Once Upon A Time there was a Mom and a Punkin....

 As a parent, there are things that are hard to explain to the outside world. But when the Punky was about eight years old, she became very aware that I was the only person she had. That if something would happen to me, she couldn't just go to live with her dad. Her dad wasn't in her life. She didn't know him. And she shouldn't go to live with grandparents. I had asked my friends to be godparents should something ever happen. But never went to court to make it official. Whatever the reason, the reality set in on her and she became extremely aware of how she needed me and that she had no one else. This fed into a huge fear, a fear of abandonment. And impending doom, the feeling that she was going to be abandoned. 

This didn't always present itself in a rational way. Well, it seldom or never did. Fears like this present in unlovely ways. It led to a lot of haggling, fighting, confrontational disagreements. These situations built to levels that were volatile. As a person with plenty of pent of anger and rage myself, and not wanting to unleash these on my children, and this child in particular, I sometimes felt the need to distance myself, to get out of the middle of situations that were teetering on uncontrollable, volatile outbursts. 

Leaving was not successful for me in that The Punkin would follow me to the car, pulling on my body and begging me not to leave her. Telling her, "Punk, I'm going to hit you or hurt you, I HAVE to leave...." did not calm her or help her understand. As time passed and more resources were poured into us, parent advocates would coach me to be sure to tell her, "I am not abandoning you and I WILL be back." At times, this was helpful. 

Calling a time out where we separated in the same vicinity did not work either. The fear and abandonment issues just continued to boil over in my child. She would "break into" my room or wherever my time out area was. I put a locking door on my bedroom in an effort to have a safe place to retreat to when conflicts became explosive. But the Punkin Seed would bang on the door, screaming and crying, and carrying on about how she needed me and to please just open the door. 

This is a scary and sad part of my daughter's childhood. This is a failure and all-consuming heartbreak in my life. The fears and confrontations continued throughout middle school and high school years. The sense of being needed and being overwhelmed and a sense of no relief in sight trailed on for years. As a parent, I became less and less capable to care for my precious girl. But every conflict piled onto previous conflicts and craziness of our life and instantly shot up to the level of hopeless. 

At this time I was still teaching and learning more and more all the time about students who live with trauma and how many kids live with an emotional baseline that is fearfully close to fight and flight levels. These children can go from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds on the crisis scale. And I know that this student is my kid. As time passed, "these children" were also me. I was continually just seconds aware from not being able to control my emotions. 

This bled into my professional life and tore me down. It led to constant and continual exhaustion. Exhaustion that was physical, psychological, emotional and mental. 

As a parent, all I can do is pray my kids know I love them; grow to be happy, functional adults; and be there to help them grow. to teach them how to be the best humans they could be. This is what I imagine every parent feels and hopes for their kids. 

The haunting comes when I know that for all my hopes for my kiddo, I am at the heart of the implosion and the explosions. That I was incapable to being the loving, calm, well-adjusted parent I desired to be. That I was part of the problem. It wasn't a situation I knew how to extract myself from. It was overwhelmingly hopeless for me.

This is where I end for today. I have spit out my heart, the story, or at least an outline of a story, in an effort to continue with being transparent and being willing to expose my shortcomings in order to heal and become the person I know that I am.... a good mother, a good teacher, a good friend, a contributing member of society. 

More will be revealed.... 

I knew that light wasn't a train!

 Remember how very recently I said that there's progress on my disability, even if it's ever so slight? It's done! And I got it! There is so much that I don't know yet, but the website did tell me this, my first direct deposit onto my debit card will come April 8. Friends, the best part of this to me that I can share with you, is that it comes in time to pay our Evergy bill! I can't tell you what a mixed bag it is to have to rely on others to pay the bills. On the one hand, it feels like love when someone pays your bills. But on another level, it's a burden, a give that I can never repay and it wears me down. Being a mooch. *sigh* My excitement about getting benefits is multi-faceted, but this is the piece I can't hold in and have to share right now. I'll be able to pay my own energy bill in April! It is an empowering feeling!! 

Every Little Step is Progress....

 Today I logged in to the SS website and my disability case is in step 4, final review process, which usually takes 2-4 weeks. I am ecstatic because my progress has been stuck for SO LONG, in step three, and step 3 of the reconsideration was estimated to take 2-5 months, and that started on August 24th. So longer than 5 months. I have been so stuck in frustration and stagnation. 

But life goes on and good things are happening here. 

Before I get too far off base, I have to stop and say thank you. Thank you for prayers, for help, for caring, for still reading this blog that has gotten a bit sour. Thank you. I am so grateful for the people who send their positive energy, say prayers to God above, send love, stay in touch and care for us in big and small ways. Thank you for constantly and consistently reminding me that I'm loved. You are a big piece of why I haven't completely given up.

We still don't know how we're going to do this thing called life and we still covet your support. But Jadyn is working at (and loving her job at) Home Depot. She works part time and averages around 25 hours a week. She maxes out her body physically doing this. But the positive is that she loves it, we're gaining on nerve and muscle pain management, and we're still working with a doctor to continue pain management. These are gains in her health. We are also striving to incorporate more foods that are in an anti-inflammatory diet and cutting out foods that lead to more inflammation. This is not easy, but we are gaining. Jadyn hopes to go full time at some time and one thing we're excited about the hope of taking care of ourselves and not relying on the goodness of our loved ones and friends. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We have to pace ourselves and not overdo and it's still hard. We want to run wild! 

My knees are getting steadily better. Today I woke up with stiff knees and noticed a little bit of hobbling, but most days I have little limp and hobble. I have to be careful. It never ceases to amaze me that I wear out faster than I "should" and that long stints of standing are overwhelming. Too much movement is wearing. But lack of those, is also wearing. It is just part of healing and I need to continue to remind myself that it just takes time. and more time. But I am moving forward. I am looking toward fall and see myself teaching again (praying things fall into place for this).

Currently I'm working on renewing my teaching license, getting license renewal submitted, getting fingerprints and filing this all. 

We're working on getting eggs in the incubator. I'll go check the humidity level when I finish typing this. Once the humidity level is where it needs to be, I'll put duck eggs in and set the countdown for 28 days. We have materials to finish out chicken and duck pens in the barn and we'll be set to have all our birds in reasonably sized pens for night, with ducks and chickens (and geese) free-ranging during the days. 

Another next step for me, will be to get garden vegetables planted and started in the house. We have a good start on some rich compost dirt for our garden. 

These things feel like good progress. But here comes some really great things.... 

Carrie got a car!!!!! I have been given a car, a 2006 Pontiac Grand Am, with title in hand and ready to drive. I cannot contain my excitement about this. 

We have the parts to fix Jadyn's car. We cannot find the one and only key. So we are looking into next steps to obtain a key to move on and get this done! 

I also got a phone. My phone was so sick, so close to dead. Sometimes it would turn on and sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes I could make a call, but most times not. I have a few two-step verification accounts (one of them being the Social Security Disability site) that involve sending a code to my phone. Sometimes it would take more than 10 minutes to successfully retrieve these codes and they would be expired by then. So for 2 weeks or so I've had a WORKING phone and I'm SO grateful. My sweetheart bought this for me and I couldn't be more grateful. 

So much goodness happening.... 

Still stuck in that holding pattern, but there's movement!! Yay! 

Thank you again for reading, for responding, for helping, for staying on the journey with us.