It seems that 2025 is to be ‘the year of missing’ on many levels. Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start again: For many years, I would end each year with a renewal of my commitments and within the first month of the new year, set forth the pattern as it thus far unfolds. From there, as I like and wish, and spottily, I admit. Indeed, 2025 has all the signs of being a year of missing in many ways. Initially, I was somewhat enjoying the return of the wood snake; the sign is generally well received though it […]
Definitely done.
I have cut contact/relation with many people in my life, and not one time was the choice an easy or enjoyable one. Inevitably, it came down to whether or not the person in question was willing to accept and care for me as well as they demand I accept and care for them. Inevitably, the person in question asked more of me than they were, themselves, willing to give, and all discussion foundered unless I was willing to accept this as ‘how it would be’. I wasn’t willing with them, back then, just as I’m unwilling today, with you. For […]
Title track: Fake (Family)
ASCAP Registration #: 928388433 Mom’s gone, her legacy in vainFoster child, left out in the rainNotice read, no mention of my nameErased from history, a shame to claim She called me daughter, but now I’m just a lineIn a list of names, without a signLeft out of mourning, as if I’m a crimeThe foster child’s pain, in a rhyme that’s mine She called me “daughter” with prideWas no coattail for me to just rideSo now it is recanted?I’ll take it in my strideNever had family but they so backslide Now they’ve set it truly into ink:“…foster children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren”No […]
Familial Non Grata
I keep seeing videos of kids getting holiday presents that are letters from their foster families telling them they want to adopt them and make them part of their family. It reminds me of the houseparents from the children’s home I was in from age 5 to 11; they gave me a letter in 2008 of this nature over a holiday dinner at their house. I was so happy and was ready to agree as soon as I finished reading it. But they told me they wanted to wait until they figured out how to do this without compromising their […]
Turning the row (aeration)
It feels as if I will struggle with letting go of my daughter and grand-daughters for the rest of my life. I cut contact because I was tired of having my needs invalidated and of being cut out and left out of their lives. Of being told I couldn’t have access or enjoy my grand-daughters because my daughter thinks I am ‘unsafe’. Of being told that I will never be allowed closeness and care in action rather than only words. Of being told I was abusive and neglectful (I wasn’t – this is attribution error and deliberate mis-attribution / misfeasance). […]
Ruminations on estrangements
My children and I are estranged and have been for some time. My son, now age 43, since he was 11 and very unlikely to ever be resolved/reconciled. I allowed his step-mother to adopt him in 1993 as it was the only way I knew they would stop manipulating him and stressing him over his visitations with me. My daughter, now age 36, was more on and off again until roughly 2023, when it became clear that she only wants to be involved with me by phone or email, and being more than willing to insisting upon saying harmful, hurtful, […]
I was a bad mother, and that’s ok.
From the perspective of my children, I was an aloof, emotionally unavailable mother… I was a bad mother. I get how and why this is how they believe, feel, and think; when you’re a kid, all you know is what you need and do not receive. Things like histories, circumstances, and the realities of an adult being their own person just don’t enter the frame. Often, even after growing up, they never do. I know this because it’s how I felt, too. My parents were horribly abusive, deeply broken humans. They were fractured in youth by their parents, who likely […]
Track title: Worn
ASCAP registration #: 926945387 Fifty-nine years, life on me has wornInternal skies gray as an empty dawnKids abandon me, they’ve got their own waysLeft to suffer my rest of days Broken heart and a deeply weary soulTook every hit, so they might have controlSacrificed shamelessly so they could be wholeShamelessly sacrificed, left upon life’s shoal Left me behind without them to claim Gave them all but they deny my name Never had family, a life-long refrainNever belonging, always an endless strainEven from my children, no warmth to claimThe story unfolding, no one ever sustains I used to move, like rays […]
Track title: Little Star
You are my sunshineEach and every single dayWho abandons the sunshineI never wanted to go away You are my moon riseThrough every lonely nightI dreamt how in reunion’s eyesWe’d make everything alright You are my Little StarA beacon day and nightNo matter where you areI’ve held you close inside I call you after the universeThat you represent to meEven though you disbelieveThough you refuse to ever see One cannot forget the universeOne can only call that a curseOne seeks not such a reverseWhy must life be so perverse Why is it so attractive for youTo think that I don’t careYou […]
Track title: Granny
Granny, why do you live so far away?I never really know just what to sayI never really wanted it to be this way“These are the only cards I have to play” A false conversation that plays in my mindOf a family that isn’t, history ain’t kind Granny, why can’t I just talk to you?It’s not my decision; I’d never do that, booThere is a middleman who I cannot get throughWith terms and conditions for me to imbue Though touting a battle cry of unconditional loveStill keeping me away, steel hand in velvet glove Granny, why won’t you live with us?Sweetie, […]