PROBLEM CHILD

In the interest of full disclosure; my daughter has been a complete and total snot as of late. She’s whiny and grumpy and prone to yelling fits and then when she doesn’t get her way she either breaks down and cries or runs to her room and slams her door hard. This morning it was the freaking out over the fact that she didn’t have her favorite jeans to wear to school. She finally found them on her floor, dirty, but it was still my fault. Then, she didn’t like what I had packed in her lunch so I told her to pack her own lunches from now on and she yelled that she didn’t have time because I don’t wake her early enough and she couldn’t find her pants and now her whole day was ruined because of me and SOB! There is no reasoning with her when she gets like this so I just went off to finish getting ready. This must be the beginning of what my Mom calls “pukey puberty”.

Later she usually comes to me all sweet and smiley and I am still in a foul mood and then she turns those blue eyes up at me and asks, “What’s wrong with you?”

For Mother’s Day I decided that I was going to do absolutely nothing. No cooking, no cleaning, nothing. I took a bath and then got into my pajamas in the middle of the day and decided to take a nap (I couldn’t fall asleep, damn Effexor) and then sit around watching TV. Alex ordered pizza for dinner. I went to the bathroom and noticed that the roll of toilet paper was almost gone so I reached for another one, and discovered we were out. How could I have missed this fact? I am responsible for keeping the toilet paper in stock. I went and announced to Alex that we were almost out of toilet paper. To my surprise he didn’t seem to care. Then I realized that men don’t use toilet paper as often as us girls. This fact has always surprised me. When I was ten I got a babysitting job watching the little boy across the street. He was just being potty trained and so they told me that he might need some help going potty. After they left I took him to the toilet, helped him with the straps on his overalls, and watched him go pee. When he was finished I made him take a piece of toilet paper and wipe. He looked at me funny, but he did it. After that he wiped every time he peed. One day when I arrived the parents were having a heated discussion in the kitchen. Wife, “I don’t know why he keeps wiping the tip of his penis after he pees. I can’t get him to stop.” Husband, “Well make him stop! Boys don’t wipe, they just shake it off!” I stood there horrified. That young man is probably still in therapy. I didn’t know. Who the hell lets ten year old children baby-sit anyway? I had no idea what I was doing.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, toilet paper. Jesus this entry is lame, isn’t it? Suffice to say that it was me who broke down and went to the store. I even tried using the “But it’s Mother’s Day!” line, but it didn’t work.

Shit. Now I feel bad for bitching about Polly up above. I started this entry this morning and then came back to finish it. She gave me her favorite stuffed animal last night, the one who has to sleep on her bed with her every night, and asked me to wash him. I threw him in the washer today and when I went to retrieve him the washer was filled with white… I thought for a second it was suds, that I had used too much soap. But no. He exploded. I don’t need a crystal ball to see my future. There I am at the store buying a bag of stuffing. There I am on the couch trying to remember how to sew. Look! It’s me swearing because I can’t even thread a needle. Damn it. The stuffed animal is named Fluffy. She might have to rename him Droopy, or Saggy.

I considered placing it on her bed next to her favorite cat and scattering the stuffing all around. I could even put a little stuffing in the cat’s fur; maybe put a piece on her whisker to make it look more believable.

Waiting for the bus I notice that someone has carved APATHY into the pole, but they have spelled it incorrectly. Maybe they knew how to spell it but they just didn’t care. After I board I sit somewhere in the middle.

Usually on the bus my nose is buried in a book, but for some particular reason at that particular bus stop I looked up at the passengers boarding. Maybe it was because the bus was becoming full; I hate a full bus, it makes me even more claustrophobic. It was a hot day yesterday and she entered wearing a white tank top and skin tight jeans. There were bruises all over her chest and arms, dark circles under her sunken eyes and sores on her face. Her hair had once been bleached, but it had been awhile because several inches of dark roots were showing. She weaved a little trying to grasp at the bar as she stood there hanging on.

The track marks were no surprise; I knew they’d be there before I saw them. An older gentleman who was seated in the seats reserved for the elderly and disabled stood up and gave her his seat. It was fitting somehow as she plopped down next to the blind man with a guide dog and the older woman clutching her purse as she looked around nervously.

From her worn out leather purse she pulled out a water bottle containing a brown liquid and took a swig as she turned her eyes towards the floor. I don’t know if she saw anything at all.

I have been her. I don’t know if she’s been me. My whole life I have been looking for a way to end the pain, to quell the anxiety. I have looked in the places she has found; in the illegal drugs and the alcohol. I have looked on the therapist’s couch, and ultimately, in the bottles of colorful little pills I pick up each month to keep me barely functional at my worst, and very functional at my best.

For a long time after starting the dreaded medications I felt as if I had failed, as if I no longer deserved to take pride in my hard fought and won sobriety. Every time I popped a Xanax or a Klonopin for the panic attacks or swallowed the maximum dose of the flavor of the year antidepressant I was on I felt like a failure. I wasn’t taking these medications to get high; I was taking them to get well. They came from a doctor in the form of a white slip that I took to a pharmacy where they were carefully counted out and placed in bottles containing warnings of dizziness and sleepiness and an inability to operate heavy machinery. I no longer had to wait at bus stops in the rain, or parking lots, or street corners, or public parks for always late dealers or their runners.

Insert Velvet Underground lyrics here:

“He’s never early, he’s always late
First thing you learn is that you’ve always got to wait
I’m waiting for my man”

How many of us are hurting? It seems to be everywhere I turn. Ah, look at all the lonely people…surrounded by other people.

Years ago I used to work with a woman who was a recovering alcoholic and a devoted member of AA. I liked her well enough, but her insistence on giving all of the credit for anyone’s ability to kick drugs or alcohol to what she constantly referred to as her “higher power” really got on my nerves. I wanted credit. I didn’t feel any higher power with me when I was writhing with the agony of a cold turkey withdrawal. I felt she deserved credit too, but she wouldn’t take any. She felt that anyone in the hell of a deep addiction had no way out without handing their lives over to God.

The woman on the bus picked at the flesh on her arms. I wondered about her. She could have been twenty; she could’ve been fifty. There was no way of telling. I imagined her as someone’s daughter, loved and cherished. I wondered if she ever found delight in anything. I wondered why some people can kick and others can’t.

I got off the bus and went to pick up Polly.

These flowers are for her. I hope that one day she will be able to really see them, to revel in their brilliance and color. I hope that one day she will find peace. I wish that for myself too. And for you, my reader.

to Karen for the link. I can remember when I first started writing this I couldn’t even imagine anyone reading my words; now I have people linking to me. It really does make me feel good and us depressed people can use all the help we can get in that department. Of course 99.9% of this I owe to the beautiful Jane who has encouraged me and sent readers my way, some of whom have stuck around.

No one suggested any books but don’t worry, it’s not too late. I am always open to suggestions for books as I absolutely must have something to keep me occupied on the bus. I found The Names of the Dead on my bookshelf and started reading it. It’s sort of a downer but I haven’t gotten very far yet.

I’ll try my hardest to get back tomorrow with a real entry.

I finished reading “ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson and then quickly read “ Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim” By David Sedaris. I am currently reading “ The Rum Diaries” by Hunter S. Thompson. I liked Fear and Loathing, although I noticed that accounts of drug fueled trips tend to make me a bit panicky. Perhaps I am remembering the old days when I used to take acid. For the most part I always had a good time, but I had a couple of bad trips that were enough to scare me off psychedelics for life. David Sedaris delivered exactly what I wanted him to. I laughed at a few of the stories and even laughed out loud at a couple of them. The Rum Diaries is interesting to me because Thompson started it when he was only 22, I believe, and you can see the early development of what would become his signature style. Plus, the descriptions of San Juan in the 1950s paint such a vivid picture. I wish that I could do a better job with that in my writing.
I will soon need to find a new book to read. I have several around the house that I haven’t read yet and I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t get anymore until I had finished the ones I’ve not read. Easier said than done, because books are sometimes given to me as gifts, but those don’t count, right? If anyone has any suggestions please leave them in the comment section. I could always use my trusty library card.
Nathan is doing well. I got some textbooks and we are studying together at home. This is just a temporary solution until we can get him into another school, but for now it’s working fine. Polly is getting ready to finish up sixth grade. I can’t believe how fast this year has gone.

It appears that I will be home schooling Nathan. The school he was in didn’t work out and the other ones I’ve found that might be good for him only take ages 16 and up. I called every single one of them today to see if they might make an exception for a 15 year old, but no one would. I wish that my Mom was here instead of in Ireland because I could really use her input. And, as the quote goes, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

that when you get home from the store after taking the bus in the rain and walking from the bus stop with your hands filled with groceries only to be greeted by a surly teenage boy who bitches because you got the healthier, more expensive cup-o-noodles from the store you smile and say, “Be grateful for what you have” instead of saying, “Fuck you, you selfish little shit.”

Or not. My Mom called all four of us selfish little shits and we’re all fine well adjusted adults. Ok, maybe not so well adjusted, but we’re all grateful for food.