Sugared Harpy

It’s alive!

It’s not perfect yet…but it’s not gone. And lo, for the past few days I thought the entire thing was GONE.

I’m trying to update the site because apparently it’s being hacked and there is “cloaking” afoot. I don’t know but I know some of my shiznit is not working. Jebus.

“How pregnant do I look in this shirt?”

“Oh, you don’t. You look good in it, Mom.”

(other kid, eyes a bugging) “WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?”

“Huh?

“How pregnant ARE YOU ANYWAY?”

“Oh, god, Mom isn’t pregnant. She’s a girl and she’s really asking if she looks fat. She is not fat and she looks fine.”

I think the reason birthday gifts, thoughtful and heartfelt, mean a lot to me…and why the lack thereof hurts greatly and will hurt for an entire goddamn year…is because my parents are also kind of crappy about that.

Mom recycles the first thing she sees in her house, wraps it up last minute and hands it over.

So, birthday gifts aren’t about the object to me.

Dad doesn’t tell you Happy Birthday until wayyy past your birthday and then several months later shoves some money at you.

So, birthday gifts aren’t about the money to me.

I’m sensitive about gifts, I think because of them. I think a personal effort from one person to another is meaningful, is lovely, and says you care. Not a penny has to be spent, but some thought does. It kills me when that doesn’t happen (see last post: rejected, unwanted; further, not important enough to bother with the effort).

And I’m realizing that I’m just not letting it go from this birthday in February.

Why yes, I probably do need to continue therapy. No, it’s not covered in my insurance anymore.

If you want a happy Easter greeting, here it is:

Happy Easter!

Now, if you’re in a foul mood and want miserable company, stay with me. I’m spending another holiday alone.

I’m alone today because of several factors. Some of these factors I didn’t really get until Saturday night when I was being a crybaby to my boyfriend. The gist of my huffiness being that I tend to feel rejected and unwanted at the holidays and he wasn’t helping for Easter.

He wasn’t doing anything wrong, but I definitely have needs he wasn’t tending to. Uh, mainly because he didn’t know about them. Whatever. We talked. He does now. He’s good with the talking and listening.

Part of why he doesn’t know is that I don’t specify what I need until it’s far too late, when I’m already upset and withdrawn. Fetal position, quiet, staring away in the bed. He doesn’t know what’s wrong or what to do with me. He’s trying to learn how to deal with this woman he cares about.

I was getting upset at the boyfriend about a particular issue and long after I’ve gotten upset at him, talked, and calmed down, I realized that a lot of WHY this holiday and the others this year is such an issue with me is that my family can be pretty crappy at holidays.

Which now, paired with my children usually being gone to other family and a divorce, means I’m alone. Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday, Easter, junk like that.

I’m alone because my father has NEVER invited my sister and me to a family function unless he felt he had to or we were useful. We were in my stepsister’s wedding as bridesmaids because as she put it, “she doesn’t talk to her friends anymore.”

Meaning we wouldn’t have been even invited otherwise, and are only bridesmaids because she needed some. That was the last family gathering my sister and I went to, and it was several years ago. I’ve never even seen her toddler son. Before that wedding, I couldn’t tell you the last thing we went to with him. We weren’t even told when our grandfather died. We are standing orders of not invited, not wanted. Only invite with guilt or need.

I am now quite touchy about WHY someone invites me somewhere, I only want to go if I am wanted there by someone.

My mother spent several years leaving on the holidays. And still does. We just don’t know when, is the problem. There was one Christmas my sister and I actually showed up to her house on Christmas morning to find out she was gone. To Mexico with her boyfriend. She often leaves to spend holidays away from us, I know she loves us and is there 99% of the time, but it’s still hard to take.

At other times, she does holidays on alternate days…which can be quite helpful but also leaves the actual holiday with nothing. I’ve found it difficult to be alone on a day when you know so many others are getting together with someone who wants to spend that time with them.

So, no dad, no mom, my family isn’t big enough to just go to an auntie or cousins’ house. No kids, because either their dad or Mike will take them. And it’s just me. I feel that harsh, sinking feeling of being unwanted, of not being invited, of no one taking the time to ask. And it hurts to ask to be included, because I think that I’m being invited belatedly out of guilt or obligation.

I want to be wanted, invited. And I want to be invited because someone WANTS me there.

“Oh no! I just dropped one of my Reese’s Pieces down my shirt!”

“Hey, I just did that a second ago! It landed right on my belly, so I scooped it up and ate it.”

“Yep, on my belly. Yum!”

Is your askimet spam catcher page working?

Mine is catching da spam, but not letting me go in and permanently delete it. Huh.

April.

BOSSY.

Here.

(I am a stop on Bossy’s Excellent Road Trip.)

Sara has had surgery and is already back home. And doing very well it sounds:

“Sara has been sprung, and is at home, watching Harry Potter, making scones and trying to convince me that there was nothing with her in the first place…”

Brett is TWELVE today!!

Happy Birthday, beautiful. You are very much loved by so very many!