For Roms. You are persistent!

Lasic...

My friend were over visiting and we were talking in the kitchen about how their dad had offered to pay for lasic eye surgery and did they want to have it done? For her she said it was a matter of vanity, to not have to wear glasses anymore. Is it worth the risk of her vision?

I know Darren had terrible eye sight and it was in his opinion the best possible thing he could ever do. He couldn't see without his glasses on, at all. (I wonder what a shocker it was climbing in bed that first night, being able to see...haha) In my mind I totally look like a supermodel.

I know random. But I guess I'm just feeling silly today. It's been forever since I've has time to just blog. Well there is still laundry to do and dishes but if It think about it too much I may go insane. House work NEVER ends. It should be death, taxes and house work. A coworker calls housework her whore chores. I love it. I may borrow that phrase.

D was around this weekend. We did really exciting things like watching movies and trimming bushes and cleaning. I loved it. It's so interesting this practicing life again. One thing I do like about it, is if it gets really screwed up, since it's practice we can just start over again tomorrow. It makes things much more forgiving.


I am dying for the floor in Becks room to be done so I can put the house back together. I want to clean shit out. Lots and lots of stuff be gone...something cathartic about purging the old.

Hope, Optimism and Niagra Falls

I think Niagra falls is beautiful, amazing and terrifing. So powerful and luring. You can gaze and wonder, but only get to close before you are swept over. Once your pulled by the current no amount of struggle can free you from the inevitible, you will be moved forward.

Love and optimism seem to be the same. You can swim around, even up to that line, but once your in, your in. I like to say with gaurded optimism I look forward. That I have hesitation and reservation about loving my husband.

28 days.

I'm smiling. Really smiling.

If you'd told me that in 28 days I would:

Be certain I can live my life as a single mom...Have amazing things happen that are also reffered to as miracles...Allow my friends to take away tiny bits of fear,hurt and sadness untill I was left with very little...Take Beck to baby school all on my own...Be taking Anna to meetings and making it a prioriety for me to go too...Think my mom is one of the smartest women in the world...Be blown away by the people who have fallen into my life and given me so much kindness and wisdom...Be feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude for a list of things that is too long to make...Think, with gaurded optimism, that there may be a life with my husband...Feel sorry for my inlaws...understand how hard it is to change...have a daughter who is compelled to carry around a coin with the serenity prayer on it...cuddle my little girl who has dreams that her daddy comes home to snuggle in the middle of the night and it sad to wake up to just me...understand that my happiness is MINE and so is my misery...gain so much peace and freedom by just letting go...learn so much about myself and feel really ok with it...be excited about what the future holds, despite the uncertainty...learn so much about forgiveness and love...become certain about the power of faith...cry for hours and wonder and worry...feel peaceful...be so loved and supported by SO many people is such quite but powerful ways...

I would have thought not in a million years...

Sometimes being wrong means being so right.

A crabby death...

I have been pretty firm about not letting the kids bring anything alive to our home to live. I feel like I am having a hard enough time keeping the things already under my roof alive without adding to the mix. Well I caved and we welcomed four pinchy hard shell hermit crabs into our home.

Anna has done a wonderful job carring for them but of course the morning she left for camp one was popped out of it's shell looking quite, DEAD. After a day I was certain, not only by the lack of movement but the smell. Dead sealife smells like dead sealife. Gross. I decided to wait untill she came home for her trip to burry it, in part I didn't want to touch it.

She screamed and cried but finally decided a funeral was inorder, so I dug a hole and her friends and I gathered around it's final resting place to say good bye. We all pinched her in honnor of pinchy.

The next morning I got to return pinchy to the new final resting place as olaf brought him back into the house.

Happy Anniversary

So today was year 12.
Married for 12 years.
I remember our premarital counseling, sitting there thinking, ignoring, we'll never have those problems. I adored him so much, I couldn't imagine what we would ever fight about.
Wow.
I think part of what has been so hard is that we've had to grow up together. We got married so young. It's inevitable. We've had lots of wonderful kids, but they are alot of work. We've been real busy living life an not taking much time to take care of us.

It makes me so sad the way things are now.

Spring Fun with great friends.

Sticks and Stones.

Wow.

It's been a funny thing, these past three weeks.

It feels like time is moving so slowly. The days drag on, the nights drag on. It's like a reverse time warp.



I like to blog. It helps me clarify my thoughts and feelings. It helps me understand things better. It makes me feel less alone. I know I am not the only person experiencing the things in my life and perhaps someone who also has experienced these things will have good insight. Or maybe someone else won't feel quite so alone.



I have never given as much thoughts to the comments people have posted until the last post. I do believe as much as I have the right to blog about whatever suits me, people have the right to their opinions too. So post away your comments but bare in mind a few things.



I do not live by the judgement of others. I know this is a frustrating thing. I will not be governed by other peoples expectations. I will not chose my action based on how that will influence what you think of me. I desire the approval of very few. That is maddening to some. If you do not like me that is ok. If you don't want to believe me that is fine too.
I know the truths in my life, I live them.
I believe in civility but not pretending to like someone I don't. I do not have to like everyone. I do not have to care what your opinion of me is. I actually feel like it's none of my business what you think of me.
I will not do things I regret, I don't believe in regret. Life is too short to waste. I rarely do things I am ashamed of or could be humiliated by.

I have deep reverence for the opinions and feelings of those who are close and meaningful to me and I will always try to listen and respect those. For those who are strangers that want to share their experience or insights to my situations thank you. You never know what wisdom or words will resonate.

If you simply want to attack me, judge me, please be bold enough to stand behind your words, your insights into my life and be who you are. Why must you hide? I am merely one woman who has no impact on your life why would you fear me?

It's because you simply don't know. Those who do know our life, those who could be justified in calling me names, laying out my poor behavior for my inspection would do so directly. And it would be meaningful.

I suspect you form you opinions from irregular isolated contact that has little to do with our family. Project your own experiences and desire to have a say in the outcome of someone else's life from a distance behind a wall.

Very cowardly.

As was it to ambush me at my home, drunk, in front of my kids. To make comments you cannot stand behind.



Time will tell.
The Truth is unstoppable.

I want sunshine and vacation.

I want smiles and movies.

I want to sit on the couch and laugh.

I want to snuggle and feel safe.

I want to retire someday with a shit ton of money.

I want to trust.

I want to laugh.

I want to not wonder all the time.

I want to not work!

I want to be appreciated.

I want to be loved and adored.

I want respect.

I want courage.

I want the opportunity.

What next?

One of D's friends showed up uninvited, unannounced to our house tonight. We happened to be coming home, there was a band concert and I wanted to make a nice dinner. The experience was overall quite unpleasant.

Just a short list of the things his drunk friend had to tell me.

That I am a controlling bitch. That everyone, all of Darren's friends, know this. That I don't care about his happiness. That he is a wonderful father and I poison his children against him. That I am stupid and fat. Something like a donut, or donut hole. I'm not sure. That he wants to leave me but I won't let him. That he doesn't leave because he doesn't want to leave his kids. That Darren doesn't love me. That he, being Steve, doesn't cheat on his wife because he loves her, and that D cheats on me because he doesn't love me. That I am a terrible person who is ruining Darren. He also cried because he loves Darren so much. That someone had to stand up to me because he didn't. That someone had to come tell me what a terrible bitch I am. That I changed Darren's number so no one could call him. That I won't let people see him or talk to him. That he's always thought I was a stupid controlling bitch.

At one point I had to tell him to get out of my face, that he stunk, and that he was drunk and disgusting.

I asked him to leave. That he was not welcome.

I cannot believe that he came to our home, where our children are to do this?

What next? What else is going to happen?

Is there NO ending to this?

What have I gotten myself into?

Sleepless

I have always fancied myself a champion sleeper.

Cat nap after babies, in the car. Loud banging, lawn mowing, shrieks of the kids. No problem. Olympic quality sleeper.

It blows my mind that this is what shatters that illusion.

I can't turn it off and it's torture. All day, all night, in my dreams.

Dreaming about my husband cheating on me with my best friends. Neighbors..everyone.

It really doesn't matter who it is it all smarts the same.

I am dying for just a break. Some silence. To not wonder. Is what I imagine worse or better?

I feel so desperately the need to have a answer. A plan. A solution. It's just not there. It's not that easy. There is no straight forward. Where do we begin?

We have spent our whole adult lives together. There is no one who knows me as well as he does. There is no one I have loved they way I have loved him. There is so much past and future everywhere I look and cannot begin to imagine it all as separate.

I don't remember out last kiss. I didn't even consider this could be it. The last time I fell asleep snuggled in his arms, content. Who logs those things, who thinks, tonite it's it. The last one.

It's an awfully big hole.

I go from broken hearted, sad beyond words to pissed off in the course of 15 minuets. What a crappy roller coaster ride. I wish it would stop. I would very much like to get off. I think from now on I'll ride those little trains that slowly tour the park. No fast starts, abrupt stops, huge falls.

A day to remember

My husband has decided to not come home again tonite. It shouldn't come as a surprise on the heals of what has been happening the last 24 hours. I discovered that he's been cheating on me with a girl from work, who happens to have herpes. Awesome. He also swears that he didn't sleep with her but I feel like it doesn't matter much. I shouldn't care, but I do wonder if he's with her now. Even if he is what difference would it really make?

He said he didn't want to move out, that he wanted to go to our counseling appointment on Thursday to see what we could do. It's been a hard day. I am so surprised by how much all this hurts. It's alot to lose in one fail swoop. I know alot of this has been coming but stopping to look at what's going to change makes it all very real.

We talked like 6 times a day. For good reasons for bad reasons. That's alot of talk to no longer talk. I didn't realize how much we talked until I saw something and thought oh darren...then OH darren.

Laying in bed makes me want to cry. I was cuddling Beck to sleep and thought about all that has happened in that bed. We laughed and fought there. We brought babies home from the hospital and nursed them there. We made vacation plans, dreamed, slept, planned our futures there. We made babies there. I climbed into his arms there when the days were bas, he'd hold me and kiss me on the top of my forehead and that somehow would make it better.
Losing that hurts. It's been such a surprising slide down and I wish we could have stopped it. Changed it.

This sucks. It's a blinding pain that rips through you. It tugs and pulls. Makes it hard to breath. Losing all of this. It really hurts to be betrayed. To be cheated on. It makes it feel like married didn't mean anything. It's not been easy but I believed it was always worth while. There are so many tears. I wonder where they all come from. It hurts so much.

I feel stupid for trying to hang on this past year, for continuing to believe and want this. How did I get so duped. Oh hard and fast I held onto this idea that we could do this. We could make it out to the other side and we would both be better. The kids would be better.
I thought alot these past weeks, all the while he messing around. Texting messages about kissing and fantasies while the children sleep in our bed next to him.
I thought and tried and reflected and HOPED. It's the hope that hurts right now. All of the hope and openness and effort. Being open and vulnerable only to be betrayed. Man alive that hurts wicked bad. I mean really. I am so scared of what the future holds. I don't, truth be told want to go there. I want to go back. Two years. Four years. Fourteen years to when we met. To when it was so easy to just love. No expectation. No disappointments. But I know there is nothing in the past.
There is only tomorrow. Softball game. Work. Tears, heartache.

M #5-6-7. To infinity and beyond...

I hope not really. I don't want to feel like my life is a series of miserable experiances. Numbering into the thousands by the time I die. I want to feel like, wow my life is awesome.

I have realized that there are some things, once learned can't be forgotton or ignored.

Maybe it's best to just not know.

M#4

A new milestone for me, my 4th alanon meeting, I no longer had to raise my hand and be like yes this is my less than 3rd meeting.

Please everyone look at me.

It's such an awkward place to be.

Darren has been giving me crap about going to these meetings so I said hey come why don't you. I I was surprised when he came. I also sorta felt like he was crowding in on my personal space. But in the end I am certain last night was way more awkward for him than me.

I have come to realize a few things and I love it. Darren's parents have been a brick wall. I understand that he is their son and they love him. I guess I have felt so desperate for help, support. I have so wanted him to get help and be well and I though his parents could help him, us. But I have realized they don't have to understand, it's not my problem and I don't have to convince anyone there is a problem. Not his parents. Not him. No one.

It's nice being able to focus on me and the kids the past two weeks. I have felt so overwhelmed that even the easiest decisions had been hard to make. One or two gallons of milk? Do we NEED more apples? But I guess that's part of it, the overwhelmed, not being able to DO anything. With the help of some very dear friends I have been doing things and it feels good.

I went to the red dress party and ran around Portland in my underwear. CRAZY fun the involved a huge headache and two blisters (on my toes). We have started a redo on our living room so as of right now it's concrete and empty but I am hoping for some new floors, cabinets and couch. We also cleaned and reorganized the living room making it just more livable.

That's kinda my thing right now. Just making it more livable. Weather or not I like it or want it, this is my life right now. It's not what I have planned or dreamed of. It's often not what I want or fantasize about. It's much harder and hurtful than I could of ever imagined. It is full of challenges that I never thought I would have to face, but here I am. So I guess I'll just try to make it more livable.

Happy things, too many to count.