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1
Jan 10

Happy New Me

I’ve sort of made resolutions in the past. Mostly because that’s what everyone seems to do. You can’t really focus much energy on your own resolutions when you are so busy accommodating the Narcissists in your life. By the time you finish everything on their list, take care of the kids, clean the cat box and take out the garbage, there’s not a lot of energy left for the typical resolutions like getting more exercise, keeping in touch with friends, or learning Tai Chi.

I got an email from a girlfriend this morning. She was asking why everyone always says, “This will be the year. 2010 will be the year.” Then she said, “The year for what?” Why do they always say that every new year? I told her that I think that’s the tag line for procrastinators. We never seem to accomplish what we set out to do, so we approach each new year with the optimistic hope that we’ll do it this year. That’s not so bad, really. Those new beginnings are what keep us going.

At the risk of sounding Narcissistic, I’ve come up with a few personal mottos for a Happy New Me. I’m going with the word ‘motto’ because ‘resolution’ makes me think of failed attempts, sweaty exhaustion (I’m not speaking of the sweaty kind of exhaustion that usually involves sheets) and a complete lack of brownies. All of that is way too negative. Besides, mottos are suggestions. There’s no pressure to absolutely have to do them everyday. Here’s what I came up with. I’d love to hear your mottos, as long as they have nothing to do with weight loss, shoulds, or having to do more for others.

Be funnier. Quit taking myself and everyone else so seriously. This is going to sound weird, but I’ve noticed that when the three of us are a little cranky, one of us will start speaking with an accent. I’m not kidding. It’s as if it gets us out of ourselves. We’re pretending to be other people and then we start laughing at each other, and the crabby moment passes. Then Jenny will usually say, “Can we be done with the accents, already?” She’ll say this with a proper English accent, too. Think Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins”.
Be kinder to myself. I spend all my energy being nice to everybody else. I need to spend a little of that on me. I’m going to occasionally remind myself that I am a likable, good person, with a kind heart. I deserve treats once in awhile, too. Dark chocolate, good wine, excellent coffee, pedicures and chick flicks are all acceptable pleasures as long as they can be enjoyed without guilt.
Remember NMP. That stands for Not My Problem. It’s not my problem that Mark has a lousy relationship with his kids. It’s not my problem that my kids don’t want to spend time with him. I will focus on only those things that I can change, or not change, as the case may be.

That feels pretty good, and manageable. Now that I’ve allowed myself to be a little self-centered, I’ll end this post with a quote that my aunt sent. I like it. Continue reading →

Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

I have got to lighten up. I seem to have misplaced my sense of humor. Perhaps I’ll discover it under the pile of gifts yet to be wrapped. Maybe it’s at the bottom of a mug of eggnog laced with rum. (Yuk. Why do people drink sweetened, pre-scrambled eggs? Just give me the rum.) Yesterday Jenny asked me why my eyes were purple. I said, “I was crying.” She said, “How come you were crying, Mommy?” I scooped her up, twirled her around, and excitedly told her, “Because it’s Christmas, Silly.” Doesn’t everybody cry at Christmas? She has watched me sniffle at Hallmark commercials. I’ll let her think that I’m crying for all the mushy reasons that people might get teary over, at this time of the year.

Ahhh… Christmas with a Narcissist. It’s a beautiful thing. For years, Mark told me that Christmas was his most favorite time of the year. He would actually get misty-eyed over the holidays. Then, as we started a family, he would still get all sappy about Christmas, and how magical it was. But we were never seeing him. His shop gets crazy busy during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. I wasn’t sure what part of the holidays he enjoyed so much, because he wasn’t able to spend time with his family. Perhaps I just didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to know, in my heart, that the reason he loved Christmas so much was because of the money-making potential of the holidays. I saw the pattern — he would tear up when discussing the day’s proceeds, not how cute his kids were at their Christmas Programs. Actually, he’d fall asleep at their Christmas Programs due to exhaustion from putting in so many long hours trying to wrangle in those few extra dollars.

When I would suggest that he hire an extra person to help him with the load so that he might enjoy his favorite time of the year with our kids while they were young and believed in Santa, he’d scoff at me. He’d pontificate and say, “Well, you have the luxury of staying home, making the house pretty, and making caramels for Christmas because I slave away and put in the long hours to make that possible.” While I agreed that his working as hard as he did made it possible for me to stay home, I also saw that he enjoyed being on stage down at the shop. No matter the level of craziness or exhaustion, he would parade around Ho Ho Ho-ing the customers, cheerfully bagging the product and all the while exclaiming about how great it is to be one of Santa’s Elves. He would insist that the kids and I be down at the shop, so we could marvel at his performance.

Then, on Christmas Eve, he would collapse at 3 p.m. and begrudgingly wake on Christmas morning when the kids wanted to get up early to see what Santa had left. And, Oh! What Santa would leave! Mittens, ski socks, long underwear, toasty warm ski jackets, snow boots, and gloves, too. And another set of thinker long underwear, warmer than the first, and glove liners and ski tickets, and fleece jackets to layer under the other fleece jackets. And hats and neck warmers and liners for the ski socks. We didn’t work as a team on Christmas gift purchasing. I got what I thought the kids would have fun with. He got what he thought they needed. One year I said, “Mark, if we are going skiing anyway, why is a lift ticket a gift?” He would answer that he made it possible for us to go skiing, so that was a gift. I’ve often considered opening some kind of ski retail shop with all the mittens, gloves, ski socks and long underwear that still has not been worn. The other day, Mark asked Will where his heavy-duty long ski mittens were. I knew the mittens that Mark was referring to. He’d given them to Will three years ago. They are still too big for Will. In fact, they are too big for me to wear.

It seems there is a delicately fine line between the crying and the laughing. I think I’ve been on the wrong side of that line lately. I can either cry about the absurdities of the holidays with Narcissists, or I can laugh. They sure do give us a lot of material for laughter. I hope that if you find yourself crying during this Christmas Season, that you are crying for all the right reasons. Continue reading →

Guest Posts / Narcissist Quotes / Quotes / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — 32 Comments
23
Dec 09

Narcissist Quotes

You cannot make this stuff up.

Only Survivors know how true these quotes are.

Thank you for sharing!

Annie:

“I got myself a new pair of running shoes. Here — you can have my old ones.”

After telling him that I had made an appointment with an Ob/Gyn to discover if I may have fibroids or something more serious, he chimes in with, “Can’t they check your knees while they’re at it?”

Continue reading →

Moving On / Quotes — Comments Off
21
Dec 09

Toes

Mom — you just need a little ‘Toes’.

Jenny Blayne

Moving On — 1 Comment
21
Dec 09

Turn It Up

Survival has been tough lately. Dang. I’m losing the sense the it ever does get any easier. I’m making the choices that get us closer to where we want to be. But there’s some big one’s left to tackle. I’m running out of reserves. Jenny looked at me the other day and said, “Mom, hook up the iPod. You need a little ‘Toes’.” That’s our new favorite by the Zac Brown Band. She was right. I plugged it in and turned it up. Let’s pack it in and head to a sandy beach.

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18
Dec 09

What Is That Smell?

Underneath my laptop I have a magazine insert that advertises perfume. I usually yank them out and give them to Jenny. I kept this one because it reminds me of my long-distance friend. The heat from the laptop warms it a bit. Once in awhile I hit a keystroke and a little whiff of the scent comes at me. It’s almost like he’s standing right behind me. I wish I knew which keystroke was the magic one to warm up the scent.

The randomness is what makes it sweet.

__________

The kids and I are always talking about how something smells. I can remember Will at his third birthday. He was seriously into his sniffing phase. Each present he opened couldn’t be enjoyed until he’d thoroughly smelled it. He’s gotten a little more discreet about how he smells things.

Jenny often decides whether or not she likes someone based on their scent. Continue reading →

Moving On / Quotes — Comments Off
15
Dec 09

Life As Art

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it.

Danny Kaye

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10
Dec 09

Start Now

A year from now you may wish you had started today.

Karen Lamb

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10
Dec 09

Who Cares What They Think

Our ski season starts tomorrow. It has been ridiculously cold here, and I’m not really in the mood to go on the first day. I think I need more time for my body to get acclimated to the change in temperature. At least that’s what I’m telling my lazy self. I’m 47 years old and I still ski. I’m not bragging. I’m just surprised.

When I was in 6th grade, the gym teacher told me that I really needed to go out for basketball. I was taller than most everybody else in the class. It made sense that I should be on the basketball team. However, I didn’t want to play basketball. But, because I was an accommodator-in-training, I tried out for basketball. I am a first born, and therefore, a relatively cautious individual. Back then, I was a cautious, first born kid, who was overly preoccupied with what other people thought of me. I was incredibly self-conscious. I may have been decent at basketball, but I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, so I didn’t apply myself. At the end of try-outs, the gym teacher politely told me that I might want to try out for track, instead. I didn’t try out for track. Since then, I’ve always said that I’m not athletic. And yet, I still ski.

Labels are funny things. Why do we let people put labels on us? And why do we so willingly put labels on ourselves? I have a step-brother who hasn’t worn a pair of shorts in 34 years. Some kid once told him he looked like he was riding a chicken. That’s all it took. My step-brother hasn’t worn a pair of shorts since 3rd grade. How come we don’t stand up for ourselves and believe in ourselves. Why don’t we say, “Yea? So what. I like riding a chicken! So there!” I’m always telling my kids (and reminding myself) that people aren’t really looking at you or caring about what you do that much, anyway. They are busy focusing on their own stuff. They might comment on what you are doing, but they move on pretty quickly.

I have been making some tough decisions lately. I think that decisions are more difficult when I keep factoring in the potential reactions that I’ll get from the people in my life. There is this constant chatter in the background. I can hear them saying, “You can’t do that. That’s not the way it’s done. Nobody else does it that way. You should do it like we do. You should be more like us. It works for us. It will work for you, too.” I want them to like me. But more and more, I’m realizing that it’s more important that I like me.

Each time I make a new difficult choice, I realize that I am being true to me. As the dust settles on these new choices, I’m getting closer to my goals of Health, Harmony and Creativity. It has taken a long time for me to realize that I am strong and smart. I can have my own goals. I can follow my own path. I think sometimes it is a bit uncomfortable when people in my life see me making choices that are so different from their choices. Maybe it makes them want to reevaluate their choices. It’s more likely that they are thinking I’m losing my mind. They think I’ve gone off the deep end. I choose to think that I’m just swimming in a different pool. Continue reading →

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7
Dec 09

Comfy Shoes

To be happy, it first takes being comfortable in your own shoes. The rest can work up from there.

Sophia Bush

Moving On — 5 Comments
6
Dec 09

Sparkly, Silver, Strappy Slingbacks

“There’s my mommy’s wedding shoes.”

Jenny and her classmates have been earning pretend money since the beginning of the school year. They are rewarded with coins for their good behavior. Now that Christmas is upon us, they will have the opportunity to use the money they’ve earned. The teacher is setting up a little shop with donated items from parents. The kids will shop from these gently used and not-so-expensive new items. They can fill their little Christmas lists from the items in their Classroom Store.

I was helping the teacher set up the store. One of Jenny’s classmates was still hanging out at the end of the day. Trevor was pretty excited about the stuff he was seeing in the little store. He was wondering who might like the deck of cards, and who might like the mug filled with herbal tea bags. And then he looked at me and said, “There’s my mom’s wedding shoes!” He was so pleased and proud to point out the glittery silver shoes. He could hardly wait to see who would be interested in the shoes his mommy wore on the day she married his daddy.

Trevor’s parents are divorced now. I’ve seen them both at the school — separately, of course. They are one of the sets of parents that has asked the teacher to please schedule conferences individually. They despise each other and refuse to be in the same room, at the same time. I can’t imagine how they deal with the Christmas Program, since I’m pretty sure the school won’t be scheduling a separate showing for each disgruntled parent. Although, there are plenty of disgruntled, divorced parents. Perhaps a separate viewing for moms one day, and dads a different day is a good idea.

I haven’t been able to quit thinking about those silver slingbacks. They so sweetly represent all the hope and promise that Trevor’s mom and dad must have felt on the day they got married. They seem to embody the wish that all little girls have, to one day marry that prince charming and live happily ever after. And they also symbolize the little boys’ wishes to marry the beautiful little princess in the fancy shoes. Now, those shoes were laying amongst the unused potholders, trial sized shampoo bottles, and Dollar Store wrapping paper.

I still marvel at how the brain/spirit/soul works in all this. I include all three because I’m not sure which is responsible for the total disdain and dismissal that one feels for the ex-spouse. I still can’t figure out how it’s possible to so love someone that you think you can’t live without them, and then, at some point, you can’t stand to suffer through a 10 minute teacher conference in that wasband’s presence. Perhaps it’s only possible to get to that point because that person was never really loved to begin with? Who could handle the responsibility of knowing that another can’t live without you? It’s such a lovely, romantic notion, isn’t it — to have someone say they can’t live without you? Yet there are days when it’s all I can do to get dinner on the table, practice the spelling words and balance my checkbook. Then Rita, our chubby feline, rubs up against me, wanting something from me, and it sends me over the edge. I can’t be everything for everyone, let alone anyone. And no one should be expected to do that for me. Continue reading →

Quotes — Comments Off
3
Dec 09

Simplicity

Anything simple always interests me.

David Hockney

Moving On / Parenting / Random Observations — 4 Comments
3
Dec 09

The Advent Calendar and Expectations

wreath I knew this woman who had three kids and every year at Christmas, she put up a lavish Advent Calendar. She would wrap one present for each kid for each day on the calendar. That’s 75 little packages. I think she was running for the Mom Of The Year Award. I’ve not seen her in awhile. Maybe she buckled under the pressure of all those holiday expectations.

I made an Advent Calendar a few years ago.

Each day Will and Jenny open one envelope. They take turns opening, since there is only one envelope for each day. The envelope contains a little note that is their “present” for the day. It’s not always a package to open, in fact, it usually isn’t.

The note might say:

Play games tonight.
Go to the library.
Soak your tootsies and watch a Christmas movie.
Put up the Christmas Tree.
Stay up late on a school night.
Go to Grandma and Grandpa’s and play Aggravation.
Look under the couch. (They’ll each find a candy bar.)
Bake Christmas Cookies.

Continue reading →

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29
Nov 09

When Divorcing The Narcissist Isn’t Enough

Last night Will was so stressed, I actually resorted to giving him a Pepcid. That’s the first time he’s taken anything for an upset stomach. His stomach had been bothering him for two days. Coincidentally, his father had been over both those days.

I’m too familiar with this feeling. I have a stash of Pepcid for myself.

After both visits, Will started pacing, cussing and ranting. I’ve told him that he can write about what bugs him. We’ve lots of cryptic notes around the house.

“My Dad is an A hole.”

“F you dad.” Continue reading →

Moving On / Quotes — Comments Off
28
Nov 09