To Caitlyn, On Her Wedding Day

Today my youngest child is getting married. Her name is Caitlyn, but we call her Bug or Bugletto. 

In the last year and a half, so many really important, wonderful things have happened, and yet, they have gone un-heralded by me. It seems that when your heart is crushed and bleeding, you become very focused on yourself and the reason you are so devastated. Some of my family fell along the wayside, including an aunt that died. I didn’t find out until quite a bit of time later mainly because I didn’t answer telephone calls…for several months. I don’t tend to reach out for help when I’m grieving, choosing instead to isolate myself as much as humanly possible. That is, except if I’m drunk. Then I drunk dial people I vaguely know randomly, ramble non-sensibly, and then weep until I fall asleep, forgetting that I’m on the phone. For that reason, I stopped drinking almost a year ago.

The suckiest part of all of this hasn’t been my aunt’s death, or my broken relationship with Chef, or the loss of so many of my friends due to my drunk dialing incidents. The worst part is that my little Bugletto kind of got lost in the shuffle. Rebekkah and William were stuck here with their mom, and had the unfortunate luck to have experienced their mom trying to process something so completely unprocess-able as their dad becoming addicted to a drug, cheating on their mother, moving in a ridiculously younger woman into their house, and then becoming their mom’s room mate again after months of fighting. They listened to me cry, rant, scream, whimper, and everything else you can imagine. They watched me try to control my pain with medications and vodka, date other guys, navigate ghetto living, and finally move back in with the one who started this whole disaster in the first place.  But for whatever negatives they had to endure, the one positive was that they were ever present and fully vested in their mom’s every day life. They were part of the story, if only in a small way. Bugletto, however, was very, very far away, serving her country and falling in love. She didn’t experience much of this firsthand, and her distance and inability to become involved in my crumbling marriage, which I originally thought of as a positive thing, may have proven to be more negative instead. There’s a gap in our relationship now that was never there before, and I sense that she felt deserted and lonely while all this was going on. For that, I’m so sincerely sorry. I am glad she missed me acting like a moron, but she also missed the changes that I went through as well. I’m different now, and she didn’t see why. That’s kind of sad to me.

I imagine she is different now, too. I missed my littlest child cross over into real adulthood. I’m sorry I missed that moment.

Is there anything crappier than falling in love at the exact moment that your parents are breaking up?

I’m inclined to doubt it.

All those sweet mother/daughter talks we should have had when Bug was first beginning to feel those pangs of true love were replaced by angry rants about her shithead father and that hussy he was living with. To make matters worse, Bug has always been a daddy’s girl, and I found myself in this weird spot where I wanted her to be mad at him on my behalf, but I didn’t want her to be mad at him enough to damage a very important relationship in her life, only his.  In the end, I vented to her a couple of times, and then pretty much didn’t talk to her much at all. I felt unable to keep myself from bubbling the angst of my broken marriage over into every conversation, so I chose to have less conversations instead.

I used to listen to Bug and Bekkie talk on Skype, and I loved to hear them banter back and forth. Between that and Facebook, I thought I was keeping up with Bug.  I didn’t think Bug necessarily needed to talk to me about her life, as her sister and her were so close, and she seemed so very independent, intelligent,  and popular. Maybe I was just justifying my selfishness. I was pretty wrapped up in my pain for a long time. Now that she’s getting married, far away, and so matter-of-factly, I’m afraid that we won’t get back that bond we should be sharing right now.

I hope we can, love bug.

I just want to say congratulations to you, Caitlyn, on your wedding today, and I think Levi has struck gold when it comes to having you for his wife. I haven’t forgotten you, nor do I go one single day that I don’t quote you, laugh about something you said or did, or generally ache from missing your little face. I’m sorry about this crappy year, and I’m sorry you were neglected. The truth is, this family is incomplete without you here, and I imagine it always will be.

I am so very proud of you, baby! I love you always!

— Mom