A Cold Medicine Epiphany

It is 8:32 in the morning on Friday, and I think I slept maybe 2-2.5 hours last night.





Well, let me back up for a minute because I can't remember at this very moment if I have blogged about Doodlebug being so sick this weekend or not. Needless to say, we have been playing pass and catch this sucker of a little virus back and forth to each other since Saturday.




Well, He missed school on Monday ($35 down the drain-spent the day at the office with me), went to school successfully on Tuesday, and I got a phone call on Wednesday that he again had a fever of 100.6. So, I packed up at work at 11:30, and headed off to get him, and just took the rest of the day off, will use my sick days. When I get to school, all the children are outside, it is a BEAUTIFUL day, and they are finally getting to play on the big playground,....except Doodlebug, who is sitting in a chair next to the teacher *ALARMS GOING OFF*. He ran up to me and just hugged me and I could feel the heat radiating from his little 3 year old body.




At this point, I say enough to myself, about not splurging on anything. He's been wanting to watch Cars, (we lost his DVD somewhere) and I headed immediately to the nearest Target, and got it, along with Pedialyte, Kleenex, etc. The poor baby put his blankie across the bars on the buggy, and actually laid down and went to sleep. That alone broke my heart. I brought him home, fixed him a super comfy place on the love seat, and just sat with him for a little over an hour, when he woke up enough for me to give him some Tylenol, and back to sleep he went.




He reminds me so much of myself in the weirdest moments, like this one. When I was a child and got sick, I would crawl into my parents bed, and sleep until I was over it. He was pretty much doing the same thing.




The fever came and went, and yesterday a cough grabbed him up so bad, that he would cough himself into throwing up.....alot. We stayed home yesterday, unfortunately, yes I think, ugh another $35 gone.




Mid-day, he was passing whatever back to me, and my head felt like it was in a vice. I went to look under my bathroom sink because I was sure at some point, I saw some cold/allergy medicine in there.




I found some alright.




Now, I knew it was old, I rarely get sick, and I believe that this particular allergy/cold medicine was purchased while I was still living in my old college town, oh ... around 2001. And if memory serves me correctly, I think back then, they still had stuff like ephedrine in the medicine, but memory wasn't serving me at all when I took the medicine. Not much later, my congested sinus's were clearing, the vice around my face and head was letting go and I was feeling, almost new again.




Then..........I started feeling funny.




Then it hit me. . . they pulled that stuff off the shelf and reformulated their products for a reason. Isn't the stuff that people were making drugs like speed and meth with????




Yep.... I was wide awake. Bouncy even. And instead of freaking out about it, I thought, Doodlebug is asleep, I can watch t.v. all on my own (We'd watched Cars 432.5 times by now). I watched Grey's, Friends, The 48, and it was in the middle of a rerun of Sex and the City (you know the one where Carrie and Adian broke up, and she had to either buy her apartment back from him or move? She finally went to Big for some help/advice) when my Epiphany hit me. It was so clear.




I was so excited about it, I would have given anything to have had my computer at home, and started writing this last night, lord knows I was awake long enough to do so.




I have dated, seriously, 3 guys in my life, and one of the really doesn't count-as we never committed to a committed relationship, but he is so important in this epiphany. (I can't help but giggle everything I write or say that word, it just sounds silly, epiphany)




Way back when, (2000) I met Andy (names have been changed to keep my identity a secret and not to give them the chance to gloat that someone is actually blogging about them). Andy was super good looking, youngish (26-27 I think) I was 21, he had graduated from our college, owned his own business, and Mr. Can't Noooooooo-one pin his tail feathers to the floor. *Challenge* I am apparently a sucker for a challenging guy. There was instant attraction, and I was a very popular girl in college, lots of friends, sorority girl, fraternity sweetheart, cheerleader, so in a way, I was sort of another trophy for him, yeah yeah, whatever, I had fun. He was definitely a playboy, and broke my heart more times then I would like to count. The thing about Andy though (that I realized last night) was he took care of me. Meaning: he always bought dinner, drinks, covers into bars if anyone *gasp* actually charged us a cover, took me on little excursions to little places, took me to Vegas for the first time, took me to the East Coast, etc. This might even help crystallize the picture, my sorority sisters use to laugh and call him "Mr. Big". <~~ See where the moment caught me in the episode last night? Once even, we were all visiting another sorority sister, and watching 9 1/2 weeks, when Natalie looked over at me and said, "He sooo reminds me of Andy with you."




Even after I met Larry (Sept. 2001-and finally broke things off with Andy), he even bought/gave me a plane ticket so that I could fly out to Vegas with Larry that New Year's. Larry by the way is Doodlebug's "father". Larry broke my heart that March, and bad. Well, Andy swooped in, packed up my apartment, moved me to Houston after he sent me to New Orleans with my girlfriends for spring break. The next few months with Andy, were my absolute favorite ever. Because we were friends. We actually became best friends. I think it really hit him, how he had hurt me so many times in the past, so actually seeing me hurting over Larry, really upset him. Anyway, it started out that he would come visit me from Friday night after work-Sunday evening.....which quickly turned into Thursday afternoon -Tuesday morning. Nothing happened, really. It was really an awesome time, no stress about anyone expecting anything from the other person, and I was able to actually hide from my broken heart, and not get back into the dating world. How could I date with Andy there all the time? Andy being the guy he was, so often helped out with rent, or the electric bill, because he was there, 4-6 days a week. He helped. He did not just offer, he just did it. <~~~~*Impact*




Now, I would love to say unfortunately, but I can't, because if we didn't, I wouldn't have Doodlebug. Larry and I did get back together, and Andy got mad, and quite being my friend. Larry and I got engaged. Larry and I had a roller coaster of and engagement and relationship all together. Broke off the engagement. He pretended to still love me, and kept seeing each other, and we have a child together. Larry split completely out of our lives when I was 3 months pregnant when he met ku-ku-ma-new-koo, proposed to her, and married her a year later on my birthday.




Larry and I didn't work for several reasons:

• (the biggest of all) he was a cheat, and I didn't trust him
• once he moved in with me, he mooched. He couldn't find a job, and I hated the fact that I worked all day, and would come home to my apartment in a disgusting mess.
• We moved to another city, where I again supported us financially. I paid our rent, storage bill more times than not, gave him cash, other bills regularly, because his bills took most of his money. Ya know, my money was our money, his money was his money.

Anyway, lets super fast forward to current boyfriend. He makes good money. I have know him since Doodlebug was 1. At the time we met, Larry was no where. He stopped visitation ( I have to laugh that I am calling 7 very short visits "visitation") and was beginning to stop paying child support. I was right smack in the middle of nursing school at the time, and struggling as much as I had ever known up to that point. One day, a fellow classmate, gave me a roll of quarters so I could buy Doodlebug diapers. (Larry was according to his myspace page in Vegas, with not his wife-they had split up already ).

Anyway, my point is this: new boyfriend has seen me struggle. More so now than ever. He has seen me cry my eyes out, trying to figure out how I am going to pay day care, pay bills, buy clothes for growing baby, etc.




After being together a year, he begged me to move here, and when I did, he balked about moving in together, hence me living in a stupid garage apartment that I despise. He has seen me miserable about my living arrangement (his answer is get rid of my dog--and I can live anywhere I want--not going to happen). He has seen me trying like mad to figure out how I am going to pay daycare. He has seen my broken hearted, and broken spirited about my finances. Now let me mention, I do get my bills paid, I may have NOTHING left afterwards, but damn it, it gets taken care of.

What struck me last night was, not one time has he ever said to me, "Let me pay/help you with daycare this week. Can I help you with anything?" Nothing. Of course he is always upset, that we can't go out , or we're always stuck at home, but he has never offered to help.

Once, I gave him my credit card to pick up my dog food for me, and he didn't' feel comfortable using it, so he bought it,....I wrote him a $25 check to pay him back. When I finally broke down, and asked him to help me, asked him to pay half of my $55 birth control, his answer was, "well how about I just don't cash this check?"

What I realized last night.......

I am that traditionalist, that conservative person, I have tried my whole life to run away from.

My dad took care of my mom. He didn't earn much, but he was the breadwinner. I want that. I am not a "gold-digger" so please do not take my love of how Andy took care of me as that, because it wasn't. But I want someone to take care of me, my children. I want someone who wants me to be home raising our children more than I am at work. I don't think I could handle being a stay at home mom, but I would definitely would give just about anything to be home more.

I couldn't help but wonder, is this where all my angst for boyfriend is coming from? Is it the fact that he hasn't really done anything, to make my struggle lighter, what bothers me so much. He is needy in an emotional way, but I have pretty much been refusing to give, and I think this is why. Why give him what he needs, he has yet to give me even an inkling of what I need: support, strength, stability, the feeling of security, the feeling that I am someone he wants to take care of, in every way, not just physically, which I haven't been to keen on in a long time either. . . .

And it did bother me a little,that he has known how sick Doodlebug and I have been, that I have gotten no sleep, minus last night hiatus. I just wish one of the times I invited him over, he would have came and snuggled up to Doodlebug for a hour or two...so I could sleep.

Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of things he does right.

But I can't help but wonder:

• Did I jump into this relationship too soon, meaning, I was still new to parenting, and hadn't figured it all out yet, (still haven't)
• Was I ready for a relationship? Or did I just want to even the score with ex and psycho-wife?
• Was I looking for a partner for me?
• Or a dad for my son?
• Is this normal? Do people always question their relationships this way?

Can I have my cake and eat it too?

Or because I am a single parent, do I have to give up on my dreams of a knight and shinning armour? Which he is in sooooooo many ways, but......

I can't help but wonder about my married with children friends. . . do they go through the same emotional and mental torture I put myself through? Or because they were married first does it make it so different, that single parents just feel like they are living on a planet all on our own. Team HardKnocks.

I just love when my married with children friends tell me, how strong I am, how courageous I am, how they could never do what I have done. . . . Of course I thank them politely, and tell them in my head: "Of course you could. I am no different that you. You are a mother, and you love your baby(s) as much as I love mine, and you too would do anything you had to do, for them."

I just got off the phone with a pregnant (married) friend, and got that spill, which is why I wrote about it.

And I told her, you have two choices:

1. You can wake up, realize that have this amazing thing in your life, and you can decide to enjoy every minute of it, and experience every minute of good or bad, and be proud of it..... or
2. You can let it drag you down. You can let yourself be miserable, and pity yourself (which I do alot on my own--for sanity's sake)and feel sorry for yourself, and spend wasted time wondering "what-if" when in reality...not a bit of that is going to do you, or your child(ren) any single bit of good.