Battle Hymns of a Hot Mess Mom

I talk a lot about growing up with nothing. Truth is I grew up alone. I look different and as a result, I didn’t make very many friends, but I faced it because I was brave because I didn’t have a choice. Day 2 of summer camp, and my son is trying to run and hide. The friends that he met on Monday, thanked him for the donuts he bought them and then ghosted him.

It happens now of course as an adult I would never bride you to be my friend – in fact, if you don’t wanna be my friend, that’s OK because frankly, I’m not that interested. But those are things that you realize about yourself after 40 is that you simply don’t give a f*ck anymore about what people think about you. You just don’t care, I certainly don’t. What you think about me isn’t going to cure my cancer. What you think about me isn’t going to make me rich, it isn’t going to pay the mortgage or put food on the table so why the f*ck would I care what you think of me?? But that’s not the case when you’re a kid. When you’re a kid, it matters…it did to me. it hurt my feelings and made me feel really alone.

The kids at school didn’t wanna play with me. No one wanted to come to my birthday party and I certainly didn’t get any invitations to birthday parties or sleepovers. On rare occasions that the entire class was invited I would be so ecstatic to attend only to find out that I would sit alone eating the little cardboard pizza at Hot Skates. They would whisper about me point at me and laugh. “Oh my God she actually came. I wonder what stupid present she bought.” Yeah kids are a$sholes and the girls grow up to be mean girls. Until you find out that they still live in the same town, had a couple of kids and really went nowhere with their life. But then again is there satisfaction in that? Like truly. Facebook is a funny place. You do not look the same in high school and you certainly are not 22. Are you the same mean girl maybe you’ve changed. Laugh at the fact that you work at Walmart full-time. Why? It’s an honest living. Just because I sold my soul to a corporate juggernaut, does it actually mean anything? I worked myself straight into cancer shouldn’t you be the one to laugh at me?

As I tell my son to face those trials and tribulations, I also have to reflect on who I was at his age and who I am now. Who I was at his age was prideful but alone. I faced things alone because I wanted to, but because it was necessity. I had to face it on my own. I can’t teach him to navigate this from my perspective now. Because now I don’t give a f*ck about anything except making sure that I survive this.

He on the other hand has a lot of f*cks to give. Because when you’re not over 40, you give a lot of f*cks. You are your clothes match up, if your body matches up. Are you cool enough? Are you sexy enough? Are you enough. When I was younger, I was never enough…never anything enough. After 40 and after getting sick, I’m all that and a bag of Cheetos. Untrue. Lol. But I just don’t give a sh*t if I’m enough or too much.

There is so much beauty in aging. I’ve never been afraid of aging. I’ve just been afraid of not aging. I look forward to getting old and wise and I hope I have that opportunity.

Yet that doesn’t solve my current issue where my son is going through puberty and developing into a man and it’s not confident yet to place his own flag in the sand. That’s not a realistic expectation I didn’t plant my own damn flag until I was well in my 30s, let’s be real. I didn’t even know what the flag was. I mostly just held on for life and threw myself into my career. I don’t gentle parent mostly because I’m not gentle. I am fiercely overprotective. I’m a hothead and I’m an a$shole.

I don’t take pride and being a hothead. I don’t take pride in who I am. I know I’m a piece of sh*t. I just don’t give a f*ck. If you don’t love me for being a sh*t parent and being a hot mess and being a huge f*ck up – Bye. I didn’t have anyone to fight my battles growing up. I fought every battle by myself whether or not I needed to fight the battle I fought them. There was going high when they went low. I got down there and went lower. I’m not saying that I want to fight every battle for my children, but I don’t want them to grow up feeling like they didn’t have someone to lean on or they didn’t have a homebase to rely on. I want them to feel that they can handle their own problems, but if sh*t hits the fan, Mama has a 50 gallon drum access to lye and a shovel. (And S has access to a Pig Farm.)