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  1. wings

    August 14, 2009 by shishnit

    Not surprisingly my sister has not responded to my last email. I really don’t expect her to.  This is the pattern in my life. I open up and tell someone how I really feel and I tell them I disagree with their take.  And they largely reject me, or at the very least, they don’t respond.  And I suppose it is possible that for her, her little emotional crisis has ended as Leah is recovering well, and now she will close herself back off.  I’m ok.

    Really and truly I am ok.  I’m finally ok with it.  I am not the one missing out on a sister, she is.  I am not the one closed off to life, she is.  I also said what I wanted to say, I spoke MY truth and that’s what really matters.  It matters to me that I did not just “let it go” or ignore something that truly bothered me.  My sister and I are not close because of my mother, not because of “actual” distance.  And I had to say it finally.  I’ve for too long, let this go and did the proverbial nod of the head when it’s untruthful.

    To answer a question…my niece had steel rods inserted into her back to keep her spine straight.  They will remain a part of her for life.  I am positive her experience will make her stronger, better, etc.  I almost wish everyone adversity, it is the stuff of building guts, inner strength and gratitude about life.  I have learned that life does that to you.  It knocks you down, but when you get back up you are steadfast in your stance thereafter.  

    Family….it’s the ever illusive thing for me.  I’m finally ok with that not being my lot in life.  My life is blessed in so many other various ways.  I have finally learned to see the wealth in my life and it is massive in its own ways.  Had my mother loved me, I wouldn’t be where I am today.  Sometimes I think I gathered my pain early and I’m now dropping it later in life as I am blessed blessed beyond measure now.  I spent last weekend in Daytona Beach and I was happy.  I stood on the beach and felt overwhelmed by just how happy I was on the inside and outside.  I felt bathed in it, and it was bliss.  I have rarely had that experience.  Daytona Beach in August is now my happy place.  I lay on a bed in a room full of arches, and I was cozy.  I was blissful standing at an outside bar, the wind dancing in my tangled hair.
    All throughout last weekend, my heart was soaring like a bird in and out of the open doors at the street bar, across the boardwalk, inside the Harley shops, always dreaming of new experiences, new memories.  I stood in a bathroom reading the text scribbled across the walls, knowing that I was a mere speck, a moment in time.  And it was ok.  It was an emotional waterfall of joy.  I stopped and took memory pictures to review later on a rainy day in my heart.  They come, but oh when the day is bright blue and cloudless…it’s a keeper in the soul. I have learned to feed my soul, I have learned how to sustain all that is good and keep it tight.  I have learned to weather the storms and shield myself with all the love I am blessed with.

    I read something today “An employee without a goal is just a worker.”  This is a statement that a fellow student in my current Project Management course stated.  It has stayed with me.  I have long been a human without a dream, a human without happiness, a human without wings.  

    I have so much now and my flight, it is glorious. I encourage you to dream.  It changes everything. 
     

    Category Rick, assertiveness, family, life, love and marriage, world | Tags: | 3 Comments

  2. sisters

    August 13, 2009 by shishnit

    Now, to clarify, I know this type of blogpost will never earn me $50,000 a month in blog revune, but luckily for me I still blog for the same reasons I always have.  To try to understand myself.  That’s my only objective, even now 8 years into this blogging gig. So here we go…

    My only sister Tracy has twin daughters, Leah and Rena.  Rena is named after my lovely grandmother.  They are 13 years old.  My sister took Leah to a physical so that she could start highschool this year.  At the physical, the doctor noticed something odd.  As it turned out, Leah has S coliosis.

    I don’t know my sisters children, really I have only met them twice in their lifetime.  Once at age six weeks, the latter and last time about 3 years ago when they all came to Orlando.  However, I’ve long known that Leah is a voracious reader, just like the Aunt she doesn’t know.  This one tidbit of information about a girl I barely know endears her to me.

    It’s odd how my sister and I really only exchange emails on about a weekly basis and most of those emails entail boring mundane every day life incidentals or are those cutsey forwards we all love to hate.  In other words, we really are not close.  However, about two weeks ago my sister told me about Leah’s S coliosis and her need for an operation that entails putting rods in her back to lessen the curvature and keep the curvature from worsening as she grows. You can read a very accurate and well written article here about Scoliosis if you’re not familiar at all.

    In the past few days I’ve received more emails from my sister than I ever have to date. And they are more personal than ever before.  (This year marks 18 years since my Mom kicked me out and disowned me.) This both delights me and frightens me.   I imagine that despite our vastly strange family situation that there is something about sisters that ember’s forever even when the fire is constantly doused by a Mother’s interventions.  It’s hard for me to talk about my relationships with (or lack thereof or dysfunctional….) my family.  Because it’s hard for me to even understand them.  My mother disowned me in 1991 and since that time she has not spoken to me, she forbids my silbings from contact but my sister has been communicating with me.  Perhaps she finally grew up or realized that my Mother did not “have to know”.  I’m not really sure.  And her contact didn’t’ happen until I got divorced from my ex-husband. I think she perhaps made him the scapegoat or something.  This is all conjecture on my part because I don’t get it at all.   Just the other day my Aunt DeDe told me that my little brother (age 37) weighs over 500 lbs and still lives with my Mother in my childhood home.  He has never moved out, never had a serious girlfriend beyond age 17 and must ask my mother for permission to go out for a drink with his friend.  This latter information came from his so-called friend who told a friend of a friend.  This is usually how I get family information.  From someone who told someone and then who knows if the information is accurate.  My grandmother did verify that he is extremely obese and she worries about his health.

    So back to my sisters recent emails.  My neice had surgery yesterday.  It took many hours.  I think the extreme stress my sister is feeling caused her to reach out to me or open up or..oh heck I’m not sure because I’m not a shrink!!  I’m simply going to publish my very real and very personal emails with my sister because no matter what has happened to me as a child and via my Mother…I do love my family and I am glad that my neice, that doesn’t even know me, is doing well after surgery.  I love my sister, no matter how distant we are..no matter the damage my mother has caused, we used to be two little girls sharing a frilly canopy bed.  Some thing that’s hard to recapture still exists. And yet, when she opened up to me I finally just told her the way it really is.  I’m proud of myself.  This post is for ME.

    From: Kristy

    Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 1:39 PM

    To: Tracy

     You there today?

    From:  Tracy

    Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 1:45 PM

    To: Kristy

     
    No, I’m home today.  We took Leah to Hershey Park over the weekend and got home late last night.  We’re cleaning up around here and packing to get ready to go to Pittsburgh tomorrow morning,

    From: Kristy

    Sent: Mon 8/10/2009 1:46 PM

    To: Tracy

    Ahh ok.  I just wanted to wish you all the best of luck and let you know I lit a candle yesterday in a church along the beach for Leah. I’ve been thinking of you guy’s and will continue to check in with Gram etc.  I love you….be strong…and keep in touch.  Let me know if there’s anything I can do from here.  I’d like to send Leah some books to read…..give me your address please?

    From:  Tracy

    Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 11:47 PM

    To: Kristy

     *address removed*

    Everything went well today.  Her surgery lasted from 12:15 until 6pm.  We didn’t get to recovery until 7:30 – it took her that long to wake up.  They let them wake up naturally on their own.  We got to her room at 9 tonight.  She’s been sleeping most of the time.  She’ll be drowsy from the anesthesia most of the night and she has a morphine pump that she presses herself.  She is doing pretty well.  Tomorrow will be interesting once the anesthesia wears off.  They won’t make her get out of bed tomorrow – she can rest all day.  The worst she said her pain was, was about a 6 on a scale of 10 and she said it wasn’t near as bad as everyone said it would be.  I think it’s too early to say that, but we’ll see how tomorrow goes.  The longest she’s been awake has been about 5-10 min.  

    The rooms are reallly nice.  Everything is brand new.  They built a new children’s hospital and it’s been open for about 2 months.  It’s 2 miles away from the strip in Pittsburgh.  Ray and I have a couch and a trundle to sleep on and our own private bath.  Ray’s parents were here all day today, it helped to pass the time.  Leah said Ray’s mom told her she loved her for the first time ever - crazy, huh!  Mother, Eric and Rena are coming tomorrow.  Ray’s brother and girlfriend, practically wife, will be here Friday.  Rena was here all day today and wanted to spend the night.

    I’ll keep you posted.

    From: Kristy

    Sent: Wed 8/12/2009 1:03 PM

    To: Tracy

    I called Gram this morning prior to getting this email.  I didn’t get much information aside from the fact of how long the operation took.  I’m sure that was the longest period of time you’ve ever endured in your life.  I can’t even imagine it. I was thinking about you guy’s all day yesterday.  I’m glad you weren’t there entirely alone.  It’s hard to pass that kind of time. 
     

    I heard you were in a new hospital and that’s good.  I started to wonder this morning about all of these type of arrangements.  You don’t think about that stuff right away.  I know however that it’s all the little things that can be stressful too. Not getting proper sleep, not being in your own bed, etc. etc.   The most important thing I just read in your email is that she’s not in extreme pain, and she seems to be managing things ok.  Every time I’ve had any procedure done and had anesthesia I feel much better when it wears off.  But I think everyone’s different.  Hopefully she’ll be just fine today too. 

     
    I can’t imagine waiting for a stressful situation to tell family you love them, but then again I can. I think some people just don’t know how to express themselves at all.   Rick’s entire family tells me they love me each and every time I see them and/or leave them.  At first it made me feel weird but now I’m very used to it and think it’s rather nice.  Rick tells me at the end of every conversation.  Some day’s it can get to be a bit much lol, but I think it’s nice too. 

    I know that our relationship is not the normal sister one, it’s hard to explain it to anyone else.  However, it’s not because of us or some falling out I had with you, etc.  It’s probably mostly due to the fact that I live elsewhere and almost always have since I was 20.  I do love you and while I don’t really know your kid’s I hate that anything like this is happening to either of them.   I know it will all work out and she’ll be just fine, but man it still stinks that she’s got to go through this at this age.  I can tell you from personal experience, it will make her one tough little cookie and it will make her stronger as an adult.  I am the most tenacious person I know.  Nothing shakes me or at least very little.  I always know that this too shall pass.  That good times will come again, no matter how trying the current one’s may feel.

    I’m absolutely positive that Leah is going to be fine.  I think it’s good that someone noticed what was wrong so she could get help before she was entirely done growing.  I’ll be honest, the entire thing makes me want to take Keith in and have him checked out.  You just never know.

    From:  Tracy

    Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:16 PM

    To: Kristy

    Thanks for the kind words.  Leah has been great today.  She was right – she is one tough cookie.  She had some nausea this morning, but has been fine all day since.  The last time she slept was about 1.  She’s been eating and calling and aim’ing her friends.  She is much more social than I am, but that doesn’t take much.  They had her out of her bed and sitting in a chair for 1/2 hour.  She has me scratching everything – she’s making me her little scratch slave – ha – but I don’t mind.  It makes her feel better and more comfortable.  The morphine makes her itchy which they say is normal.  Tomorrow the catheter comes out and they’ll have her moving around alot more.  Tomorrow night they’re showing the Steeler preseason game in the atrium on a giant and I mean giant screen in the atrium.  I’m looking forward to that.  I don’t think we’ll have any visitors tomorrow night.  Friday everyone will be here except Mother – she was here today.  I like the visitors, it helps pass the time and Ray and I can get away from the room for a bit.  Hey, you know I love you too, but it is weird.  We can’t be close being apart for such a long time.  But you know I care about you and wish things could have been different.        

    From: Kristy  

    Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:48 PM

    To: ‘ Tracy’

    Hooray!!!!  I’m glad she’s doing so so well.  Keith is a social butterfly too.  Me…not sooo much.  I rarely seem to like people enough to want to spend long periods of time with them.  I have just a few good friends and that’s good with me.  I do know that nowadays they don’t let you languish around in bed for long…they want you up and moving and it’s good for her that they’re doing that.  Are they making her breath into that weird plastic tube thing to keep her lungs clear?  How long do they expect it to be before she’ll able to go back to school and do normal stuff like before?

    Being stuck in a hospital room can drive a person nuts.  The last few times I’ve been in there for surgeries etc. I always wanted Rick to get some fresh air.  I felt bad for him. 

    Visitors are the only things that keep things moving along…otherwise there’s nothing to do but watch the minute hand creep around the clock.  Do they have a bandage on her back?  Did they staple her or use stitches and how long do they anticipate that to heal?  I’m really unclear on how they do that surgery, perhaps it’s time for me to Google?  LOL what the heck did we do before Google? 

    While I think the fact that my living in Florida far away is odd and weird, I think it would be and was always just as weird living only a few miles away.  I have no regrets. I have a fantastic full life, albeit a bit odd and unusual.  I have met other people in similar family situations.  I don’t think the answer was for me to live in Johnstown.  It was much harder for me to be within miles of a mother that simply does not care about me whatsoever.  It is what it is, but mileage would not change it.

    I know it might be hard to believe, but I’m very ok with my life.  It’s been good. It’s especially good these days.  I have nothing to complain about. I have a job I like, I’m doing what I want to do.  I have a husband that loves me and is always there for me.  I am busy and I’m happy. I love where I live.  C’mon  I live in constant sunshine!!  Life is sometimes unfortunate.  Things sometimes just aren’t optimal or the way we would wish them to be.  I used to feel bad as though I did something wrong. I no longer feel that way. I was 19, one should not be held accountable for anything they do when they’re growing up.  Kid’s make mistakes.  Mom’s should be the first to support their kids and help them not abandon them.  Kid’s don’t come with owner’s manuals but I’m pretty sure that if they did there would be no “Abandon Ship” page in there.

    This is the great lesson I have learned.  I have loved Keith no matter what.  No matter what his mistakes.  And he’s 16, so he’s making them.  But I suck it up and I love him and when that doesn’t work, I love him again and again.  Rinse, lather repeat.  That’s teenagers.  If Keith had surgery I would be his personal scratcher too. Perhaps that is why even though I am in Florida I have felt like I’ve been on pins and needles waiting for word about a little girl that doesn’t even really know her Aunt Kristy.   If this was Keith I would do anything to make him more comfortable. I’d probably wish I could trade places.  I’d probably toss and turn all night worried.  That’s what Mom’s do.  They love their kids and they do the gross things like wipe up puke without a thought and buy yet another bike even though the last 2 were stolen due to their own kid’s negligence.  At least I do these things. I do them and I do them because I love him.  And he owes me absolutely nothing in return.  All I have ever wanted for Keith was for him to be happy. 

    I used to sit around feeling bad about things that happened but I finally grew up and had a child of my own and learned that normal Mom’s never turn their backs on their children.  Least of all for 18 years.  Normal Moms love them no matter what.  I no longer feel bad at all.  If you asked Keith today he’d simply tell you only good things about his Mom.  I have always put him first and while he’s 16 and struggling to figure life out, he’s a great kid and even when he makes mistakes I love him and I’m most proud of him.  He’s the best thing I ever did and I’m glad I am his Mom. 

    Leah will always remember that you were her personal scratcher…that BOTH of her parents were there with her.  

    Leah’s a lucky little girl.  She has a far better Mother than the one I had.

    Category family | Tags: | 2 Comments

  3. One big giant smile

    August 10, 2009 by shishnit

    Rick and I had the best freaking time in Daytona Beach this weekend with his brother Doug and his girlfriend Cyndee.  I’m as red as a lobster….and am smiling…smiling smiling.  We went parasailing and it was a blast.  I did however get knocked from the boat that takes you back to shore, it’s a smaller boat etc.  We hit a wave and kerplunk I went right off the back of the boat and the boat ran over my right shoulder along the back.  I freaked a bit but managed to hang onto my expensive glasses and be rescued a bit baffled but still smiling this great big smile. You figure if you’re danging 1,000 feet over the ocean the worst thing that’ll happen is you’ll fall into the water.  You never expect to be traveling back to shore in a rather small boat and be dumped overboard and THEN FEEL THE UNDERSIDE OF THE BOAT SLICING YOUR SHOULDER!!!!!  I have a rather nasty scratch and they did provide first aid, that and a sunburn that would rival the red Crayola recipe….oh but….LIFE….she is sweet…sweet….sweet.  You can clearly see me blabbering away to my man…..per usual.

     

    One Big Giant Smile

    Category Rick, family, life, love and marriage | Tags: | 1 Comment

  4. Rick’s brothers…

    July 27, 2009 by shishnit

    Saturday night Rick and I made plans to pick some stuff up at the grocery store and try a new recipe out of a cookbook.  We stopped at our nephew’s house first and plans quickly changed as Doug and Cyndee showed up and then we all sat around chatting it up.  Then we went over to Randy and Chrissy’s house and we had an impromptu get together.  We all chatted and laughed as we watched Matthew try to figure out how to open the locked car door. 

    There was a moment within that night when everything in the world felt perfect.  Those moments are so so fleeting and it flooded over me so fast and thick. I wanted to hug every one. I felt happy inside and out and I hadn’t a care in the world. It felt amazing.  I wish I could bottle that feeling for bad day’s. 

    I have one of our wedding photo’s on my fridge, it’s been there for 3.5 years.  I love it because it’s “my” family.  I married into a “family” and it means the world to me.

    But mostly, I’m glad that Rick shares his life and his family with me. 

    Category family | Tags: | No Comments

  5. it all sneaks up on you

    July 1, 2009 by shishnit

    Over the weekend my brother in law Doug and his new live-in girlfriend Cindy came to visit for the first time.  Yes, my husbands family does things fast.  He just met this woman and they moved to Daytona, FL and she bought a house on a short sale and voila they are officially shacked up.  Rick’s brother Doug is about 12 years older than him and so I suppose when you get in your fifties and you grasp something good you don’t waste time.

    She and I had a brief exchange alone on my back patio whereby she told me that Doug is “patient, quiet, easy going” and that when they met apparently it was like a firecracker going off without noise.  She described it as “I just knew he was different, I felt the impact like a firecracker, but he was calm, there wasn’t any loud noise”.

    Now this is hard for me to hear about my brother in law Doug because we have a love/hate relationship. I love to hate him and he hates that he loves me.  Err..or…er…yah *snickers* that’s right.  However, upon hearing her explain this to me I got it.  I really got it.

    While Doug is Rick’s half “brother from another mother” something my poetical mind loves to repeat over and over because isn’t that a joke…and yet for this situation it is completely the truth. Doug is Rick’s brother from another mother.  See, I even delight in typing it because it gives me the giggles, but certainly not because I’m being disrespectful. 

    Very calmly I whispered to Cindy, “Don’t tell him but he’s my favorite brother in law”.  She smiled.  I honestly hope she did tell him because I’m stubborn and I can’t.  I do have other brother-in-laws.  But Doug is my favorite. And when I say I hate Doug, that’s something I only with an evil smirk tell him, not something that is at all the truth.  I really do love him, but shhh don’t tell.

    It bum’s me out that he’s moved to Daytona.  It bums me out because I rather like sitting on the patio chatting it up while Rick and his brother smoke. I will miss those hours.  They are/were much like having a fistful of brand new sparklers on the 4th of July.  For me, having family drop by unannounced is like winning the lottery.  It’s like buying a six-pack and finding out you have 7 bottles in the bag when you get home.  I have lived the majority of my adult life without family just dropping in.  I’ve had a lot of silence in the compartment in my heart where family is meant to reside.  In fact my own sister was in a pretty brutal car accident and no one told me until I casually called my grandmother to say hello an entire week later and she tells me about it.  My family pretty many bites…save for my grandmother and my Aunt DeDe.  So, in short, Rick’s family bridges a huge gap I have lived with for my entire life.

    On February 14th of this year, my sister in law Robin got married.  It wasn’t a fancy wedding, it wasn’t perfect by any means, but in my heart I truly loved the hell out of just sitting there, completely feeling totally a part of something bigger than just little ole me.  I am a part of that family and it feels so amazing it nearly makes me cry if I allow myself to think about it too long.  His family is not perfect, no one’s is…but it is a family and my soul rejoices at knowing what it is to truly feel a part of one.  Sometimes I want to jump up and yell to all of them when we’re in a group setting, “thank you…thank you for letting me in” because I feel like I won the family prize finally.  I finally know and understand what it is to have an extended family.

    Having said all of this….I get what she said about meeting him and how she felt different but how looking at Doug, he was motionless and rather quiet and she couldn’t quite figure it all out but knew it was earth shattering like a firecracker.

    I get it because that’s exactly how it was when I met Rick.  It was as if I was completely whiplashed but when I looked at him and knew he was the cause, he was the picture of calm.  Calm like the day turns after a huge storm, silent like a brilliant blue sky on a summer day.  Maybe it run’s in the family…I imagine if that is the case, Rick and Doug’s shared father must have been one amazing man and my curiosity about him will never wane for long.  As she told her story about how they met and ended up living together, my brain flew through a thousand memories of how Rick and I came to be, I heard all of her words but when I think back to those day’s I am always amazed at the warmth that floods over me….that “our” story always feels so much better than anyone else’s.  I always think “oh gee, that’s nothing”.  Even when it might be the exact same story on so many levels.  It occurs to me that when you truly love someone your story is your favorite one.  The one about how real love arrives….stealth like…with an earth shattering calm silence forever rearranging the picture of your life into a perfect frame.

    Category Rick, family, love and marriage | Tags: | No Comments

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