I gave it my best shot.
I gave myself multiple pep talks throughout the day.
I geared up.
I made plans.
I visited friends.
I honestly tried.
BUT nothing could keep me above the fog. I was suffocating in the September air. I couldn’t be there ONE MORE DAY.
So we came home.
I woke up Wednesday morning to snow. We booked flights on Delta. I made plans for the other kids to finish their visit with their dad and be driven back to California in our van by my dear friend McCall. (whose boyfriend was also easily bribed to drive my car home for me at the same time.)
We touched down in The OC at 3pm today and I feel better than I have ever felt. My mind is clear. My thoughts are clear. I can breathe. The fog has lifted. I am happy. I am right where I belong.
I am not a fan of UTAH. and I am writing this down so I will have proof why I have NO business going back.
It went something like this-
Being there, this time, was AWFUL! I felt the doom and gloom coming on strong halfway there. I pushed it away. You know how well I did at the hand off, and things spiraled downhill from there.
Seeing my old friends was so fun, but so hard. I left lunch on Tuesday with the "circle girls" and cried to Tara about how it feels like yesterday we were all in the same neighborhood, doing the same things, raising kids, borrowing eggs, gossiping about the people that weren’t as nice as we were, watching the Bachelor on TV, picking up each others kids from school, and having pizza on the grass while we waited for the guys to come home. We were a village and I loved it. I miss it. I know I can miss them without missing the ex, but it’s the entire old life that I miss. The old me. The old house. The old friends. The ease of life. The way things were.
I went from lunch to Dee’s house, where I used to spend all my time. I miss her. I miss her kids. I miss working with her. I miss the business. I miss the friendship.
The F-16’s were flying while I was in Layton on Tuesday. Talk about another thing to bawl over. I miss those stupid jets. They are spectacular to watch, to listen to, and to feel when they buzz by. It’s not like I sit and think about them while I am in SoCal, but on the way to lunch, I felt and heard that all too familiar rumble in the sky and I felt like my heart was going to burst. They buzz over one after another in perfect increments. I miss living near the base.
I felt so homesick the entire time I was "home." I missed everything and everyone so badly, but the pain wasn’t alleviated by being there. It worsened in fact. Hour by hour things got worse and worse.
The other contributing factor to this visit being so shitty was the lack of my mother. I took the advice of many and ended the toxic relationship months ago. I am not sure it’s fair to say I have regrets about doing that, because at this point I don’t. I do however have regrets that we don’t mix. Oil and water is a gross understatement. Being in Utah, where my family is, and having no contact with any of them, but one….. It felt lonely. I passed my mom’s exit at least five times and it felt so strange that she didn’t even know we were there. She may not have even cared, but it felt wrong to not call her and let her know. I justified it by KNOWING she would voicemail me, and not call me back, making me feel even more shitty. So I carried that guilt around as well.
and the final straw that broke the camels back and made me come home…..
My babies are HARD AS HELL!
I am not sure if they are just naughty shits, or if we have ruined them by having such a structured life at home.
We had nowhere to go but out of the hotel. So each morning we loaded the screaming monsters in the car where I am sure they thought they would have to spend another twelve hours, and we would leave in hopes of finding something to do. Pickle, Parker, and Ellie are equivalent to one-year-old triplets, except one of them acts more like she recently escaped the zoo. There are not a lot of things, outside the home, you can do with three one-year-olds. So we would end up at Brandon’s brother’s house or Brandon’s parents house, and that in a nutshell was our four days of HELL!
Not being in their own home, in their own beds, in their own highchairs, HOLY SHIT, they bawled all day long and all night long. Let’s not forget we were in a resort, where other patrons come to vacation and most likely expect a good nights sleep. Ellie would cry first. One of us would jump to get her so she didn’t wake up Pickle or Parker. But the second we picked her up, she’d cry harder because, us picking her up in the night is not normal! She wouldn’t settle because she knew we weren’t home and then she would wake the other babies and it was a vicious effing cycle night after night after night.
In the daytime Parker and Pickle together took on the roll of destructive duo. They trashed the room. Parker could find his way into everything. I had knifes put high, food out of reach, BUT nothing stopped him. Everything was Parker accessible and it sucked. He knew how to pre heat the oven, turn on the tub and shower, and use the phone. Brandon finally, day two, turned the water off under the sink because he sat in that sink all day long and watered the counter, the floor, his siblings, and himself repeatedly.
Pickle cried all day, every day and all night, every night. Why? We don’t know! She can’t talk or tell us anything. She just bawled and bawled and made me feel even worse, because what kind of horrible mother would drag her special needs child to UTAH for NO DAMN REASON! She loves her routine, she loves the structure, she loves school, and she loves her siblings and I went and took it all away from her in one fell swoop. I deserved to be in the depths of Hell.
Sitting here now, rehashing this trip for you all, makes me wonder why in God’s name I didn’t fly home on Monday. I am in worse shape than I thought.
I had such good intentions. I had people I wanted to see, friends I wanted to meet, places I wanted to eat, and things I wanted to do. But nothing, I mean nothing, could keep me there one moment longer. It was the perfect storm. I pray I never have to repeat it.
I am HOME!
If I learned anything at all on this trip, it’s that home is where I am the happiest.
and I AM home!
