Wanting To Erase The Past

Posted by Anonymous.

It all started when I was 17yrs old, one of those " summer flings ".... Jayce and I met and were best friends, he would drive 30mins at 12:00am just to be there to talk to me in person

(helping me with issues I had with my mom, as I did with his abuse issues with his father)

Slowly the intimacy started to occur. We were SO close yet so distant from each other at the same time... well needless to say after a couple of months of being together he was

"my first"... things slowly ended between us... I can honestly say I don't remember why. but they did.

About 5 months went by with out talking or seeing each other and I had a new boyfriend - Jayce contacted me from time to time ( personally I think it was to make sure I hadn't forgot about him, and OH how I wish I could have sometimes) we would make small talk, pointless conversations really.. I mean I was 17 - What ever would I have to say to a boy who took my V' away and just kind of vanished from my life... well the boyfriend and I broke up.

Jayce and I still occasionally text & called each other - always saying we needed to get together and for some reason it never happened. Well after about 3 more months went by I FINALLY accepted my best friend's brother's request to take me out, we dated, fell madly in love, moved in together.

THEN Jayce started texting again same old small talk, after a couple days I straight up told Jayce to stop texting/calling me. I was happy and if I wanted things to work out with my boyfriend I needed him to stop the pointless texting etc... it just didn't feel right. So he stopped, COMPLETELY stopped. I was relieved and at the same time so very distraught about the fact that I may never talk to him again.

The one who seemed to help me through so much, yet put me through so much at the same time. Mean while boyfriend and I got engaged and were trying to save for a wedding...by this time we had lived together for about a year and a half.. ( our relationship got a little rocky,whole different story) so I got scared and I left. During our "break" I decided one day I needed to contact Jayce. I NEEDED him - after years of being with out him.. I needed him? Hoping he still had the same number, I text him " Hi ".. He replied instantly .. during the conversation via text he asked if I was married etc... I let him know what was going on and that I just broke off an engagement. Then it was my turn. "Are you married?" ... His reply was "yes" - my heart stopped, I couldn't breathe... it was intense.

I continued ..well I was just wanting to make sure you were alive and well , and to apologize for telling you to not contact me anymore- I've felt bad about it ever since.

Well the conversation went on and he called me later on to continue our conversation, after that day to day we would text back and fourth randomly. He calls me 2 days later, we talk he mentions that he would like to see me just to say hi etc.. knowing inside I shouldn't have gone I went anyways.

We met, talked for a second no physical contact ( even though when I saw him I just wanted him to hold me forever) the visit was brief, I had to head back to work. He calls me 2 mins after I left and said " that wasn't long enough, meet me by the lake." I go down there... we meet.. I tell him whats going on in my life ( the ex, family etc..) I simply start to cry because I realize what I have lost out on and what "could have been" He holds me , we talk more before you know it, it's 6:00pm. 6 hrs FLEW by.

We went our separate ways. Texts and calls continued to be exchanged between the two of us.

We end up meeting again, this time there was a little bit of physical intimacy... no intercourse. We leave , he calls me and we both agree not to see each other again.

Days go by, still contacting each other..we meet again, this time was innocent and only a short period of time. We continue to stay in touch. My Ex and I worked things out, got back together. Jayce still randomly contacting me as I am him.

We talk about random things, important things, petty things, our lives in general.

Months go by and the texts turn into " what we wish we could do" etc.. dirty conversations and what not. Well December rolls around and he wants to meet one day when I was leaving work, I say ok and we meet. we met, we had sex.

I felt as if it hadn't even really happened. He calls me the next day all I heard from him was

" I couldn't take it anymore, I told her everything, she doesn't know your name or anything. but she knows what happened. I'm sorry - this is not your fault. It takes two"

I reply with "OK".

That was that. He changed his number and we're done.

I got married 2 months later. Things are pretty tough for us right now (many reasons, again that is a whole different story.)

I think of Jayce day, night, eating, sleeping, working you name it.

This has always been the case .. since I was 17.. will it ever go away?

Will my feelings for him ever fade?

This has had a big effect on my marriage... physically,mentally EVERYTHING in so many different ways. I know you are thinking " This girl is messed up and should have gotten her shit together before getting married to someone" ... That's what I think too - however I can't imagine living with out my husband.

My husband does not know about this , he doesn't even know about Jayce - he has no idea... but he DOES wonder why I am the way I am .. ( depressed, not talkative, wanting to be alone, why I don't touch or kiss him very often)

I know your thinking , silly girl - we all have our first loves etc...

That's what I have always told myself and I will KEEP telling my self.. but it is getting worse and wearing me down. It's adding to the pile of stress that's already upon my shoulders .. I know I was digging myself a deeper grave when all of this occurred but I need it out of my head. I need to erase him.

Drawing A Line

Posted by Anonymous.

Today marks the anniversary of my sister’s death. Or it could be tomorrow. I’ve never really been sure. I can’t ask my mother.

There is no headstone. She is buried under a silver birch tree. I’m not sure I could find it.

My sister, elder by three years, died from leukaemia. I was nine. My own son is now the same age I was when she died. He seems so small. Nothing bad has ever happened to him. What will he be able to remember of his life today as I can of that time?

I remember the wheelchair. I remember the ghastly brown wig whose tight curls shone and gave off a crimplene-like static. She detested it. Not a single attempt made by the manufacturer to create something that would make her look like herself. Like a 12 year old child. We both wore our hair in bunches – mine blonde, hers brown. I remember a hospital bedside portrait session where they had to rouge her cheeks as they were as white as bone.

We went to see her in the children’s hospital every day, after school. How did we get there? My mum didn’t drive. Did we go on the bus, with my baby sister who was not yet three? Did we wait for my dad to get home at twenty past five on the dot and take us?

But then an aunt came to look after us and we didn’t have to go to the hospital as usual.

My parents came home.

‘How is she? I asked.

A look passed between them and my mother beckoned me over to sit on her knee.

‘She’s gone to rockin’ Jesus.’

‘You don’t have to go to school tomorrow if you don’t want to.’

I know I cried. But what did I do then? Did I go off and play? Did I eat my tea?

At school the next day, the teacher asked me to go the library to pick up a book. She had never done that before. I wasn’t book monitor. So I stood outside and listened at the door.

‘Now listen class. We’ve all got to be especially nice to A. Her sister died yesterday.’

When I came back in the room, Robin Bacon gave me his prized spy pen which had invisible ink at one end that you wrote with and then rubbed the other end and the words would magically appear and Jennifer Little gave me the best of her collection of scented rubbers.

I was sent away to stay with another aunt, uncle and three cousins who owned a farm. It was bliss. We spent all day riding horses - real and imaginary.

One day I noticed my aunt and uncle getting into their car, both wearing black and my aunt in an Ascot-sized black hat, instead of her usual plaid shirts and slacks. I suddenly put two and two together - they were off to my sister’s funeral. And I wasn’t going. Also, if they were going, who was looking after me?

When I came back from the farm I was furious.

Furious with my parents. Furious that I wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral. Or even asked if I wanted to. But it was different then. Children didn’t go to funerals. They were trying to protect you from your grief. How could they have coped with you there?

Years later I found the card that I wrote to go on the funeral wreath amongst my mother’s things. Words in my childlike handwriting with my best fountain pen. It was smudged from the rain. I have no recollection of writing it.

Furious that I never got to say goodbye. Because the last time I visited I had no idea it was to be the last time. I might have trilled it, out of earshot, skipping out to freedom. It was just another day at the hospital.

Furious that they didn’t tell me she was dying. They knew. The doctors had said and given some idea of time.

Furious that I didn’t spot any of the clues. I would wait every Thursday for my comic to come through the letterbox. One morning it came and I pounced on it. My Dad asked if he could take it to the hospital for K to read. ‘It’s mine. She can read it any time. She can read it after me.’ My Dad ran upstairs, making a strange choking noise. ‘You didn’t know. You were a child. You acted like a child.’

Furious with God. From innocently singing All Things Bright and Beautiful and Dear Lord and Father of Mankind and God is Love His the Care with its galloping chords at the beginning and then you have to hit the note to join in with the verse. I couldn’t sing any of them any more.

Furious with myself. Why didn’t I give her that stupid comic? I have never forgiven myself.

In therapy we are asked to draw a graph. The horizontal axis marks our years in age. The vertical axis marks our life events. ‘Plot along the line,’ says the counsellor. ‘It represents your happiness level.’ Some people’s dips violently when their parents divorce, some when they themselves divorce, whilst others soar at the same event. Some people’s go off the scale when they children, some do not. Some are on an even keel all along.

Mine begins high. The line then plummets at the age of nine.

What would have happened if she had never died? If my mother had not become severely depressed? If I had not spent the rest of my adolescence seething, feeling second best, walking in dead girl’s clothes, being told by my grandma who adored her first born grandchild with Minstrel coloured eyes ‘it should have been you’?

What would have happened to the line?

What is your line like?

The Reality Of The Affair, Redux

Posted by Anonymous. (Follow-up to The Reality Of The Affair.)

It's been nearly two and a half years since I wrote the post about "the reality of the affair." I just reread it and all the comments before gathering my thoughts to write this next one. I've often reflected in my mind back to the comments I received after that original post so I wanted to have a fresh look again. This one in particular made me giggle, "You're probably not that special." One of the more profound things I've learned in the last three plus years is what I'm worth.

I followed through and left my then husband about three months after that first post. He took it well but there were some moments that were harder than others. The best part about all of this is he has become a better person and a better father. Without me to pick up all his slack he has had to step up and has found that being a great dad is really his thing. He's had a couple of girlfriends but at the moment is just focusing on himself. We're friendly and I care deeply about him. He is the father of my children and I want him to find the happiness he deserves.

My kids are amazing. They never once asked if dad and I would be getting back together. They never once expressed any concern at all about their future. My ex and I have made it a priority to act like adults and to ensure that our children are secure and happy and know they are the most important thing. They have also seen both of us take this time and discover true happiness. I have instilled in them that they are worth everything and they deserve to be happy just like we all do. In discovering my own value I have taught my children to believe in theirs.

About the other man. He started counseling and began on his own journey of self-discovery. He began to seriously evaluate what it was he wanted and needed and where his own priorities were. We continued our relationship into the summer of 2008 at which point he began to wonder if he would be able to ever find the courage to battle the emotional drama that would come from leaving his wife. It was during that summer that I let him go to discover what it was he wanted and needed in his life. It was a very difficult thing to follow through with - but I knew it was the right thing. I knew he had to know for his own sanity for certain that he could either never be happy with her or without me. I kept in touch with him but we did not see each other for well over a year. That all changed this summer when he came to me a free man, self-assured and ready to pursue a life where he can be truly happy.

Those who've never experienced this will never understand that the road to get here was about courage and righting the wrong decisions we made when we were younger. There is no shame in changing your mind and although marriage ought to be for life, for many of us we made that commitment much too young to even know who we are or what we would want. We both went to individual counseling to determine what it was we wanted in our lives. We both have children who are happier now that we are happier. Marriage isn't something that can bind two people together in paper only. You have to connect emotionally and spiritually in order to make a marriage last forever.

As for the cute little catch phrases like "If he'll do it with you he'll do it to you" I don't worry about that at all. This was never about a cheap thrill. There was no 'fog' over the last four years. We've been through more reality than most couples ever see and we always come out stronger. When your relationship is born through commitment and motivation to be together NO MATTER WHAT then you know what you have and you are unwilling to lose it.

So just remember the next affair you hear about may not just be an asshole and a whore looking for something fun on the side. Sometimes you meet the perfect person at the imperfect time. Some people are worth it and some people are willing to do whatever it takes to be together.

Stolen

Posted by Anonymous.

When I was 16, I was anally date raped. Before this, I had only kissed one boy. I was naive to the ways of the sexual world. I still had my innocence. That innocence was stolen from me from a man who used vaseline to force himself into me.

That thievery led to my becoming involved with abusive men, not to mention the toll it took on me mentally, including suicide attempts. Eventually it led to my marrying a man in another state, at age 22, whom I met online and barely knew. He was into S&M he raped me both vaginally and anally. He was a good guy, until he got sexual. He even told me how his two previous relationships, along with other women whom he was just dating, ended because of the same reason, - his sexual deviancy.

He was in the military. When he deployed to Iraq, I found myself again. I was happy. I was the owner of my body once again. Dr. Phil once said "The only thing worse then being in a bad marriage for seven years, is being in a bad marriage for seven years and one day." That was my motto that helped me stay strong and I left him when he arrived back home 15 months later. But while he was gone I lived free and happy and spent his money. I didn't work, I simply had fun discovering ME. What made ME happy. What MY personality truly was.

I became pregnant soon after dating a new man. He was wonderful and sweet and kind and he turned into an asshole and I said I'll be damned if I suffered through bad relationships and a horrid marriage just to end up in another. I left him when I was 7 months pregnant. The scariest and hardest thing I've ever had to do, but the best decision for myself and my unborn child. I would not raise a child in an environment where a man thinks he can treat a woman anyway he wants.

I am now 32. I have a better sense of self and am constantly trying to improve my life, and learn more about me. I'm striving to make up for the years I lost for myself and for my daughter. I deserve happiness.

Roman Polanski is a criminal and needs to be punished for stealing a child's innocence and for stealing the life she would have had.

Dear Everyone: Please Stop

Posted by Anonymous

To my family and friends:

I’m grateful he means so much to you. I’m grateful for all you do for me. I’m so grateful I have all of you in my life. But you’re driving me crazy. Please stop thinking you know what’s best for me. Please stop ‘owning’ my son’s struggles. Please stop having the emotions I, myself, am not allowed, not strong enough, not weak enough to have. Please stop making it all about you and how you feel and how you think I should feel or deal or breathe or interact.

After his last surgery, many of you texted me that you had “tears of joy” because all went well. I was unable to have tears of anything (joy, relief, exhaustion) because I had to immediately move on to the next step for his recovery. I resent the fact I am unable to have emotions of my own because I’m constantly reassuring you everything will be okay, constantly explaining medical procedures to you, constantly trying to process your emotions so that I don’t even know what or how I feel.

On the flip side of that, I don’t necessarily want to share all of my feelings with you. I don’t want every conversation to be an in-depth look into how this is affecting me. If I’m upset, can’t it be because they were out of my favorite ice cream at the store? Do you have to automatically think the worst any time I do show a glimpse into how I feel? I have become guarded with my emotions because, most of the time, I haven’t had time to process how I feel in the current situation (see above) and because of those “personal” conversations you all want to have with me. Do you each think you will be the one to break through to me and show me the light on how I should feel dealing with all this? Do you honestly think there is a proper way to deal with any of this?

Stop telling me that I need to be on an antidepressant. It’s not making any of you happier and makes you even moodier than you were before. I am happy. I love my life. Just because you can’t wrap your head around being happy with a special needs child does not mean it’s impossible. I would not change one thing about the last 2 years. They have made me stronger and more appreciative of the little things than I ever would have imagined I could be.

Stop trying to get us involved. I have a four year-old and a two year-old. I’m constantly taking them to school, doctors’ appointments, therapy sessions, and meetings with social workers. The phone calls I make on a daily basis just to get the correct supplies to help my son live would make your head swirl. I have social outings with many of you. I have a wonderful husband I love to spend time with. Just because I don’t want to be involved in the latest community fundraiser or go listen to the “expert on child rearing” I don’t agree with doesn’t mean I’m holed up in depression. Just because I don’t want my four year-old involved in group sports right now doesn’t mean he will be scarred socially and resent his brother for having a medical condition. He’s four. I’m busy. We’re great.

I know you are affected by this and you are invested in this and you love me and my family. I appreciate how you try to show your love and support but please step back and try to see that we’re normal and trying to live our lives as normally as possible. Normal is living life. Normal isn’t medical stuff 24/7. He is a child first, a medical mystery second. He’s a normal child with an abnormal system. He’s part of us and we’re a normal family.

I love you all. I don’t know how I would have made it without your support. I love laughing with all of you. I love being with all of you. Thank you for enriching all of our lives.

Your daughter, sister, grand-daughter, sister-in-law, friend.

Solutions Needed (Please Help)

Posted by Anonymous.

Solutions needed

1. living and being supported by in-laws

2. while husband lives in another state with friends

3. to be near clients

4. no vehicles in either of our names

5. four children, 9 and under

6. virtually no income currently

7. it's been since January 2009

8. cannot move to in-laws town (officially, anyway)--we have absolutely no “warm market” here to support our business (in fact, all family has outright refused to give us any leads—they're not comfortable referring friends to us; you know, because we're family).

9. I have the background to do a preschool/daycare

10. but, as we're living in someone else's home, I'm trying not to make to many waves.

11. Would state aid take my in-laws income into account, if we applied, since we live with them?

12. The state is UT

Help!

Orphan

Posted by Anonymous.

I feel like an orphan

It started slowly. Somehow the experience of my having children pushed us further apart instead of bringing us together. When I struggled for two years with infertility, you repeatedly told me it must be God's will for me not to have children. But when I got pregnant, you were ecstatic. And then came the sonogram that the baby would be a boy and some of the air went out of your enthusiasm. Still you ran out to buy one of everything to setup for the baby at your house, even though you lived two hours away and we’d never spent a night at your house in my entire married life. And you came when he was born, camping out at our house for two days while I was in the hospital. But you couldn’t respect my choices when they were different from yours. When I struggled with breastfeeding you urged me not to waste my time since you had fed me formula. When my husband decided to go back to school and stay home with our baby, you belittled our choice and his efforts. You destroyed your relationship with my mother-in-law, a woman you’ve called a friend for over twenty years, because anytime you ended up at an event together you had to hog the grandson and pretend he loved you best. You put on a huge phony act about being the world’s greatest grandma when others were around and when left alone, you observed your grandson playing from your chair, rather than deign to interact with him. You stopped calling to check in on me and when I would call to check in on you, our conversations were never more than five minutes before you were trying to get off the phone. It got worse three years later when I told you I was pregnant again. Why would I want to have a second child? You did fine with one. And then you grew hopeful that this baby would be a girl. You became convinced. I still remember the flat tone in your voice when I called to tell you that there would be a second grandson and how quickly you got off the phone. At least you showed up when he was born.

But things have gone seriously downhill from there. When I had gallbladder surgery just five months after baby #2 was born, the woman who drove out in the middle of the night to pick me up from college when I got sick, spent the day packing to go on vacation. Granted it wasn’t emergency surgery, but scheduled a couple weeks ahead. I’m sorry the surgeon couldn’t do it when it was convenient for you, especially since your mother-in-law’s unexpected death (my grandma) had screwed you out of your scheduled vacation the previous year. So my mother-in-law showed up and watched my children and then brought us all home to her house a mile away from yours so that she could help my husband take care of me and the boys while you and dad drove an hour away on vacation and shopped in outlet malls for a week. So please understand why it angered me when you showed up for my husband’s emergency appendectomy the next year - taking precious time off of work – and made the whole day about you and how you almost died years ago when your appendix ruptured. Just what I needed to hear as my beloved was under the knife.Thank God he ended up being fine.

We had managed some repairs to our relationship and you had eagerly expressed a desire (without being asked) to take a week off of work when hubby and I started planning our two week overseas adventure for our ten year anniversary. I was delighted; things were finally turning around with us. I planned our childcare carefully, with mother-in-law taking the other week off to balance things out. And then four weeks out, after we’d paid the last of our non-refundable monies for the trip, you casually mentioned in a conversation that you wouldn’t be able to get out of work after all. In fact you would be unable to help babysit at all because you hadn’t put in for the time off from work and other folks had taken those days. Friends, neighbors and other relatives stepped in to help mother-in-law balance her job and our kids for the entire two weeks. When you heard my son mention to someone months later that he had stayed with mother-in-law while we were gone you quickly corrected him that you had helped out. I’m sorry that at five he forgot how you borrowed them two afternoons and fed them dinner once.

Then there was the phone call a couple of months ago when your sister died unexpectedly and you told your whole family that I’d be glad to officiate the funeral on a certain date without asking me. Nevermind that you scheduled her funeral for my birthday, it was four days before I was moving with two kids and both hubby and I were changing jobs. And when I had the gall to say no, that date didn’t work for me and offered up three other dates as alternatives (since she was being cremated), you tried all kinds of guilt and manipulation and crying before hanging up on me. And bless you for having father call me back later and pretend he cared before laying on more guilt. And that line about how ungrateful I am and how I would have dropped everything and done a funeral for husband’s family if they needed something was just the icing on the cake. My aunt wanted me to officiate at her funeral and would never have approved of your tactics, and I’m angry that you went ahead and held it without me, telling my cousins that I was too busy to be bothered. I do appreciate that you at least called to acknowledge my birthday and I know I sent a thank you for the birthday check I received in the mail.

Two weeks ago I needed surgery again, a biopsy to check for breast cancer, the disease you successfully fought off nine years ago. I was scared because I've had a lump before and know that our family history of cancer only heightens my risk. But this time I was smart. I decided not to get my hopes up that you would be there. I knew that you were already taking the week prior off of work to entertain company for your birthday and catch up on errands and dr visits. So we made plans to have mother-in-law show up and care for the grandchildren. When you politely inquired the night before if we needed you, we told you not to worry that we had everything under control. Imagine our surprise when you showed up at the hospital as we were leaving because you had called mother-in-law’s cellphone and realized she was in town. Sorry father let the cat out of the bag later - apparently you had arranged to take the day off of work and told them that you were coming to take care of me; yet you had intended to spend the day at home relaxing from all the company you had entertained the week before. I certainly didn't mean to ruin your day off. Mother-in-law went home after you showed up because she didn’t want to intrude. Only she didn’t realize that you would take off before I actually needed you. You sat around all day and watched me sleep and then packed up to go home leaving me groggy and nauseated alone with two kids after hubby had to go in to work for two hours. Since my surgery I have heard from you exactly one time when I called to tell you my pathology report was clear and I am fine.

Most days I feel like an orphan. I have no parents unless you need to whine about your life, or need me to do something or want to drag out your grandchildren for some special occasion to show off to your friends. You always lamented the relationship you had with your mother - a constant tug of war - and swore that you would never treat me like that, that you would be different. And you were right. You have become very different. You hardly bother with me at all.

Mimi

Posted by Anonymous.

Almost 1 year ago::::::::

I didn’t even know she was having surgery.

I get a phone call on my cell, on a normal selfishly involved night in my boyfriend’s parent’s basement where I live. It’s my stepmom telling me that my grandma, my Mimi, is in the hospital. She is not well. My stepmom doesn’t know if I should be on my way to the hospital, she doesn’t know what’s going on.

Rewind::::::::

Six months prior, Mimi had stents put in to help with blood flow. Rewind further and you will see that Mimi and Papa pretty much raised me for a while. Long story short, they were a definite constant in my life and in their 40+ years of marriage they still called each other “babe” and “hun” and wrapped their arm around one another and displayed nothing but true love as long as I have been around them. Even with my bio parents being divorced and re-married, this was more than they could provide and will stick with me more than my grandparent’s will both know.

Almost 1 year ago::::::::

I get the call from my stepmom. She tells me Mimi is in the hospital, she had stents put in today, (for the 2^nd time, the 1^st time I was aware of) and she’s not doing to well. I didn’t even know she was having surgery. Not wanting to scare me, they tell me they will call me when they get to the hospital.

Later::::::::

Another call. It’s my stepmom. They are at the hospital. Sometimes I replay how I answered the phone with a cheerful “hello”.

My stepmom says “……..Hello? ……. She’s dead, Carly.” She is crying. I can’t hear anything in the background.

My Mimi is dead.

I can’t accept it at first. I cry in my boyfriend’s parent’s basement. Everyone in his house can hear me.

He takes me to the hospital. For some reason, it hasn’t set in. I honestly believe she will still be alive when I get there.

But she isn’t.

She is bloated. And pale. And stiff.

It’s only been an hour since she passed.

I’ve never seen my grandpa cry. He cried so hard that night.

I watched my grandpa try to lay her arm back on the table. She was too stiff.

He kept saying how she was “so cold, she’s so cold.”

I wished I wasn’t there.

They asked if she was an organ donor. My Papa said, “I don’t want to donate her, I want her back.”

I cried harder.

It was time to sign the death certificate. I watched him try to find the courage to sign it.

His hand circled around the signature line. It was if he didn’t know how to write his own name.

Finally, he did. And so did my father. And so did I.

I can’t explain what happened after.

All I can think of is the time I didn’t spend and the time I did spend.

Time, in general.

It will be a year in October. A whole year.

I miss you so much, Mimi.

Home Is Where The Hotel Is?

Posted by Anonymous.

I live in Florida. My daughters live in Florida. My grandchildren live in Florida.

My mom and my sister and my extended childhood family live in Michigan.

I subscribe to several airline emails to watch for good deals on airline tickets from Florida to Michigan.

So when I saw $19 tickets in January for flights in May, I snapped them up.

You see, I think I'm doing a good thing to buy a ticket for each of us to come home to see you. It's not like I didn't just show up on your doorstep and say 'here we are!'. I told you in January that I was coming home for 4 days in May. I gave you plenty of notice.

In reality, the $19 tickets cost me considerably more than $19. I had to pay for seats to be assigned (times 7!) and to pay for luggage. Unfortunately I didn't know that when I bought the tickets.

We love being at your house. Hanging in the back yard. No schedules to keep, no place to go but across town to visit more family. A trip to the cemetery to pay respects that I can't pay the rest of the year.

And then, two weeks before we were going to be there, you dropped the bomb on me that we couldn't stay at your house. WHAT? We've always stayed at your house!!

You said we were too many, too noisy, too confusing, too many people for one bathroom. We were willing to sleep on the floor and the blow up bed and the couch. All of us have stayed there before and the bathroom was never an issue. Shoot, 3 of the kids don't even use the bathroom!

And mom said, "You can't expect to just come home and have accommodations."

Well for starters, five months notice does not qualify as 'just'. And well, yes, as a matter of fact, that's exactly what I expect.

Mom said we'd have to split up and stay different places. So .. what .. we farm out the three year old? The two year old? The baby? No. That doesn't work.

You said groceries were difficult and cooking and cleaning was too much. Since when? I have never come up there that I didn't go immediately to the grocery store and drop a hundred bucks on groceries. We help with the cooking. We help with the cleaning. Not a meal goes by that my hands are not in dishwater washing dishes.

I really don't get this. All of a sudden ... we're not welcome???

You see, I am paying out my hard earned money to bring the family home so you can see them and they can see you. To foster a relationship between you and them. So you can see your namesake for the first time. Because we love you. We only come home once a year. Four days out of one year. But, no, that was too much hassle for you.

So ......... we didn't. We flew into the airport, rented a car and drove around the state like tourists. We went to the water park and other places my family has never been to before because .... we always came to your house. We stayed in motels and ate in restaurants. Oh, and the motels, still 7 of us ....... and only one bathroom. And never any problems. And trust me ........ I paid dearly. I paid for the car, most of the hotel rooms, most of the meals because they are broke and barely getting by.

Then one of the aunts stepped up and said you can stay overnight at my house. So we took her up on that. We slept on the floor, the couch and a blow up bed. Nine people in that house with ......... you guessed it ....... only one bathroom. We offered to buy groceries and they said they wanted to cook us dinner. We all ate around the table and had a good time. They enjoyed getting to know our little ones, and we enjoyed our time with them.

Oh, we made it to your house for a few hours on the last afternoon. But by then, the damage was already done. We weren't comfortable with you ... and you weren't comfortable with us.

And we heard afterwards that you complained about us being in the state for so long and only getting to see us for a little while.

Well you know what? You can't have it both ways.

And now, occasionally, you say things about the 'next time we are home'. Don't count on it. I have no plans to do so. If we are going to take a family vacation and stay in motels and eat at restaurants, we'll be going someplace else next year.

In case you haven't figured it out ....... things have changed.

I suggest you subscribe to airline emails and start watching for a Michigan to Florida ticket. And you won't have to worry about accommodations .... because, unlike you, I would make room regardless of what it took. You'd have a place to sleep if I had to give you my bed. That's where we're different.

I'm glad we're different.