-All in all we had a great Thanksgiving. However, there was some family drama as their always is. I have a cousin who believes the world revolves around her. She always seems to get her way. She is the biggest asshat. Even bigger than her mother, which we all thought wasn’t possible. She didn’t want me to see her daughter (long story, but her oldest kid lives with her dad and step-mom in Colorado, about five hours away from us, but they were in Texas visiting family as well) and made it impossible for me to see her while we were in Texas. (Until this time last year, the girl practically lived at my house and I miss her.) On the drive home yesterday though, we ended up driving behind them and they called us when they noticed it and we all stopped and had lunch together and I’ve invited them to my house for Christmas. Take that, cousin.

-My great-aunt passed away on Wednesday night. She’d had a stroke the previous Friday and I decided not to mention it. It just didn’t feel right. Anyway, we didn’t stay for her funeral, which was yesterday. I did help plan it. It put a slight damper of the holiday. We decided to celebrate her life by doing it all anyway. She would have wanted us too. It did change the mood of the week though.

-We saw the world’s smallest skyscraper. Seriously. See?

It’s four stories high. It’s all small and tiny and cute. The story is this: at some point, lets say 100 years ago, although it may not have been that long ago. What? It’s my story. Anyway, this great businessman came to town. He told the town that he could build them the greatest, highest skyscraper in all of Texas. They looked over the plans, which looked amazing. He told them it would bring people from all over the world to see it. They could charge admission. They agreed and paid him his rate. He built it. They were outraged at how tiny it was. He told them that they’d signed the contract, they’d approved the plans, it wasn’t his problem. He left town. Turns out, the plans were exactly how he said they were. However, the town folks had not noticed that he’d used inches instead of feet in his measurments. It was clear as day on there, but in the excitement, they’d failed to notice it.

-We took roses to put on my grandparents and great-grandparents graves. Took us about 30 minutes to find them. Good thing we did too, since my grandpa’s middle initial is wrong on there. Nobody had noticed it when grandma passed last December.

-Football is a fierce subject in Texas. Doesn’t matter if it is the NFL or college. They don’t care where you live, if you are in Texas, you are a Texas fan. The end. To have a little fun, I pretended not to know a thing about football. I like seeing that vein in my uncle’s neck pop out.

-As a family, we all went and saw Blind Side on Saturday. See that movie. Trust me. It is phenomenal. I am now a Raven’s fan. I had to ask where they played and I don’t even care that I’ve never been to Baltimore. I am now a Raven’s fan. Everyone had a favorite line of the movie. We spent the following two hours at dinner discussing it. My favorite line? Tim McGraw plays the dad and he turns to his wife, played by Sandra Bullock, and says, “who’d of thought, we’d of had a black son, before we’d met a democrate?”  Cracked me up.

-My youngest cousin is seventeen years old. He’s a great kid. Funny, sweet, easy going. His girlfriend made him go see the Twilight movie on Friday night. I guess there is a part where the one buff guy rips off his shirt, when the girl is bleeding? Anyway, D stood up in the theater and said, WAS THAT REALLY NECESSARY?? Then he said to his girlfriend, H, don’t worry ALL GUYS look like that. I’m not sure D still has a girlfriend. If so, he owes her big time. He’d already been texting his dad and my husband for scores to the Texas vs. A&M game. Ha. Then again, a smart girl would have gone with her friends, not her boyfriend. Seventeen year old boys don’t care which vampire is hotter.

-The twelve hours in the car on the way to Texas was not so bad. Girls played nicely, read books, watched movies and listened to music. The boy managed to notice every, single bird that flew by; he napped for hours; he watched Cars and was generally a happy little dude. The way home to Texas took thirteen hours, but it felt like twenty-seven hours. The girls fought; with me, with each other. Batteries in iPods died. Movies were toooooo boring. This song is stupid, I don’t like this candy. On and on and on, it went. At 7am, the questions about how much longer started. The answer of ALL DAY AND STOP ASKING was only met with tears. Instead of napping, Harrison screamed and hit people. We had Cars on constand loop, just hoping he’d stop for ten minutes at a time. Then the last three hours, he choose to sob. Non-Stop. For three hours.

-Mostly though, we ate too much, we slept too little and we had a great week. How’d you guys do?

I can look at things from all sides. Generally.

Some days though I have a real hard time seeing the positive in anything. I am not the world is ending type. I don’t believe in the 2012 hype. I don’t believe that California is going to fall into the ocean. I don’t worry about the polar ice caps melting and us all being frozen alive. At least not in my lifetime. I don’t worry about dying for some reason. Probably a good thing too.

No, it’s the smaller things that I worry about. The things that I have no real ability to control. I wouldn’t say I’m a pessimist. I am close though. Maybe a pessimist with optimistic moments?

I am the girl who envisions car crashes. I get nervous when anyone else is driving but me. When I get a phone call from someone I haven’t talked to in forever, I assume the worst. I have this weird theory that if I think about all the possibilities, it won’t happen. I think about possible injuries before I even do something. I picture in my mind how I will deal with it. I don’t worry about things as I am doing them, just before.

What can I say? I’m an over thinker. I think about conversations that are going to be awkward, before they happen. I think abut everything the other person could say and how I could respond to make it easier. Doesn’t always work, but I try.

I am the mom who doesn’t watch her kids climb on playground equipment, because if I watch I envision the worst. I sit there on my phone, or watch other kids. I am the mom who holds onto her kids shirts on mountain adventures. If I am holding their shirt, they won’t fall off the cliff that is 35 feet away. I *may* be a bit of a control freak.

Climb a mountain? No. Dive off a high dive? Heck no. Sky dive? ARE YOU INSANE!!!

The thing is, despite this, I enjoy life. I do. I have fun. I am not afraid to try new things. I just know that there are certain things I will never do. This won’t make sense, but I’d love to para sail, even though I’m afraid of heights, but I’d never even consider bungee jumping.

Where this really comes into play is when something happens, where I have no control, I freak first, think later.

Last week and for the few weeks prior my husband and I were having major communication issues. All we did was fight. He couldn’t seem to talk to me without starting an argument. As time wore on, I was convinced it was me. I was convinced he didn’t love me anymore. That he wanted to divorce me.

Like I said, I freak first, think later.

The truth is so far from what I thought. Unfortunately this is where I stop talking about it. I know that sounds like a cop out and for that I’m sorry. But my husbands personal issues are his story to tell, not mine and he doesn’t want them shared on here. He’s okay though, just having some issues that he needs to figure out. He didn’t know how to talk to me about it, which just made it seem so much worse.

I wanted to apologize to you all. I am sorry if I worried all of you. I am a freaker. I am a pessimist. I was scared. I thought something and it clouded my world for a few days. It turned out to be not true. Although, since I’m not a mind reader (my crystal ball seems to be defective) it was hard to know what the heck was going on. Thank god it wasn’t what I thought. What we have to deal with, what is going on with Logan is fixable. Deal-able.

I couldn’t have fixed what I thought was the problem. I couldn’t have fixed him not loving me anymore. Luckily I don’t have to try.

There are lots of things I could write about today. My kids have done/said some funny things this week, which I want to document and share at some point. The fact that it seems like my house is going to be the party house at Christmas. Seriously, we keep telling more people they can stay. Where, I don’t know, but I’ll find them all floor space. I could tell you about my fear of today, my fears about marriage counseling, my fear that it is worse than I said, worse than I even know.

However, I can’t stop thinking about Anissa long enough, to tell any of that to you. Which may be a good thing. I went to bed last night thinking about Anissa and I woke up this morning just praying for some good news. It took a few hours, but there has been an update. Each time there is an update, my heart speeds up for a minute or two. My stomach drops. It is scary to click over and see what it is, but I can’t seem to do it fast enough. Anyway, you probably all know this already.

I am not sure how exactly I found Anissa’s blog. I actually found her blog before I friended her on Twitter.  I’m sure it was through AMomTwoBoys or Mamaspohr somehow. It doesn’t really matter. I know I’m been reading over there (first at her old blog and then the new one) for about a year. I *may* have read a ton of her archives, before I ever even bothered to say hi. What? Stalkers can be cool right? Right? It was on Twitter where we started talking. I am a smart ass, she is a funnier smart ass. The woman cracks me up. Almost every single tweet she writes is funny. No joke.

When I was thinking about who I wanted to meet at BlogHer, Anissa was high on that list. She is friendly, funny and super freaking cool. The kind of girl you hope will say hi to you. I wasn’t sure I’d get the chance too, seeing how I knew how many people wanted to meet her. I also knew she was doing more extra things than anyone could have possibly had time for.

I got lucky. The first person I saw when I got to the hotel was her. Heck, I hadn’t even made it in the door of the lobby when I saw her. I was showing up and she was about to leave on some adventure. I knew she’d have no idea who I was if I didn’t say something, so I did. I went and introduced myself and got the biggest bewb hug in return for it. She has no idea of any of this, but in that moment, as I had ridden to the hotel I thought I’d made a huge mistake in going. I wanted to turn around and go home. Hugging Anissa and having her tell me she was thrilled to meet me, made me think, dam I can do this. I will be okay here, I CAN do this. I saw her a few more times, but we only talked for a few minutes here and there. Each time her voice sounded scratchier and hoarser. By the end of the weekend, I told her she sounded like the smoker sisters on The Simpsons.

Every time I log into Gmail, I see her name. On the sidebar, it shows who is online to chat. I don’t think Anissa had logged out, because her name has been there for the last two days. Anissa Mayhew it says. Underneath her name it says, jumping the shark. It shows a orange dot, which is generally the I am not here, but am logged in, color dot. Yesterday it made me sad. I had the fight the urge to click on it and say hi all day. Today it’s comforting. She is there, in my Gmail. Her name is there. She may not be there now, she may not be there for a long time. But she’s there in my heart. That is a sign, at least to me.

Anissa, I miss seeing your tweets. I’d give anything to have you show up, so I can make stupid jokes about it being Eat Moar Kittehs Friday tomorrow. Keep fighting sweetie. We’re all here pulling for you. Praying for you. Loving you.

Parenting has always come naturally to me. Not to say that it’s easy, because it isn’t. It’s always come naturally though. I can tell by looking at my children how their day went. I know what type of mood they are in by the tantrum they are having or how whiny they are. I can see the second Morgan’s ADHD meds stop working in the evening. I can tell how much sugar Bailey has had, by the way she asks for things. I can tell in the morning by breakfast, if they are going to get along that day, or if they are going to fight all day. I know when they are sick by the look in their eyes.

I was pretty good at the baby stages. I knew each of the kids hungry cry within days of them being born. I can rock a baby to sleep in minutes. I don’t stress when my kids cry, unless it’s obvious they are in pain. I can catch vomit with the best of them and I don’t freak out at blood.

Parenting is easy for me, most days. It’s not for some people, but it has been so far for me.

Marriage used to be easy. Our marriage used to be easy. Not even pre-kids, because we weren’t married too long before adding a baby into the mix. Just in general. We never had to work that hard at it. We met as teens, we married before we’d even finished a year of College. We’ve always been good at communicating. It came so easy.

Somehow in the last year, our marriage became a lot of work. I am not sure when exactly it happened. I think I blinked and I missed it actually. Maybe both of us did. We didn’t catch it before it became a problem. We didn’t realize it needed work until just recently. Like today. Maybe yesterday.

We have been going along like everything was fine, when something had shifted. I am pretty sure we didn’t even realize how much it had shifted. We just kept doing what we have always done.

What we have always done isn’t working right now. We have forgotten how to communicate. All we do is argue. We name call. We point fingers. We don’t listen, neither one of us.

It’s not easy anymore.

I am hurting, he is hurting and somehow we have to figure out how to communicate again.

Today he left without a word, before the kids and I had gotten up. He left early to not have to talk to me. He’d spent the night, he has spent the last week actually, in the guest room. I told myself it was because I had the flu, but it wasn’t really and I knew it. He left early this morning and didn’t see the kids, to avoid me.

When we talked a bit ago, we just started arguing again. Then I just stopped. I took a deep breath and listened to what he was actually saying to me. I don’t remember the last time I did that. It’s been weeks, this I know for a fact. I told him when he was done talking that we can’t keep going on like this. He asked what I wanted to do and I said, I think we need to see someone. It shouldn’t be this hard to talk. We’ve forgotten how to talk to each other. We talk at each other, not to each other and it’s not getting us anywhere. Maybe if we see someone, we can relearn how to talk to each other. He agreed.

One small step. It’s a start. I hope it’s in enough time. I’m scared that it may not be. Mostly I’m just scared.

If I never have another baby, I will be okay. I’d love too, but I’d be okay. If I spend the next five years figuring out what I want to do with my life, I will be okay. But I won’t be okay if I let him go without trying to fix this. Whatever that means. He is worth however much work this is going to be to fix.

I don’t normally talk about Logan on here. It’s just something I don’t do. However he doesn’t read it and this is my space, so I may for awhile. I need to hold myself accountable for my actions. I need to have room to grieve, to hope, to write.

I hope you are all okay with that.

You all are amazing. I need you to know that. Your words and thoughts in my last two posts have kept me going. I can not begin to thank you enough.

Today I went to the doctor. I’ve been sick since Sunday; fever, achy, the whole nine yards. I’ve also had lower back pain since Monday morning. I was diagnosed with a massive (or I believe the word she used was impressive) sinus infection, the flu (not the bacon type) and I’ve pinched my sciatic nerve. Oh, and I’m not pregnant.

Yeah.

For two and a half weeks, I thought I might be. But I’m not.

I’m angry. I am so angry right now. Angry at the world. Angry at my body for making me sick and late at the same time, so I confused the two. Angry that it just isn’t easier. Angry that my fucktard of a cousin can keep having kids (each with a different dad, each one dumber and less employable than the last) that she doesn’t want, mostly neglects and lets the government pay for, but that it isn’t easy for me. I am angry at myself for how much I believed in something, just because I want it to be true. Angry.

Mostly though, I’m sad. Very, very sad. Because I wanted to be pregnant, very much so. I wanted it so bad and it hurts. I felt my heart shatter into pieces when my doctor told me. I wanted a baby. I want a baby. I want to be pregnant right now. I would have done anything to change her answer. I cried when I called my husband. I cried when I called my mother. I cried as I called my best friend. I am crying as I write this.

It’s more than just this time though. It’s not that easy. I should be complaining to you all right now about the end of my pregnancy. I should be planning into my holidays the very likelihood of going into labor on Christmas. I should be buying a little stocking and baby’s first Christmas ornament, just in case the baby came a bit early. If I’d not miscarried in April, I’d be so close right now. But it wasn’t meant to be.

It doesn’t matter how many kids you have or don’t have. When you want a baby, when you want to add to your family and you can’t seem to be able too, it’s a horribly empty feeling. When you think you are pregnant for a few weeks and you are so thrilled, only to find out you are not, it is so sad. In fact, it is heartbreaking.

I am heartbroken tonight. Sick and broken.