readytostoprunning - Tumblr blog

[readytostoprunning]

I’m proud of the way that I’ve been able to quicksand the angry temper tornado I’ve owned since before I had memories to look back on.

This time is much easier as I finally acquiesced that their walls were rooted as deeply as mine. I’m exhausted from being so damn mad most of the time. The dark clouds have dissipated just from simply saying “I’m not keeping score. I’m not harboring old grudges any longer” out loud. I really do feel like this time will be much different.

I grapple with the fact that this feels so good I have no drive to do anything at work. This new me will have to find a new fight; I’m in very unfamiliar territory as I’m so proud of my work ethic.

I also want to make up for lost time with my family. We both deserve it.

Fuck you, Dave.

[readytostoprunning]

An old friend from my teens came into the store today with a daughter I hadn't met. We chatted like old friends do, staying on familiar ground with polite smiles and the same questions about the same people we've haven't seen in decades.

After about ten minutes of talking to them, my old friend began to tear up and told me her son died last month. Her teenage daughter lost her fight with the dam holding thick tears that were determined to salt her cheeks, in obvious pain from a broken heart. Her son's death was self inflicted, and her throat was obviously too thick to swallow any reprieve of air.

I immediately thought about the arguments my family has had in the past months. I thought about the denial each of us has snatched before the other could claim it, and the refusal to back down from the latest razor sharp verbal takedowns we've mastered.

My friend and her child left the store, broken and forever mourning.

The only emotion I felt was shame. I watched a mother collapse while my family gears up for conflict at least once a week. I'm embarrassed for myself, my wife and our son.

What the fuck.

[readytostoprunning]

I'm not sure where my family began falling apart or more accurately, stopped talking and started pointing fingers.

I've always felt that my scorched earth approach was what guided me through most situations. Nuance, subtlety, whatever one prefers to call it, is for wimps and pussies. I'm still appalled at the way my son conducts his affairs. He's a doormat to everyone, with the exception of his old man. This stems from my solemn promise to never strike him. He uses this decree like a weasel; he is bold because he knows there is no penalty for bad behavior.

My wife and I have never had problems until my son met his current girlfriend. She is stubborn without the benefit of experience to guide her hard headed existence. She just expects everyone to cater to her whims because... just because. She comes from an odd family that suffers from no leadership, no cohesive plan to forge ahead as a unit, and no one member paying attention to anyone who has a legitimate gripe. They are no better than the Sawyer family, they teeter on the edge of being a loose collective akin to the Manson cult.

My fear is that my son is blinded by his love for her, his inability to stand up to anyone except for me, and his penchant for dragging up whatever society rejects the sewer belches out. She is a problem, with no sign of her growing up or out of the trash disposition she garnered from the alleged misdeeds of her mother and father.

The recipe is ripe for a showdown. I don't want to lose my son, however, he refuses to admonish her for her shitty habits. She has never said thank you for the many meals, tickets, clothes, presents, vacations and money she has been given. He loves her regardless.

I've began the uphill battle of changing my disposition. I realize that my refusal to take any crap has affected my son. He began with no confidence, hasn't picked any up, and acknowledges that he isn't the same as me. This couldn't possibly be the young man I set out to raise. I came to be this sharpened by the beatings my father rained down on me. I just don't understand why my kid's so soft when being hard was all he was taught.

The aforementioned problems with my wife grew out of my distaste for my son. He treats her like an afterthought; she treats her only child like a god. They're both wrong but will never be able to see that. Being the exclusionary duo makes sure they never will. They know without reservation that they are neither wrong,ever,ever, ever.

Here's the gist that will throw water on the rambling this has turned into. My son, much like his mother, bears no responsibility for the upheaval his nonchalance has sprouted. It's been easier to point the finger at the gruff guy, the instigator, the hard ass.

He retreats to his cave on the other side of the house, gets petted by his lady love, and sleepwalks through his home life. My wife is so afraid he'll abandon her that she kisses the ass she should be kicking. He cares about no one but himself, and his girlfriend runs amok. She truly is...trouble. She is a master manipulator, a true member of royalty when employing the silent treatment to his parents and grandmothers, and an entitled brat who uses tears to get her way.

I know I'm stuck in a bad spot. I risk losing my son as this gets thicker with each passing day.

My wife and I will be fine. I'll make sure of that. I don't know that her love for her son will be enough. He is slowly being indoctrinated by his naïveté when faced with the bullshit his mute girlfriend feeds him with a fork and knife. This will, one day, break his mother's heart as she slowly is pushed into irrelevance by a girl that isn't fit to clean my wife's shoes.

[readytostoprunning]

My body's pain makes assholes of people around me.

[readytostoprunning]

" I'm sorry" is the most beautiful thing in the world. It's also the most worthless.

[readytostoprunning]

It's time that I face the contempt I have for my mother. Her stance has been that she acknowledges that my father was a monster, but she didn't have any of the hurt to wash from her own hands.

What she fails to recognize is that she was a knowing accomplice and that for far too long after they had split, also used her sons as verbal and physical targets when it suited her anger.

For years I held her responsible for not sticking up for us. After the benefit of time and my own missteps, I don't know that that's entirely fair. She was simply too weak to be by herself.

He blow torched his family and then cashed out. Literally, he cashed out. He took his children's college money and began a new life in Georgia.

My mother wasn't prepared to be a single parent. Maybe that's why she let us be terrorized. I can't really say. What I do know for certain is that she took out her frustration on two boys that hadn't yet become teenagers.

I vividly remember the fire of her hitting me on the back of my head with the many rings she wore on all ten fingers. The back of my skull would sting for several minutes. The seething anger at her for the physical onslaught still burns bright each day I wake up.

There was an eighteen inch spoon that hung from the kitchen wall. It was garishly yellow green; it was also brutishly hard and unforgiving when she swung it. I wonder what happened to that ugly piece of shit.

She threatened me with a belt one afternoon when I was around twelve. I had grown taller than her and took the belt from her.I added that if she hit me again I would return fire as powerful as it was issued.

She pointed her rage at me when it was convenient. In my teens, her mother became ill and was not doing well at all. This hurt us all as her mother was the best woman I'd ever met. She still is. The phone rang long after midnight and I then heard my mother sobbing. I asked through the bedroom wall what was wrong. She screamed at me "You know what's fucking wrong!" I was left, as I had been most of my life, embarrassed, shamed, and powerless.

I absorbed it all and got on with my life. I got married and we started our life. My mother would visit once a month and I noticed that my wife and I were at each other's throats when Sue would leave on Sundays. We talked it out and realized that the seeds for our fights were thrown in the form of my mother's twisted words and misrepresented scenarios. That was when we agreed to keep even the most mundane conversations to ourselves. That was also the time frame that we were told by others that she had dragged us to both our friends and our neighbors across the road.

She loved to use her title as mother when it suited her. We were visiting relatives in West Virginia and eating dinner with over 20 of us at a large table. Our server told her that her meal would be a few minutes behind the rest of our party. She screamed at her and embarrassed her. I told her to calm down as she pointed her shouting at me. I was again left ashamed at my inability to stick up for myself.

I now watch her issue passive aggressive comments to people in her periphery. I relish in calling her out on it. It is so satisfying to not let her get a pass on belittling people that don't deserve it. What I now realize is that I'm not protecting others from her barbed comments. I'm bullying her much as she does everyone else. I have to change.

My mother is in her seventies and shows no signs of curbing her sharp tongue. When her targets stand up to her she claims they have hurt her feelings. How convenient.

I know that I have to let her off the hook. This will, in turn, let me also free myself from the hatred that has perpetrated my family for decades. Maybe she will realize that she is the shrapnel that continues to fuel her hate and hurt. We'll see.

[readytostoprunning]

I'm left to wonder, after another fight, what will be written on my headstone. I've asked repeatedly, not to be taken to task so often.

I'm worried about my health after a scary stay in a Pell City hospital in March. In October I had, undiagnosed, a similar episode. I'd hoped that my family would extend the same understanding and sense of care that I've seen given to others. That is a pretty tall order for my family.

I've been marginalized, and because of an inability to walk away, treated like a punching bag by my wife. My son couldn't be bothered to help me shop for his mother's birthday on that October morning I just wrote about.

My answer to the strife has been to become silent when I'm uneasy. I've explained that this isn't manipulative, rather it's simply an attempt to stay here a bit longer.

Tonight I was accused of some foul behavior. She screamed at me that I'm untruthful about my self imposed silence and that it's a ploy to drag everyone down with me. It couldn't be farther from the truth.

In closing, I'd like to say that I resisted the urge to scream back. I've always confronted confrontation with a scorched earth approach. I almost gave in twice but am proud to say I held my own and didn't take the bait.

I made it home and checked my BP. It was slightly elevated but low enough that they can't strike iron to granite just yet. It remains to be seen how long I can keep the funeral home at bay.

[readytostoprunning]

I want to talk to him. I want to tell him that he's being himself and that I'm not okay with that.

I want him to know he's been my favorite person in the world since I watched him defiantly scream at the nurses that brought him into the world. I want him to know that's he's truly a miracle. I want him to know that him having a chronic disease hurts me so much and I admire the way he deals with it everyday.

I want to tell him that he will regret the insouciance that he carries himself with. It will one day be an albatross that will suffocate him when he wants to scream at the clock and beg it to go backwards.

I want him to somehow understand what I'm thinking. I'm screaming at deaf ears that he's choking the man he will become while also breaking my heart.

[readytostoprunning]

It has been far too long since I've enjoyed being Andrew's father. I evidently care too much and I've made a mess of our relationship. I want to stress that it's through caring too much, and it's known that I've driven him away.

So I want to make today a delineation mark. I will no longer request time from someone that no longer has it to give. I believe that it may help us both heal.

I will concentrate my days remaining calm and taking care of my health. It's still not great and I fear that the next stroke may be much, much worse.

The one thing I've always depended on has drowned itself in so many fights and no one backing down. My marriage is,

In my wife's eyes, a shambles. Her refusal to see my side of things, and my own to do the same regarding her, has made us both sharpened like steel and unable to find common ground. While I admire her devotion to her son, I have to be honest and admit that it won't get her far. He just simply doesn't care.

Our sweet son that I've been so proud of has to find his own way. He's so talented and special. He owes the world so much more, that I do believe. He's brilliant, but also lazy and bad with money. My wish is that he will one day stagger me with his new found work ethic and dedication to being a man he can be proud of. I'll be

around should he choose to.

I've become a bad actor in my own life. This version of Larry has to commit suicide and a new will be born. He will forge a new perspective and be a better man. He will work harder, train harder and eat to live. He will let his son go in the hope that one day he'll come back around and they can try again.

[readytostoprunning]

The love of my life was the runt of a litter. He cost me a fifty dollar bill. I met his sister, Candle, first. I wanted to do something nice for my wife so I drove to the mill village and picked up the one that changed my life.

Sprocket was a black cocker that didn’t have to steal my heart. For the first time in my life I gave my heart in huge bites and wasn’t scared. I remember his first bath in our guest bathroom sink. It swallowed him as he shivered. He then spent his first night cowering under our coffee table.

He was my best teacher. He taught me to love without fear of being hurt; I learned to love someone more than oneself. He was my best boy for thirteen years. I loved him without a net because I knew he wouldn’t hurt me or leave me. Until he did.

He went downhill quickly. In a month he was gone. I remember holding him the last time in a pale yellow blanket and fighting my face in front of a man assuring me I had done the best thing for my sweet boy. I couldn’t believe it was over.

“Miss You Like Crazy” came on the radio as I drove home last night. I usually skip it as it holds too much truth for me. This time I turned back and listened and let myself ache for him for the first time in fifteen years.

The dull ache can’t be described; it must be experienced. I listened because I want him to know, in our way, that he is still the love of my life.

[readytostoprunning]

It occurred to me that most people cry alone. They cry because they’re alone, or miss someone, or don’t feel they have a choice to talk to them one last time.

The world is a big place to be alone. It’s crowded with people that are always alone.

[readytostoprunning]

The clock lies to me. It won’t slow down and it’s all I can do to make the time with her last.

I struggle with the days until I see her.

[readytostoprunning]

7/4/21

I was an only child until I was eleven months old. My brother was born and I’ve known him everyday since. Some days were okay. Some were wildly combative. For decades they were mostly silent. We were both complicit in that silence as any time around one another was destined to be a gnashing of teeth, tons of shouting swear words and ultimately the comfort of hating another person that only siblings can describe.

He hurt his arm at work a few years ago and I called him on my drive home. I don’t know why I called. I just did. He seemed shocked at my well wishes and he began calling me. It was a shaky truce that became easier with each phone call. For some reason, he called me on Wednesday’s. We were, for the first time since our teens, able to speak without screaming and allow ourselves to be cordial. We became friends again.

He passed away early this morning. His heart finally gave in to the abuse and years of trying to stay in my father’s life. My brother sought a much different path than I. I chose to walk away from the deep well of physical, emotional and verbal abuse our father was hell bound on drowning us in. My brother, and his heart, never gave up on the man that sadistically and systematically tortured him through his formative years. He molded himself after a man who hurt others because his father hurt him and was never strong enough to break the cycle of meanness packaged as family tradition. My brother would return to the scene of the crime each time he drank too much, smoked too many or committed a bevy of small crimes. I lay that firmly at the foot of the May name.

Today I am an only child for one day and eleven months of my life.

[readytostoprunning]

I’m aware of the meanness around me. I’ve been attacked online and don’t care for it. I’m disappointed in myself for falling in line and letting it affect me.

This year has been tough and it seems people are looking for targets for their malaise. I’ve become a little more reactionary and have begun muttering things under my breath that are total anathema to me. I’ve turned into the person that I preach against.

I will do better. Because I hate the words that flash into my head and sometimes sneak past my lips. I’ve fought against those attitudes since my teens and can’t believe I was so easily influenced by the ignorance of others. I’m not doing it because I think Im better than those who have snuck their hatred past my borders, I’m doing it because I want to be better. I want to be good and do good.

[readytostoprunning]

I imagine him in another hospital bed, short of breath and memory, and full of regret. He looks somewhat like me, or so I'm told. To call him my father, or use that noun would cause him to fall very, very short.

I've reconnected with his family and to some extent, my own. The universal truth held is that he's changed and no longer the man that brutalized his brood until he left them for another life. I was eleven. I saw him the next four summers until I refused to go again after being punched over a plate of food.

He's in his seventies now is and in an advanced stage of cancer. My internal debate for seven months was whether or not to let him into my life, and by extension, my son's life. My hand was forced last week by my brother, another survivor. My inaction wilted away with the words, "He's dying."

So I'm left to wonder if he's tired. Or hungry. Or scared. Or ultimately, ready to stop fighting. That would be most ironic as I've never seen him back down from a fight.

I've pieced together his face in my mind. It's a mixture of a man I feared, reviled and forgot decades ago. Maybe a lot like his father, a man who never gave his only son a break from beatings. Or, once again, so I'm told.

My wonder engine has been in overdrive this past half month. I wonder if we'll speak or if I even care to. I really just don't want to be careless with the feelings of a man that hardly took mine into consideration. I wonder if I should be more emotional about the outcome. How will it look when I'm the only one with dry cheeks when he passes on?

I'm struck that if we had continued a passing relationship I could stop wondering. I'd answer my own questions and make damn sure my son will never wonder. Wondering isn't really worth the time it takes to wonder.

[readytostoprunning]

It's amazing the peace I've had since this started. I've not gotten lazy and I've kept up my quarantine resolutions. I'm more pleased with myself than I've been in years.

I thought I had gotten better at telling myself no when it came to my chief weakness. It's like a part of me can't tell myself no when I know where it leads. Am I really considering doing this again? I already know the answer and have known it for the better part of a year and a half.

Is this part of the reason my brain won't turn itself off? I don't consider it all my fault. They keep coming. When one leaves another one appears. Always. And there's the one I can't forget. I've been distracted but never able to stop wondering.

[readytostoprunning]

My teenage son had just met his first serious girlfriend. His mother and I were ecstatic to watch him glow whenever they were together or on the phone. It seemed as if two kids had found each other in a world where dating was a mean place where manipulation and destruction were battering rams and relationships became battle strategies.

We took her with us to dinner, concerts and watched them grow into a couple uninterested in plans; they just wanted to be together.

A few weeks went by and imagined slights turned into teeth baring affairs. She posted bizarre thoughts on social media and demanded my son to heel to unconscionable conditions. He wasn't my polite, thoughtful caring friend that I couldn't wait to wake up each day. He went from the last thing I smiled about before sleep and became someone I didn't recognize. I look back now and realize he was drowning.

She was adept at playing games with him. It was never a fair contest. He couldn't understand why they couldn't string together two good days with one another. She ended their relationship every few days only to reach out and torture him hours after each breakup.

We spoke at dinner last night. He told me that he was over it and that as much as it hurt, he was going to let her go. I was proud of him and recognized how tough that was for him and how hard it was going to be. My son slept between his parents for the first time in years. Sunlight was on its way.

Fast forward to this evening. His clothing was returned and her mother profusely apologized. Her daughter, my son's ex, sees a therapist and is on medication. She's hasn't had a good day in years and tortures herself and her folks with her mind every day. My opinion of her is now in limbo.

I can't describe the feeling of collapse I feel. Someone that was a fixture in my life is gone. Chances are that we'll never speak again. Someone's little girl is destroyed by her own hand. She cannot understand why everyone is against her. I never met her parents but heard good things. I want to give them strength because I know they'll need it.

She had a habit of constantly hugging me. I found it annoying and needy. I've had trouble with people touching me because of my own harrowing childhood. I never realized that maybe she needs hugs more than anyone I've ever met. Through all of this, she is still a child. In her late teens, she is still a child. Sometimes people forget that.

Now I'd let her hug me as long as she wanted.