092- April 1. Peaceful. Today was the first day that I’ve been too frazzled and overwhelmed with other stuff to even think about my Project 365. 92 days in to though, so that’s still not too bad! As an antidote to my stressed out state I lit this lovely scented candle that is melting down in a totally bizarre way, so there’s the story of today’s photo.
What a day, what a day…looking forward to climbing into bed tonight and finishing it off! Next time I say I’m going camping, remind me of all the hassle involved in packing the car today and see if I change my mind. I’m starting to think there’s probably a reason that the last time we went camping was four years ago.
We just need so much stuff! I don’t even feel like we’re being excessive, but a tent for six people, six sleeping bags, six sleeping mats/ airbeds/ camp stretchers, six camping chairs, six bags of clothes, plates/cups/bowls/cutlery for six people takes up a lot of room. Then we’ve added pillows and things to do, an Esky of food, some foam mats, the little fold up picnic table…well, it just goes on and on. In the end we put the middle seat back in the middle row of the car so we could fold down one of the back seats and have enough room to jam anything in. Seriously, if we actually get in to camping we might have to invest in an ordinary towing trailer, just to get all our stuff in.
The kids make packing take twice as long as it would otherwise. A couple of them are desperate to help, which means that I have to think of things they can do unassisted and then wait patiently for them to do something that would take me half as long. The other kids keep adding to the pile of things to pack, or will grab something and wander away with it, so goodness knows how many things will be missing once we actually get there!
Oh well. Take a deep breath Rebecca! I’m sure it will be worth all the drama once we’re there. A holiday will be lovely.
Today was also a dramatic day in a kind of second hand drama way, because Troy and the kids went to a barbecue with his parents and there was actually discussion of issues. I didn’t deliberately skip out on this lunch, although I admit I probably wouldn’t have been all that keen. Truth is I just slept in until after noon. (Again. Does it seem like maybe there’s something wrong with me that if I’m left alone I don’t wake up until the afternoon?)
Anyway, although Troy had assumed that Brett and his kids would be there, (or at least the kids) it was actually just his parents, and he and his mum seem to have had a big chat. She started it asking why I’m punishing her, and what she’s done wrong. Which, well, I’m glad I wasn’t there.
But Troy actually seized the conversational beginning and went with it. Told them a lot of stuff about how we’re feeling- that basically they’ve showed us in both what they say and what they do that we’re not on their list of priorities. That I feel abandoned and I don’t like hanging out with Brett & co. Apparently it went on for ages, although when Troy came home and told me about it he said that while it was good to actually say all this stuff, he doesn’t assume anything will change because of it.
Anyway, Troy said that I didn’t have any problem being around his mum, but I did have a bit of a problem being around her with Brett’s kids. That the situation there is really hard for us, it makes me unhappy, and we really don’t want to hang out with them. He then talked about a lot of the stuff I’m always whining on about.
What it comes down to, is that his mum says she helps based on need. So in her mind Troy and I are capable so we just have to deal, and Brett’s an incompetent so she’ll manage his life so he doesn’t have to. She also pointed out that last year when I was having a mental breakdown she spent two days at our house looking after the kids. I hate thinking about that time, and yes she did come and help, but…fuck it. Being suicidal gets you two days of help, and that’s it, but being a selfish asshole like Brett gets you a lifetime of never doing anything you don’t want to? Good to know.
Troy did say to them that maybe a bit of help and support might have stopped things before they got to that point, but his mum said to him that we didn’t ask. We DO ask, but it’s always a matter of what she’s doing with Brett’s kids and when it comes to the crunch I’m sick of asking and being reminded, every single time, that me and my kids are not as important as the others.
Not to mention that the help we did get from them was Soren being looked after one morning a week (from after I dropped the kids off at school to lunch time) and that lasted about three weeks before she couldn’t do it because of the cousins one day, and then she said she had to look after the cousins but she’d just take Soren with her and I thought it wasn’t really fair for him to spend two hours in a car so she could look after the cousins.
Troy also said something about Brett’s new house, and Jean said very definitely that she has put no money in to that, just put her name on the loan and because April works full time they afford it. When Troy asked her she also said that she’d continue to babysit his kids on the weekends when Brett and April both worked. Troy said that it was one of those things though, that our kids always come second to the other cousins because when Jean prioritises babysitting for work purposes over any other purposes. She said that she didn’t but…that’s just bullshit, and that’s been a huge part of the problem.
God, I don’t know. There was more stuff said, but it can all be summed up by saying that nothing’s going to change. That Jean doesn’t think anything that’s happened is unfair or unreasonable, and whatever Troy and I feel is just our problem.
I actually do understand her view of helping people based on their needs. I mean, in a very basic way that’s what parenting multiple children is all about- right now Soren still needs me to wipe his bottom, but obviously Nicholai is far beyond that! Where the issues with Troy’s parents arise though is that Jean and I seem to have very different views on what constitutes ‘helping’ versus enabling.
Funny thing is, Troy pointed out to his mother about the whole enabling bad decisions. She said that she has disagreed with decisions we’ve all made, but just has to go along with them. (Like us having a baby before we got married! I think she could probably let that one go, ten years down the track and still married and three other children later!) But anyway, my point with all this is that there’s a difference between keeping your mouth shut about a bad decision to support your child, and supporting a bad decision like getting married four months after your divorce by handing over thousands of dollars.
Part of me wishes I’d been there to share my thoughts, although a huge part of me is damn glad I wasn’t anywhere near it because even just hearing about it from Troy made me cry! And Troy was brilliant, truly- sometimes I have been frustrated with him for not saying anything when the opportunity arises, but today he really let out everything.
I’m just…I don’t know. Feeling guilty and ragey and sad all at once? It makes me angry that Jean sees me avoiding family things as punishing her, when it’s really not about that at all (although I admit I’ve been tempted to that kind of pettiness, because I’m really a kind of horrible person). I’m not punishing Troy’s mum at all, that’s not my motivation in the least little bit. But she’s made her choices about the way she’s going to do things, and now I’m making mine.
The thing is after all this time I’ve realised that I have no control over the situation. The only thing I can control is how much I have to participate in it by being around them. And I don’t want to do that. It makes me unhappy, it hurts me, and I hate seeing my kids always coming in second place with their grandparents, so in situations where it’s possible to do so I avoid it.
But I’m still sad. I hate this. I hate the way everything has turned out with Troy’s family because it used to be so much better. I feel like I’ve lost something, and the kids will just keep on being the biggest losers in the whole mess. I hate feeling that someone is cross with me and thinking bad things about me.
Anyway, whatever. I need to let it go, I need to calm down and relax and focus on my own little family, and making this a good holiday for us all. Fingers crossed it all works out!
Feeling the Sun From Both Sides 