Stuff I think about

There’s this show on PBS I’d like to watch sometime, it’s called ‘One Stroke Painting’. I think that show would help me become a really good artist – it would be perfect for someone like me, because I have only had one stroke. It was a long time ago, but I don’t think there’s a time limit on stuff like that – once you have a stroke, you are forever someone who has had a stroke. Mine was nineteen years ago; my, how time flies when one is having fun! I got the bonus plan, complete with brain surgery and the whole nine. My daughter, strangely enough, then went and had one of her own – she was much younger, and hers was completely different and unrelated. She was only five, where I was nineteen when I was afflicted. She has more residual effects, although she’s done better than the worst-case scenarios we were first presented with; she does walk, she’s largely capable. Her biggest hurdle is her own attitude – fifteen now, and convinced the world owes her a pass on everything. Made worse of course by the ex-husband who has ALWAYS been more interested in being the best buddy than being a parent… and don’t get me started on his overprotective mother, whose basement he still lives in at the ripe old age of forty. And we can’t get a date WHY?
but I digress.
My daughter has grown up thinking she should never have to push herself to overcome her challenges. As someone who has struggled with almost the very same challenges, it gets really hard for me sometimes to watch her and worry about what’s going to happen when she walks into the grown-up world and finds out the world isn’t going to cater to her because ‘junk is hard’. We (her stepdad and I) have tried for a decade now to build her up and convince her she has the strength to stare down some of the things she has let hold her back; she in turn has determined that we are the mean, evil, hard-ass Nazi parents. She puts four times the energy into avoiding her problems than it would take to start knocking them out of the park. And despises me the entire time she is doing it.
My daughter will turn sixteen next month. She is mentally equivalent to the average kid her age; she is imaginative, can be funny, likes to laugh, has a temper, does well in some classes and rotten in others. Meanwhile, she will not bathe unless instructed, has to be physically watched to make sure she takes her medications, refuses to take part in household chores, and cannot take responsibility for anything going on in her life. The very idea that she would be driving in the next six months is inconceivable.
I wonder alot… where is she going to be in life, when she is my age? Will she be living in her grandma’s basement with her dad? Will she be able to make rent? Will she be in a codependant relationship? Will she have a decent job? Will she be able to raise good kids? Will she still resent me, or will she understand how deep my love and concern for her have always been? Will she be happy, or will it be too late?
God, my head hurts… but that’s normal. I have had a headache since I was nineteen… did I tell you I had a stroke?

Being Ten in 2008

Son: “Check out my grim reaper Bionicle creature I made, and this is his apprentice.”
Me: “That apprentice looks kind of lame.”
Son: “I know, the grim reaper hates him.”
Me: “Then why does he have him for an apprentice?”
Son: “Well, you know… he’s a temp.”

It’s just too much.

I feel like I have to get it all out… blog before there is too much to handle, but part of me fears it may already be too late. Too much this week, too too much! So I will sum up: exploding washing machine, old metrology men gabbing about moustache coloring and how to handle those wild, wiry whites… crazy killer My Pretty Pony unicorns, life-size, mind you, chasing me through the night to the angry sounds of my husband’s chronic snoring, the dizzying heights of the Principals’ academic award and the lowly depths of high school parent teacher conferences. A husband married to his new job, a pirated pirate day, and drowning in teeny tiny old lady shoes… auditors from Hell and new on-time metrics plus 2 movie projects just about round out the week… it’s just too much.