Leslea Tash's Blog

As much as I have enjoyed tumblr, and before that, Xanga, I recognize that people aren’t really blogging the way they once were, decades (!!!) ago. So.

Tim and I have a website that we update once in awhile:

PlanetTash.com

I don’t know if I will be back to Tumblr. The Fabulousness meant a lot to me. It certainly got me through some rather difficult times in my life. It’s not really the way things are done, anymore…but you can find me on social media if you would like to stay in touch. Otherwise, give me a follow at PlanetTash.

Let me tell you a story!:

I haven’t updated The Fabulousness in awhile. It’s time to recount some fabulous things about life! 

I have:

Grown a radio show to 500+ subscribersRecorded another audiobookGrown a YouTube channel to 400+ subscribersWorked on Miss Fitz and the Hard NO NovemberAttended arthritis exercise classes for six monthsHeld my husband and youngest child’s European Union passports in my handsVisited CanadaStudied Italian for over 300 days in a row

It has been a terribly difficult past two years. DESPITE THAT, I have done all of the above. That is some truly FABULOUS STUFF!

Another fabulous thing that isn’t my achievement at all is…my baby boy is finishing high school.

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. less fabulous below

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I miss my Seannie horribly. I love him so much and think about him all of the time. It hasn’t faded or gotten much easier, and it’s hard to live in an extended state of grief. He graduates this weekend and I’m still not sure if I should go or not. I want to show him support, but he has been verbally abusive the past few times we have spoken or seen one another. I told him that if I go, he won’t know I’m there, anyway, because the gym will be so crowded…but I don’t know if I can resist approaching him, trying to hug him, trying to tell him I am proud of him and that he can do anything he sets his mind to doing.

I wish him peace. Peace, joy, confidence, success…I think I will write him a letter. I just want him to know that no matter what, he is loved.

There are days when I feel like he has broken my heart, and other days when I have hope that someday we will be able to find common ground. We are family. He is one of the great loves of my life. I know he doesn’t understand that right now, but I hope someday he will.

And I wish I had been a better mother to him. But I can’t keep counting all the things I did wrong. I have fought for him, for what is best for him, but soon he will be legally able to make those decisions for himself. I hope he takes care of himself, is surrounded by real friends–true friends–and knows love. 

I forgive him. I can forgive him anything, with ease. I forgive Tim for his role in all this. I even forgive Sean’s father. This year, I hope I can really and truly forgive myself.

unicornpuzzles:

Bored unicorn pandas drinking boba and surfing the net 🐼🦄🧋

The latest from Planet Tash:

The long-awaited blog update, lol

#canyouguess #guessthemovie #witches #puzzle #game #fyp #thecraft #babywitches #manon #halloween

I want to tell him I dreamed of his sweet smile, and how the love he gave lit up the entire house. We miss you. We all miss you. How do I let you go?

We’re saying goodbye to two of our good bois today: Parker and Samson. It hurts, letting go. It hurts, seeing them suffer. It sucks having to be the one to decide when it’s time. I can see why God walked away from the whole “creation” mess. You can’t stop yourself from wanting them, loving them, needing them, delighting in them…and you can’t dim how much it hurts when their lives are over. I wouldn’t blame God one bit if he went back to clock-making and drank himself to oblivion.

I’m not God, though, and I’ve used up all my access to miracles. My heart has been on my actual boys and my youngest child. My four children. My husband. 

I love my animals, but if I’ve had any miracles to spare, I’ve been directing them towards my babies, wishing them health and peace and happiness and just joy and hope for the future. It’s not a good time for two of them. Two *real* life boys. One is a man, the other is close. Our family has been exploded, and I have done what I can to do what’s right. I’ll keep trying to do what’s right. I’m exhausted, emotionally. I miss my sons. 

They blame me for a lot. I suppose I should have expected this. Maybe if there’d been no pandemic…if I hadn’t had pneumonia just before it…maybe this, maybe that. Again with the God thing, right? Things could have been different, but they aren’t. They are just how they are.

What if I just radically accept that children grow up, teens go through stuff, genes turn on and activate certain behaviors, parents learn how to set boundaries, and life goes on? Relationships change, and sometimes that change isn’t graceful or wise or loving or patient. Sometimes (often, I think, when it comes to young men and their moms), change comes in the form of angry rebellion and thoughtless acts.

I’m not a teenage boy, though, so I don’t get to choose the childish, thoughtless response. I have to think about things. I have to do my best. I have to honor my emotions and recognize my fears, and then still do the right thing by these independent people. For one kid, it might look like telling him “no.” For the other, it might look like “yes.” But it’s not simple. It’s definitely not “one size fits all,” which is, I believe, a common metric for siblings to use to compare what their parents do.

I know I definitely compared how my mother treated me to how she treated my brother and my sister. My own kids (two of them) are doing that now. I have a relatively easy relationship with the other two, who still live at home. One will be leaving the nest sooner than later. The other is still in middle school. 

And I look at myself versus my mother in terms of parenting style. We are almost two separate species. It’s interesting, though, how many of my issues with my teens are similar to those I had with my mom. At least in the case of one child. I don’t have all this parenting stuff figured out, but I think there is something to genetics. I was rebellious and independent. I’d have done the same thing he is doing, if I could have. As much as he thinks he loathes me, he *is* me, in a different form. It’s hard. I cherish him and I’m angry at him, but I also understand him. And I don’t know if it will be possible for us to have peace for some time. I have the law on my side. I could shut down his experiment in being a teen grown-up, but it’s not that simple. I’m not sure that’s even right for him.

My two adult sons are functioning on different levels. One is asking me for more help than I can give. The other asks for very little. He’s probably ready to leave the nest at any time, but hasn’t felt any rush. He’s happy. The other is…well, I can’t say for sure what he is. Miserable? Angry? Happy? He’s delicate, and he’s removed himself from my sphere of influence, and he wants me to give him free reign to bring whatever energy of the day may reign into our home, whenever. I love you, adult son. I want what’s best for you. I can’t let you destroy the peace in this home. We’ve ALL been through a lot. Not just you. You want me to rescue you, and I’m not able to. ONLY YOU CAN RESCUE YOU.

And then, there’s the little one. They’re seeing the chaos I never wanted for any of my kids. Watching me deal with it. Taking notes. How do I prepare this little one for life? I’ve got to model the right thing, without ever fully knowing deep down if I’m doing the right thing. Just trusting. Thinking, praying, reading, hoping, and ultimately trusting my gut.

So that’s where I direct my miracle allowance lately. Towards those kids.

Today we are having two of the family dogs put down, and all week, Tim and I have gone back and forth. Should we? Should we not? It’s really no question today. We can see the suffering and the pain, and the refusal to take pain meds. The dogs are 12, which is the upper expected limit for their breeds. They’re not having fun. They’re not enjoying life. They’re existing through each day, having more and more pain, and accidents.

Our pets have been angels in our lives. My dogs have given me the affection and the love that I needed to cope with loss. They’ve protected me and given me security when I battled agoraphobia. They have calmed me through C-PTSD and played peacemaker when kids lost their tempers. Parker’s effect on Tim is something like Xanax. That dog has been his best friend for a long time. Samson has been my Chewbacca, watching my back and scaring away Darth Vader, UPS, and anyone else who came to the door to alter the deal.

I’m going to miss these dogs. These good bois. These furry angels. I hate today, for what it is. But I would hate myself even more if I let them suffer any longer. We were blind to how much they were suffering, before. Now that we see it, it can’t be unseen.

Just do the right thing, Leslea. That’s all you can do. That’s all I can do.

Even when it’s hard. Even when it hurts.

I watched The Alpinist a few days ago, and I am still struck by how beautiful the frozen mountains were in that movie. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I’ll avoid the spoilers, but I’m sitting here now with a full belly, a roaring fire going, a nice simmer pot of orange/cinnamon/clove/star anise, etc., and my heart feels like a great big frozen boulder with a chunk missing. Hanging on.

I miss having my complete family together for Christmas, but I remember–this beautiful life we walk through is so much like the stark beauty of nature. It’s glorious, and so many impossibly beautiful things come to pass, you’re left wordless and awestruck. Then it can be brutal, as well.

There are “good mountains,” like anything you see on The Alpinist, and “bad mountains,” like the kind your sweetheart is climbing up because he didn’t want to tell you he twisted his ankle on mile one, and “sad mountains,” like the kind you wish you could share with someone who doesn’t want to see things from your vantage point.

There are “good tireds” from a long day’s work, and “sad tireds” from the things you’ve fought for and failed to win, and “bad tireds” from the accidents of fate that put you in the path of someone else’s rage and pain. I’m not sure which tired I am feeling right now, but I’m grateful to be safe and warm, to have completed some work today, and to be able to love those who love me with all my heart.
Life wouldn’t be as beautiful if it were simply flat, I know that. It is the contrast that makes you stop and gasp–OH! So different! So beautiful and strange and unreal!

A close friend recently described me as the Captain America of parenting, ready to throw myself on the grenade of my children’s needs without hesitation, but it’s not necessarily a compliment. Cap got the chance to go back and relive his life, but most people don’t. 

What if, as a parent, you can take Marc-Andre’s approach, and live your life for the fun of it? Because it’s all you want to do–just pure living, loving, reaching, laughing, teaching. Pure revelation in the moment? Not everyone will understand–not even your kids, for whom you climb. But who else can you be, other than the most authentic version of yourself?

Life wouldn’t be as beautiful if it were simply flat.

Sean has chosen to live with his father, and it’s difficult to live without him in my every day world. I’m overcome with tears frequently, and every time I see his photo, I feel a huge part of me is missing. But, perhaps he is happier there. I can’t be sure, because he doesn’t want to communicate. I hope that someday he will change his mind and want to talk to me about anything–everything–mother and son things, friendly things, anything, really. Nothing will ever stop me from loving him, and I believe he knows that. I will always hope for a reconciliation.

Seamus’ first job at McDonald’s is going well. He genuinely enjoys it, and seems to have learned how to do nearly everything there in the first few days of employment. I can’t express how gratifying it is to see him happy, after so many years of struggling with depression. Happy Seamus is a gift! Next stop: driver’s license and buying his first car.

Sam’s job is going well, too. His employer recently threw a company party, which was evidently extremely wild and incredibly fun. He’s at the perfect age for such things, yet he remains a responsible, kind, and respectful young man. Samuel fills my heart with joy every single day! If you meet Sam and you don’t like him, then you frankly just do not like people at all, because Sam is the best kind of person there is.

GiGi has begun middle school, and had her first “close contact” brush with Covid-19. She turned up negative, thankfully. Playing the harp, snuggling me in the middle of the night (even though three of us do not really fit in the bed!), and growing up way too fast, she is everything a fifth grader can be–in that ever-changing world of “the tweens.” She and her friends still like to talk to Tim and me. They call me “bestie” even though I’m a middle aged lady who knows nothing about TikTok dances.

Tim and I are planning an anniversary trip soon. 11 years of marriage coming up. We remain firmly in love.

All four dogs and four cats are doing well. We now have four birds, as well, so the symmetry between kids/dogs/cats/birds is interesting, isn’t it?

There’s a blue moon tonight. A good night for meditation on upcoming goals and heartfelt desires.

An Honest Woman, Montana Brides #2, is out on audiobook. I’m admittedly putting more energy into promoting the forthcoming Miss Fitz Discovers Midlife Magic by Red Tash, but I’m quite proud of my historical adventure romance books, as well. There’s a secret project also coming out soon. I suppose I’ve gotten quite a bit of work done this year. I miss having a paycheck, but I couldn’t have done it without the time, so I don’t have any regrets on focusing on writing. Here’s hoping it pays off.