Suffering In Silence

You ever cry and not know you are crying? No? Just me..okay...

Well that was me this morning.  I pulled into the McDonalds drive thru near the job, looked in the mirror to see how bad my hair looked and surprisingly saw a wet face.  I wasnt sweating. I didn't forget to dry my face after I washed it.  I didn't get caught in the rain. after a moment, I knew what it was...and where the tears came from.  See when the tears start flowing and you cant feel them, its usually when you are at your wits end.  It means there is nothing to say. You are waving your white flag, letting God, your best friend, a police officer, a neighbor-somebody - know you need help.

See, I went to sleep angry last night and I guess I should not have been surprised when I woke up somewhat later than normal and my day began to go haywire bubbling over with the anger and frustration that has been looming in my head for weeks.  In case you didnt know I currently, care for someone with severe mental health and intellectual diasabilites. Double wammy-right? Shoot me now.

It seemed somewhat manageable before but now that the baby is here, I swearforgawd, things have gotten CRAZIER (for a lack of words) in my home. Your home is supposed to be your personal space, your safe haven, it's yours-right.  But lately I don't want to go home. I don't want to be there. I don't want to do anything to it. I don't want to clean, buy anything, paint anything, or dust anything. Nothing. I want it and everything and everyone in it to disappear.  My interactions and conversations with my sister  have turned into fights. Simple questions and requests have turned into shouting matches. Simple normal dialogues have turned into arguments. I have said things I am not particularly proud of. I mean I have to argue with her about taking a shower. Really? The arguments have gotten physical. Today I almost ran her head through the wall.  My house and furniture look like a herd of cows ran through it and frankly I am worn out. I am tired of fixing things and fighting. It's someone ELSE'S turn.  And yes I have heard the proverb "to much is given..much is required", but some day's-forgive me Lord-I say take back some of these blessings, because its not worth the struggle. This doesn't seem even. Lord you are not playing fair with me.

And then there are days I only want to be home. To hide from the world so I don't have to answer questions.

Today's blog is because I am feeling discouraged and need to vent. Feeling like I am doing this all alone. Feeling like I am going to have to live the rest of my life, like a prisoner-for a crime I didn't commit. And no one understands.  No one gets it.  You see, they have all of these support programs for people with mental illness and/or intellectual disabilities, but yet they do not provide any real services to folks because there is no funding.  In addition adults, can refuse services, so we have all these people who need counseling, medication, attention- walking the streets -getting worse.  My sister thinks she doesnt need medication or counseling.  She is fine. She had a baby. She is a mom. Her common phrase is "you aint my payee, cause I don't need one". Oh okay. So because of this claus she is free to be who she is. Nasty, mean, ungrateful, lost and dependent on someone else. me. You see my sister didnt ask to be this way. She was born this way.  She was born to a drug-addicted woman who thought bringing another child in this world addicted to drugs and possible chemical imbalances was the thing to do.  Go figure, no one talked her out of it..I know for a fact my mother was pro-choice, so what the hell happened-other than the obvious.

So today at work I continue to look for solutions to end my imprisonment. Wine doesn't seem to be the answer and its getting kind of expensive.  I don't want to turn into a wino (remember: alcoholics go to meetings, drunks go to parties) I'm looking for residential programs (for her), that you need a state funded CONSOLIDATED waiver for.  A waiver that has a waiting list of thousands of names.  Those names will undoubtedly remain on the list for the next several years, because we never have enough money and currently we have a governor and elected officials who don't see the value in mental health and intellectual disability support services. If we had more elected officials and people who cared about fully funding and making resources accessible such as affordable health care coverage, reproductive health care services, kinship care support, basic education, special education, and substance abuse prevention programs-just to name a few would have prevented me from crying in the McDonald's parking lot this morning.  But since this doesn't appear to be a reality in Pennsylvania any time soon, I continue to suffer in silence.

Raising #Peanut

I tried to deny it. 
I tried to avoid it. 
I tried to laugh it off. 
I even cried about it a couple of times-okay I'm lying-maybe a dozen.
I even tried to do it from a distance. 

It has taken me a minute to realize it....but no matter how I have masked it, how I have hid it, how I have avoided it.  Yesterday I had to face it.  

I am a mom. A umi. A ma, mama, matriarch, matron, mommy, mum, mumsy.  A parent.  A guardian. A single mom.  A sole provider for someone else. And not just anyone else. A baby. Someone who can not speak for themselves, can’t walk, can’t do any of things-yet-that we adults voluntarily do. 

I think the reason I was clearly in denial or in the clouds, playing Aunt T T, for the past year, is because I didn’t physically give birth to her.  You see #peanut is my niece.   She is my sisters child.  I didn’t have unprotected sex or purposely baby making sex to give birth to this bundle of joy.  I hadn't met Mr Right or Mr. He'll Do.  In fact she by way of her mother was literally dropped in my lap.   Like a bomb.  One day my sister says she is pregnan and with all her mental and emotional challenges decides on HER own she doesn’t want abortion and doesn’t want to put the baby up for adoption.  That SHE in fact is going to take care of this child, when in fact SHE can not take care of herself. 

So 10 months later, I parented from afar, but as many of my friends know and have seen, I really wasn’t that far.  In fact if it wasn’t for them I probably wouldn’t have been able to make it this far as a single mom.  Ha! Imagine telling a nice gentleman that you have a baby.  Not a kid.  A whole baby.  Immediately with eyes of judgment and a tone only Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas could appreciate, comes the “you said she is 1 years old?”  Immediately I begin to feel like  a harlet, a jezebel… I mean who has a 1 year old and already is on the dating scene…car seat and all?!?!?!? ME. Phillysugamamma.  The nerve of me, right?  I then begin to explain the situation.  “You see, my sister…” Then HIS tone changes, the eyebrows even out, he wants to go on a date…okay. Solid.

*SIGH*

How much longer?   Forever.  What made me realize this, you ask?   Well I can tell you when it didnt happen.  It didnt happen when she was waking the entire house up in the middle of the night for a bottle. It didnt happen at her first birthday party.  It didnt happen when I was shopping in Target in stilettos for diapers. It didnt happen the day, I signed the custody papers. Sometimes God speaks to us in the strangest of ways. 

Yesterday was a normal day.  I woke up, got dressed, got #Peanut dressed and ready for daycare.  We got in the car.  I talked to her.  Told her to be good.  Told her to play nicely.  Told her that I would see her later on. I got out of the car, and carried her to the door.   The staff greeted us with their normal cheer and #Peanut began to wale.  She cried and wouldn’t let me go.  I told her she had to go to daycare and that I would see her later.  She cried some more.  The staff person took her inside.  I sat in my car. Sad.  I couldn’t figure out what had just transpired and why I , Aunt T T was sad.  why?

After work, I did my normal weekly routine.  I hopped in the car and speed to the hairdresser for glam and girl talk.  Found a fabulous parking spot and was on time.  I walked inside, chatted with the girls, got a “spot” and then went to get my hair washed.   As I sat at the wash bowl in the hairdresser preparing to be “molded”, my phone began to ring.  The number that flashed was from the day care .  I immediately panicked.  What had happened?  My OTHER sister who was supposed to pick her up from day care didn’t.  No one had picked her up. #Peanut was there.  All alone. Waiting for someone to arrive.

I ran out of the salon with a plastic cap and everything! I could hear my salon buddies and my stylist screaming “slow down”, “be careful” and asking “what the hell happened?”.  I had to go. I had to go immediately, plastic cap and all.  Mr. Right wasnt gonna be out there today anyway and if he was, I pray he likes plastic!  (all kinds of plastic- I digress)  #Peanut needed me.  She was depending on ME to pick her up.  Nobody else had.  I couldn’t let her down.

And that’s when it hit me.  I was I am a mom.  I mean what kind of people, go speeding down Haverford Avenue with a plastic cap on their heads in West Philly? What kind of people ignore the Mary Kay lady trying to give them catalogs on the corner?  What kind of people turn  right on red lights when the sign says not to? What kind of people bang on the day care door with plastic caps on, ferociously and apologetically saying “I can’t believe shit”.  What kind of people are at ease and began smiling when they see a smiling #Peanut in the arms of the daycare worker waiting to be whisked away to safety.

Moms.  Those kind of people.  They make the world go round.  Their world revolves around #Peanuts

I am a mom.