My Boy
April 21, 2016
A week ago I got a phone call from J’s school principal. The police had come to school to inform them that someone filed a police report against J because he had shown them a knife the day before on his walk home. They called J into the office and asked him what was going on and if he had the knife with him at the moment. He pulled it out and set it on the table for them and didn’t say another word.
J is extremely sensitive and empathetic. He tries to build other kids up. He loves babies and writing sweet letters to his girlfriend. He isn’t a mean kid, or a vengeful kid. He isn’t full of hate and he would never be able to live with himself if he hurt someone. I couldn’t wrap my mind around why he would have or bring a knife to school.
I was so mad at him when he got home that I couldn’t even deal with him without yelling or feeling compassion so I sent him to his Dad’s house for the night. I had no explanation of what happened and why in the world he would ever have a knife at school. We left for Texas the next morning and didn’t talk about it at all. I could see his fear and sadness. I tried to lift his mood and let him be free for the weekend to enjoy our small getaway but he was so heavy-hearted I could barely get through.
Yesterday he was home alone and his only instruction was to write. I needed him to write me and tell me what happened. I knew we were having our meeting today with the school and his teachers and counselors to determine the disciplinary action and they were going to want the same answers I did.
J’s school is a mile and half away from our house and he has to walk unless someone can pick him up in the afternoon. Most of the time he walks to the library and waits there for me. Every minute I can’t see him and he’s out in the world I worry. I worry because I know he’s afraid to use public bathrooms so he’s holding it. I worry that kids will be assholes. Mostly I worry about the adults, that someone will see him and target him for something far worse than just a kid saying something stupid. He struggles all the time. He’s a 13 year old boy living in the developing body of a girl and it kills him and there is nothing in the world I can do to make it different. He feels less than and alone. As a parent when you see your child hurting you rush to make it better. Band aids, doctors, ice cream, just please stop hurting and be ok and when you can’t make it ok and there is no way to make it ok it’s kind of like having millions of tiny jagged tears in your heart, always painful, always bleeding.
We met with the school today and J has been expelled for the rest of the school year. Actions have consequences and his were wrong. I told them I was going to home school him next year to give him time to more fully develop his sense of self and grow stronger but also selfishly on my part because then I would know where he was at all times and I could breathe a little easier. After the read his letter they hoped I would reconsider. They want him there. They want to help him grow and see him be able to transition into the real world too. It’s still something I need to figure and decide but having so many people around wanting to share in supporting and helping my boy along is overwhelming in a good way. I think it’s an extraordinary thing to have found so many people who can see beyond themselves and really want to help make the life of this one kid a little better. Thank you to all of you who march in our army.
J’s Letter
Us in Texas
Into Bones
April 8, 2016
This week I have been working production on a new tv show. The first 3 days I needed to help scout some locations and it made me have some thinks and some feels.
I had to walk through places from my past. Reach out to contacts I haven’t talked to in a very long while. I felt like a ghost. As I showed the guys around and introduced them to person after person I realized how huge my network really is but I also realized what I’ve become.
When I split up with Bill I made myself small. I rolled up into myself so far that I could not been seen. Our friends were the same, our places were the same, our memories and networks all the same. In my pain I went deep into hiding. I couldn’t bear seeing him or his activities or hearing things he said on the radio about his new life, his new life without me and being happier for it. I unfriended people that I still like because I didn’t want to see any pictures they might post. I stopped living. I went to work, target, and some times digging in that dirty river that I like.
I have realized that the pain I feel when I don’t feel loved must be coming from inside of me. I am not loving myself. No one can love you the way you need to be loved like your own damn self. (not a masturbation joke but honestly that applies here too)
I gave myself a pity pass. Permission to say NO to everything. Permission to be small and hide. Permission to stop. It’s no way to be. Forgive me if you’ve needed me and I wasn’t there.
I am not saying I’m attempting a year of YES just yet but I am saying YEAH. I’ll come out of this place bit by bit and back into the light and into my bones.
Color of Uncertainty
March 9, 2016
The lake is the color of uncertainty today and that is a color I understand. Uncertainty is just fear disguising itself to make you feel like you don’t know the answers. The truths we seek we already have if we can be brave enough to know them.
I’ve known for years that there was a book inside me to be written. I never knew when or how but I did feel as though I wasn’t done living the period to be written about just yet. I’ve learned to trust my instincts. I’ve noticed that when something isn’t right the universe will send roadblocks and that when it is everything seemingly opens up.
My path has now cleared and I’ve given myself permission to just write. I understand that it’s not set in stone and will change and evolve. When I’ve been doubtful and hard on myself I try to bring the focus back to what I need to do.
I realize now that the living that needed to be done to then be written about was just the first part of this thing. Now I have to travel through my past so I can arrive at my conclusion. I know that in doing this I will be changed. I will have to be open to my perceptions and beliefs changing and new realizations and insights coming into view. In doing this I am letting the past be freed and myself be healed. Absolutely everything is a process.
The Second Half
February 13, 2016
Bill’s grandpa passed this week at the age of 90. He was married to his wife for over 60 years. 60 years, 8 kids, a thousand grandkids and about a million great grand kids, what a giant , wonderful life to have woven.
I’ll never be married to anyone for 60 years but I want that.
When Bill and I separated he said “don’t you want to date a bunch of people and explore?”. NO, i told him. I’ve done that. I’ve dated people, I’ve put on the dumb outfits and hurty shoes and gone to bars, I’ve gotten to know people, I’ve internet dated, I’ve put myself out there and I’ve fallen in love a million times and been through all the endings that follow. That’s the first half now I want the second half.
To me the second half is knowing that you have a partner for life. A built in best friend that will be there to cheer you on & cheer you up. Your person. The person you want to dig through life with. Someone who will evolve with you instead of standing still. The person you respect and learn from and with. The person who you can be honest with and can be honest with you. The person you’re going to share your grandkids with, the person who is going to be standing next to you when you’re at your weakest. The person that is going to help you take care of your aging parents and then your aging self. The person that is your family. (The family that you actually like, and claim, and want to be around.) I know that it’s a relationship that takes work and maintenance. It’s the one that will benefit from not making any of the mistakes you made in relationships past and the one you know you’ll choose to work out instead of move on from.
I don’t have 60 years left to give anyway, but I have a good 30 left in me and I hope I spend them in as much peace as I can with a real cool dude.
Here’s to the second half and to everyone who’s been a great person to their person, especially in those times when you thought about just burning the house down and walking away.
The Time Man
February 8, 2016
You can listen HERE.
Doesn’t it always seem like there is never enough time?
I’ve felt rushed since I was a kid I think. I remember hating Sundays even when they’d just started because I had that feeling of dread knowing I had to get up and do something I didn’t want to the next day. I’ve never lived a life that I can remember that was just free. Maybe no one does.
When the kids were little I was living for those nap times so I could do anything that was just mine, most of the time it was just a shower, but hey- it was my time. When I was married to Bill I was always waiting for a show to be over so we could just hang & be together. Now by the time I come home from work, make dinner and do anything that needs to be done it’s 9 and I think, well there’s the whole night, I have no time. Lately I’ve been thinking TIME TO WHAT?
The things we want to do we make time for, the people we want to see we make time for and the rest might just be an excuse. Maybe if we thought less of our lack of time and instead remembered to be grateful for the time we do have it would seem like the time is a gift. Like oh my god! It’s only 9 and I can hang out in my bed for 2 whole hours before I fall asleep! What will I do? Read some books? Watch some Better Call Saul? Have some nice sex? THERE ARE SO MANY OPTIONS NOW! If we look at it this way it might just feel like we’re getting one over on the time man and I think we can all agree that getting anything over on the man just tastes sweeter.
In the words of the great Bill Watterson “There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”
Solid Wood
January 15, 2016
Listen here if you want.
I’ve never had a relationship end while love still existed. It’s always been a very clear feeling of being totally done & over it and that feeling always made all the other things that go into a break up much easier.
I’m a fighter and a fixer so not being with someone I loved, no matter what the cost, wasn’t a real solution to me. Sometimes however, your fate gets decided by someone else and you just have to find your way through and over it.
Still with the way my mind works I find myself always thinking, wondering, and reviewing. Im not dwelling on the what ifs and shoulda wouldas I don’t think, it’s more of trying to really understand the WHY’s of my marriage. The why’s can be a dark place to visit but hopefully by walking through the past it brings you into the light. If you can see why you did things, or reacted in certain ways or put up with things that seem insane when you look back then you should be less likely to repeat the past.
Sometimes I think this process is taking too long. I get mad that I’m not just over it all already and I hate the fact that it hurts me to see him with someone else. I hate that his words “you’re my best friend and the love of my life” still swirl through my mind when I’m trying to separate fact from fiction and trying to understand the difference between the meanings of actions vs just words.
Through all this heaviness there has been light. I have fallen for someone. I’m not sure how I slipped between these two opposite worlds, heartbroken & in love, reconciling the past while in a beginning but, here I am. Sometimes I’ve felt like I must be broken or depleted of fucks to give because I find myself without those thoughts or feelings that I hated, that I had when I was with Bill. I don’t have that anxious stabbing in my stomach telling me to watch my step because the bottom will drop out any time. I don’t have that rapid heart beat induced by jealousy. I don’t feel like I have to be a detective trying to crack the case before the case cracks me. Also I’ve noticed that those dreams that used to haunt me and wake me up by shooting a cold physical chill down my spine have disappeared.
I’ll write about Adam one day. A day when my skies have totally cleared and my light is a little brighter. Until then I’ll be keeping him to myself in our very small world we’ve created.
We build things up and they get torn down, blown down, or burned down but humans are like ants. When you knock their hills over they immediately come swarming out; they give you the finger and then they start over. I’ve never built anything that I got right the first time. Those illustrated instructions never make sense to my brain and I always put something on backwards. Then I have to pull it apart, flip it over, rehammer in the shitty little dowel just to end up with a perfectly flimsy bookshelf from Target. Don’t worry though, I’ve learned my lesson, from here on out I’ll only be building things out of solid wood.
Quiet Pain
January 12, 2016
You can LISTEN to this blog HERE. Or read away.
When I’m in pain I get quiet. Real pain though, not the kind where you get a paper cut on the bendy part of your knuckle that makes the cut reopen every god damn time you move your finger or the kind of pain that comes from your prius hatchback knocking you in the fucking head because it’s all loaded down with snow and ice bullshit, but real pain; the kind that twists your guts, takes the air from your lungs and scrapes the marrow from your bones. When I have found myself in this kind of pain my body just folds into itself, my breathing shallows and I am in a mental vs physical war. I know the pain cannot kill me and if I have taken a drug that it will take hold shortly and all I have to do is last. I keep holding on until the pain releases its dirty grip and I can start to breathe again.
For reasons I’m not quite sure of I feel that I have gone quiet mentally, pulled away from the outside world and have made myself a turtle shell. Social media always seems to be screaming and the quiet distraction of instagram feels like I’m looking at the same pictures all the time, like everyone is modeling their own lives based on the lives of others and now everyone has the same life and the same pictures and the same cool new breezy carefree adventures and outlooks. Sure darlin I want to be an adventurer too but I don’t know where the reality is in our insta world. Im hiding out man. I know that.
There are pains I just haven’t been able to free myself of yet. If I’m quiet or haven’t responded to your email or text or phone call that’s why. Well ok, let’s be honest, if you’ve called and wanted a call back you’ll be waiting forever but the other things I will get to. Winter should be over in about 8 months and the arrival of spring brings new life. Until then I’ll be here throwing things away, reading books, and as always, writing about it all.
Adequate
January 7, 2016
I did something different and recorded this blog and you can listen HERE. When I write I can hear myself reading it and I am not good at reading things out loud and it scares me even though I don’t even have to publish it but fuck it. Being scared and pushing on is ok sometimes. SO anyway, give it a read OR a LISTEN.
Christmas day 2015
One of the things J can’t do or won’t do, I don’t know which it is, is open gifts in front of people. He tries to remain emotionless although I know his real level of excitement any time there are gifts is like 4 year old sneaking down to the tree in the middle of the night to see if santa came and to dig about and see which gifts are for him. So when it comes to birthdays or christmas I am the one that sits next to him and encourages him and physically has to put his hands on the packages to get him to open them. Bill has a lower tolerance for this and I am caught between trying to make J’s experience happy and as stress free and normal as possible and trying to keep Bill from getting mad and frustrated because our kid just can’t rip into things the way a normal kid would. It’s a hard place to be, trying to keep things light and happy and peaceful for everyone knowing anyone could just step on a land mine at anytime burning us all to the ground. It’s exhausting.
Fast forward to later in the day when it was time to go to my parents house and I was trying to push J along to get ready. I got his new boots out for him to wear and was on the ground literally tying them up for him, which by the way he can do himself but sometimes its way easier for me to just help him do stuff like that and make jokes and try to make him feel less anxiety than it is to just yell and scream because I’m frustrated and why can’t he just be normal and do this shit by himself? So I look up and he’s just standing there letting me tie up his boots and giving me the finger at the same time. It was impossible to not get my feelings hurt and all I could say was what the fuck J? After that I just got them in the car and fought off crying the whole way.
What they never tell you in the parenting books is that most of the time you’re going to feel like no one is listening and no one gives a shit how much you give. Kids don’t have any life experience or knowledge of anything other than they were born to you and it’s your job to do the work.
It’s like when we go get in our cars, we expect that car to do it’s job and start and take us where we want to go. We don’t thank the car for starting but my god let that bitch not start and there we are, grown ass people flipping their shit like a kid who didn’t get ice cream.
So we keep going, trying to teach our kids what needs to be learned. Sometimes though, maybe even most times, do we stop and think about what they’re teaching us?
Amy Poehler says “You do it because the doing of it is the thing. The doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing.” and she’s right. We show up, day after day, and we DO. We parent and we love and we keep trying and hope that maybe, just maybe one day these rotten ass kids will have turned into a person who looks back and thinks damn, my parents were adequate.
Dirty Yard Hole
January 4, 2016
Do you ever find yourself just jackin ass around your yard not a care in the world and then BOOOOOOOM. You fall down a hole you didn’t see? It’s not a hole deep enough to kill you on at the end of the fall but just high enough that you’re going to spend your whole damn day trying to climb your way out. That’s what my moods are like. Going along fine and then fuck, there I go down a dirty ass yard hole. I can usually climb my way out within a day, taking breaks of course like when my hand touches a nasty worm and I have to scream and work up to being brave enough to put my hand back on the mud wall to pull myself up or when it gets too rocky and I have to stop to get mad and cry about it and then keep climbing because what the fuck else I am going to do? Does this happen to other people?
Also I deleted my facebook. You can find me on the instagram or here or hey even in real life.
A kindness
December 22, 2015
candrasquire.com 