A New Day

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Well it’s a new day and Jane Thrive is still alive.  Lol.  It’s kind of amazing how fast life can change, one minute you’re jogging across the crosswalk, the next, you’re flying through the air and knocked out cold.  Apparently the Ford Explorer was going 35-40 mph according to the firemen…they don’t know for sure.  The driver says he had the green light, but I know I had the light crossing the highway.  (I’m letting the insurance company deal with all this, because I have to concentrate on healing and being a mom and working and all of that!)  I’m just lucky to be alive.  So much has happened since the summer, so I’ll try and do a quick catch up!

My mom’s memorial was beautiful and compelling and just everything I was hoping for—about 80 people came from five different states to remember my mom.  The girls recited Psalm 23 together which pretty much made my heart burst, and prior to the ceremony, with the help of one of my mom’s BFFs, big sister helped decorate a posterboard with pictures of mom in all her walks of life.  It was just so sweet having everyone be there together and I was able to share my speech about mom’s life—people were very kind and hugged me afterwards and some of my mom’s later in life friends said they were so glad they got to know more about mom’s early days.  Which also made my heart burst.  My BFF also rendezvous-ed with us, and I got to spend time with her babies and the kids could hang together for the week end; my nephews had a sleepover with us at the hotel—it was just a week end of smooshy family love!  After the memorial we spent some much needed relaxation time with the hubby’s family, which was so important to me, as I don’t have much family left now that mom is gone. 

And then we came back home and I attempted to come back to work in mid-August.  On the morning of 9/11, driving to my orthopedist to deal with my wrist fracture, I had another run in at an intersection—car collision, and my airbags went off and I about cried myself silly with the PTSD of the first accident.  Oh my goodness, what in the world is going on?  The good news about this accident is that while I have whiplash, the other driver was unhurt, I was able to get a referral to a concussion specialist.  After returning to work in August, I’ve been experiencing daily headaches, and up until the car collision, I wasn’t able to get a referral to a neurologist.  No one wanted to take me because the origin of the medical issue was related to a car (welcome to health insurance nightmare 101, and I feel fortunate to have insurance in the first place, but the 6 specialists I reached out to wouldn’t take it, because no, it’s car-related!).  At any rate, thank goodness for the second ER visit, because the trauma team recommended a concussion specialist—who did a battery of vision/vestibular (fancy word for balance system) tests on me and my headaches are just part of a normal post-concussion condition.  Which is fixable and treatable, hurray!

So now I’m in PT for my wrist/shoulder (pedestrian hit), back/neck (car collision), and brain (post concussion from the pedestrian hit).  Suffice it to say—I’m a mess!  LOL.  But a positive mess—in that I’m so grateful and thankful that all of the symptoms I’m currently experiencing, while a huge PITA, are considered ‘normal’—I’m on the healing path—and at least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.   For those who want to believe—believe it when I tell you I think my mom had everything to do with my being still on this earth.  A Ford freaking Explorer had barreled down the highway, and just 114 lbs me —and I walked away from it with a banged head and fractured wrist…?  I get kinda teary eyed thinking about it.

As for the co-parenting?  The pedestrian hit actually gave me a really amazing, embrace-the-world hit of adrenaline, and I was determined to turn over a new leaf and extend love to the whole world—even to the father of my children, lol.  I say lol and this is why—after greeting him when he was dropping the kids off after the accident and he refused to acknowledge or even meet my eyes, I realized oh right, he never did ask if I was okay or offer to help in any way...topped off with slightly nasty texts he accidentally sent to me later that afternoon, but were meant to his girlfriend (! I didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry!) I had a different sort of epiphany…in my time together with him, there was always someone…his mom, his brother, a coworker who once was his BFF, someone who always WRONGED him.  And as his partner back then who went along with him, I remember thinking, oh right, that’s so uncool and unfair of x or y or z.  The epiphany I had was:  oh yes, now I’M the x or y or z.  And likely will be unless there’s a miracle of changing his ways.  So why am I wasting my time thinking he will suddenly be cordial and kind and cooperative?  Yes, I will be civil, especially in front of the kids, so they can see their mom being kind to their dad.  Yes, I do have love in my heart for the father of my children because he is the father of my children.  But no, I will no longer expect kind or cooperative in return, and that’s just how it is.  I don’t know why it took getting hit by a car to get me to this place.

Also, Houston we have news!  There is a girlfriend—and from what the girls say, she is nice and they like her, and she’s really kind to them!  And while the place I have in my heart for women-kind worries about any woman who may become involved with him, I’m relieved to learn that she has a great career (good role modeling for the girls) and is kind to the girls.  Apparently it is a long-distance relationship, so she will only see the good side of him—we know he can hold it together well.  The absolute best case scenario is that he will get his !@#$ together and be a good person, heal and move forward from the anger issues, and maybe this relationship will help him see the light for that.  However judging from past behavior and even his behavior towards me…the odds are not leaning that way and it’s not my responsibility, nor hers, to ‘fix’ him…we shall see what happens.

The other news that I’ve learned is that he didn’t move out to his own place at his own behest.  Apparently, his mom asked him to leave.  From what I understand, she did this because it was too much stress with him and his brother and his mom in the same house and in a weird way, I feel both relieved (relieved for her, and as for me…validated...in that i'm not the only who had to make a change for my personal health) and also much sympathy and empathy for my ex mom-in-law.  From the violence of my ex’s dad, to my ex inheriting the anger issues, to my ex’s brother and the conflict of having him testify about my ex’s anger issues…it hasn’t been an easy life for her, and for her take a stand and make sure her house is one that can be more peaceful—it must have taken a great deal of strength to get to that conclusion and further, to see it through.

So lots of information bombs and healing and working through thoughts and emotion happening over at chez Survive, Live, Thrive.  I am so thankful my girls are doing well and growing up and big sister is embarking on her middle school years in a new school and thriving and doing well so far.  Little sister is now out from under her sister’s shadow at her elementary school, so I’m just wishing and loving and praying we are on good footing for a great school year.  I had some challenges with my mouthy tween being really rude and unkind with her words to me last week end, the result of which she is not allowed to have electronic time this week at mom’s house.  I thought she’d throw a hissy fit, but she is taking it in stride and talking with me with more civility.  I simply told her that girls who are mean to moms (while it’s okay to be angry and irritated and upset, it’s not okay to be mean and nasty), do not have privileges like electronics, and I know she could do better as I know she can behave.  So let’s see how this week pans out.

Also, big sister has been watching the Kavanaugh hearings.  Having been a huge fan of Justice Ginsberg and writing a report about all that she’s done last year for her class project, I thought this was a good opportunity to understand the craziness of our current judicial selection process—but also a good segue in talking about consent.  Over the years, I’ve been candid with both sisters about the changes our bodies go through when growing up—I figure having the words takes away some of the fear of our changing moods, hormones, periods, body parts, etc.  So lately I’ve been meandering our conversation more and more into the realm of how our bodies are our own, that no one is allowed to touch them unless we give our consent.  How the unfairness of the world when Justice Ginsberg was growing up, that once upon a time it was very rare and frankly discouraged for women to even attend or exceed in higher education, that the march of time leads directly to today where women are less likely to be believed than men, period.  And while that is unfair, unfortunately that’s the world we live in.  That unlike Judge Kavanaugh, Dr. Ford and her family had to go into hiding from the people in the world who do not believe her and are harassing her for sharing her truth to the point of death threats.  And that no matter what, if big sister is ever confused about anything that has to do with her body or someone touching her, to please always come to me.  (In her very tween way, she was like I KNOW MOM, and I loved that she was irritated with me to the point of not believing that something like that is a danger for her, that her world is not yet marred by this !@#$).  She actually told me that she would tell her friends or SOMEONE (specifically not me in that moment), and I said, okay honey, be sure to tell me, especially if that someone reacts in any way that is upsetting, because not everyone has the ability to react in a way that’s helpful.  And she grudgingly agreed.  (Dear world, if you are the person my daughter turns to, please be a good, just, trustworthy person).

In fact that leads me to my prayer of the day:

Dear World,

Please let us make this world a better, more just, civil, kinder world than the one I grew up in (as a child of the 80s).  Please let it be better for my daughters than the one where my mom had to struggle to make it into the workplace, where my grandmother had few opportunities for education and/or financial independence.  Please let us be better.  Please let us be the love we want to see the world.

Love,

Jane

p.s. so this pretty much sums up the summer and into the Fall at Chez Survive.Live.Thrive.  Healing, more healing, and healing some more.