I Suck At This

As I write this, it sounds like Sarah has hopefully gone back to sleep and my heart rate is going back to normal. It takes anywhere from three to a dozen times putting her back to bed before she’ll stay and go back to sleep, and when I’m tired it gets my heart rate up and my blood boiling.

This quiet time after everyone else is in bed is my time. She’s made it kind of a habit this past week to get up anywhere between midnight and 3 a.m. She goes through these phases every so often. It’s irritating, even though I’m a night person anyway. I was just about to head to bed when I heard her. Ron works at 5:00 in the morning, so I’ll have to get her up and get her ready for school. Not sure if I will catch up on sleep tomorrow after getting her on the bus, now that I won’t have homework to work on.

There are always lots of things that need to be done that I usually neglect for the most part while classes are in session. I have been feeling a bit hopeless about that. Classes. I always wanted to go back and get my degree and here I am doing it finally at 42 (Associates degree in CIS. Small goals.) but I keep asking myself if it’s worth it. How am I going to do anything with it since I had to quit the job I had to stay home with Sarah. And then I talk myself back into it for a little while. It’s a field I can eventually work remotely if I’m decent at it. But there’s always that thought in the back of my mind that I can’t do it. I won’t be good enough. Having Sarah – whether I have a job away or at home – will hinder me. Not sure how everything will work out.

Can you even imagine having a child and realizing that you are still changing diapers 11 years later (changing diapers for 22 years counting my older two), still need someone to watch her just so you can take a shower, and that she may never leave home? It’s nice to have a full house, to have the experience of raising kids, but the idea of the empty nest and getting on with part two of life (or three, four, five – whatever part middle age is in your book) is like the reward for your hard work. Vacation. Retirement. I don’t see any of that on the horizon.

I really suck at this. Being a mom of a special needs child, mom in general, wife, life. Just suck at all of it. Sometimes I want to hop on a bus and head anywhere and reinvent myself and then I remember, not only am I trapped in this life (of my own making), but I’m 42. That’s something I should have done years ago before all of this.

I can’t even count how many times I’ve started a blog and deleted it all. It all just gets too depressing. But, I don’t know. Maybe what I need is to log it all and keep it, analyze it, see how things change. Track progress.

There has definitely been progress in many areas. There was a time we could not sit and have coffee in the morning or watch a show in peace. Sarah is much calmer than she used to be. She would walk and have us walk with her non-stop from the time she woke up until the time her head hit the pillow. Now she will look at her magazines or “play” with a toy for what seems like hours on end compared with how things used to be. And then she would be up for hours, refusing to sleep. Screeching, giggling or crying, lying on the floor kicking the door or the wall.

We’re making progress in potty training too. She now stays dry for most of the day and pees on the toilet when we take her. That’s been a long time coming and we’re still working on it.

So, let’s see, this blog is primarily about the rest of my journey here, I guess. I’m a sharer, I tend to over share, maybe. Most people post a sentence on Facebook a couple of times a week. My posts were basically short blog posts much of the time. I figured instead of giving my intellectual property to Facebook, I’d keep it for myself and post here.

Besides, Facebook is mentally draining and cult-like. And just so weird. I had people I knew from high school or childhood that I got back in touch with and it was great and fun at first then some things happened.

1. Years went by and these people who lived very close by were too busy to get together the one or two times I suggested it. Who’s busy? I know busy.

2. I was referred to as a virtual friend. Not exactly. Someone I was really good friends with long-distance-like met a new friend and described her as the “real life version” of me. That killed that.

3. I wanted to argue with everyone. If I have to only know people by the stupid crap they post on Facebook, I don’t like anyone.

So anyway, I downloaded my Facebook info and deleted my page and it is creepy the things they track but that’s a post for another day. This has turned into quite a ramble. Sort of a freewriting session.

So, what was I getting at? Oh yeah. I plan to write about being a student at 42, a mom of a kid with special needs and mom in general.

Mom of special needs unfortunately has taken precedence and I realize and understand more and more how my older daughter was gypped out of the childhood she should have had. I feel like when her brother was her age I was in a better position to help him. Sarah was little, still in regular daycare, I was working full-time and I could afford to help him with driver’s ed, sending him to Washington D.C. for the Page program, helping him with his paper route… Now that Sarah is older, it’s harder to do things like that with and for Jamie and that just makes me feel like a horrible mother to her. I really wish I could do more with her and for her to help her on her way to being a successful adult.

Then I feel guilty that I’m focusing on myself now with going back to college. So many thoughts. So many post for another day. I just feel like I have so much regret from having made so many bad decisions, and I can trace these back so many years. Childhood. Wish I could have an Erica Strang experience and go back and redo some things sometimes. What was my point again? Ugh. I have no idea.

But I have too many ideas. Actually, I have so many ideas and they come at me all at once sometimes and it’s impossible to sort them out or start anything because I want to start everything. When I decided to apply for the Computer Information Sytems program at UMA, even after I did it I was still looking at the English program at UMO, as well as the biology/pre-med track, nursing, art. The problem is that I want to do it all.

Then when I started getting behind in my courses and getting discouraged I started looking for CNA programs. I thought, heck, I should’ve just taken one of those short courses for phlebotomy (would’ve been simply for refresher and certification as I’ve done it before) or bartending even.

I had a teacher tell me once that I had so much potential I wasn’t using. I am a bit lazy. I want instant gratification. I want a degree now, not months or years from now. But then I had a doctor I worked for who thought I could’ve been a doctor under different circumstances in my life. I was certainly smart enough and could pick up on things very quickly when medical things were being discussed. They were talking about a newborn in the NICU being evaluated for a metabolic or genetic disorder and they were saying the baby had white poop and I immediately piped right up and said, “Oh, that sounds serious – liver or gall bladder problem?” I know stuff. I don’t think I would want the responsibility that comes with a profession like that though.

All right. I’m done for now.

Basically, this blog is about how I suck at everything. Or maybe it should be about how I learn to stop sucking at everything.

Laurie Frisbey

About Laurie Frisbey

Laurie Frisbey is the mom of a college graduate, a teenager and a preteen with special needs. She has been an administrative assistant, but is now a SAHM and full-time college student (third attempt) . She is about to embark on a brand new career in CIS at the age of 42.