Blacksheep Speaks

Welcome back!

First of all, this is an extremely personal post, and I need to apologize in advance to those it may cause to remember the painful things of the past. If it were not for my daughter’s current position, I would not be doing this, and to the others, mostly my sister, I apologize.

To set the stage… I was nineteen years old, unmarried, just walked away from college. I needed a place to stay, and I did NOT want to move back to my parents’ house. Back then, my father and I got along just about as well, as my wildchild and I do now. My sister is twenty years older than I am… and the gap has a reason. My grandparents adopted me. Biologically speaking, my “sister” is my birth mother. That alone is cause for an awful lot of tension, especially when you are nineteen and clueless. To add to the issue, she has a daughter that is three years younger than I am, who liked living alone (my mother/sister was driving a truck back then, home very little, and was divorced, so her daughter stayed alone). Needless to say, my moving in was NOT taken well by the sixteen year old. Her mother’s friends heard only her side of anything, and within a week, my mother/sister was forced to come in off the road, ostensibly to deal with the devil incarnate (me). Long story short, she called our parents and I was forced to move back home. Feelings were tense not just between parties actually involved in this, but between my sister and our parents as well, and ALL communication was severed for a time.

Being only nineteen, and a very YOUNG nineteen at that, I didn’t want it that way. I wanted my mother/sister to acknowledge me SOMEHOW. So, I started writing letters. There were only two letters, actually. And they weren’t nice. As I recall, I pretty much told her that I blamed her for absolutely everything back to Eve and the apple. I told her that this whole thing was killing Mom and Dad, and that she ought to essentially go the same way. I actually NEVER intended to threaten violence, and as all parties are (now) well aware, I wouldn’t have done anything to physically harm anybody. But what actually happened wasn’t the communication I was after… it was a warrant for my arrest on some kind of harrassment charge. I actually had to go to court, where the judge scared the crap out of me and then dismissed the whole damn thing. And the kicker? My pastor, the man who BAPTISED me, was sitting in the courtroom that day.

This was not the final act of stupidity I pulled in my wildchild days. And, I suppose that it is only to be expected that, with four daughters of my own, at least one of them would follow in her mother’s footsteps.

My oldest daughter recently married a manchild we now refer to as “the weasel-in-law”. He talks a really good story… while he is sitting here without a job for months on end, stealing food in the middle of the night, running up our bills and pretending to love the family. He did enlist in the Army. However, when the army folks figured out that he lied to them about a domestic violence charge he was guilty of, they unceremoniously booted his ass out. Then we run across all this garbage on his and my daughter’s MySpace pages about “picking on retards” and the enjoyment he gets from it, plus a few choice things OTHER than that that were actually worse… and my wildchild supports the ass, and an argument ensues. When the weasel-in-law figures out his free ride is over, he starts literally feeding my daughter things to scream at us. You do NOT want to hear what she called my eighty year old mother. And she tried to literally beat the crap out of her eighteen year old sister. We will not go into what she said to me. Well, screamed at me, actually. The end result was that they were forcibly removed from the household.

My wildchild has a daughter, who is two months old. Her husband is NOT the father, and she gave custody of the child to her father and myself, for several reasons. The baby is a beautiful child, and we do not want her involved in the arguments. However, my daughter and the weasel-in-law argued around the baby constantly, and as a result we are dealing with a LOT of nightmares that no two month old should have to endure. This started well before the pair left here. It’s not like they didn’t KNOW what they were doing. It was pointed out to them repeatedly, for weeks. They simply cared more about themselves and being right than they did about the harm they were causing the child.

The rest is almost like a flashback to the time when I was nineteen myself. The couple are living it up on my daughter’s credit card, staying a a rather nice hotel. When the credit card runs out, I have no idea what they will do, but neither of them have a job, nor do they intend to pay off the debts they are incurring. And instead of writing letters, my wildchild uses MySpace to make sure we know how “heartbroken” she is. She tells her sister on the phone that this is all MY fault, that I have caused EVERY problem in her life, and that her life would be perfect id I just… well, whatever.

I am at fault, all right. For loving her enough to harbor that weenie she married, for paying the bills, for accepting the child she was done with. She wears motherhood like a trophy, and her friends seem to think that Weasel is the father. He was never even allowed to HOLD the baby because we saw it as dangerous, for the record. Why? Because when he argues, a lot of the time it gets physical, and my daughter has been hurt. He even pushed ME once, and is very lucky that my husband was not in the room.

And the end result? Estrangement, of course. Save it, Wildchild. You are not making me feel guilty, though you tell your sister that guilt is the point. You are only reinforcing the reasons that you were ejected. I do feel pity, because I remember what it was like and what YOU will go through on your long road to maturity.

But, in the meantime, something to remember on your journey… I love you, and we’ll be here when you come to your senses… at least, I hope we all live that long. Till then, walk with God, MyChellie.

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With a lot of focus lately being on my departing teens, it’s almost easy to overlook the fact that my youngest two teens are about to start school again as well. One enters the eighth grade this year, the other the ninth. And so, the more things change, the more they stay the same… I am already aware of what is coming. Football games, visits from lines of young men all in need of some kind of acne cure, grumpy mornings, and phone lines tied up ad nauseum. Ah, this is the life! Or something.

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You know, between the hasty departure of my daughter and weasel-in-law, who left half her stuff behind, and the imminent departure of my college bound daughter, storage space around here is getting kind of hard to find. Both the garage and attic are a wee bit full. And it gets worse when I step in to convince my college girl that there is no place for her ellipticals in her dorm room… besides, the college offers a full workout facility anyway. Exercise is important to her, because she is majoring in biomedical science but planning to enter the Air Force after her college graduation. Leaving the equipment behind is kind of like saying goodbye to an old friend, I guess. But having convinced her…. where am I gonna PUT it?

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In the midst of all the turmoil around here, we are preparing for another departure… that of my freshly graduated eighteen year old, who leaves for college in about three weeks. Her room is an incredible jumbled mess, stuff sitting in piles everywhere as she decides what to discard, what to take with her, and what things she wants to keep but not take, which will be boxed, put in the attic, and forgotten forever. We are renting a van to take her and her belongings to college, mostly because the travel insurance they insist you buy when you rent one covers darn near everything. She’s really looking forward to her freshman year, and the college she chose is an old one, steeped in history. Winston Churchill gave a very famous speech there, and the college grounds have, on exhibit, a piece of the Berlin Wall. She had been a little worried about choosing this college, but after her visit to the campus a couple weeks ago, she is comfortable with everything…. except the Calculus class she has to take, that is. Well, you can’t have everything!

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I am not big on major blow ups, but we sure had one here yesterday. Looks like our viewing of the Newlywed Show is over. My misguided eldest daughter and that dimwit, lying, thief of a weasel she married were removed from the house, more or less. It started when I read an entry on myspace, written by the weasel-in-law, talking about how much fun he has picking on “retards”. His use of the word “nigger” isn’t something I tolerate, either. When confronted, it became very clear that what we had been seeing was a mask, put on for our benefit. My daughter, who still has a lot of growing up to do, turned into someone I don’t know as well. They will be living in a homeless shelter, I guess, and she will have plenty of opportunity to learn it. She didn’t even bother to say goodbye to her two month old daughter.

The weasel-in-law did the packing. He packed all of his own things, but left things behind that he knew my daughter cares about… all but one pair of her shoes, her glass chess set…. and anything she bought him, actually, I guess their stuff is going to get boxed and stored in the garage next to the molding golf bags, to wait until she comes to her senses.

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When I was a little girl, sumer seemed to stretch on forever. There was always a lot of time to get done what I wanted to get done. But now, as the mother, it sure seems shorter. This year is going to be pretty different too, in about four weeks. The newlyweds are finally moving out, and will be free to argue privately. Hopefully, at least one of them will survive the experience. And my eighteen year old will be leaving for college… not really that big a change on that, since she has been living away at school for two school years already. And the younger teens head back to school, one starting a little earlier due to marching band practice. What that adds up to is a very quiet house in about a month… just my husband, my mother, my granddaughter, and myself. With the house cleared out, we will be able to finally get some deep cleaning done. It will feel good, too… it isn’t just the carpets that need steam cleaning and the windows that need washing inside and out… it’s the remnants of tempera paint on the light switches and HDMI wall plate from the time when my youngest decided to redecorate FOR us… the funky stuff growing under the fridge… and, even with all these people, there are STILL clothes around that fit absolutely nobody that need to be sorted, thrown out, or mended and given away. It’s going to be a full school year!

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Since I finally got the picture thingy more or less working, I get to brag about my newly graduated eighteen year old now. The photo you are looking at shows her at her high school graduation shaking hands with our governor. Mollie (yes, the baby is named after her) has worked incredibly hard for this. Her high school, the “smart” school that I keep talking about on here, is one of the hardest in the country. They do college and post college level work there. As I recall, one of the highlights of her school days there was her microbiology class, and getting to experience working with one of those machines they use to do microsurgery. Or maybe that was the experimental genetics class. I can’t remember. What I DO remember is that it seems just yesterday this girl was thirteen and sorting through acne treatment ideas, and now she is about to leave home for one of the country’s top colleges. Not to mention the governor thing. Where does the time go?

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Every other member of my family has been posting baby pictures on their blogs, but I have been having a wee bit of trouble with a program, so I haven’t… but I think I finally got the problem fixed. If I did, below is a picture of the most beautiful pair of eyes that ever existed. No need for Lasik here, either… these eyes can see a bottle being prepared halfway across the house. The eyes belong to my granddaughter, Mollie Elisabeth, who, according to the doctor at her one month checkup, is “perfect”. I must say, I have to agree with that assessment!

See what I mean? Definitely the most gorgeous, ever. She’s just about six weeks old now. I am NOT looking forward to when she turns two months and has to start getting her shots. I am the one who has to hold her for that. I turn into one unhappy granny, let me tell you! I already had to do it once. Yick. The baby, it appears, feels the same way about needles that I do.

…

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Well, after a brief respite, the newlyweds have been at each other’s throats again. I keep hearing all this and thinking… was I EVER this young and, well, stupid? Probably. But some of their ARGUMENTS…. case in point, the other day’s gem: I have no idea what the original fight was over, but I DO recall my son in law’s defense point… which was screamed at the top of his lungs. He actually said… if you can believe it… “How can you expect me to remember that? I DON’T THINK!”

Yes, he was actually serious. Heh, maybe it IS us that should move out. FAR out and away, and leave no forwarding address. I think when I get through with this post I am gonna look around for the best mover NYC has to offer, and seriously consider just quietly fading away.

Or maybe I’ll just take a nap.

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Independence. What a word. So many people these days have so little appreciation of what it means. Presumably, the guy that ran from the police here the other night understands it… they haven’t caught him yet. Just a couple words here to mark this day… God bless our troops, still out fighting to make sure we stay safe, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and around the world. God bless also the troops that stay on home ground, for they are as much a part of the battle for freedom as those in the middle of the physical fight. And God bless the families who wait for them, for they give as much as the fighting troops themselves.

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