Drama Island

Please note I am not trying to air dirty laundry. I use this as a journal of sorts and need to put it somewhere. This is my take of the last day or so and not intended to be regarded as gossiping etc.

We were able to go visit with my Aunt Shirley and my cousins and their families. I also was able to visit over the phone with another cousin living in Ohio.
It was nice visit the kids really enjoyed the visit.

Tonight we had an incident that made me see a different side of my boys and rethink things. I won't go into to much detail other than sometimes the disfunction can exist in families and be asleep then all of a sudden it poofs in your face so fast it takes your breathe away. How do you respond? Do you let it ruin everything or make you think about life and whether the drama that comes is going to ever go away for good.

Unfortunately, Malcolm saw a side of someone he really looked up to that made him cry. As an adult you see people in all their glory and madness and love them anyways. Even if they loose their marbles a couple of times. But for my boys this was the first time they had seen this happen in the family. It was harder because the anger was directed towards their mother. As we headed home after this all went on I realized both Malcolm and Cole were crying. Just a silent sobbing. Tears flowing down their faces. Malcolm has really been working on this last year voicing how he felt better then he used to. Cole's last couple of days being so difficult for him this just topped it. It was too much for him to handle.

After getting home I just held him and he sobbed. Explaining to me that he looked up this person he had a good job, married in the temple, good priesthood holder etc. I apologized for the fact that maybe if I had dealt with in incoming emotions from this other person differently it might have turned out differently. It was super hard for him to understand that we are all human and we all make mistakes and this person makes mistakes but that doesn't mean I love him less. I just choose not to be around that person when they are that way. My boys are very protective of me. And this was more than they could handle. They handle it very well though. They both said they would have like to hit him for saying and treating me this way. I reassured them that their behavior was much better with the fact they didn't and that it made it easier to leave because they hadn't done that.
After reassuring and trying to explain how difficult is was for me to accept that leaders in the church made mistakes too. I fell away from the church as a teenager because of how the leaders treated my mom when she was divorcing. Remembering the people in the church are not perfect but the gospel is. I think he started to feel better.

Cole on the other hand broke down and told me how he was feeling. He really has a hard week. Starting with Christmas morning when everyone was opening their gifts at his dad I found out he had nothing other than his bike from santa and his suit from his grand parents. His dad didn't buy him anything. And while the others had gifts from godfathers and others he sat and had to watch. I wanted to cry how horrible is that. As he tried so hard to not cry he explained that he had to be strong for me. That if he wasn't who was going to be strong for everyone.(me and his siblings)Oh how I wanted to pick him up and hold him like I once could. He has such a sweet spirit. Cole seemed to think that the uneasy feeling he had the last couple of days was from the situation that happened tonight. Now I think about it when I first went into his room after we got home he was laying on his bed reading in Nephi. I asked him if he was ok and wanted to talk. He sat up and looked at me and said I will talk if you need to talk. What do you want to talk about? I told him I wanted to talk about how he felt about tonight. We talked for awhile, cried for awhile and I tried to explain away any worries he has about what happened.

Stephanie came over with her girls and that seemed to help get their minds off of everything.Mine too. Thanks Stephanie. I know that wasn't what you had planned.

I love my family. All the drama and all. But at times the drama is too much to handle. Cole said it best this time of year is about family. It is the only time he can relax and enjoy the family and not worry about anything else. Why does this happen at this time? Maybe it is stress from money etc. I don't know.

Things elevated pretty fast tonight and before I knew it I just knew that I had to leave. It has been so hard to try and teach my boys things they saw and heard when I was married isn't the way you talk or treat a women. Mother,sister, wife child or adult. Tonight just seemed to be a matter of do I stay around and let my boys and daughter witness someone acting the way I have taught them not to act? Do I stay and bite my tongue but damage my kids. (feelings, strength.) I never realized that my older 2 would take it so hard. They feel like it was their responsiblity to protect me and they didn't tonight. They feel they need to protect me from their dad they never thought it would be from someone else they looked up to.

All of us (siblings) had to deal with alot of junk when we were growing up. We saw and heard things I wish we hadn't. This lead to alot of us having to figure out ways to deal with our anger. Some of us have figured out how to deal with it in a healthy manner. I only wish everyone had. Don't get me wrong I am sure there are things I could have handled differently to keep it from exploding. I just wish I knew what it was. I love this person very much. I really hope that the trouble between us isn't a permanent break in our relationship. All I can do is do what I felt was best for my kids and keep from putting them in a situation that would be damaging for them.

Right now I am so emotionally drained that it is unreal. Cole asked me if we were ever going to have a year that wasn't so difficult. I reassured him that we had 6 months of a good year this year. But I wonder that too. With 2007 and my brain pseudo tumor and this year with Malcolm's health problems, my surgery and missing work. I am ready for a calm, boring year.