Tag: children

Holidays and the Broken Pieces

Twenty years of allergy shots and I finally have a cat. My inner five-year-old is very happy.

Do we ever get over wanting our parents to approve of us? Do we ever get over wanting that Hallmark movie moment with them? For most of us the answer is, no. No matter how old we get, or how accomplished we are. There’s still a part of us that is five and wants to jump up and down, and say, “Look at me! Look at me!” Or fourteen and wanting that word of praise on the football field, or at the science fair, or just anywhere, any time from the person who raised us.

I think this is part of what makes the holidays so stressful for many of us, that we’re still chasing our parents’s approval. For many of us it’s a rigged game, like carnival games that no matter how good you are, you can’t win. You’re never going to get that stuffed panda, or an atta boy, or atta girl from your parent. So how do you keep those unmet needs from ruining your holidays, and maybe raining on everyone else’s?

Honor that excited five-year-old. Don’t tell yourself I’m twenty-four, or forty-four, and too old to still be stuck there. (I tried that for years and it just doesn’t work.) Honor that awkward fourteen-year-old that’s still stuck under the mistletoe with no one to love. You can have more than one inner child inside you feeling lost and alone, and they’ll be different ages, so honor them all. Honor that moment that you didn’t get your needs met, or when the world collapsed around you and part of you got stuck. Sometimes it’s a true trauma, a death in the family that you were too young to deal with, but it can be much less trauma worthy to the outside world and still have hurt you deeply. Don’t tell yourself that it wasn’t that big a deal that you didn’t get asked to the Christmas dance, not if your fifteen-year-old self is still stuck there feeling unloved and unwanted. Honor your teenage self by dragging the memory into the light and telling her it’s all right. If you have romantic partner tell them about it, and let them help you comfort that stuck part of you, and maybe just maybe you can begin to unstick yourself and heal.

If the hurt involves family sometimes you can share it with them and that can sort of exorcise the ghosts of past pain, but if the circumstances that caused the pain are still present they may not be much help. Or they’ll tell you, that was so long ago, why are you the only one holding onto that? Just because it wasn’t a trauma to your brother, doesn’t mean it wasn’t one to you, so honor your inner child and love yourself. Sometimes you can’t explain it to your birth family, but you, yourself can love and honor your own inner self. You can love your own inner child.

If at five you didn’t get the teddy bear Santa promised you, and there’s still a part of you that’s moping over that long ago Christmas, then go out and buy yourself a teddy bear. Sometimes literally you can parent that inner part of yourself. If that stuffed toy, or train set, or sparkly dress not being yours is still making part of you that unhappy, stop telling yourself you should be over it by now and gift yourself. Sometimes it can be that simple, and no one has to understand why that in the box mint train set means so much to you. The only one that really has to know is you and that inner five/ten/twelve year-old.

If your inner child is tired of your mother fixing your favorite vegetable every year, because it’s actually your sister’s favorite vegetable, and you actually hate black-eyed peas, then cook your very favorite vegetable and bring it with you. You know what your favorite things are, cook them, make them, and bring them yourself. I hear some of you out there saying, but I want my mother to acknowledge me, rather than her favorite which happens to be my sister. Well, yeah, so did I, but waiting for your parent to fix an issue they don’t realize is an issue, is sort of a losing proposition for you. If you’ve told your parent that it’s not your favorite veggie for years and they still can’t remember, then it’s not going to happen. I’m sorry, but you can fix your own favorite veggie and bring it, or bring the fixings for the dish and cook it there in your childhood kitchen. Think how empowering it is to not only fix your own favorite food, but to do it in the midst of all those childhood ghosts.

You do not have to wait on your family to acknowledge your pain, or your unhappiness. You can acknowledge it and act on it, because that way you are in charge of it. You can parent your own inner child rather than waiting for someone else, that puts the power to heal yourself in your own hands. You can love yourself and love your inner child/children. You can take control of it and be the adult you, yourself needs, or needed long ago. Empower yourself this holiday season and treat your inner child as if they were a real life child that could take your physical hand and look up at you. Do for that younger part of you what you couldn’t do then, and maybe it can still be the happiest time of the year.

A Not So Scary Halloween Birthday! 

  
   I’m a horror writer, and back when there was a horror section in the bookstores, that’s where I was shelved. I’ve been called mixed genre, dark fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal, paranormal thriller. I’m still shelved in science fiction and fantasy, because thats where horror goes now. We horror writers hang out on the street corners with the science geeks, and the Tolkien fans, teaching them about the darker side of their fantasies. Muhahaha! Because I usually write a darker version of whatever I’m writing, I get invited to a lot of Halloween events. Not as many as I used to get invited to, because I have a reputation for turning them down. I could have made a lot of press and publicity over the years if I’d been wiling to attend more Halloween events on All Hallows Eve, itself, so why refuse?

   When my daughter, Trinity, was three I went to either World Fantasy Con, or World Con in California. I honestly can’t remember which con it was now, but they are both good cons for networking, finding agents, publishers, getting invited into anthologies, interviews, and a host of other things that are good for a writer’s career. If you are starting out as a writer I especially recommend World Fantasy Con for making good business connections. It was a smart business move so my friend and fellow writer, Deborah Millitello and I went. My ex, who was at that time still my husband, stayed at home like many spouses do for their other halves. Trinity was going to be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and her best friend was going to be Glenda the Good Witch. My ex promised to get lots of pictures and our good friends and parents of the Good Witch were going to get video. My ex promised to get video, too. I hated to miss it, but I’d see the pictures and video later, and there would be other Halloweens. I was still searching for enough writing contracts to keep me busy and grow my career and that might not be able to wait for another year until next World Fantasy, so I chose and I went.

   It was a very busy and fun convention in many ways. I had a lot of meetings with editors, publishers, agents, and even had an interview with a new magazine. It was potentially a very productive convention, if any of it panned out. Just like you have to send out a lot of stories to a lot of different markets so you can up your chances of getting a professional sale and getting paid, so the more meetings you have with more publishing professionals the better your odds for new contracts. But it’s a bit like fishing, you put a lot of bait in the water, you don’t always catch a fish.

   As it turned out, not a single meeting turned into an actual paying contract for me. No new book sales, no new series sales, no anthologies that actually took off and became a reality. It was a lot of promise but no follow through, and . . . I’d missed seeing Trinity dressed up as Dorothy with her best friend as Glenda, but there’d be pictures and video.

   Nope, both cameras and both video recorders broke. I had one fuzzy picture in the dark where I could see the ruby gleam of my daughter’s shoes, but that was it. Literally every tech device we had to record that memory malfunctioned. I missed that Halloween and I could never even see it.

   That was my wakeup call from the universe that Halloween with my daughter, my only child, might just trump business even for a horror writer. I made the promise to myself that I would never miss another one with Trinity, and I have kept that promise.

   Her birthday is in October and one of her very favorite holidays is Halloween. She’s always been disappointed that I couldn’t hold out so she could be born on the actual holiday. For her birthday this year she wanted to go to Disney World for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. 

   It’s not a typical twenty-first birthday request, but it is very Trinity, so Jon and I went about making it happen. We told her to invite a friend, which she did. Jon, who has been Daddy Jon since she was quite small, and I, plus Spike and Genevieve, the other half of our poly foursome set about making Trinity’s birthday wish come true. 

   If you think that because I write horror and hard boiled mysteries that I don’t enjoy Disney, you would be wrong. In fact, all four of us are the type of adult that will watch our favorite Disney movies without a child as an excuse. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re too old to enjoy the movies and things that make you happy, because they are killjoys that want to steal the happy-shiny from the world, and the world needs all the happy-shiny it can get. If Disney is one of your happy thoughts, then rock your bad selves! 

   If you go to Disney World for Halloween be absolutely sure you get tickets for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. It was awesome! Don’t miss the parade, either! The Headless Horseman rides out first, and the rest of the parade was equally fun. I particularly liked that the dancers from the Haunted Mansion had shovels and caused sparks to fly against the ground; it was a very cool effect. But make sure and get good viewing for the show at the castle, because this year is being hosted by the Sanderson Sisters from the movie, “Hocus Pocus.” It was one of Trinity’s favorite movies and one of Genevieve’s, too. The show is fabulous and the actress they have playing Bette Midler’s part as Winifred is spot on! The other sisters are very good, too, as was the whole cast. I can’t compliment the rest of the cast individually without giving away the surprises so I’ll wait until November to say anymore, but it was amazing! If you can go to this year’s party, do it, because all six of us loved it.

   So, Trinity is twenty-one, and she’s trying to arrange with work so she gets Halloween off because she’d still rather spend it at home with us and the dogs. Someday maybe she’ll grow out of wanting to be with us for the holiday, but until she does, I’m home for Halloween. I learned my lesson, even horror writers should take Halloween off and play with the kids.

Why not take the High Road?

I have been talking about my sister, Chica, and the fact that she is getting married this year to her new partner Majorgirlfriend. Many fans have asked questions about it on FaceBook, and with my sister’s permission I’ll try to answer them. First, yes, Chica and Majorgirlfriend are nicknames. Neither of them is “famous”, so I try to leave my friends and loved ones their anonymity if so requested. It’s also one of the reason that I don’t talk about my daughter, Trinity, very often. I want her to have her own life and privacy and I just can’t decide how much of me sharing will interfere with that, so I choose caution. Second question asked, Chica has been “divorced” from her partner of thirteen years for two years now, so no, she’s not rushing into things with the new person. Third question, yes her ex is/was Meerkatfeinated, who has gone on to another job and a new girlfriend of her own. I hope that Meerkatfeinated is as happy with her new relationship as my sister is with hers, but as our friendship did not survive I do not know for certain. Before someone asks, yes I do miss the friendship when it worked, but I do not miss the parts that did not work between us, and that would eventually make it impossible for the friendship to survive. I believe that Meerkatfeinated would probably say the same of me.
Several people on FaceBook have given me brownie points for taking the high road about the divorce and the break up of the friendship, as if they expect me to be mean about it. I wasn’t mean about my divorce from my own ex-husband over a decade ago, why would I be horrible now, about this? Let me say, that there were negative moments on all sides, and hurt feelings, and anger, we are all human after all, but that doesn’t mean we have to be petty, or cruel. For my own first marriage, my ex and I agreed never to bad mouth each other in front of our daughter, and we haven’t. Trinity didn’t get the divorce, we did, so as much as possible we have tried to make it not her problem. I saw too much of people using the children badly in divorces as I grew up to ever want to inflict that on my own child.
I know there was pain for both my sister and her ex partner. It’s normal and just part of the process. I sincerely wish Meerkatfeinated well in her new life, just as I wished my own ex-husband well. He’s been remarried for over a decade himself now, I think, or close to, and I can only hope he is half as happy as I am.
I guess I can understand being horrible if the ex is abusive, or truly monstrous, but I genuinely have never understood how you can go from loving someone to hating them so quickly. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. Hate, or anger, means you still have issues to work.
I believe that the energy you put out into the world is what comes back to you, so if you are bitter about a divorce and wish bad things for your ex, then that’s what you’ll get from the universe. I don’t see the point to that. I would rather try to let go of any ill-feelings and truly move forward to a better and more positive place. I’m not saying it’s easy, or there aren’t moments when old feelings rise, or issues are hit, but if I hadn’t cared for everyone involved it wouldn’t have mattered, and it did matter, so there is pain, but when the choices are right the pain eases and you truly do get better, do better, and find out happiness not only is possible, but there may be more of it out there waiting for you all to find it. It’s just that sometimes you can’t find it together, but separately your dreams, your future, is waiting for both of you.