Diary of a Gamer Girl

I honestly don't know where to start ... the last two weeks have been a rollercoaster ride ... with a plummet this morning ... but I don't think I'm done, or anywhere near the bottom yet ...

... so I left off with the Santa thing ... anyone who doesn't understand why that would upset me has their head squarely up their behind ... I mean really ... that's a parent's privilege and right ... and I only get to do it every other year ... had I asked for her help or gone up and we'd done it together .... well that would be different, but that she took it upon herself to do it, with no consideration that I would want to is complete and total bullshit ... and then she said "I left (such and such) for you to do, because I figure you get to do something" ... wait ... GET ... get ... okay ... that's great ... lovely ... MY parenting privileges, something that as parents we actually look forward to ... and she's going to basically say she'll "allow" me to do part of it ... so yeah, who is the mother and who is the grandmother ...

Christmas was okay, my dad didn't get me anything or do anything, which is what I requested of him ... "please take any money you would have spent on me for Christmas and use it to pay off the debt you feel I owe you" ... that was my Christmas wish to him ... and my mom ... my mom still did some stuff for me, although it's all tainted by the fact that I asked A) for nothing and then B) for something non-monetary that she refused to give me ...  I don't do "consolation" prize very well ... just like I don't do getting buttered up for bad news very well ...

The kids and I went to my boyfriend's grandparents' house on Christmas Eve for a while ... they got to see their puppy which they really appreciated ... and spend some quality time with the man they call their stepfather and his family ... which despite their own set of dysfunctions (and I would say that in many ways they are more dysfunctional than mine) .... feels more like a family to me than anything I've felt in years ... we were welcomed with open arms and hugs .... and just an amazing sense of welcome .... and maybe the thing about his family is they embrace and accept the dysfunction ... they don't judge ... they don't see things eye to eye ... and sure they have their gossip ... they hold their grudges ... but they stick together ... they call themselves a "clan" ... and rightfully so ... if you do wrong to one, you do wrong to all ... and their major issue of the moment is a member of the clan in their minds "abandoned" her children ... and they still accepted her ... being a surrogate member of this clan ... I will tell you that this family, this amazing, loving family, has very strong feelings about my father and what he did ... they threatened to go march on the lawn of his workplace with picket signs saying "if he doesn't care about his own family, what makes you think he would care about yours" ... technically speaking he holds a public position and the voters have a say in whether or not he stays there ... this family that has taken me in ... has vowed to do everything in their power to make sure he loses his job ... which I have mixed feelings about ... but when my own family doesn't even want to know my side of the story ... well ... I wonder which ones I feel closer to ... anyway ... Christmas Eve with them was pleasant ... we headed out, I wanted to go to church, but three overtired kids with only me to control them ... well, we skipped it ... we went and saw the Denver City & County building all lit up ... and then drove by some more Christmas lights and then we headed home .... and then that's when the Santa thing happened ...

Christmas afternoon the kids went off with their dad ... I spent some time getting some stuff together and headed back to my boyfriends' grandparents' house ... where again I was more than welcomed .... they made sure I knew where to find food, drink ... even a toothbrush ... they told me they missed having me around ... the couple few of them that were on Facebook expressed empathy and concern based on some of my posts about the BS around here ... the day after Christmas, Sunday, brought a wonderful surprise .... a good friend of my boyfriends who has now become a good friend of mine gave us Broncos tickets ... and for an amazing game ... was probably one of the best home games of the year ... so that was good for both of us ... it was fun ... and something neither of us gets to do often or ever ... that was followed by
a good night out with friends ... something I had been planning for weeks ... my boyfriend and his best friend were able to get together after over three years .... his best friend is in the Army and had been stationed in Germany between deployments to Afghanistan for the last three years, they are now stationed near by ... and although he will still get deployed, at least his wife and kids are close to friends and family ... the gettogether was supposed to be a birthday party for my boyfriend, not knowing where we were going to land for the week (thanks to my mother) I figured we better get it over with early, so a week before his birthday I surprised him with friends at his favorite restaurant ... it was amazing ... I <3 his friends .... all of them ... the guys, their wives ... they're jocky, preppy geeks ... just like we are ... I know that may make no sense ... but to sit at a table full of people that enjoy the same geeky things you do, but don't present as typical geeks, and still love sports and other things ... it's not as common as you would think ... we had an amazing night ... again ...

Monday was pretty calm, mostly worked on computers ... which I took to his grandparents' house, since we didn't have enough time where he was "allowed" to be here for him to fix it here ... ___ sidebar ____ I love Windows 7 ____ end sidebar ___ ... Tuesday, we took my son to see Tron 3D, as part of his Christmas present ... we discovered an amazing theater (thanks to a friend of mine) ... where they have half price Tuesdays, but also they have this thing called premium seating where you sit in reserved seats in a balcony and wait staff brings you your drinks and popcorn, what have you ... and the price of the premium seating is offset by the fact that when you sit there, your drinks are only $1 ... it was really nice ... and my son said the movie was "seriously awesome" ... it was a good day ... an expensive day with lunch and all, but a good day ...

Thursday I had lunch with my kiddos, I left my boyfriend at his grandparents' house to get some things done they had requested of him ... and since I was coming back to my mom's ... given his level of discomfort even crossing the threshold, like we can both feel the unwelcome vibes .... he and I figured it was a good time to let him take care of some of those other things ...

Friday was New Year's .... again spent with his completely amazing friends .... seriously I am blessed to have these people in my life ... and then New Year's Day .... we picked up my kids and headed down to his house ... 150 miles away ... where we had fun bowling on the birthday that my daughter and him share ... and were able to spend some time together with the kids ...

We ran into an old friend of his at the bowling alley and he introduced us to his baby daughter, Abigail, and then explained how he had three girls ... couldn't get a boy ... I said that I had the two girls and then got lucky and had the boy ... and my boyfriend said that he hadn't had any, and then said, "but I kind of do" ... I interrupted with "step-type" ... his friend said, "yeah, but you can tell they love you" ... that warmed my heart ... I mean I know they love him, they miss him terribly .... but to have someone say that from an outside perspective ... was nice ...

What's funny, is that at his house, we share a twin sized bed, in a sparsely heated trailer home, with no cable TV, crappy internet, and other creature comforts that I'm used to missing from the equation ... and it's MORE comfortable there than it is here ... just because of that unwelcome vibe ... the stress ... the other things that go on that are just not okay ... there we can just hang out together, just be together, without an authority figure trying to exert her power ... and he is staying with his dad while his dad goes through a series of surgeries, so it's not like the living situation is any different, other than me (and my kids) are welcomed there with open arms ... never shunned or made to feel like we needed to leave ...

Finally it was time to come home ... back to reality ... my mother still is clearly in "ignore it and it will go away" mode ... I hate that ... in case you hadn't figured that out from previous posts ... like literally hate it ... ignoring it makes it worse ... it might make a day or two easier ... but all the crap on both sides will build up and eventually has to come out ... I am still livid because of her decision (magnified by the fact that everyone in his family is exactly the opposite) ... I still feel like I'm a second class citizen in the home that I live in ...

I have this issue with the fact that she does my kids' laundry ... it's kind of a multiple frustration ... A) they're my kids and it's something else she's trying to control about them B) I don't have much in the sense of purpose and responsibility right now ... their laundry is one of the few I have and C) other people doing their laundry (even their dad) has always annoyed me ... I have a system ... and I want to be able to to it myself ... eventually they will do their own ... but right now I still do it ... one of my annoyances is that when my system isn't followed and someone else is doing things then I don't know what all is there or where it is .. she has two boxes of clean clothes sitting in their room, two laundry baskets outside their door (they don't really have functional dressers or a closet at all right now) ... and she has two laundry baskets in the living room ... when I have all the rest of their stuff ... I have halves of PJs ... I don't know where have their stuff is ... so this morning I couldn't find socks for the kids, and she starts going through a laundry basket in the living room and says there's a bunch in there ... I say to her "that's what happens when more than one person does their laundry" ... she says "I don't think I did any of that" ... I say "I take all the laundry I do downstairs" ... so she snaps at me ... while she throws the hat she was looking for that my daughter requested at my daughter ... "fine it's all my fault" and storms upstairs ... seriously ... that is adult behavior ... mmhmmmm ...

I didn't snap at her, I wasn't rude in my tone ... in fact if anything I was playful ... it was a logical reason as to why I don't want her doing their laundry ... I had NO clue that there were socks or a hat in that basket ... because I didn't do it ...

With all the control that has been taken away from me, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for control over my kids' clothes ... but apparently ... again ... I am wrong ...

I did have an absolutely amazing nine days with my kids, my boyfriend, his family and friends ...  but reality is back ... slapping me in the face ... I think I seriously am going to talk to the housing authority about Section 8 housing ... like I said, I'd give up the creature comforts for my emotional health and wellbeing .... and I just might need to ... I mean what good is it to have a bunch of creature comforts when you're deprived of emotional needs and comforts ... they mean almost nothing at that point ... my emotional well being is much more important to me than having a million channels on my cable TV or high speed internet ... or even a well-heated home (which technically I don't have now anyway) ... I am just so tired of being undermined and overrun and treated like an out of line teenager .... having the things that I request ... the very, very few things I request be denied and shunned ... I am an adult ... I have lived completely self-sufficiently ... I have three children of my own ... I don't deserve to be treated like this ....