Heather Barton

This has always been the way I do things.  If I need help or want company or want something you can provide I’m not hesitant to ask.  But I don’t ask twice.

Perhaps its my pride that doesn’t like to wheedle or whine.  Perhaps its because I watched my father laze around the house while my mother over-worked herself & assumed she’d asked for help and he’d refused.  Setting me up for the concept that men don’t help.  Perhaps it was because I wasn’t popular or pretty or noticed in school.

But I have this complex that feels if I am valued by you, then you should offer, should WANT to be there/do that for me.

Now, I’m a realist!  I will ask, in case you don’t realize I need help.  Or I’ll bitch, just a bit, about the circumstance.  Which is the female version of dropping a HUGE hint in your lap.   And I won’t ask for inappropriate things, like money.   If you can’t or say no, I’m cool with that.  Everyone has that right and I’ve certainly gotten lots of “No”, “I’m sorry”, & “I can’t” in my 48 years.

After all, hearing this a lot in my life has taught me to be self reliant.  I’ve learned that the best person to give me what I want in life, is myself.  No one is going to hand it to me.  That is the positive spin on it.  This fact and philosophy has made be a do-er.

The negative spin on it is there is this little girl inside who feels that when someone loves her, truly loves her, that they do anything to try and give her what she wants and make her happy.  Even if all that is, is to be there for her.   This is most likely the cause of “Daddy Issues” in women.  Because it’s really an unrealistic expectation of ANY human being from another, much less a male to a female!

My father was the opposite of this “give to those you love” in his marriage to my mother. Which was ironic since my mother was the shining example of it.   And so I was taught that men are lazy, too dense to notice, or just didn’t care enough to be there for their partners.  If he couldn’t do it for my mother (the best woman in the world in my child eyes) then how could I bother asking him to do it for me.   So I learned early on that if I wanted things I had to get them for myself.  I rarely asked and I never asked twice.  No was no.  And an excuse was the same as no.

I remember being bemused over hearing my father ranting about the fact I had holes in my underwear.  (I have no idea how old I was.)  But I do remember wondering what the big deal was.  We couldn’t afford ANYTHING, barely putting food on the table because slacker had such a bad work ethic he kept losing jobs.  Who cared that a piece of clothing no one would ever see was a little worn.  It was still serviceable and who had money for new things!  My parents couldn’t buy me the outer clothes I soooo wanted, why would they bother with underwear?  (Ooops.. my issues are showing!)

When I married I didn’t have illusions of romantic love.  I chose a man I thought I could get along with who I thought valued me and wouldn’t hesitate to give me what I asked for.   And he did a decent job of that initially.  While he was in the Army we had enough money that I could be a stay at home mother to our kids.  (although I couldn’t JUST do that so tried my hand at selling Tupperware & Discovery Toys, lol)

But when he retired and went from career to career and I went to work, I suddenly found myself with my mother’s life.  I worked & brought in a good salary AND I was the primary parent (cuz I was good at it) AND I did all the housework, cooking, etc.   When I asked his opinion, (i.e. for help) his reply, because he didn’t have an opinion, would be to just say “yes” to the two or three choices I gave him.  So I learned he couldn’t be helpful when I needed help and he learned I didn’t need help because I was doing it all successfully.

It is really no surprise the marriage ended!  What did I need him for?  I was already doing it all.  And training the kids to be my helpers.  He was just a tenant paying rent.

And so my relationships have become friendships with men.  And I learn that, once again, I can easily see how I’m valued by the reactions I get when I ask.  If they stand me up on a meet or a date, I’m valued at zero… or they value themselves at zero.  Either way, I don’t ask twice.  If I sent them a text asking if they are free for a play night… well, if they reply that they aren’t I may ask ONCE more but only once. lol  If they don’t reply, well.  I’ll never ask again.

And Sex God.  Sigh.  I know in the value chart I’m #5 on his list.  Work, kids, Ex-wife, pets then me.  I understand the value chart, its reality & we’re long distance.  And as much as we may call each other BF/GF… we’re just really close friends.  It doesn’t mean I have to like the fact my value is so low.   I asked him for one weekend a month.  Just one.  Last weekend.  I got one night of it.  Technically if you don’t count the sleeping I got 3 hours!   lol  Work took half of Friday, all of Saturday and then his Ex-wife took Sunday.  Work he has little control over, but the Ex wife gets him 3 weekends a month, she couldn’t wait 7 days?

Hurts… but value lesson learned.  Learned indeed, as this is not the first time.  Since I cannot (ok… I WILL not) whine or beg or ask again to try & change my value I can only change my reaction to it.  Reduce the hurt by accepting the situation, realize that even asking will not get me what I want.  And step back from my investment.   Signs are clear, I’ve tried to accommodate, I’m just not sure how its working for me.

In any case, there are others to play with who value time with me.  And perhaps I’ll throw a little extra energy to my kids.  Certainly couldn’t hurt the little rascals!   They need to see me happy & being un-valued is the biggest destroyer of that for me.

So I’m doing it for my kids!  Yeeaaahhh…. THAT’s the reason! 😉

… I gave birth to my middle son, my Evan.  He came out C-Section like all my babies (I can grow them, I just can’t birth them!).  But he also came out unable to breath on his own, so he was in the NICU for about a day.  Which made him my EASIEST birth!  lol.  Cuz I got to read in the hospital and do nothing but recover for 24 hours.

To see him I had to hobble (C-Section!) to the NICU (military hospitals don’t give you wheel chairs cuz you can’t sue them!) only to find him with his head under a hard plastic hood to feed him oxygen.   And he was crying which just tore my heart out.  I couldn’t hold him, he needed comfort, and he couldn’t even suck his thumb because of the hood.  Which I could see he wanted to do as his little arm kept trying to breach the hood.

I had to leave.  I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t watch it, I couldn’t fix it, I could only do one thing.  Get back into my bed & heal.   Next time I visited we convinced the staff to let him breastfeed.  My mother held an oxygen tube to his nose so his saturation wouldn’t go down and when they put him into my arms I had to be careful of all the wires attached to him and me.

Happy Birthday Boy!

Like the true foodie he grew up to be, he practically attacked!  He nursed like a champ but still had to go back under the oxygen.  But he got off it soon enough and we went home where he met his older brother who was almost 2 years old.  And instantly fell in love with him!

Watching that cool moving toy dance back and forth across the room motivated Evan to scoot crawl at 4month, cruise the furniture walk at 5 months and walk at 9 months.  He was a fat bruiser of a baby who was fearless & happy with a sunny personality.

He stayed that way all the way up until he began school.  Where for some reason his natural shyness kicked right in.  And it increased every year.  Perhaps it was the introduction of video games but he never really watched or played them very much.  He was more interested in Legos & Connects & action figures.  But both of those types of things are sedentary.

Now he is twelve.  Last year he grew his self esteem by standing up to bullies.  It was an all year process.  This year he enters Middle School.  Where he’ll have more irritating kids to deal with AND the joy of going from classroom to classroom.  And since he most likely has a small learning disability (so small its impossible to diagnose, but I have it & so does my mother) school is a huge challenge that he’s been skating through since kindergarten.

His is entering puberty & maturing before my eyes.  He’s legally able to stay home by himself now and he treasures it whenever I allow it.  When asked what he wanted to do for his birthday he replied, “I want to stay home by myself.  For the whole day.”

I agreed.  Because 2 years after he was born I gave birth to his younger brother who took hero worship of his Evan to extreme heights.  Since that time, Evan has never really been alone!

Although I did insist he do a few things like laundry & sort some stuff for the privilege of having a day off.  (off even from the gym, lol!)   He whole-heartedly agreed!

When the Ex moved out a year ago September I lost the labor to mow my lawn.   Sex God did it once or twice with my manual push mower during the winter until I finally bought a new edge trimmer.  The kids took turns using it to keep my little living room sized front & back lawns down.

Until I ran out of string!  Drat it!  So “new lawnmower” went on my list, finally purchasing one about two weeks ago.  Of course, by now, my lawn in 2 feet high.  Yup.. TWO FEET HIGH!

It took Evan and I almost an hour to figure out the crazy assembling instructions.  This should not be rocket science!   And if it wasn’t for my 12-year old I’d NEVER had figured out how to get the bag on!  I got my emergency gas can filled and added gasoline & oil to the engine.  (Christ.. its supposed to get serviced like a car!  Its a LAWNMOWER!!)  Sigh.  Deal with it later… gotta get this lawn down!

And, crossing my fingers, I pulled the string and shock (!) it ran!  Of course my grass was so high I had to tilt the mower up to “mount” my lawn. Hahaha.   It was amazingly difficult to push and I can only hope that was due to the height of the grass.  But most likely due to the type I purchased.  Its a small lawn so I didn’t buy an expensive model.

So I wrestled the thing along.  I got about one quarter through the grass and was tackling a particularly high section when the mower up and died.  First thought….

Oh, my God… I broke it already!

Not really.. but THIS is what I learned during the entire encounter which would have been helpful to know SOMEWHERE before I started!

High grass will clog mower somehow.  When engine sputters, something is most likely clogged, move it back quickly.  When you walk mower backwards it coughs out a trail of grass clippings like chewed cud.   Running mower over trails of grass clipping cud will only work half the time in getting said clippings into the bagger.    Buy new edging string, mower does NOT get the edges well.

Whew.. mowing grass this high is EXHAUSTING.

Backyard wasn't 2 feet high lucky boy

Best part…  watching my Evan tackle the back yard by himself.

Priceless….

I gotta put my feet up.

Guess who won another pair of tickets to a special 98.7 Penthouse concert?   Yup… me!  hee hee.   This time I used the opportunity of getting out of the house to go to the concert to meet a new Cub.  A perfect way to test how fun he is and how much he likes my kind of music.

Oops, there I am!

At first it was touch and go as to whether he’d be able to meet me, but Fate worked it out brilliantly.  Amusingly my heels put me taller than him and with his height plus baby face MOST people thought we were mother/son.   They even checked his I.D. lol!  (He’s 24)

J was a perfect date.  He has a very engaging personality & blends in or starts conversations with ease… better than I!  Top it off, he had absolutely not a single hesitation to anyone that we were there as a couple.  Not every Cub is as public about his desire for a Cougar.  One guy of the group we were chatting with followed J into the bathroom to ask him if I was his GF.  J said yes with a grin at the envy.  Nice!

But the real treat of the evening was the band Awolnation.   They’re local from Los Angeles, with their first album out & already one song is rising to the top.  And its an absolutely wonderful song to listen to.  They started with a different song and got half way through it before they blew the power system!

But they were also genuinely nice & laid back guys!  And they have two new fans now!  lol

I doubt you can see me in the crowd in this but enjoy it anyway!

Awolnation\’s Sail