Well, I'll tell ya what happened, long-lost folks, just to catch up on things.
I stopped blogging because my life exploded.
Way back when, right before my life exploded, my daughter found the son I gave up for adoption when I was 19 (I was reckless) and it turned into Le Revue Merde. I had put this episode of my life behind me, and out of the blue "Oh mom I have a brother and he's looking for you!" (-yes well, he was looking for something, but read on.) And then...this same daughter, who at first was jubilant, suddenly becomes insanely jealous - and pregnant, and you know how nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition because it's chief elements are surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope? Yeah, nobody was expecting this either.
My son had been raised by abusive people. What a great thing to find out. I was absolutely shattered. And he turned out to be not such a great person either. He was cheating on his wife, while she was cheating on him, for starters. I imagine that he's still an alcoholic and still emotionally manipulative, and that his wife is still the stupidest human being I have ever met in my entire life, and that his children are absolutely feral, and that they are still a quarter of a million dollars in debt.
Oh yes.
I know, you're saying well, that's bad, but it isn't quite bad enough. OK. You win.
His wife was a compulsive thief, too. Yes! From me, from her business, from her customers, from her children's bank accounts, her parents bank accounts, and...basically, you should check your wallet and your bank account right now. Go. I'll wait. Nobody knows where the money went either; it sure wasn't used to pay bills.
When I say she was stupid, I mean this girl was absolutely ass stupid. Did not read. Had no hobbies or interests whatsoever. Did not know who the governor of the state was.
But how stupid exactly??
She ran over a squirrel in the road to impress me. Yes. She thought that I would be impressed by her swerving out of her lane, into the oncoming lane, to squish a squirrel while I was a passenger in her car. Let me repeat that for the back row: She thought I would be impressed with her for running over and killing a squirrel. While I was in the car with her. "Wanna see something?" she said, with a grin. And a swerve.
So yes, I cut things off with my son and his family, and his extended family; and I am here to tell you that there wasn't a sane one in the bunch. It was drawn out and it was ugly.
The above horseshit took a toll on my marriage. Oh boy did it ever.
My son's adopted family and his in-laws are having drug overdoses and losing their jobs, and having lawsuits brought against them. His mother-in-law used to shit herself for joy - you cannot make this up - when she saw the 'Clearance Sale' sign in the Jo-Anne Fabric store window (yet refused to wear Grampers because it was 'just a little shit, not a lot.')
Let's see, what else. There were two suicide attempts, a car smash up, and one strange chick who used to tell everyone every time she met them that she was pregnant* (Gawd I don't know, don't ask me) So yeah. My poor husband got thrown headfirst into something he never expected to have to deal with, and he absolutely did NOT deal with it - spectacularly.
And in the middle of that, my daughter called the police on me! She's bipolar, didja hear? Yeah, that's how we all found out. I parked in her driveway, and she hid in the house and called the state troopers on me...because...I was in her driveway. (This causes a huge rift that has still not altogether healed. We didn't speak for years.)
Out of the blue, my son-in-laws' parents suddenly enter into my daughters life unannounced. Surprise! We're here to be intrusive! and started being all 'David Lynch' level weird. Nobody knows what they wanted or why they were there, but there they were. But the world was not done with my daughter yet. Next enter my alcoholic ex-mother-in-law with her own Brenda Agenda because hell, why not? Then my ex-sister-in-law! Everybody into the pool! Come on! And nobody has a reason why! They're just there! I get tearful frantic phone calls from my daughter who cannot take it, and when I call her back I'm getting screamed at because I 'call her too often.' OK.
And in this whole, ugly one year period of time, all these people are passing messages and emails of dubious reliability back and forth and it's now causing an actual black hole in space made of suck. What was it about? Just a whole lotta 'he said she said', mixed with a desperate need for psychiatric evaluation and MORE SUCK.
Everyone is appealing to me for my take on their issues too! I was supposed to fix everybody's damn issues! I was resented if I was not right there at everyone's beck and call. I don't know why; nobody ever listened to me anyway. Basically I was being used as toilet paper. It wasn't as fun as you might think that would be, either. So you know what I did?
I said fuck all y'all.
"SHUT IT DOWN!"
I went through four counselors before I finally got sent to a psychiatrist and he set me up with the right kind of medications - I take a bunch, but all at pediatric doses, so don't bother breaking into my house; it'd be real disappointing.
My daughter decided that the answer to all her problems was to pack up in a huff and moved to North Carolina. Once there she was still being crazier than a shithouse rat, and finally figured out that it wasn't my fault - she was crazy all on her little lonesome. We talk, we've visited back and forth, but the relationship is different. I really appreciate the distance.
Oh, it got real there for awhile.
My husband and I went through counselling and are back together. That relationship is finally normalizing. We're doing well.
I do not speak to my son or his family. Something about being used as a free babysitting service without being asked - and jacked for cash to fund that shitshow just didn't appeal to me. I kept pretending not to get all the hints being thrown my way, and they kept pretending I wasn't pissing them off by not forking over a dime.*
The lesson here is that it's not who has you - it's who raises you. That young man, God love him, is the son of the vicious alcoholics who raised him. Not me. His multiple issues are with them. Not me. Fare thee well, kid, and I hope it all works out.
Oh yeah, I forgot! I was taking care of my father in law during all this too!
My father-in-law lived all the way downtown but expected me to drop everything and come change his sheets and buy his groceries. Now, at the time, he was living in a luxury care center with a full, comprehensive, professional staff, like a king. He wasn't doing this for the company. The man had more friends than Carter has little liver pills. Yet nothing would do but that I be on call 24/7 and drive in all the way from nearly Canada and buy him groceries while downstairs was not just a dining room, but a dining room with a CIA-trained chef, all paid for, all part of the price. He was a well-to-do man and wasn't hurting for anything. No, it was because It Was My Place.
And then, after he died, my husband was cleaning out the house and found...let's just say there was really good reason that my father in law
was asked to take an early retirement, and he should have been a hell of a lot more discreet, the bastard. That's when my husband stopped talking.
Then I'd come home to a frantic phone message and turn around and drive for five hours because my goddamn idiot 'daughter-in-law' couldn't handle her husbands' tantrums so would I please come down and play whipping boy for that while she laid on the couch oblivious to it all, playing Sudoku, and her kids wiped shit all over the floor and chickens went running in and out of the kitchen door.
Because they had chickens. And three dogs. And four ducks. In the suburbs.
And there you have it. It was a whole Judy Chicago style dinner party - every single thing on my plate was a cunt.
Everyone got their problems handed back to them and told where to cram them. Except for my father in law; he croaked before I could tell him off.
And this is what I learned from that terrible, terrible year:
Blood is not thicker than water.
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*Crazy Always Pregnant lady was upset that I didn't attend all five of her baby showers - in a year. She is not delusional. She just likes baby showers. I wish I were...well, you get the idea.
