family

Making a House a Home

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

Did you know…this is the longest I have ever lived in one house since I was seventeen years old? In fact, since I was seventeen I have lived in three different states, countless cities, and 14 different houses/apartments, and none of them for more than two years.

We moved every few years as I was growing up, so I guess it’s just a concept that has stuck with me in my twenties and thirties. I would pick a place, settle, and then immediately start looking for the next best thing. The better college, the better city, the better apartment, the better opportunity. I always felt that I had to keep moving. To slow down was to get complacent. To slow down would cause me to really look at my self and face my unhappiness. Instead of looking for something new and better I would be forced to discover why “this moment in time” was not working for me. To slow down was to die.

When we picked this house, we did so in a hurry. My current situation was dangerous and the longer I stayed the more dangerous it became, not only for me for my the kids too. I was trying to stay for as long as I could, simply to help ease the transition for leaving, for all of us leaving. But as someone who was the only provider in a house of five for the past 8 years, someone with three small children, and someone who had nothing extra to offer, I had no where to go. That is until Joe stepped in and decided he would buy a house for us. Sure we had just started dating, but we knew my situation was dire.

We looked for a while but there was always something wrong with the house: schools weren’t good, not enough bedrooms, no dining room, too far of a drive. Until one day we were simply driving through one of my old neighborhoods in the rain. As we drove down the street, the sun came out and a rainbow appeared…at the same exact moment that we saw the for sale sign. We had looked online in this neighborhood so many times, but had never seen this house listed. Joe made an offer the next day and two months later, on another rainy day in August we moved in.

We furnished it with random odds and ends found in our basements, on facebook marketplace, and Ikea. for almost a month we didn’t even have a dining room table and the kids would sit and eat on the window seat in our dining room.

Slowly but surely we filled the house with furniture and books, pictures and toys, laughter and our own personalities. But as someone who was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, I never let myself really settle. I couldn’t “invest” in this house as my home yet. To invest would have been to be happy, and there were far too many unknowns.

Two and a half years later, when my divorce was finalized and my custody battle won, the house had fulfilled its purpose. It was my savior in a truly harmful situation. The calm from my storm. My safe haven in a sea of turmoil and doubt. It was the place I was able to rebuild my life and my family and start the long process of coming home to myself. So do we stay or do we go? Do we pick up and start over again, or begin the process of making this house a home?

“Home is wherever you leave everything you love and never question that it will be there when you return.”

Every single thing I love is here. I think we’ve made the right decision.

The Home Sign

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Charlotte has this tradition. Ok, maybe it’s not really a tradition, but it’s something she always says and does. Whenever we drive a certain way on 695 we pass a big sign right before we reach our exit. I have passed this sign probably a million times in my life and I, for the life of me, can’t even tell you what it really says. I think it’s for a sofa store? Or maybe a gym? I don’t know. But Charlotte calls it “the home sign”.

Every single time we pass it she shouts out “Look! It’s the home sign! We’re almost home.” And sure enough, we are. None of us have ever really bothered to correct her on this. Obviously we know it doesn’t say Home on it. Even the more skeptical among us (cough, Oliver, cough) have even begun calling it that ourselves. It doesn’t matter what it says. We know what it means. We are almost home.

It’s so strange to think we have lived in this house for about three and a half years. It honestly feels like we have always been here; in this house, in this little neighborhood. The first three years of the separation were fight after fight with my ex. The biggest one always being that he refused to acknowledge that this home, the one I created from love after I left the one that was filled with so much hate and animosity, was the kid’s home. He would repeatedly tell me and the children, that this was not their home. They had one home, and it was the one that they lived in with him. Even after the courts granted me legal joint and physical custody, stating unequivocally that in the eyes of the law this was their house too, he still would repeat it. And even still, 10 months after we were finally divorced, 40 months after I left the most toxic relationship I had ever been in, even to this very day, he still says it.

For the longest time, it would cause me to fly into a blind rage. I would send long worded emails and text messages telling him to stop, telling him to accept what has happened, telling him that he was causing more harm to everyone than good. And then one day (way longer than it should have taken me) I just stopped. And it was all because of the home sign.

I finally realized I don’t care if that’s what he believes. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter that that is what the court system has dictated. What matters is that my little three believe it. And they do, wholeheartedly. Because we have a home sign. We know that this is home.

A few weeks ago I decided, against my better judgement, to let all the kids pile their stuff into Charlotte’s room for a sleepover. I knew it meant a late night and an early morning, but it was a holiday weekend and I had four glorious days off of work (and probably a glass or two of wine), so I said why not. But then a funny thing happened. No kids lasted at the sleepover. Every single one simply wanted to sleep in their own bed. I thought it odd at first and then it hit me. I had made them so comfortable here that wanted to be in their own spaces. They liked their spaces. They felt like home. And that’s because they are.

It’s funny. Joe and I are always house dreaming, looking for places with big yards (so I have can backyard chickens), enough bedrooms, and a driveway (for my RV of course), but as much fun as it is to look, I don’t know if I really want to move. I love this house. Sure it has it’s problems, but what house doesn’t? We have great neighbors, a fantastic neighborhood, playgrounds, food trucks, everything we could possibly want. And those aren’t even the biggest reasons to stay. The biggest reasons transcend all of that. This is where I found love. This is where I was able to be free. This is where my new story was able to begin. This is home.

Summer is Different This Year

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The past few summers have been a shit show. I mean, I’m sure there’s a better way to put it, but why sugar coat it. They were.

There’s the summer three years ago when I sat around every single day trying to find the courage to tell my husband that I was leaving. The amount of stress and exhaustion were enough to kill me…and I’m pretty sure they almost did.

There’s the summer two years ago where I was still scared of doing anything wrong. Anything at all that could make me somehow lose my kids. And the guilt of leaving was still so fresh that I constantly gave in to unhealthy behaviors simply to stay afloat.

Last summer was the worst. Going through the divorce and custody battle caused my anxiety to be at an all time high. I was nervous going anywhere even when I didn’t have the kids because something could go wrong. I couldn’t make one wrong decision or one single misstep because it could come back to bit me in the ass. I actually think I have slight PTSD from my custody/divorce battle. I actually had to turn my email notifications off my phone because hearing the ding reminded me of all the emails from my lawyer and I actually start to shut down.

This is the first summer where I finally feel free. Free to go on vacations with and without the kids. Free to make decisions without constantly worrying about what someone else might think or make an issue of. Free to mention Joe’s name without worrying about the repercussions.

It’s an amazing feeling, but you know what’s funny? It’s almost like a piece of me is missing now. I held on to all that worry, all that anxiety, all that anger for so long, that there is a void. What do I worry about now? What do I think about now? What should I do now?

Luckily, it’s still summer and for the first time in forever I can allow myself to find these answers. I can allow myself to figure out who I am or who I want to be. And most importantly I can actually allow myself to breathe.

Stress Explosions and Mental Breakdowns

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It’s been a hot minute since I have written. I write like I tend to address everything in my life…with an all or nothing mentality. So you either get 15 posts from me in a week or none for months.

If you missed my post from last week, you saw that I finally got divorced. It took 896 days (not including the entire year I slept on the couch before actually leaving), thousands (and I mean many thousands) of dollars, and an entire beating to my mental health. That’s not to say that I don’t feel like a stronger person after going through this, I absolutely am. But the hyper focus of constantly fighting someone, fighting for someones, and having to be strategic and concentrated on every move made, every word uttered, every email sent, every dollar spent for two and a half years take its toll. And then to take all of that baggage and stress away, the amount of which was weighing on you every minute of every day for two and a half years, in less than two minutes, has genuine repercussions.

Do you watch Grey’s Anatomy? I used to, until yet another random sibling popped up from out of the blue and then I just couldn’t hang. I always think maybe I’ll try again. But I digress. Anyway, there’s this episode where a boy is fully encased in cement and they are trying to get him out. Long story short, they are about to remove the final piece of cement that has been weighing on his body when Dr. Bailey tells him that there’s a chance that when they remove the final piece of cement, the toxins that have been building up will rush to his heart, which will cause his heart to stop and he’ll stop breathing.

And that’s exactly what happened to me Saturday night.

Not really the not breathing part (aside from the panic attack) but rather the emotional breakdown that comes from having every anguishing problem and emotion that you have had to deal with for 2.5 years just suddenly cease to be a factor in your life.

Thursday after court I came home and chilled on the couch. I watched TV, relaxed, feeling good about myself. Feeling good about my outcome. Feeling good about the direction of my life for the first time in so many years. And then on Friday I noticed the overwhelming fatigue. I couldn’t stay awake. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay under the blankets and just sleep for a long time. I managed to drop the kids off to school, get to work, and come home and parent, but really it felt more like I was simply going through the motions, or playing a part in a play of someone I was supposed to be.

Saturday morning was much of the same, but by Saturday night I was not in a good place. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but panic attacks, throwing up, fighting with Joe, scary thoughts, all raced into me at one time and I just didn’t know what to do. I thought once the whole ordeal was over I would be happier right away. And I am, I really am. This was the right decision.

But I have never gone past the “no turn around zone” in any of my decisions. The finality and completeness engulfed me in a way that I wasn’t prepared for, because without this gigantic conflict looming over my head, day in and day out, what was I supposed to do with my time? What was I supposed to think about? I was so used to fighting that now I have no idea what I’m supposed to be fighting for…if I’m even supposed to be fighting at all.

On Sunday, my bearings slowly returned and today I feel a lot better. I spent so much time focusing on someones else that I know I neglected myself in the process. I no long have a person to blame for my anger. I no longer have a situation to blame for my emotions. I have no more scapegoats. I have no more reasons to make excuses. For the first time in a long time, I get to focus on me. And as much as I am excited about the process, it’s scary as hell at the same time.

Sometimes smaller is better

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Usually around this time of year I begin to compose a post that is an ode to my favorite holiday. I. Love. New Years. LOVE. It has always been my favorite since I became a “grownup”. There are the lights and fireworks, being with your loved ones, and of course, the idea that the very next day is a blank slate. A do over. A new beginning and a new chance for anything.

Like I said, usually this post would be about all of that stuff. But not this year.

As I sit here and write, my house is in complete disarray. It is a literal shit show. And for someone who has anxiety related to clutter and crap, this is not good. Two of my kids have been sick. One is under-medicated and annoyed by the very one that only wants to spend time with him. The ear infection/lose tooth kid has been a terror because she’s been getting up before the sun. They all have. Every morning at 5:30. I am on break. Please sleep. Or rather, let me sleep.

And this is why instead of cleaning my house, or writing about love and magic and second chances, I have mandated that everyone lay down for the next hour and nap. I’m not naive enough to think any of them are actually doing it, but the doors are closed and it is quiet for five seconds, so that’s good enough for me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this year and all the goals I made for myself last year…and I didn’t accomplish a single one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I have accomplished a great deal. But just not what I set out to do 12 months ago. I’ve barely run, let alone finished a race. I’ve gone into more debt (hello lawyer fees). I’ve added more stress to my life. I’ve definitely gained weight, because see above.

But I learned how to fight. I learned how to stick up for myself. I learned how to surround myself with people who appreciate those things and say goodbye to the ones who don’t. I’ve complained less. I’ve appreciated more. And while I’m not living my life while working from home in my RV, where I am right now is pretty great.

So, as I sit here with a glass of wine at 12:52 on a Monday afternoon (again, see above), I’ve come to realize that big goals and big resolutions aren’t all they are cracked up to be. Sure, I accomplished far more than I set out to, but still, had I made more manageable goals, maybe I would have gotten even further.

I’ve decided to set 5 goals for myself at the beginning of each month and document them here. That way, not only can I keep myself accountable, I can also hopefully inspire someone to “play” along with me and be my hand holder and cheerleader (and warning giver should I stray).

January Goals

  1. Finish four weeks of Couch to 5K – Running at least 3 times a week. I just spent $215 to sign up for these races, so I better actually do this. I love running. It has helped me through the toughest times of my life. I know it can help me again. Along with this, I’m going to drink less and eat healthy more (just not making it a concrete goal yet)
  2. Go to the gym at least once a week…to actually work out. I know this doesn’t seem like much, but baby steps, y’all. I paid for Merritt for months and never used it. I’ll hopefully update this goal in February, but I need something attainable right now.
  3. Unfollow all toxic people on social media. And by this what I mean is toxic people to me. People that make me feel less than or unworthy. People that complain way too much. People that live negatively and miserably. These people may not be toxic to others, but as someone who feeds into the climate around them, they are definitely toxic to me. While I need to use my phone and social media less to begin with, while I’m on there I need to surround myself with people who inspire and uplift me.
  4. Start each day with a daily gratitude. Each and every day I will pick one thing that I am grateful for and hold on to that idea throughout the day when things get rough.
  5. Decrease my daily phone usage by 10%…and do the same with the kids’ technology. Enough said. I use it too much for stupid shit and I need to learn how to put it down and read or write or cross stitch or something.

I’m definitely ready for these changes. They’ve been a long time coming. I’m ready to make my 39th year the best one of my life.

Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

The weekends I don’t have the kids are the hardest. Because it’s not just 2 days, it’s 5. I haven’t seen them since Friday morning and as much as I enjoy the sleeping in, binge watching something that is NOT Captain Underpants, and eating chips that I don’t have to share, I feel like part of me is missing. I feel unwhole. Less than. Lacking.

It’s only been two months with this new schedule and it’s already tougher than I expected. I didn’t expect to feel like this…All. The. Time. My breath hitches when I don’t get a text back within 10 minutes. I constantly wonder if they’re happy. I wonder if I am doing enough. I have no idea how I am going to be able to keep this up for 14 more years.

These are the days the anxiety creeps in the fastest. Where sleep seems to evade me. Where I busy myself with project after project, cleaning after cleaning, glass of wine after glass of wine.

The every day worries get escalated. Not all at once, but slowly, like a snowfall that builds, and builds, and builds until it consumes you like a blizzard. I have a parent-teacher conference with Max’s teachers on Wednesday. Last week when I confirmed the conference I assumed (and kinda knew) that it was because Max is failing advanced math and they are probably going to move him to the on grade level math class. And that he’s a little silly and unfocused at school. And he hates writing. I’ve had this talk before…I know the drill. But today those worries escalated to the teachers outlining all of my failures as a parent leading up to Max failing math. It’s because I fought for them. It’s because I have to take them back to Mike’s at 7 am for school. It’s because I’m not able to come to the class parties.

So now my carefree weekend is filled with anxiety and worry. And I know it’s not going to cease until Wednesday when this parent-teacher conference is over and my littles are home with me.

And then it will start all over again.

We’ll get there when we get there

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It’s been a struggle recently, to say the least, of managing expectations. Not only mine, but other’s as well. I feel like I have them coming at me from all sides: work, home, kids, my ex. Even my dreams have started rustling up my anxiety.

Today was my first day to drive the boys to their dad’s house before school. Every single thing comes down to a single minute. Getting up. Getting dressed. Getting in the car. Driving there. Driving to work. And then doing the whole entire process again in the afternoon. And the next day. And the next week.

I sat in the car today on the way home quietly weeping while the kids sang the Pokemon theme song (why I let them add the songs to our Spotify playlist, I’ll never know). I wasn’t sad, I was simply exhausted. The expectations and the time constraints finally caught up to me and I began to leak at the seems. And guess what? This was only the first day.

I rushed around making dinner before we all had to get ready for Oliver’s soccer practice, calculating in my head the time we had to leave to make it on time and I stopped for a minute and realized “We’ll get there when we get there.”

Getting the kids to their dad on time? We’ll get there when we get there.

Getting to work on time? We’ll get there when we get there.

Getting my students from point A to point B throughout the day? We’ll get there when we get there.

Getting back to the kids after school? We’ll get there when we get there.

Getting to soccer practice? We’ll get there when we get there.

I would like to think this was a life changing moment where my behavior suddenly swung from type A to chilled out mama of three. I know tomorrow morning I’ll still be stressed out, but hopefully, it will start to wane as the days ebb and the weeks pass.

I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that we’ll get there when we get there.

And you know what, we will.

Who we want to be…

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It’s 3:46 pm on a random Wednesday. An insane thunderstorm just blew through so we are all stuck inside. I sit and write while the youngest two destroy the house I mean make a fort in the living room. I sit and sip a small glass of red wine to calm the anxiety I feel over the clutter and mess. I can’t count the number of times I have said “Please stop throwing the ball in the house” on both hands. Each time, there is a little less patience and understanding in my voice. I know if I have to say it again, I’m going to snap. And I also know that I really don’t want to do that.

I love my children, I do. Parenting is the most amazing I have ever done and, honestly, if I could I would quit my job and stay at home so I could have more time with my kids. And yet…it’s also the hardest thing I have ever done, each day bringing on new challenges that, even after three kids and teaching for over 15 years, I never feel quite prepared for.

I feel like I try my hardest, I really do, but it seems that each night I go to bed cringing at myself for some mistake I feel like I made and a prayer to have a better day tomorrow. For some reason, as confident as I am in my ability to be a teacher, I completely lack most of that confidence in my parenting ability.

Part of it, I know, is the custody struggle that I’m in. I constantly feel like I need to be on my game, radiating perfection 24/7 because someone is always watching. I feel like my parenting is constantly questioned and other people are trying to catch me “doing something wrong”. Let me tell you, this is exhausting.

The feeling of needing to be perfect doesn’t only come from there. It comes from inside too, of course. I have always had the need to control everything, it’s essentially the only way I feel safe and secure. Basically, I need to know it and I need to do it. The anxiety I feel when I am in a situation that I can’t control is palpable. So basically, since having that amount of control when you have kids (and especially when you SHARE kids) rarely happens, you can imagine how I feel almost all the time.

I know the kind of mom I want to be: the kind that is patient and not sarcastic. The kind that is understanding and helpful. The kind that remembers that kids are just that…kids. No one is going to listen all the time. Brothers are going to fight. Toddlers are going to tantrum. THIS IS NORMAL. And I feel like I’m halfway there. I’m more patient than I used to be. I have stopped expecting so much from them all the time. I’m learning to live with a little bit of mess and chaos without completely freaking out.

But I am still growing. I’m still navigating. I’m still learning to stop being a cruise director and let them set the rhythm for the day. And yes, I’m still trying hard to not make a big deal when there is a ton of grass covering the floor because they had an epic water battle outside and dragged it in when getting changed.

And I’m working hard to remember that even if today is a complete shit show, all they need at night is a hug, a kiss, and a promise that I love them.

The Last Year of Marriage

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There’s a very good chance that this will be the last year that I will be married. Though we have been separated for almost a year and a half, technically we are still locked in union according to the law.  I still help pay his student loans.  He is still on my health insurance.  Neither of us is in a rush to get this thing finished, to break apart a union that is 16 years in the making, but we also know that eventually the cord will have to be cut and ties severed.

Sometimes I honestly don’t know which times we’re harder.  Was is the years we spent distant and cold, simply playing the part of husband and wife, the outside world oblivous to the struggles we were having within ourselves?  Was is the year I said I was leaving, but had to stay, the couch my permanent home, so much hate traveling back and forth between us while our children looked on, bewildered and overwhelmed?  Or was it this year?  The year filled with anger and remorse, both wanting to be with my kids full time and knowing that doing that meant hurting all of us in the process.  I simply can’t be sure.

The only thing I do know is that all of them were hard and all of them have taken an irreversible toll on me.  Anger, guilt, despair, panic, and disappointment and utter sadness have been my constant companions  and some days it takes every effort possible just to remind myself to take in air so I can keep living.

I’ve spent so much of the last year and a half fighting with a person I was supposed to love until the end of time.  He knows how to push my buttons better than anyone else and knows exactly what to say to make me go from quiet and content to a rage filled nightmare.  Sometimes I think he does it accidentally, forgetting how much I look into every word spoken, sure there are hidden meanings.  Other times I know it’s purposeful, and those times are the hardest to bear and the hardest to break free from.  Because how in the hell did we get to this place where we’ve become vindictive and spiteful to each other on purpose?

The other day we texted back and forth about something completely innocuous; a movie quote from a movie I know is one of his favorites.  It was a short, but lovely, conversation simply because it seemed so easy.

And then, of course, in true Cassie fashion, I started to cry.  I wanted to crawl into that conversation and live there because for the first time in a long time, I felt safe in that relationship.  Did I want to get back together?  Absolutely not.  We were horrible as a couple.  Not in the beginning, but in the many years that followed.  Our relationship was passive aggressive at best and self destructive at worst.  We were mean.  And nasty.  And horrible to each other.  And that’s putting it lightly.  Love should bring out the best in two people and for us, it didn’t.  Not anymore.  But that simple conversation showed me something I hadn’t seen between us in a long time.  It gave me a glimmer of hope that maybe one day all the conversations could be like this.  Maybe it will get better.

And while we may not ever really be friends, maybe we would stop intentionally trying to hurt each other in ways we only know how.

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I want.

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I want to write so many posts, but I never seem to get the motivation at the right time.

I want to write about how I’m trying to rid my life of the negativity I can control and live more gratefully and gracefully.

I want to write about how I am about to start a new teaching year and I don’t even know if I want to be a teacher anymore.

I want to write about how I am trying to change my parenting style and my relationship with my kids and not get to frazzled and controlling all the time.’

I want to write about how I gave up on the marathon, and the half marathon, and I’m sincerely, trying so hard not to give up on myself.

I want to write all of this and more. But I sit down to write and feel like a fake. And like I have no idea what I am talking about.

But I wrote this and that’s a start.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll pick more and go with it.

I want to.

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