Basking In Silence

"Are you just gonna flash your shirt in the school hallway, waiting for a taker, or do you have one specific girl in mind?"

"Ha ha Mom, very funny," Martin deadpanned as only he can do, refusing to even name the girl, "You always know their grandma," he explained, without even realizing he was calling me old yet again.

The girl said yes however.  Not that he offered up a wide variety of choices - see photo again.

Now six out of my eight high schools kids are dogging me for homecoming dance outfits, it won't be until October though. CW doesn't wanna go, his girlfriend lives in Augusta, JoJo's going, but doesn't care what he wears, he's liable to dress up as a zombie because he's JoJo.

Lily wants to go to Goodwill to shop because they have funky vintage dresses here in a college town.

I squirmed out of having to go to a grocery store yesterday, the older I get, which is minute by minute, the less able I am to force myself to stop what I'm trying to accomplish around here to head to a boring store, but today my hand is gonna get forced I can tell. I'm out of rice milk, popcorn kernels, avocados and corn tortillas AKA essentials.

It wasn't even any fun to deep clean Jack and Nando's very large bedroom, but that still beats shopping in my book.  I had the supremely non-demanding company of my silly dogs and lovely, complete silence as I worked, a couple of bouts of rain showers lifting my spirit and then the satisfaction of a job well done - where I knew these two sweet sons, ages almost 11 and 12, would come home from school and not make me pay emotionally for the progress I was enjoying.

Ever seen as episode of Hoarders?  I've had several children, over the years, be absolutely unable to part with a single item of trash.  I attributed it to their trauma backgrounds, their incredible sad lack while growing up in birth homes, but as I learn more and more I'm not exactly sure now if it was a trauma issue, a control issue, or part of an emotional health disorder that if left unchecked would lead to severe hoarding behaviors later in life, scary behavioral aspects already in evidence.

I can't, and don't, diagnose.  I only report the behaviors I've witnessed, however bizarre they've been at times.

Is it bizarre that I seriously crave my alone time?  I hope not.

Once Sarah'd gone away to camp, or somewhere, as a preteen, leaving me alone in our cavernous old farm house back then, down yet another dirt road in this county, and while I, of course, greatly missed her, I stayed at home the entire time (it was Spring Break) gardening and not seeing another human being, and remembering to this day, what a treasure that was to me - the complete silence, zero demands, personal space, no expectations, and one very annoyed boyfriend who took it so dadgum personally, not comprehending a young single mother's need for Me Time just for a few days.

My hours, while they're all in school, is Me Time, even if it is spent cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, whatever, it's the silence I need in order to screw my head back on, having had it wrenched off so often in our extraordinarily dangerous, too violent and destructive past where emotionally disturbed children took us all hostage for way too long.

Nowadays, now that it is one million percent safer, my other dozen kids don't hover as much, now that they're not being threatened or harassed, nor feeling the traumatic need to make sure Mom is safe, now everyone is relaxing, becoming sillier and way more fun, me included.

I took a perceived harsh step, that of ensuring residential for the two teenagers that had required police intervention here way too often, but it was a necessary one.  I feel 100% validated, having witnessed from afar the many 10-13 incidents happening where she now has been placed, or the other placements where they felt they couldn't meet her needs.  Translation:  We can't handle her behaviors.

Well, no kidding, neither could I, nor could I keep my other kids safe from those rages.  She's aggressive towards staff there, how much more so here where there wasn't a staff to back me up?

Another reason I can now bask in silence and in what others might consider a boring life of drudgery, to me it is Heaven because we are safe.