I tried to make it less wordy with the photos

Mother's Day was a bit different this year.

On Saturday I dropped Clem off at her dad's, they were going to take a trip to see his parents for the night and come back Sunday afternoon so I could have her for Mother's Day dinner at my moms. She arrived at my mom's around 3, and to my surprise her dad had bought a card for her to give me. She had written "mommy" (see photo) and even signed her name inside, getting quite good for a three-year-old, if I do say so myself.

She was excited to be at my parent's house, and told everyone "Happy Mother's Day" when they started arriving. My sister's oldest daughter woke up from her nap shortly after Clem got there, and they played outside while my sisters and I cooked dinner. We had decided to make pasta with three different sauces, and mine turned out really well.  It's a sauce that I invented years and years ago, and just to be nice I'll share it with you here.  Keep in mind that I don't like tomatoes, so when I say you'll like this pasta even if you don't like tomatoes, I am telling the truth. Also, I was making enough for a lot of people, so, you might want to cut the recipe in half.  I made two batches of it, as my sisters thought we might need more, and even with just half of the half I was making at a time, it's enough for a few people. Also, I should mention that it is quite garlic-y.

Start with some olive oil in a frying pan, not much, and it needs to be a bit hot.  Add four gloves of garlic, finely minced, and stir until it gets crispy (but not charred). It will start to stick together.

Turn the heat way down and wait a minute before adding about three-quarters cup of a dry white wine (I use pinot grigio because that's the one I always have) and turn the heat back up to simmer the alcohol out of the wine and get the garlic flavor into the liquid.  Keep stirring.

After that has cooked a while I added a half can of stewed tomatoes, finely chopped, along with the juice in the can.  I know, to tomato people it sounds gross to not use fresh ones (which I'm sure can be substituted here), and to non-tomato people it sounds gross because they're (disgusting) tomatoes, but I promise, they're yummy.  Stir and keep cooking for a while (like 5 minutes) and add salt and pepper to taste.

I know, it kind of looks like vomit, but it really is good.  The last thing to do is add a little bit of butter, like a tablespoon, and stir it up really well.  It's a very runny sauce, and it works very well for dipping breadsticks in, and is, by far, my favorite pasta sauce.

So, dinner was very yummy, and dessert was good too, and it was nice to hang out a bit.  Neither of my sisters or I have been talking much lately, since the whole "leaving the hubby for another woman" thing, but yesterday seemed a bit better than it has. Clem was quite a good girl, and my mom asked me if I thought she would want to stay the night at her house last night.  I feel like she used to stay there a lot, and lately she doesn't get to as much, whether it's because she stays with her dad half the time, or that I just like having her at home with me, or some other reason I haven't even thought of, I don't know, but when I asked Clem if she wanted to she was excited and said yes.  As soon as the middle sister heard what was going on I heard her say to my mom (with her voice full of disgust), "On mothers day???" and I immediately wanted to leave.  I mean, I get it that I'm making the wrong choices in her mind. I get it that she thinks only awful mothers would let their daughter stay the night at their grandparents' house on this holiest day of a mother's year. I get it that she wants mom to know she thinks I'm making the wrong choices. But I wish that she could get a few things from my perspective. I wish she knew how it felt to be a single parent when you're married. Does she understand what that's like? To feel like the only one taking care of an infant? To feel like it's a fight to the death to keep sane and breastfeed and change all the diapers and make dinner and clean the house and get thin and bring the baby to see the family, etc. She can't possibly. She's married to Mr. Mom. He does it all. Laundry, diapers, feedings, work, love, time, all of it.  Does she know what it's like to feel like you aren't a priority? Or that you're in the way? Or that you're an embarrassment? How could she? And really, I sound like a bitch and I don't mean to (completely), because I don't want her to know that. I want her to have it the way she does. But I want her to see that it wasn't that way for me. I want her to see that I didn't leave a perfect and happy home.  I didn't leave so that I could be happy, I left so that I could just not me miserable, and stop feeling like I've failed at getting love.  And it's hard for me. And terrifying. And I know that I sound like I am completely ungrateful of my ex and think he did it all wrong, and that's not entirely the truth. He had a good job, and I didn't have to worry about money. I had all of the "things" I wanted, but he was missing what I needed.  I needed help, and I needed attention, and I needed love, and I needed time.

I was thinking last night at the Mother's Day dinner table how I used to want kids.  I wanted a few of them.  I wanted them right away when I married, but we waited. I wasn't one of those people that loves children, but I knew I would love my own, and I wanted them so badly.  Then I had Clem and it all changed. I was depressed. I was tired. I was sad. Every morning until she was five months old and I finally called my aunt to tell her I just wanted to die and she had me go down right then and get on some meds I would think to myself, "this is the end of my life, I won't make it through this" and I knew, kids aren't for me.  I didn't think I'd even make it to see Clem enter kindergarten, let alone ever want to have another one of these things that just take. so. much. work. I was done. The mother I wanted to be for so long was like a fairy tale. I didn't even mourn her loss.

So, now I sit here at my work computer, and I feel like complete crap about my sister and how judged I feel, and I just think, I gave up wanting more children because of the support I didn't receive from my ex, what am I going to have to give up because of my family? I don't know if I think it's hopeless to believe they will ever accept me being with a woman, and I'm trying to not dwell on that, but I just wish I could tell them how hard it is for me. And sometimes I wonder how I am supposed to get through it without them.