s new apartment only had one room for my little brother. When I was there, I would sleep on the couch. Every time I went there, I felt guilt dragging me down, avoiding saying more than I had to, to my father. Every time I left there, I felt guilt that I couldn’t stay longer, even though there was no where for me to sleep.
I began walking a thin line. I know my parents tried not to put me in the middle, but they couldn’t help it. I’m sure it’s difficult. My older brother was already in college, and he lived with his girlfriend at the time. My younger brother had no car, and was dependent upon me and them for transport, so they set his schedule. I had to balance my own schedule and pray that it would be somewhat fair.
Every week I would have a chore list from each of them, and I would travel back and forth between houses, doing what I could. There were always arguments over “you do more for your Mom/Dad than you do for me.” Eventually, I broke down. I was trying. I really was. Maybe I could have tried harder, but I hated doing chores when they were together, and now I had two different places to do them in. Plus extra chores, like sorting out the boxes of photos so my heartbroken father didn’t stumble across pictures of my mother and sob over how she hadn’t wanted to go to couple’s therapy.
When I first knew, I allowed myself some time to grieve, and then I focused on what I would do. How I could handle this. I had seen the movies and the cartoons, of children rejecting step parents and acting comically like brats in order to somehow fix their parents back up together. I knew that was stupid. I was nearly an adult, nearly in college; I would handle it with grace and maturity.
I complained, sometimes. Sometimes I bawled about how unfair they were being to me, not by their divorce, but how they tore me between them. Home became uncomfortable, a constant trip back and forth, til I had two of everything, and even then there were forgotten cell phone chargers or shoes or books. I slowly lost my “place,” living in dorm rooms, couches, or spare rooms.
I was counselor, sympathizer, errand runner, schedule balancer. I assured my father that he would be okay, assured my mother she was doing the right thing for her, scolded the both of them when they tried to talk down about the other to me. I took my mother’s elopement in stride, as well as my father’s ease away from the Catholic faith and his decision never to remarry.
I found guilt. Guilt in accidentally letting slip the word “stepfather” around my own dad, when talking about Matt. Guilt for having to leave my mother’s early for dinner at my father’s. Guilt for working for my mother watching my stepfather’s kids when I couldn’t find a job. Guilt for hiding from one parent at another’s house. Guilt for not knowing the answers, for watching TV instead of doing some chores, for asking for money because my gas was almost gone and I needed to drive between houses more, guilt for not being able to evenly spread my time during spring breaks, guilt for trying to partition holidays, guilt for blaming my brothers for not “doing anything.”
My family has come back together, in a way. In pieces. Five years is too short a time to mend everything, but I can say I’m going to my mom’s without my father feeling hurt. I can talk about her dogs in his house without pain. I can discuss my father with my mother without there being insults. Everyone is calmer, and I’m drifting away. My father still won’t call the number at my stepfather’s cabin, and avoided them at my commencement, but…steps. Everything is in steps.
I just signed a lease to live in the basement of a woman’s house, so I will be moving out on my own. I won’t rely on their sofas or guest rooms for living, their money for my car, or even their judgment on how long my boyfriend can stay over. I won’t do their chores, and I’ll call once a week or so to check in and chat. Money will be tight, and I’ll be looking for a second job to fill hours and plan for my next big life step.
But I’ll have my own space, my own time, and I’ll begin the final process of unwrapping myself from the middle and moving on.
by Band Back Together | Sep 12, 2010 | Poverty, Economic Struggles and Hardship, Romantic Relationships |
I live with my significant other. Not married, but together for almost two years. A Match.com success story, fyi. Last weekend, I decided to go car shopping. If you read my blog, you will see that my hobbies include shopping for cars at CarMax. I went, I saw, I liked, I bought. Sold the old car and came away clean. Bought the new car. Old car was part of the family for oh, about 16 months. Suze Orman would kick my ass.
Anyways, back to the title of my post. Today as my SO and I were driving I asked him, “If we were married, would you have had an issue with me buying that car?” He paused for several minutes and said hmmmm. So I said hmmmm. I think I like the his, mine and ours concept. We have a joint account that we call the “corporate account”. If I want my GD Botox every few months, I will use my money that I make from my job and get some needling. During my marriage to Evil Eye Ex, the Un Super-Hero, money was ALWAYS an issue and that really bothered me.
Marriage? Maybe some day, but I like things just the way they are right now. Mine, his and ours. Honey, put those hanging plants on the “corporate account”.
by Band Back Together | Sep 9, 2010 | Reactive Attachment Disorder, Special Needs Parenting |
I am the mother of a RADish.
A RADish is a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). RAD is an attachment disorder that results from a traumatic event in a child’s early life. Elle was adopted from Russia and spent the first nine months of her life in an orphanage. Her birth mother delivered her, terminated her parental rights, and left Elle at the hospital. A month later, she made her way into the Baby House in Kursk, Russia.
The orphanage was nice, as orphanages go. It was clean, old and colorful in a Russian kind of way with fairy-tale murals painted on the walls. But an orphanage is an orphanage, with too many children and not enough warm, loving arms to go around. When I first saw Elle, she was expressionless. The eyes that looked back at me had no emotion, just a blank face. The only time I ever saw her laugh or smile was when she was walking. She didn’t particularly like to be held or rocked. She was independent at an early age.
I thought all of this was normal for a child, and for Elle. What did I have to compare her to? We started having problems with her when she was 5, the summer before she started Kindergarten. She would become sullen and withdrawn if things didn’t go her way. She started taking things…from stores, my room, etc. She would argue until the cows came home and dinner was a nightmare. When she was really angry she would mark on the walls with chapstick and rub Vaseline all over her bathroom.
When we adopted Bunny, she took Bunny’s things and hid them. All the while denying that she had done anything wrong. Then she started taking food. She would get up in the middle of the night and raid food out of the pantry. Not just chips and cookies, but powdered jell-o, baking chocolate, and sugar. We found leftover chicken and frozen salmon stashed away in her closet, along with things she had stolen out of my bedroom and office.
It came to a head when we decided to move a year ago. I received a call from the school’s safety officer. Elle had admitted to stealing two cell phones and an iPod. The iPod was hidden in her closet and I could bring it back to school. As you can imagine our horror, we could see a life of police stations, courts and jail in her future. We couldn’t understand it. She is incredibly intelligent and charming. What is wrong with our child?
She had been in therapy for a few years, but we weren’t making any progress. It was finally suggested that Elle’s issues were beyond our therapist’s experience and we needed to look for a different one. Life was unimaginable in our house, Elle was out of control and I wasn’t seeing much joy or hope. We took her to another therapist who diagnosed her with bipolar disorder…based on a 50-minute discussion with us.
No, something wasn’t right with this. Consequently, we never went back and kept looking for an answer.
I finally stumbled across it while searching the internet. Reactive Attachment Disorder. It gave a list of behaviors and almost every one fit Elle to a tee. We read, and read, and then read some more. Could this be it? Fortunately, there were a couple of therapists in town who specialized in RAD. A couple of phone calls later and we had a new therapist.
The therapist began working with Colby and I. The first behavior to change had to be ours. We needed to learn to parent differently and be a rock-solid unit before we could even tackle Elle’s issues. Then we started to work on Elle. We learned about the Circle of Trust and how with Elle, her circle had been broken.
When “normal” babies cry, their mothers respond and meet their needs. The baby is happy and learns to trust that mommy will always be there to provide for them. Not so with RAD children. Their circle has been broken. Elle cried, but because of multiple caregivers, her needs were not met. She learned she couldn’t trust anyone would meet her needs, so she learned to provide for herself…because she was the only one she could trust.
She carries around a lot of anger and abandonment issues. You may never see them, but they are buried deep behind her brown eyes. RAD children target their mothers. For years she has stolen and destroyed my things and directed her anger and resentment at me. She adores her daddy, but she can’t bond with either of us. Especially me. For years, friends and family have wondered what was wrong with me. She was a charming child, why was I so hard on her? Why couldn’t I give her a break? My anger and resentment spilled over to my relationship with her, with my husband, with my family, with Bunny and with myself. I couldn’t take it anymore.
But when Elle was diagnosed with RAD, maybe, just maybe, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. We got help, and finally, things started to get a little better. Elle was in a different school, one that worked with us and understood why we took her out of school every Friday afternoon for therapy, and why we are taking her out of school for a week to go to a RAD camp.
We have come along way, but we still have a long way to go. Elle has built a brick wall around her heart and won’t let anyone in. The wall is so strong she hides behind it anytime she has to deal with an emotion she doesn’t want to deal with. She doesn’t know how to love. She doesn’t know how to trust. But we are working on it. We are working to chip away at the wall. I have fundamentally changed my life in the last year. Colby and I have fundamentally changed the way we parent in the last year. Elle has made some progress, but she still has a way to go. We have a way to go.
But we will bring the wall down. One brick at a time…together.
Elle, I know you are reading this post. You know I love you with all of my heart. Together, we can do anything.
by Band Back Together | Sep 7, 2010 | Maple Syrup Urine Disease, Special Needs Parenting |
Before I became a mom, I had a certain expectation of what motherhood would be like. We would have a healthy baby, she would have so much in common with Lance, my husband, and I. She would be an avid reader, unable to put a book down. She would be well-spoken, and involved in theater and maybe even debate club. She would be musical, marching in the band or playing in the orchestra. She would have a regular spot on the honor roll.
When Anna was born, she was healthy. The fact that she scored 9 on the Apgar scale was a point of pride. Then, after a few days, our world slowly started to turn upside down.
When she was diagnosed with Maple Syrup Urine Disease at eight days old, a whole new definition of motherhood was thrust upon me. I had a very sick baby, with a disease with a weird name about which I knew very little, and who was potentially brain damaged. I was introduced to a world that I never knew existed.
I never knew what leucine, isoleucine, and valine were, or how much my daughter would be allowed to have within a day.
I never thought I’d be in an emergency room watching a doctor and a group of med students smell my daughter’s diaper.
I never knew how terrifying a simple stomach bug could be.
I never thought I’d have to use my entire body weight to hold down a screaming child so the nurse can insert an IV that will save her life.
I expected to use our blender to occasionally make margaritas. Not to blend a foul smelling medical formula at least once a day, every single day, for almost 13 years.
I never expected to burn out 3 blenders during those almost 13 years.
I never thought I’d have to poke my daughter’s heel/toe/finger to bleed it out on filter paper, or check urine samples to see how cloudy they are when mixed with DNPH chemicals.
I never expected to have to explain my daughter’s disorder to everyone.
I never thought I’d have to patiently re-explain when someone would say “she can’t eat meat… but she can eat chicken, right?”
I never thought I’d throw my “what to expect’ book against the wall because she was not meeting developmental milestones like the experts “expected”
I never thought I’d know what an IEP is.
I never expected to be cheering for her as she competed in the Special Olympics.
My version of motherhood never included all of these challenges. This was not what I signed up for. Yet, despite all of these challenges I’ve faced as a mom, I wouldn’t trade one of them. I will face all of those, plus whatever else MUD throws at me, because that is what it means to be Anna’s mom.
And that is a blessing I thank God for every day.
