disconnected. discombobulated. bleh.

Yesterday ranks up there with one of the worst 2 hour experiences of my life. Don't get me wrong, I've had more than a couple, a lot brought on by my own actions, but this one holds rank up there.

I really wanted the entire event to be quite insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It was supposed to bring closure and simply close a chapter of my life - a lot of which I've wished for years I could forget anyway.

When I die, please remember me as I was. I told Garth last night to please be real. Whether I die tomorrow or 60 years from now, tell the masses I was a bitch sometimes. That I didn't mind raising my voice when I didn't feel heard. That I was stubborn. That I was lazy and really, really preferred to sleep over doing most anything. That I had crazy mood swings that sometimes were frightening, to myself included. That I lived my life afraid of the words "mental illness". Can someone please stand up and remember me as a too-often-F-word-using-trucker-mouth who could make a sailor blush? I mean, give the good with the bad, but please let's try to keep it real.

Please make my eulogy, my legacy, something that it really was. And no matter at what point in my life in which I die, please acknowledge ALL those who played a key role in making my life what it was. Yes, even my ex-husband. Please even mention him. He's no part of my life now, but its no secret, my life experiences shared with him & because of him, most certainly played a role in molding me into the person I stand here today proud to be. Please don't pretend he didn't exist. He did, as often as I'd like to forget that he did. You'd be doing my legacy a disservice to omit him. It takes nothing away from the love I have with Garth to acknowledge the fact that I had a life before Garth.

I guess you just have to shake your head, remember that funerals are for the living and not the dead, and hope that having spent almost 20 years with someone in your immediate family, that that person would have wanted you, your sister and for the love of all things holy, your mother mentioned at his funeral. She was married to him longer than his first wife and for more than twice as long as his third, with whom he carried on an affair & left her for and never looked back at the aftermath he left in his wake.

We went because it was the right thing to do. We stayed in the background, didn't meddle, didn't attempt to draw attention to ourselves nor make it about us. But dang, timeline his life out in his eulogy but conveniently omit the 20 years in the middle where we existed?! I lived with this person far longer than most of the family that occupied the first rows of the service, his own biological children included. When that person only lived to reach 60, I'd like to think that those nearly 20 years, which included basically my entire childhood, teenage years & young adulthood were somewhat significant.

Apparently I couldn't have been more wrong.

I'm writing this blog as a part of my legacy. These are my moments in time I want to share with my friends & family now - my children, their children later. I wasn't even going to blog about the hell I call yesterday but I do want to document one thing, get it down visually so I can see what my ears never heard.

My Mom mattered to you. Dee & I mattered too. We existed in your life. Acknowledging us and our very real roles in your life, wouldn't have conveyed any misunderstandings that you loved your current family any less. I wish you understood that, or your wife, or whoever chose to forget our existence. Talk about compiling pain.

I was told you died with no regrets. Well, I, hope you died with at least one. You died still owing my mother an apology.


** please no comments sympathizing for my loss. i mourned our loss of this man years ago. he hasn't been a part of my life for 8 years - he moved on, never looked back, had a new family and so i hear, died happy. i don't wish anyone to die alone or miserable. i'm glad he was loved. i felt my mom, sister & i were erased, omitted, our lives with him diminished... and, having spent that much time in a persons life only to be forgotten, that is my pain. i had that hurt already wrapped up tight with a pretty bow, high on a shelf. yesterday ripped it right back open. whether you like it or not we mattered, damn it, we mattered.