Turning Tides

I keep telling people that 2010 is going to be my year.  After telling 2008 to 'suck it,' and knowing that I'll be doing the same come New Year's Eve 2009, I'm probably proclaiming 2010 as the Year of Deb partly because I believe it has to be, and partly because I'm not quite sure what I'll do if it isn't!

My parents recently visited for a.whole.week. over the Thanksgiving holiday.  I love my parents very much and feel close to them in many ways, but they are not the people I feel most comfortable showing the raw and real truth of our day to day living.  There aren't many people we can comfortably show that to, but with my parents it's even more difficult.  Part of this is because I end up getting a little stressed because the other half isn't the biggest fan of my parents; a thing that I understand in some ways, but don't at all understand in others...I mean, they're MY parents for frack's sake.  If you love me, please tolerate them, no?
But the other part is that  my parents have this unspoken air of superiority in their handling of all matters, be they financial, family, etc.  They don't have to spell out these feelings to know that they are there.  My mother has said to me (and you'll probably gasp a bit when you read this) 'You don't need to have another child.  You've got a lot to handle already.'  They said this about my sister way back when as well, and though I wholeheartedly agree, I now realize that that is just nobody's place to say that but mine or my sister's, or anyone else's.  And though she said it from a place of love, the delivery just never seems to settle right with me. 

So when both my parents expressed several times (again, from their own type of loving place) that 'we have our hands really full,' or other comments like how difficult it is to dress M and how they don't know how I do it, etc. I started to realize what all of 'this' must look like to them, and how I don't really want other people to see the real 'this' anymore.  I don't mean that I'm closing my open book attitude on my life.  I am not a rose colored glasses person, so why artificially paint something to appear that way?  But there are just some people in my life that I think I'd rather not have believing that things are so horrible...because they aren't.  Not really anyway. 

So this is why I feel the tide is turning...or at least that it must.  In trying to soften the things my parents believe they saw to be so difficult, I told my Mom that I was really starting to learn that you can't be handed a situation like this and not try to find out the meaning of it all; to figure out what your purpose is along this journey.  So this is what I am trying to do now...and I'm trying to find out the best way to achieve this purpose.  I don't want to live my life as a victim of circumstance.  I think I have done that for the past couple of years without really realizing that, yes, this did happen to me, but it happens for M times 100 each and every moment of his life. 
  
I don't type all this out because I believe I'm going to all of a sudden not have any stress in my life.  I don't believe that I won't continue to lose my shit just a tiny bit each time during the day that M yells at me, digs his nails into my arms, and goes limp-legged making my back ache just a little bit more than it already did.  No, these are the truths of my existence that I cannot hide.

So be gentle with me...don't be too hard on me when I slip up and am not positive.  Tides don't turn overnight, you know.  But knowing that they need to is at least one step in the right direction.  Hopefully my steps will be large, comfortable strides rather than tentative baby ones.  One can hope, right?