alcoholism – Quixotic Mama

i usta sit
by darkened
winter windows
this same window
i now make art
with the light of
eons ago
i stared at the dark
reflecting little me
reflecting damaged me
back
waiting for him
to come home
praying
he would not
come home
death wishes
for daddy dearest
&
only forty years later
wishes
granted.

yesterday as i was driving back from dropping off the minions, my cell phone rang & “pure evil” came up on the screen.
i did not answer.
when i got home, i listened to the message. my mom, telling me that she thought he was asleep, but that my dad is dead.
that’s my mom, phoning around for a reaction before actually calling the paramedics.
so…my dad is dead.
don’t say you’re sorry, because i am not & if you say you’re sorry, it will only make me feel like a bigger shit.

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this same window
i spend my day
creating
art
from the light
shining through
this same window
i used to sit
as a child
staring at the dark
reflected
back
at me
waiting
for my father
to come home
wishing
for my father
to never
come
home
it’s a different window
though it is
the same
only light comes through
now
no
more
dark.

i scribbled this thought down a few days ago, and remembered it today while reading JGomez’s beautiful & powerful piece “Disintegrate Elsewhere.”
my father always came home…and his homecomings were generally stressful…if not terrifying. a family walking on eggshells while a father waits, determined to take his temper out on someone. i learned to be quiet. i learned to be invisible. i learned to not draw the disturbed glare of his blue eyes.
i watched as others took the brunt of his temper. wishing him away. wishing to feel safe.

i live in the same house…but it is a different house now that he is gone. i wish little me had gotten to feel the peace that i am now, finally, able to feel.

i have not lost my mind today.
and that is something
yesterday the chickens got out
and those fuckers like to tear up my garden
so my inner control freak
took the reins
as i ran like a madwoman
trying to herd chickens
shouting incomprehensible orders
at the minions
i did an awesome impression
of my abusive father
and how he would scream at us
because we weren’t doing it right.
even if we didn’t know what
“right” was
exactly
i went after poor fidgit
like a mad dog
which makes sense that he would draw
my fire
he is the one most like
me.
my nerves raw
from being a mom
and feeling always
like i am doing it
wrong
so a day
where i have not lost my mind
is a small celebration for me.

i have not had a beer in a week now. every day i feel like the universe is pushing me with all it’s might to go get some beer…or whiskey…my favorite ways to self-medicate. it’s not like i get drunk…but i am building up quite a tolerance. like the song says, it used to take one & now it takes four. which gets expensive…and does not help with my body image issues either as i get stouter & stouter.

so i’m trying to go without.

no one should have to parent sober. it’s a cruel thing. but now my inner control freak is seeing it as some kind of sick challenge & won’t let me get beer now even if i wanted to. i have started hinting to it that next week is st. patrick’s day & it wouldn’t be very irish of me not to drink beer then. for many many years my inner control freak never let me drink. my dad was a horrible nasty abusive alcoholic. so i did not drink. all my friends were potheads, junkies, and alcoholics and i hung out at bars & parties…but i never drank. not until i started drinking to spite an ex-boyfriend…but that is another story.

i don’t want to be my dad.

not wanting to be my mom affects my relationships with men.
not wanting to be my dad affects my relationship with my minions.

but i didn’t lose my mind today…and i did it without having a beer.
so…yay!

i have whole files full of one line–one paragraph–one page stories. whole journals full of incomplete thoughts and epiphanies. are you ready? i’m going to make them all into comics. maybe. if you’re lucky. turn them all into visual art. use what i have learned in my ink blot tests. use what i have learned in my comic making. use my whimsy and my darkness.

are you ready?

it’s the next step of my metamorphosis. changing and staying the same.

i got a lot done today as i am off of facebook forever…again. i worked on art files & writing files. i had to move all of my stories to google docs because my microsoft word expired and i am one broke-ass mama.
really.
i have no money.
i am living off of credit cards wondering if my ex will ever send me child support. probably not. when the kids stayed the week with him, he sent all their dirty laundry home with me because he didn’t want to use his mom’s detergent as i might not like it.
um…?
so i nicely suggested he buy his own laundry detergent.
i was nice about it.
really, i was. i am working very hard on not being aggressive…passive-aggressive–reactionary…any of those things that kept me in that same destructive cycle with him. i am being a model of cool, calm, & collected.
(that was what it said under my dad’s yearbook picture. my dad, destined to be a violent alcoholic…cool, calm, and collected. so…maybe i will have to work really hard on it as my example of cool, calm, and collected is a bit skewed….)

but i wasn’t so cool, calm, and collected with my kids. i had a screaming fit that scared the crap out of them. what’s the good of not being physically violent with my kids if i am going to lose my mind & scar them accordingly?
“i am losing my mind!” my three year old will say to me.
right.
i always love when they model my bad behavior right back at me.
i have a long way to go on being a sane parent. sometimes i cry, wondering if i would have been a good mom if i had had a supportive husband. if i had had loving parents of my own. if i hadn’t of been broken so severely and completely and eternally.

baby steps.
until i run out of time.

Tag: alcoholism

death wishes

curtains

when dogs flew

narcoleptic woodpecker