Morrigan's blog: "I rant...therefore I am."

Dear Mom,

We weren't always nice to each other. You were an infuriatingly stubborn old bat. We fought tooth and nail over what was best for you and what was best for our family. You were cranky, frustrating, and a complete and total nag. You drove me insane with your need to leave the T.V. on 24 freaking hours a day, your constant concern over your yappy little dog, and your meddling in the way I raised my children. I couldn't leave the house for more than 5 minutes without you calling me, worried about me and nearly in tears. In the last few years, you became anxious about everything. You pictured me in a car accident, you pictured me lost and alone, you even pictured me in jail if I was out of your sight for too long. I had no freedom. I had no life outside our home. I had no friends with the exception of your old persnickity ass. I complained all the time about how crazy you were driving me.

And I loved you more than words could ever express. Probably more than you ever suspected.

As I sit here now, I remember all of those things that used to annoy me with fondness and regret. You were only fighting to hold onto your independence, even as your body's failures ripped it from you. You were only worried about me because you loved me and needed me. You only meddled and nagged because you wanted to be heard...you wanted to leave your mark on us. And, in that, you've succeeded. Even now, your voice is inside my head with every decision I make. I want to do everything right, Mama. I want to make you proud.

But most of all, I just want you back.

I used to long for silence, but now I find myself turning on the T.V. to fill the emptiness that the quiet carries with it like an anchor. The couch that you loved and that I never really liked sits empty...as if it has become some sort of shrine to the woman who used to sprawl across it because, somehow, the bed was never as comfortable as the soft foam and roomy enormity of the ugly brown sectional. We come home and unlock the door only to be confronted by this deafening silence...this void that will never again be filled.

We tell stories of your antics. Rememberances of your stubborn refusal to believe that the rules applied to you as they did to everyone else. Your lighting up a cigarette in the middle of Wal Mart because they refused to let you take the ride-on cart outside. Your illogical and somehow pornographic insistance that skinny men had larger dicks than fat men did. Your little quips and jabs when you didn't like someone the kids had brought home, or even, looking farther back, when I brought home a new boyfriend. And you never liked any of them, did you, Mama? They were never good enough to be associated with your family. They never quite measured up.

You taught me everything I know. You molded me into the person I am today. You gave me a standing ovation and a dozen roses when I was inducted into National Honor Society. You painstakingly crafted my constume when I had a dance recital. You held my hand when we crossed the street. You continued to hold it when I gave birth to my children. You were the first person to hold my son when he entered this world and the first to kiss the top of my daughter's head when she cried. You were my angel. You were my rock. You were my best friend, even when I didn't know it...even when I didn't want you to be. I am lost without you.

I am 37 years old and I can't recall a single day of my life when I didn't hear your voice. Sometimes, I hear it still. People keep telling me that it's going to be okay, but they don't know. They don't understand that, in losing you, I've lost so much of myself. I've lost a large amount of my purpose, and now I'm fumbling around in the dark, unable to find the light switch. I know I'll find it eventually, but even then, when those bulbs burst into life again, the light will never quite have the same quality...the same ability to drive away the shadows and chase the monster out of the closet.

I miss you, Mama. I miss you so much that it is an ache deep in my chest, making it hard to breathe. But I don't know how to say goodbye to you. I don't know if I'll ever be able to. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. Maybe we never quite say goodbye to the people who made us what we are. Perhaps you live on inside me. In my thoughts. In my choices. In everything I do. Maybe, when I hug and kiss my children good night...I'm also hugging and kissing you.

So, I'll just say I love you and, you don't have to worry anymore. I'll be fine. I am your daughter, after all.

If I died tonight, would anyone even notice?

Would people cry and question fate?

Would they even acknowledge my absence?

Would they care that I'd sacrificed my life to everyone else

and that, even in death, I was enslaved?

Would what was clutched in my hand

even rate a second glance?

Would they see it for what it is?

Or, would they all just say "I told you so"

and whisper inanities beside my casket?

Behind my back.

I don't want to do this anymore.

I don't want to live a thankless life.

I can't bear to complete another useless task.

I have no more unheeded words to lash out with.

No more prayers to be answered.

Life is kicking my ass.

Maybe death would be kinder.

You know that whole thing about "whatever can go wrong, will"?

They need to change the name of that shit from "Murphy's Law" to "Morrigan's Law".

Fuck.

I'm making wallpapers. That's how bored I've become with this place.

Anyway...here are some of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm obsessed with vampires. Anyway...these are for MY use.

But I can make them with any theme. In fact...

And...

So...who wants one?

I'm thinking I might charge Fu-bucks or something...but, we'll see.

How frigging lame am I?

I think I have finally gone off the deep end.

I think I've finally lost my mind.

I think that maybe...just maybe...these are the moments that I've waited for all my life.

I awaken to a new day, the sun streaming gaily through the french doors in my room. Cringing against its bright greeting, I briefly consider pulling the blanket over my head and once again enveloping myself in it's sweet womb of warmth and darkness. And then I realize...

I don't want to do that. I don't want to hide from the day. Not anymore. I am ready to embrace every moment.

It's almost frightening.

You know, I figure for the most part...at least in my real life...that I tend to be a very nice person. If a friend needs a place to stay, my door is open. If the local food bank is low on volunteers or canned goods [and I have the time or food to spare], I'm there. If I see someone in need and I have the extra money, I loan it or even give it.  Etc, etc, etc. So, I figure that I should have pretty decent karma, right?

So frigging wrong.

At our old house, neighborhood kids climbed in my son's bedroom window and stole the PS3 and video games that I had waited until my tax return to splurge on. That same tax return also bought my daughter an Ipod Touch that vanished two weeks after we brought it home because some random idiot at the park snatched it from my daughter. I have spent the past two years in a constant financial struggle. Worried from day to day how I was going to continue to feed us or keep the utilities on. It's been rough trying to take care of all of us on one measly little income.

I got a second job.

I was so frigging happy. Now, we could move into a different place away from the delinquents who had stolen all of that stuff from us. Once I got caught up on bills, we were going to be doing just fine. No longer living from paycheck to paycheck. No more scrimping just to buy bread and milk at the store. No more worrying.

So...we moved.

I handed the landlord of the new house a check for the first month's rent and hauled all our crap in. And while I was worrying about where to put the couch...one of my son's idiot friends stole my bank card out of my wallet and went on a spending spree. A REAL FRIGGING SPREE. He went to Hooter's and to Macy's. He went to that stupid hat store in the mall where the baseball caps cost 80 bucks. He spent every dime of the money that was sitting in the bank to pay rent.

So, because of that, my paychecks this past week...not to mention the one I'm waiting on for this Friday...have had to go directly to replace that money. The bank is investigating and I MIGHT get my money back...in a few weeks.

And I'm sitting here, waiting for the lights to go out. Because our electricity is on an SRP MCard, which means it's prepaid, and I don't have the money to go put on it for the rest of the week. I don't have a dime. The lights DID go out yesterday, preventing me from being able to work my second job [I work online from home] and costing me even more money. If only I had a couple of weeks to catch up...

My son told that kid to never come around here again, but the damage is done.

Hell, I can't even buy a roll of toilet paper.

I must have done something really shitty that I don't remember doing to have THIS kind of fucking karma.

Whatever it was, I am SO SO SO SO SO sorry.

I wander through this life mired in the drudgery of day to day.

I wake up, send my daughter off to school, clean house, put in job applications online, take care of my Mom, argue with my son over getting his chores done, welcome my daughter home from school, cook dinner, clean up from dinner, go to the pool for about an hour or so, take a bath, hop online for a bit, and go to bed...where I stare up at the ceiling [sometimes with tears in my eyes] until exhaustion drags me down into sleep. All of this, just so that I can awaken the next morning to do the same thing.

While I love the people in my life, it's not difficult to hate the life itself. I'm bored. I'm lonely. I'm starved for companionship.

I have memories of a different life. A life before my mother became ill. A life where I had a rewarding office career and colleagues I admired.  A life where I had a great group of friends and a life outside my home. A life where, on a Saturday night, I could drop the kids off at my mom's house and go to see my friends' band play at a local club...sit backstage and hang out...meet new people...have FUN.

If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't change what I did. I would still take care of my mother. How could I not? She's the only person who always stood beside me no matter what mistakes I made. She helped me through my struggles as I raised my children alone, because while I made good choices professionally, I sucked at choosing men. I owe her this time. I owe her so much.

But I'm empty. I'm lonely. I'm exhausted. Everything I have...every penny, every moment...goes into this home and these people. I have nothing of my own.

I miss my friends. I miss my time away. I miss going places and experiencing new things. I miss having a life of my own. I miss interacting with people my own age. I miss men. And after three and a half years of self-imposed celibacy, I can finally say this...........

I miss sex.

But I miss intimacy more.

I miss having a partner to share my burden. I miss having someone to lay beside me in bed and hold me when I've had a rough day. I miss snuggling on the couch and watching a movie or sitting on the patio and watching the sun set. Someone to talk to and laugh with and make love to by candlelight...

So I sit here, flat broke and worried about how I'm going to pay the bills that my paycheck [I get paid as a home healthcare worker to care for my mom] didn't cover, unable to even afford to fill my gas tank or even get the oil change my Explorer so desperately needs, and having absolutely no idea how to get back even a little bit of the life I miss so much.

My greatest fear? That it will always stay this way. That, even after my mother's passed away and my children have moved out to start their own lives, I will still be like this. I will still be alone...until the day I die.

Gawd, I'm depressing.

I just watched the Michael Jackson memorial on television. And while I am a little put off by the media sensation surrounding his death, this service was beautiful. I can understand the need these people felt to memorialize him...to emulate him...to celebrate him. 

So much of the media hype that's surrounded him throughout his life and now in his death has nauseated me. But this...this gave me hope for humanity. So many people coming together to mourn and celebrate the life of one man...ONE MAN. The world united in a common grief. We can still work together after all.

Anyone who frequents the MuMMs has seen much of what I have to say on this subject. I am very vocal regarding it.

I've sat on this site watching people make horrible jokes about this man and call him a pedophile. And, it's sickening. Whatever you believe he did in his life...whatever wrongs you attribute to him...he is a man who never had a moment's peace while he was alive, and now that he's gone, he still doesn't get that. To everyone who says things like this, I hope that when YOU die, people drag out the most embarrassing, humiliating portions of your life and thrust them into the spotlight. I hope that YOUR memory is shown so little respect that people have a good laugh at YOUR expense.

For my part, I never believed any of the allegations against him. I don't think that it would have ever occured to him to hurt a child...or to hurt anyone. He was, in many ways, a child himself. He surrounded himself with children because they were the only people he could trust...the only ones who wouldn't just say what he wanted to hear so that they could share in his spotlight and his fortune. Children are honest and they are full of magic and adventure. They taught him how to play...and they allowed him to live vicariously through them the childhood that he so wished he could have had.

When people call him a pedophile, they are only showing their own ignorance. Yes, he settled out of court when the first allegations were brought against him, but that was NOT an admission of guilt. I've had people say "No one would pay THAT much money unless they WERE guilty". But the thing is...to you and I, it was a fortune. For Michael Jackson, a man with BILLIONS of dollars at his disposal, that was just a drop in the bucket...a small price to pay to bring an end to the humilation that he...and the children involved...were being put through by the police and the media. He was hounded, convicted without a trial, served with papers that allowed strangers to come in his home and photograph his genitals...and he knew the children were being subjected to the same kind of treatment, just because their parents wanted money. "Embarrassment" is an understatement. "Depraved and humiliating" is closer to the truth. In fact, though people don't seem to know this, the children involved later came out to the media and stated that Michael NEVER did any of the things he had been accused of. And when some other money hungry parents brought charges against him years later, he chose to clear his name by going to trial...and was CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES. Of course, people tend to forget that little fact. They also tend to forget that people are "innocent until proven guilty". Not the other fucking way around.

Here was a man who was thrust into the spotlight at an early age. His father's favorite nickname for him was "Big Nose", warping his self image and spawning his obsession with plastic surgery in a quest to reinvent himself. If, as a child, he didn't perform well in rehearsals, he was abused. And even after that abuse ended, he spent his entire lifetime in that spotlight. He never had privacy or anything resembling a normal life...let alone a normal childhood. He ached for that which he could never have.

I had a conversation with a friend who happens to be a licensed therapist. She gave me her educated opinion on the subject. She said "As a therapist, what I've seen of Michael Jackson over the years has made me think that he was asexual. He was, mentally a child...a child who had the ability and financial means to create whatever fantasy he wanted to. He would have never done the things he was accused of and I would have trusted him with my children." Hmmm.

I admired him and I pitied him at the same time. He had an amazing talent and an amazing heart.  Yet, everyone chooses to linger on the bad things they think he did. They forget that he was HUMAN. He was allowed to make mistakes and he was allowed to make poor choices. His poor choices were just more public than most. I advise everyone to remember that, whatever else he was...and he WAS damaged, in his lifetime he did more good than any of us will ever even think of doing.

Michael Jackson wrote “We Are The World” with Lionel Richie in 1985 and performed it as part of an all-star single to raise money for Africa in 1985.

The Millennium-Issue of the “Guinness Book Of Records” names Michael as the “Pop Star who supports the most charity organizations”.

Michael Jackson has supported the following charities:

* American Cancer Society

* Big Brothers Big Sisters

* Boys' and Girls' Clubs of America

* Childhelp USA * Children's Defense Fund

* Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation

* End Hunger Network

* Great Ormond Street Hospital

* Jane Goodall Institute

* Make-A-Wish Foundation

* Prince's Trust

* Ronald McDonald House Charities

* Starlight Children's Foundation

* TJ Martell Foundation

* United Negro College Fund

Whatever else you believe of him...and, as I said, I have always believed that he would have never intentionally hurt a child...he did these things. He traveled to impoverished countries. He supported worthy causes. He cared. He did more good in his 50 years on this earth than all of us together will ever accomplish. He broke down barriers and brought people together. He changed the face of music and dance. He gave all that he was to the world that, in return; hounded him, made fun of him, called him names like "Wacko Jacko", made a mockery of his entire life and his family, and finally drove him into a reclusive life. He lived at the mercy of the media. He had so little control over his own existance. And that's a sad way for ANYONE to live.

RIP Michael Joseph Jackson. May you finally be at peace.

Right now, my daughter is on a plane. And it's making me crazy. I already miss her, I'm worried, I'm sad, I'm proud, I'm...well...I'm a lot of things.

She's never been on a plane before and she's flying alone...all the way to St. Louis, where she's going to be staying with her paternal grandmother. She refused the offer to stay at her dad's. I'm glad of that, because he has no right to have her. Not when he's never paid a dime of child support and he's broken just about every promise he ever bothered to make to her.

After 14 years of doing all of it on my own, struggling and scrimping, I begrudge him any moment that he gets to spend with her. Why should he get to enjoy her? Why should he get to take her to a portrait studio to get family photos taken together when I can't even afford to do that here? Why should he get to whip a snapshot out of his wallet and show her off to his buddies when he goes to the bar to play darts? He hasn't had a hand in raising her. He's had nothing to do with the amazingly strong and funny person she's become...unless you count the fact that so much of her strength comes from having to deal with the many disappointments he's given her. He's nothing but a fair weather father, traipsing in and out of her life whenever he feels like it.  He vanishes for months, even years, at a time...only to show back up again, telling her he loves her and misses her. Fucking asshole.

I didn't put her on the plane for him. I put her on there for his mother, who has stepped up and helped me when he refused to. And for my daughter's friends that she had to leave behind when we left STL to come to Arizona. Her father can take a long walk off a very short pier as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, when she was abducted and missing for four days back in November, I couldn't even get a hold of him. I called every number he had given me...I called his family members...EVERYTHING. And he still didn't know she was ever gone until a month after she was already back home. And he wanted to call my house last night...on my birthday...and tell me to make certain to send a nice outfit with her for the family photos he's having taken. That motherfucker doesn't support her. If he wants to have her photo taken, he can go out and buy her a fucking outfit for it.

Ok...Now I'm ranting. But, it's about time. This has been tearing me apart ever since her grandmother sent me the plane ticket confirmation. I had to stand in that terminal and watch that plane taxi down the runway and take flight, knowing that my baby girl went with it...moving steadily away from me...moving toward HIM. And I cried.

I hate him.

These next twelve days are going to be a living hell for me. I've never been away from her for this long. I've never been this far away from her. I've never turned her over to anyone like this...and it's a pretty scary feeling.

She and I did each other's makeup last night and took a bunch of pictures together.

Gawd. I need to get my mind off of this...somehow.

I cried a little today.

Maybe it's the passage of time and so many things changing. Maybe it's the things that I've done wrong in the past...the mistakes I've made...the regrets that have piled up alongside the years that just seem to slip past me like a train headed to nowhere.

I'm not happy. And I want to be. I so frigging want to be.