This post isn’t going to have pics of people I’ve met at races.  It’s not going to tell a fun story.  It’s going to be me talking a bit about something that off and on….more often on recently, that has at times made me furious, other times made me cry and most of the time just deeply hurts.

We won’t be discussing running or any of the animals.  I’m going to try super hard not to come across as a big ol’ whiner because nobody likes to listen to other people whine.

What I’m going to write is probably going to cause me some major grief seeing as the people I will be writing about read this blog.  Hold onto your hats and let’s dive in, shall we?

Where to begin….

I’m sure all of you have seen memes about how mean people suck?  Some of the memes are pretty funny!  Other memes are sad.  Almost all of the memes are spot on.  What is sad is the realization that the mean people in your life are your parents.

It’s heartbreaking.

It’s heartbreaking when you look back over your life and look at how they’ve held you away at arms length over the years and are actively pushing you away.  It makes you sad when you see how they flat out don’t care that they’re doing it!

Now, I want to make it abundantly clear that the things I’m going to share are not just from my experience with these two people.  They are also from other’s who are close to me and them.  Some of these people are relatives, others are not.

Every kid wants approval from their parents, right?  They’d like an atta girl/atta guy tossed at them here and there.  Maybe I’m weird in thinking this but you’re talking to a grown woman who rarely has received this.  The ONLY times I’ve received this is when I played the piano (16 years of forced lessons) and when I was obese and very ill.  As soon as I began to lose the weight and improve my health as much as possible, that approval vanished.

Bear in mind, there’s nothing wrong with piano and piano lessons!  I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if my mom wouldn’t have whipped me for not practicing as hard as she felt I should have.

These two people are firm believers in not sparing the rod.  Goodness, MFH and I would give our two kids a pop on the rumpatootis when they were little and it was needed.  Our children were never “spanked” past the age of 5.  Maybe 6?  If they were 6, they were too old for that type of correction.

Many of my childhood memories are of me begging my mom to spank me with the tennis shoe instead of my dad’s leather belt.  It was almost always a fail.  She really liked the whistle she could get swinging that belt around!  As I grew older, she would get very angry because I wouldn’t cry anymore when she beat me and I use the words, “beat me” on purpose because what she was doing wasn’t correction, it was a power thing.  She would wail on me trying to get me to cry.  I wouldn’t.  It made her angry so she would beat me some more….pretty much until she was too tired to do it anymore.

My dad was absent during a lot of this.  He was taking night classes for a little bit at a local college and our church was doing a building project.  Church ALWAYS came before anything else.  Still does.  Church before family.  Church before anything!  Now, the only thing that might come before church is FoxNews.

Seeing as my dad was gone a lot at church, he didn’t have a clue or didn’t want to deal with what was going on in that house.

I can look back on my Jr. High and High School years as strategically dressing to hide welts and bruises my mom gave me.  I don’t know if he knew or not.  Still he was the one who gave me my last “spanking” when I was 22 years old and a Senior in college.  That one, I fought back.  I thought, “No.  You’re not doing this to me.  I’m an adult and this is wrong.”  You know, I still don’t know what made him so angry that day.  I just know he completely lost it.  The only other time I can remember him “correcting” me was in high school and he punched me in the mouth. POW!

So, you’re asking, what got me on this topic today?

Sunday was Father’s Day.  I knew I had to call and wish him a Happy Father’s Day.  Those Hallmark Holidays are super important to my parents.  MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I aren’t big into those but realize they’re important to others.  After church, I thought long and hard about some “fun and happy” stories I could tell him for his phone call.  I dialed, wished him a Happy Father’s Day.  He sounded bored and annoyed that I’d called.

That is a typical reaction when I call.  They. Just. Don’t. Care.

I’m annoying.

They are REALLY good about complaining about other people not calling and visiting but they’ve spent the majority of their lives alienating everybody!  Nobody wants to be around them!!!  It’s a very sad thing to witness.

My sister and I talk regularly.  She’s super busy and the folks are getting older.  Mom is dealing with some dementia stuff.  She’s not as sharp as she used to be and pretty unsteady on her feet.  Dad’s caring for her.  Cooking all the meals. Doing all the laundry.  Cleaning the house and taking care of the yard.  Mom?  She sleeps all day and comes out if there’s food.  She’s always close by if there’s food but that’s a completely different can of worms so we’ll leave that alone.

Because my sister is so busy, we’ve agreed that I will call the folks on a consistent basis and test the waters, as it were.  How’s mom doing?  How’s dad holding up taking care of her and everything else.  I keep her up to date on that and they complain to her that I call.  LOL!!!  It works, though, and we’ve got a pretty good handle on how they’re doing.

MFH and I have had many talks about the Scripture telling us to obey our parents.  My question has always been, when do we stop obeying our parents or do we ever stop?  MFH and I have been married 33 years, have 2 adult children and yet we still deal with my parents trying to control our lives.  They have some boundary issues.

Enter Sunday’s sermon:

We had a visiting minister Sunday and he talked about the obeying and honoring your parents in Scripture.  It was riveting  and both of us were paying close attention.

He talked about the part in Scripture that talks about obedience, is strictly for children.  Things change as you become an adult.  You should show your parents respect but you don’t obey them blindly like you did as a child.  It was like a light-bulb went off in my head.  FINALLY somebody talked about our responsibilities as adults to our parents!

Guess what~the phone calls that they hate and complain about?  I’m doing it right!  YAY, me!

Their doing things like putting down the phone and walking away or running the sweeper when they find out it’s me on the phone or running the garbage disposal? That’s wrong!

Holy Cow!  I wanted to do the happy dance!!!  It was like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders.  After service, MFH told me I was doing a very good job of honoring my parents and they haven’t made it easy.  He’s super supportive and is great with the atta girl’s!  I hit the jackpot when I married that man!!!

So yesterday, I did my phone call to check on them.  Dad obviously didn’t want to talk.  He set down the phone and started talking to my mom.  I heard dishes clunking around in the background, etc.

Normally, when they do this, I just hang up but something yesterday made me stay on the line.  I had this morbid curiosity to see how long they’d leave me there.  It was maybe 5 minutes, tops, when my dad picked the phone back up.

“Are you still there?” I heard him ask.

“Yes, I am!” I replied cheerfully.

He said, “Oh.”

It was not a happy, “Oh” it was a, “Rats.  I thought I got rid of her, Oh.”

Now call me crazy but I love that my two adult children call the house!  When they call it’s not always great timing BUT, they’ve taken the time out of their busy lives to call and say “Hi!”  After the way I’ve been dismissed over the years, I’ll put aside whatever I’m doing and talk to my kids.  Family first.  I don’t make my kids compete against the TV and 40 year old reruns of Hogan’s Hero’s.  I don’t set the phone down and walk away trying to get rid of them.  I certainly don’t make a bunch of noise with whatever appliance is handy so talking is impossible.  I give them my full attention because they deserve it!  I’m their biggest cheerleader!  Everybody needs and deserves those atta girl’s and atta guy’s that I never got.

One of my children (and the other one confirmed this to be true) let slip that for the past ten-ish years, at Christmas time they’ve received $10 in a Christmas card and a gospel tract telling them how they’re going to hell as their Christmas present.  Gotta love how they endear themselves to my kids.  *that was sarcasm, btw*  They’re really good at judging others.  They’ve got the corner market on it!  I’m sorry, but when I found that out, I was furious.  I had no idea they’d been doing this all that time.  This past year, they were kind and generous towards my two.  The kids were confused but thankful.

I guess maybe I will toss in a little running stuff.  They did tell me, firmly, that my running was of no interest to them and not to call them about it.  They told me I was embarrassing myself running “at my age” and I should settle down and be a good wife to MFH.  They also “forbid” me to go run the Berlin Marathon back in 2015.  MFH and I had a terrific time in Berlin that year!  LOL!!!  My sister and I had a great time in 2016, too!  MFH and I had a fabulous time in London in 2017….all trips of which they heartily disapproved.

I guess I’m just really good at getting their disapproval?  Maybe I could get kudos for that!  Hahaha!!!

If you’re still reading this, you deserve a medal.  LOL!!!  I already know this is going to come back and bite me big.  So be it. Many things here are left unsaid but what’s the use of beating a dead horse, right?

Many, many thanks to all of you who encourage me online and even though you think I’m completely nuts with the races I try to do, you cheer anyway!  Also, thanks for putting up with all my incredibly lame puns!  Y’all are the very, very best!!!