Well another Thanksgiving has come and gone. As the years go by, I’ve begun to accept that normal is not us. Everyone has their own family quirks, right? I realized the night before Turkey Day I was coming down with a cold, and maybe that just set the tone for this holiday. I can’t complain, I had no responsibility for dinner, mom was hosting, we were responsible for dessert.  She invited her friend and the friend nephew and friend. Very charming people, my kids ages 7,10 and 11 kept to themselves.

Long time ago I dreamt that parenthood was different, not sure what I was thinking but something where my kids would be friendly to guests.

Then I recalled our genetics….

Neither my husband nor I had the extrovert charming gene.

I recalled at recess in 3rd grade I would pace the cement play area, and talk to no one. I was content to be alone, and my parents were anti social as well.

The biggest family gathering we would hold would be the 4 of us, plus my aunt. All our extended family was in South America and looking back I didn’t feel like I was missing out. When I got married I married into big family, and as my social skills had blossomed thanks to leaving hs for a summer program, and started to relate as more of an ambivert I began to appreciate the “bigness” of extended family.

How nice to learn of all these interesting people related to my husband, oh the dynamics of it all.

Then I had kids.

Well when the kids were little I have to say it was easier as well, kids don’t care too much of the dynamics of personalities, they just deal with whatever comes. At least that was what it seemed to be for me.

Then… oldest turns 9, and things changed. Depression, anxiety, and a variety of mental issues peppered the next few years.

Puts a spin on the holidays, as a worried mother you have to adapt, and cope and help your children cope. Another layer of responsibility happens, where you are managing expectations all around.  You get through it, and sometimes you take a peek at the normal people, or seemingly normal people, and a small hint of jealousy creeps up as they share their pictures of joyful gatherings with perky outgoing kids all around the table.

Then you realize, hey that’s not the norm, we all have varying degrees of recluses, and a spectrum of personalities, behaviors, it’s just not highlighted on facebook.

I’m guilty of it as well, I never post the dysfunctional moments of our life on fb.  I’m never honest on fb about how much crying happened on a holiday.  It’s not pretty, I don’t want the attention, but at the same time, I want the “yeah, we’ve been there”…

So I might post on a more anonymous venue, like twitter, for me it’s like my little vent place, and it works…

So anyway, if you have crappy holidays, yeah, we’ve been there.

Cheers!

PBFcomics.com- Cave Explorer

Today, I smiled cheerfully as my neighbor passed by as our paths met as I took my daughter to school.  15 minutes earlier it was Cryfest 2015.  As soon as she passed, my conversation with my daughter continued about Shopkins, a new backpack, and her 6yo perspective on life.  She’s really a sweet kid, and although I did my best to be present in that world of hers, the tears started again.

Emotion hiding has never been my strong suit, but in cases of social situations, I usually can muster up the regular social graces, the “I’m fine, how are you doing?” the “Things are good! We’re hanging in there”.  Usually it’s 75% true, as there’s always something that may not be so good.  Also the crying is too easy for me, I’m an emotional person, cry when I’m happy, sad, angry.  It’s my go-to thing.  I envy those people that can remain stoic and calm in the worst situations. I was chided the other day from my friend, for showing emotion, “Don’t do that. You’ll make me cry, enough!” It’s not that I can help it, it’s stupidly hard for me.

So back to Cryfest 2015, which should just be Cryfest #42 of 2015, as we seem to be repeating this at least once a week. 10yo has  a reading log which requires him to answer a  question weekly about what he has read.  So since we had a very light week last week, he accumulated 2 “responses”  which he finished hastily last night.

The responses were about hating school and hurting mom and dad.  So it really wasn’t a good answer and usually those answers get negative attention, so I helped him revise it in the morning.  However instead of being calm about it, it just brought up all the emotions we have been going through.  This kid was in a day treatment center end of last year after he was suicidal, he could not tolerate school and could only take a few hours, so he got up to about 4 periods, and that was hard.  He’s doing much better in 5th grade, but it’s still hard, and I can see when he’s going to have a rough day, cause he’s all shut down and angry and just doesn’t want to go to school.

I see the pain in his face, I see the anger he has for school, and I feel helpless.  We have a good support system, are doing all the right things, and trying our best to make school tolerable. He has a teacher who is such an advocate for him that I talk to almost every day.   My son has an IEP, and a behavior log that keeps us in the loop as how he is doing with school.

I see my other 2 kids be able to get through school so much easier, and I know that it is so hard for him.

I have to choose him as he is.

I have to not think it’s a crisis when he acts out.

I have to remember hope.

I have to remember to not put emotional baggage on him or guilt.

I have to accept him hating school for the rest of his life is ok. Most kids do.

I have to let go, and let him figure it out.

I have to remind him of the things to look forward to.

I have to remember I can’t fix everything, and that I need to learn to let him deal with stuff.

I have to remember that for every breakdown, he will get stronger.

I have to remember that I’m loving the child that will become an amazing empathetic and strong adult.

I have to remember nothing happens overnight.

I have to keep calm and take care of myself.

I have to laugh.

I have to change the name of this blog if I don’t.*

*So if you’d like to guest post to lift the spirits of this funeral of funny, comment below with your email, and I’ll get in touch!

Do you ever start something, and think oh wow, what a great idea, I think this would work! And then you just run out of steam?
And life interrupts.

You realize you are spread too thin.
Time management fail, and you probably should’ve reached out for more help but didn’t.
Well this is a recurring theme in my life, especially when it comes to ideas that are mine.
I seem to excel in helping others and being the cheerleader and support for projects/work that is not my own “baby”.

But enough of my requisite self analyzing babble…

So the baby that was the curated unfiltered comedy calendar, gets aborted.

What calendar?

For about a month, I put together a calendar of favorite comics from O&A O&J etc, of what was going on in live comedy. It was like a curating hobby and I got this cool event calendar plugin, and I had a set amount of time every day at the public library by my son’s temporary “school”.  I put in people’s gigs, like Reverend Bob Levy, Sherrod Small, Bonnie McFarlane, Jim Jefferies, and a whole bunch more.  You can see the original post here.

So I plugged in the events, and it came up with a nice calendar for some of May and most of June.  It was alot of googling and checking out comic’s tweets.  The idea was to have a place to go to check out where unfiltered comedy was playing.  I got some people RT’ing, and even contributing, thanks to Brian Bachner, and Gopackjo, my 2 fellow comedyphiles.

The intention was to keep it up in the summer, but real work came, real issues, you know, life. My part-time work picked up that contributes to the family financials.  And when something isn’t really contributing to your family goals, it just evaporates.  Only 24 hours in a day! Simply it isn’t a sustainable effort on my own. Big thanks to SiberescueBrian for encouraging me to reach out to more people. I wish I had, I just ran out of time! But I will make sure to touch base with those people you had suggested for future ideas.

So I was pretty excited about this idea, since I didn’t see a curated site about the comics I’m interested in. It felt like it would be something cool, and I LOVE COMEDY, I think comics should be spotlighted and that we should support live comedy venues. But it’s not in the cards in July 2015, but if someone out there is interested in reviving the calendar or doing something together that supports live comedy contact me (leave a comment below and I can email you directly).

Cheers!

–@momsforcomedy

See what’s going on below. Check out Rich Vos in (NJ/NYC), Bobby Kelly (in CT), Big Jay Oakerson (NYC) June Dates below. Also Brian Regan appears at the Great American Comedy Festival in Nebraska.

Great weekend June 19 for comedy at the comedy cellar.

Comment below if we are missing your favorite comics!
[ai1ec view=”posterboard”]