You can see the first version HERE if you’d like.
1. Why I continue to buy bananas when no one will eat them, since they seemingly turn brown on the way home from the store?
2. Why someone would be shocked to be fired as a bookkeeper when all they did was screw everything up?
3. Why my five year old suddenly believes she needs help to pick up the Littlest Pet Shop Death Traps in her bedroom? I am positive that I do not remember playing with them, nor taking every single one out of the toy box.
4. How I lived 29.8 years without knowing the amazing-ness that is Nutella?
5. Why my son acts like I’m puling out his eyeballs, every single time I cut his fingernails? It’s not like I haven’t done the same thing once a week since he was born, over 16 months ago. Also why he doesn’t seem to mind having his toenails cut.
6. Why people continue to get so grouchy on Twitter when everyone discusses TV shows/Awards Shows or anything, as it is on. If it isn’t on in your time zone at the same time as everyone else, stay off Twitter. That can’t be that hard to figure out. But the same people complain about it over and over and over again.
7. What in the world the coins are for in the new Bejeweled?
8. Why my brownies always end up mushy, no matter how long I cook them, nor if I follow the high altitude directions?
I feel like I should explain a few things after my post yesterday.
Last week, I hit a new stage of my grief. The, holy shit this is real part. Like forever real. This is not a dream I will wake up from one day. It’s not something that is going to change, or get easier over night. This. Is. Real. (Sorry Marinka, sometimes, a sentence just calls for being separated like that.)
It knocked me flat on my ass. It crippled me honestly. I was crippled by the grief and fear of it for four days. I did nothing except think about it and panic. It kind of scared me. I thought the initial grief was worse, that it’d be no worse than that. This was worse.
Then on Sunday, the clouds parted and unicorns shot down from the….
Okay, I’m kidding. About the unicorns at least. Sounded funny in my head. Truth is, after four days of freaking out, I got tired. I got tired of spazzing out. Tired of questioning everything I do and everything I say. Tired of crying. Tired. Just plain, tired.
So I stopped. I stopped letting my grief control me in that moment. I spent Sunday playing with my kids. I haven’t had a panic attack in a few days. Even though I haven’t slept much the past few nights weeks, I can honestly tell you, I’m doing a little better. Have I freaked out a bit, yes. Obviously. Have I had moments of panic, yes. Especially yesterday when I had to let my kids spend the night with their dad for the first time. But I did okay.
Then I heard that one of the women I care about most in this world is undergoing one of the scariest things I can think of. A double mastectomy is major surgery. It would scare me in someone my age. But my 92 year old great-auntie is not my age. It scares me.
In this moment, I am doing a little better. Do I think I’m done with any of the above? Heck no. This is hard people. This is so hard, that some days, I think it will eat me. Then I have days where I think I may just make it to the other side of this. The last couple of days have been a little better. But there always seems to be something else. Always.
I was not raised in any religion. My father is an atheist. His family was once Jewish, but not since they escaped to America from Poland. My father is first generation America. What’s left of that religion, for our family at least, is certain phrases, curse words and the ability to make latkes. My mother was raised Baptist, but didn’t raise us in that religion. However in times of crisis, she goes back to her roots. She has faith. She prays. She does whatever she does, because it gives her peace of mind. But it’s not like she really has a religion. She doesn’t in fact, believe in organized religion. Whatever, my mom…she’s her own oxymoron.
I however was not raised that way. I was raised in Los Angeles. Our version of religion was bagels and the beach on Sundays. My experiences of church and any bit of actual religion were the three weeks we spent with my grandparents each summer.
I do not have faith. I do not have religion. However, I respect everyone who does. Honest.
Yesterday, I was angry. Yesterday, I was freaked out. Yesterday, I’d spent all night fretting, I hadn’t slept and I posted what I did, because I needed to write. This is my space to vent. My space to put my thoughts out into the world. My therapy.
I wasn’t saying that I don’t believe in the power of prayer, or that I see anything wrong with it. If it came across that way, I truly am sorry. I didn’t mean to offend anyone. Religion in any form is hard to discuss online. There is always someone who will take offense.
But I won’t lie and tell you that I get it.
What I know is this: I have hope. I have hope that I will start feeling better soon. Hey, I’ve done better this week than last, so that’s something at least. I have hope that my great-auntie is strong enough and stubborn enough to survive. I have hope. Not always, not even often in the past few weeks. I always find it eventually though.
I’ll leave the praying up to the rest of the world. I’ll leave the faith, for those of you who have it. When I say I’m thinking of you and hoping for the best, I promise you, I am. Because that’s all I’ve got.
Maybe it’s the same thing, different wording. Maybe I’m just too dam stubborn for my own good. I don’t know. That’s all I know.
Oy, one more thing…
A lot of times you all comment and say, I don’t know what to say. I adore each of you for your comments, support and love. But I want you to know that it’s okay to not know what to say. Most of the time, I don’t know what to say. I’m really bad at returning emails or responding to comments. I start to comment and then delete it before I finish. I flitter in and out of this world right now, depending on my mood. Just know, it’s okay. I won’t tell anyone what to do or not to do, but it’s okay if you don’t know what to say. Promise.
She says this to me last night, like it’s supposed to mean something to me. Like it should somehow be comforting. Have faith. My mom knows better, but she says it anyway.
It doesn’t comfort me. In reality, it annoys me.
I don’t. I don’t have faith. I don’t see how saying that in a situation is very helpful. I don’t see why bad things keep happening to good people. How I’m supposed to have faith that it will just somehow turn out okay. How I’m supposed to believe that there is some grander plan. How I’m not supposed to just think that it all sucks and life is unfair.
Why can criminals and crackheads have babies that they will just abuse and neglect and eventually leave broken for someone else to deal with, but good, honest, hard working, caring people can’t seem to have a baby to save their life?
How does praying for something, like people surviving the earthquake in Haiti make any difference? Isn’t it more effective to give money, to give blood, to try and help in some way? Is praying better than sending money for food? Does it feed starving kids? Does it make people stop bleeding or able to climb out of the wreckage? No. It doesn’t. THIS, what my friend Stacey is doing, is something that helps. Something that makes a difference. It may seem small, it may even be small in comparison to the whole picture, but it makes more sense to me that just having faith.
How is it some grander plan, for Heather and Mike to have lost Maddie? They are amazing people. Great people who deserved better. They deserve that baby girl they had last week, so much so. She is a great gift to the world. Beautiful baby Annie. However, they deserved Maddie too. Annie deserved Maddie too. They are good people, who deserved both of those baby girls. THIS, their foundation in Maddie’s name is something concrete that helps.
How does faith help? How does prayer help? Why do people say it like it should help? Doing, acting, helping in concrete ways helps more in my eyes.
How am I supposed to have faith, when Anissa had a major stroke, after spending years fighting with everything in her to save Peyton? It’s not fair. It’s not something that makes sense to me.
Have faith? I’m supposed to have faith that my life will one day make sense? That somehow I will someday find it okay that the only man I’ve ever loved, the man I still love, no longer loves me?
I’m supposed to have faith when my great auntie, the one I told you about earlier this week has to have a double mastectomy on Monday? How is that fair? How is any of it fair? How does having faith help any of that? 92 years old and she should have to deal with this too? It’s not fair. It’s not right. I have no faith. I don’t believe that she did anything to deserve this. I don’t believe that it’s some greater plan.
I do believe in her. I came to that conclusion last night. I don’t have faith. But I believe in my Aunt Bernice. I believe she is strong and stable and one of the greatest women I’ve ever known in my life. I know she will be okay, because she plans on being okay. Because she plans on spoiling her two newest great-grand-children when they are born in March. Because she plans on going on a Disney cruise in Spring 2012. Because she’s stubborn enough for me to believe she will make it. I believe in her. That’s all I’ve got to hold onto in that situation.
The funny thing is, I believe in god. I do. I don’t however, believe that god is some big guy in a chair, dictating what we all do and what happens to each of us. I believe in free will way too much to buy that. I believe that something happens after you die. I don’t however, know what that is. Do I believe in heaven and hell? No, not really. But I don’t believe that you are dead and that’s it. I believe in angels. Might seem silly, but I do.
Besides that though, I don’t know what I believe in. Just blindly having faith that it will be okay? Not something I can do. I will worry every single second between now and next Monday afternoon, when I hear that she came out of surgery okay. Because that is all I can do. That and let her know that I love her. That my kids and I adore her and love her, today and forever.
Have faith, she tells me….well sorry, but I don’t. I can’t. It’s just not that easy for me.
Her name is Bernice. She’s my great aunt. My mom’s aunt. She is (or well, was) my grandfather’s older sister. She’s 92 years old.
She was the seventh child in a family of ten children. She watched her parents try to save her oldest sister from brain cancer and lived with the way that changed them after, when they weren’t able to save her. They grew up very poor on a farm in Texas. She watched helplessly as her youngest sister died as a young teenager from Typhoid Fever. She helped her mother, nurse my grandpa back to health from the same thing.
She was always the solid one. The girl who would help anyone.
When she was right out of high school, she married and quickly had two daughters. When the younger one was maybe four months old, her husband left her. All alone in a state with no family. She found a job and took care of her girls. Four years later she remarried. That one left after three years. Beat her, drained their savings, left her in debt and with two more kids to feed. A single mom with four kids to feed. She moved to be closer to her parents, eventually taking care of them as well.
She started working for the electric company, as some form of a secretary. She went to work for them, because she knew, they’d always be able to pay her. She eventually got out of debt and bought a house.
She’s a survivor.
She survived loosing her youngest son. He was in some kind of a boating accident at nineteen years old. When asked, she says this was the one that would have knocked her over for good, if she’d let it. Says it came close. Nothing before it or after it can ever compare she once told me. Of course now, thirty something years later, she says she only cries every third time he is brought up in conversation.
She’s outlived her parents and all but one sibling. (The remaining sister, four years younger than her is slowly loosing her battle with Alzheimer’s.) She’s done the unthinkable, she’s buried a child. She always says, you aren’t supposed to have to bury your children. That she has some choice words to say to god one day about that.
I don’t doubt that she will.
She’s volunteered in children’s wards of hospitals for my entire life. She reads to kids at the library. She does math in her great-grand-children’s classrooms. She teaches Sunday School and cooks at soup kitchens.
When she retired, she started going on trips. She’s seen the world, one trip at a time. Sometimes with friends. Sometimes with children or grandchildren. Sometimes alone. Picture if you will, a 92 year old woman, who still decides on the spur of the moment to go to Arizona for the weekend. Or Florida. Or Minnesota. Because there is an exhibit she heard is going to be in some gallery there that she’d like to see. Or because she got tired of the heat where she lives. She calls one of her family members and says, hey, I’m going to come visit you this weekend. I’ll be there in three hours. This is when my plane gets in. I can take a taxi, if you are busy.
She does this often.
She’s ornery like that. That’s what her oldest daughter calls her. Of course that’s because Aunt Bernice only calls her daughter and tells her where she’s going, after she’s already there. Ha.
92 years old and she still does what she wants, when she wants. She gave up her house about five years ago and moved into a little apartment in a retirement community, mostly to make her daughters shut up, not because she felt like she needed too. She really does like it though. She’s a mean pinnacle player. She calls all the other people there, the little old people. She loves to say, I may be old, but I’ll never be little.
When she gets bored, she takes a trip. She has three children, 12 grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews who will always welcome her into their home. She’s helpful. She’s funny. She tells great stories. She bakes. When Morgan was a baby she came to our house for a week. I had to check her suit case when she left to make sure my baby wasn’t in it. She never put the girl down the entire week she was visiting.
In December she had a pacemaker put in. She’d had a few “episodes” and her doctor told her this would help. She said it like it was nothing. In fact, she told everyone about in her Christmas letter. One sentence was, oh my grand-daughter is pregnant with twins and I’m so thrilled and the next sentence was, oh and I’ll be having a pacemaker put in after Christmas…but no one get all worried, because I am only doing this so I can live to see 115.
She was back on her feet in days. 115 years old is her goal. 115 years old. Can you imagine?
Last week, she found a lump in her breast. Unfortunately cancer runs heavily in that side of the family, so we’ll see. It could, obviously be nothing. She has told everyone, no worries. If it’s cancerous, I’ll deal with it. She already told her doctor and kids, she’ll do whatever they think she needs to do. But she also told her doctor in no uncertain terms that she’s planning on going on a cruise in spring 2012 with her grand-daughter and family, so please to be remembering she must be healed by then.
I can’t plan next week and she’s planning spring 2012.
A woman born in 1917. A 92 year old woman. One of the strongest, most amazing ladies you could ever hope to meet. My great aunt Bernice. I just hope one day, I can even be half as strong as she is.
I always say that my life started the day I walked into Freshman English and met him. For me, my life did start that day. Fourteen years old and my life began. I’d never been in love, I’d never even had a boyfriend. He became my entire world in what seemed like moments. We had a group of friends that we did things with, but we were always together. We had a blast together. I knew I loved him, I knew I’d marry him, when I was fourteen years old.
I didn’t move away to go to school. He didn’t get in where I did. I choose him. I never regretted that choice. Why move away from everything I knew when I had no idea what I wanted to be? Why go to the huge school where I’d know no one, when I could go to the school with all of my friends? I don’t say this to blame him. I choose him. Consciously. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about lately.
Not to long after that, I asked him to marry me. He said yes and then asked me six weeks later. I, of course, said yes. We got married the following spring. Nineteen years old. I actually didn’t turn nineteen until we’d been married six weeks. Two and a half years later, Morgan was born. Planned, wanted, adored. Bailey came two and a half years after that. Planned, wanted and adored.
Three years later, we moved here. We followed his dreams. We left everything for his dreams. Again, I made the choice. I could have said no and he’d of gotten over it. But I took a chance.
Then life fell apart. I had a 14 week miscarriage and somehow lost myself. I lost the woman I once was. I’ve managed to rebuild myself. But the new me? Is not carefree. Is not all that easy going. Is different. Damaged in some ways. I have changed. Life changed me. I am not that person anymore. I can’t be that person anymore. She stopped existing on July 26, 2007. I am not the woman he married. Not anymore. Not in a long time.
Somehow in the past few years, I lost more than I realized. Somehow in the past few years, I lost my husband. Even though, until a month ago, he was here next to me. I lost him. He lost me. Maybe we lost each other and I just didn’t realize it. He did, but he waited. He waited to tell me he was done, for eighteen months at least. He waited, because I was pregnant with our son and then, because we had a newborn. He waited because he hoped he was mistaken. He waited to make sure I was okay. He waited because he hoped I’d become that girl again. He wanted that girl I used to be. But I can’t be that for him anymore, because I can’t seem to be that for me.
So, I’m here. Alone. Just me. I get to pick up the pieces. I get to figure out what happens next. I get to learn to share my kids. I get to learn how to be without him.
The problem is? I don’t know where I begin and where he ends. I don’t know how to be without him. I don’t know how to start thinking I and me, instead of we. I don’t know how to do this. How do I do this? How do I move on? How can I stop loving him, the way he stopped loving me? I want to know how to do that. I want to know how, because this is breaking my heart. I am not even sure, I have a heart anymore. I feel like it’s been so broken, it may as well not exist.
Now it’s me. Just me. Me and my kids. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what to do next. I’m just here. Trying to breath. Trying to make it through each day. And it sucks. And it’s not fair. And it hurts. I just want my life back. I want to know where I lost it, so I can go back and get it.
I don’t understand. I want to understand, but I don’t understand.
This is a hard time in my life. Very hard. In my trying to make it through each day, I find that I’m forgetting things. Small things. Things like, I’ve needed to buy more Tums for a week. (Can someone explain to me why I still get heartburn when the boy is nearly 16 months old?) Things like, my printer has needed ink for three weeks. Have I been places where I could buy these things? Oh yes, many times over. But I forget when I’m there, because my brain is on overdrive trying to figure out things, that it just doesn’t understand yet.
Where is my plug for my iPod? Why can’t I find my 2008 taxes? Did I give Morgan, Bailey’s lunch today? All very good questions. Things I’d normally be able to give you answers for. Right now though? You guess would be as good as mine.
Anyway, I have a few things that I wanted to remember. In case I forget later. I thought it may be good to write them down here.
-I’ve been having trouble getting Bailey to eat. It’s slowly getting better. She’ll eat for me, but she’s still not eating much when she’s with her dad. It’s the stress, it just makes her un-hungry. Also, she’s a complete mama’s girl. However, when you are only in the 4th percentile for weight, you can’t afford to miss many meals.
Anyway, last Thursday she came into my bedroom in the morning and we had this conversation:
Bailey: Mama, guess what?
Me: noticing that she is butt nekkid. Um, I don’t know, you forgot how to put clothes on?
Bailey: No.
Me: An alien ate all of your clothes while you were sleeping.
Bailey: NO MAMA.
Me: It’s nekkid day at school and I missed the memo?
Bailey: laughing. No silly.
Me: I give up love. What?
Bailey: I’M HUNGRY. Like super-dup really hungry mommy. I NEED pancakes.
Me: cries.
I took them to ihop for breakfast and then took them to school an hour late. Sometimes, it’s just the right thing to do.
- Harrison does this thing where he makes you get up from where you are sitting to follow him. He pulls on your finger and makes you follow him around. Sometimes it’s to retrieve his Mater car from someplace where he can’t get it. Sometimes it’s to show you the fridge. Or the mess he made of the dog food again. Sometimes, he wants you sit somewhere else. Like two spots over on the couch. Or on the other side of his train table. It’s very adorable. We call it, Harrison’s adventures. He’s taking us on an adventure. When he’s done with you, he lets go of your finger, but not until he is done. He’s a very cute little dictator.
-The girls and I have been watching American Idol. Although I’m a mean mom and I make them watch it the next night. I can’t handle watching it live. Commercials and I don’t really get along. I also need to able to fast forward during some of it. The other night, we were watching the second episode from last week. Morgan and I were both covering our face and plugging our ears at the same things. Go past this mom, she kept saying. It’s too painful. This person shouldn’t be on the show. Agreed baby girl. Agreed. Last year, she made me suffer through it all. This year? She’s come over to the dark side. The, I can’t stand to watch people make fools of themselves on TV side. It’s about dang time.
-I have posts that I’ve written. Posts that I’m unsure if I’ll post. Or if I do, I will try to give you guys some other stuff to read as well. I adore you all. But I know, that you worry. That I worry you. I know that I’m depressing to read these days. That honestly may not change for awhile. But I need you to know that I am okay. This space is my outlet. It always has been. I write things here, that I’d only say out loud to my mom, my best friend and my shrink. I promise you all, I am okay. Not great, not even good, but okay. I am taking care of myself and my kids. We are surviving. One day, we will get used to this. We’re not there yet. But we’re all taking the right steps.
-In other news, I’m going to be working on my blogroll for the next few days. It will be on the page marked friends. Right now if you hit the friends button, it just has the post I wrote about 31 unknown bloggers in it.
If you’d like to be on my blogroll let me know and I’ll make sure to add you.
1. Glee. I know. I know. You all adore it. I just don’t understand. I tried. I really did. But yeah…no.
2. How THIS can be called easy. Is not easy. Liz? I think we need to discuss my definition of easy cooking again.
3. Why I can’t find my dang magic wand, so I can have a month of Sundays.
4. Award shows. Golden Globes, Oscars, MTV music awards. I’ve never understood. Maybe I just don’t care. You are famous, you get more free stuff than anyone should, you make tons of money and I should want to watch you get awards now too? Awards that basically mean nothing?
5. Why I bought an iPhone case yesterday at Borders, when I won’t get an iPhone until July.
6. The Real Housewives of Hogwarts. Truly. How many of those shows can their be? Do you know anyone who acts like that in real life? I sure as hell don’t. They should have a REAL real housewives show. I’d be on it. They can watch me call grilled cheese and carrots sticks dinner, play Bejeweled, yell at the dog for barking at falling leaves and every car that drives by the house, change gross diapers, retrieve Mater from under the couch for Harrison fifteen times a day, argue with my eight year old about her not reading Twilight yet again, explain to my five year old every. single. morning the difference between winter and summer clothes (which hai, I put the summer clothes AWAY, so STOP going into the basement and getting them), fold laundry…okay fine, wash clothes and then put them on random chairs and leave it there for a week. Interesting? NO. However, at least it would be a bit more real.
7. Why everyone thinks I’m secretly freaking out about turning 30 this year. Dude, I could care less about turning 30 this year. I am however freaking out about other things. You know… loss of a 16 year relationship/nearly 11 year marriage. Wanna talk about that? No? Okay cool, then lets discuss how life ends at 30. I just don’t understand. It’s a day. One day. That’s it. Dude, there will be cake right? So yes, I am all for turning 30 if there is cake.
8. Why I am suddenly getting golf magazine. I’ve never played golf.
That’s it for today. Any of you have things you don’t understand right now? Maybe we can help each other figure this stuff out.
I never used to be a crier. I mean I did cry. On occasion. Normally when I finally did, I’d cry for hours, because it was 8 months worth of bottled up tears. That’s just the way I was. Not so much anymore. Now? I cry a lot.
I’m emotional. I’m depressed. My life has crumbled and I’m trying to pick up the pieces. I’m doing okay despite it. However, I cry at everything right now. Yes, I have good reason too cry. Yes, it is helpful. In fact, some days I’m convinced it’s actually making me feel better. But I cry at EVERYTHING right now. It’s kinda my thing. I’m a crier.
I’d really like to find a new thing. My eyes hurt. All the dam time. It’s tiring to cry all day.
So this is where I ask for your help. See, I have this problem….I listen to the same three songs all day long. Yes, I do mean ALL DAY LONG. Ahem. I told you, I have a problem.
I’ll give you a little sample of the songs and lyrics and you’ll be able to tell why I need new songs.
No this ain’t how it was suppose to be, If you’re out chasin’ all your dreams, Tell me where does that leave me….What about the promise that you made, To stay with me till your dying day, Said you’d never go away, Are they just things that people say…Could I have loved a little deeper, Or did I hold on too strong. – Things People Say by Lady Antebellum
I know there are no guarantees, In love you take your chances, But somehow it seems unfair to me, Look at the circumstances,Through sickness and health, ’till death do us part, Those were the words that we said from our heart, So now that you say that you’re leaving me, I don’t get that part….Well I’m not gonna cry, I’m not gonna cry, I’m not gonna shed no tears, No, I’m not gonna cry, it’s not the time. Not gonna cry by Mary J. Blige
(Even funnier is that half of those lyrics are I’m not gonna cry and I still do, every dam time.)
What about now? What about today? What if you’re making me all that I was meant to be? What if our love had never went away? What if it’s lost behind words we could never find? Baby, before it’s too late, What about now? – What About Now by Daughtry
Yeah, see, hai. Issa NEEDS NEW SONGS. Badly.
Today is National Delurking Day. I understand some of you will still lurk. I love lurkers. My best friend is a lurker. Sadly, right now, I am kind of a lurker as well. But for those of you willing to help me out, I’d really appreciate it. I though maybe if I asked for something specific, it may be a little easier to delurk. It’s a thought at least.
What I need is this:
1. A song that makes you cry, because I’m not done crying yet. I wish I was, but I know I’m not. Not yet. One day. Maybe even soon-ish, but not yet.
2. A song that makes you happy, because I’d like to make a happy song playlist for times when I really need to STOP all the dang crying for a bit.
3. Your current favorite song. Just because I’m curious.
That’s it. If you are willing, I’d love the help. If not? That’s okay too. I still love you for reading here.
I keep thinking that I should be doing better by now. That somehow I should be able to make myself feel better, be less sad, stop feeling as if my life has completely crumbled. I am constantly reminded by others that it is okay. Okay to be sad, okay to cry, okay to grieve. It’s okay. It’s not been long. It’s really only been two weeks. Tomorrow.
It’s only been 6 days since I realized this is permanent. I didn’t know that for sure until then. Six days. I lost all hope that day. Not sure why I still had some, but I did. Six days isn’t long, it’s not even a full week.
I wanted today to be the day that I stopped crying the second my kids go to bed. Or the second I drop them off with their father. The day that I stopped wanting to cry all day. The day that I’d start feeling like I may be capable of doing this.
I wanted today to be the day that I didn’t dread my day from the second I woke up. The day that I could see something good in my future. I wanted today to be the day that I answered all of the sweet emails and comments from all of you.
I wanted today to be the day I started actually reading posts again and engaging on Twitter. Doing more than opening and closing Facebook. Emailing people again.
Today is not that day. I am just not there yet.
Instead, this is what I know I can do for today:
Today I will remind myself that it’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to not be okay. That there is no timeline on grief.
I will remind myself this afternoon, when my kids go to their dad, that they need him as much as they need me. That I will get used to this new schedule. That they will be home for bed.
Today I will rejoice in the fact that Bailey ate an entire donut and drank an entire glass of milk for breakfast, instead of worrying about the fact that she hasn’t eaten in a week. I will remind myself that she’s five and it’s been a week. They’ve only known for a week. That as long as she eats something, she will be okay.
I will call and un-enroll Harrison in toddler class. The last thing he needs right now is more change.
I will make more blueberry cobbler, because it made Morgan happy.
Today I will send you over to the Babble Top 50 Mommy Blogger list, which someone added me onto. Whoever did that, I adore you. To each of you who voted for me, I adore you too. Now, will you all do me a favor? Please go over and vote for Mamaspohr. Please. For me? Thanks.
Today I will thank each of you right here and now, for your sweet emails and comments. For offers to talk, for sending me your phone numbers. For text messages, Tweets and DM’s. Truly, you have no idea how much it means to me. I’ve read it all. I just haven’t found the energy to respond yet. Just know, you have made me feel so supported and loved and that is priceless.
Today, I will be realistic in my goals for myself.
I have always been good at faking it. Faking being fine. Faking having fun. Faking, faking, faking. I am gifted at it. It’s a life long thing for me. I am so great at it, that sometimes? Sometimes I even fool myself. It was how I got through childhood. It was easier for me to be like that then to deal with my emotions. I was the good kid. Invisible when need be. The voice of reason. The peace maker. The responsible one. Always.
The problem is, I am tired of faking it. It’s too much work. Way more energy then I have right now. I am struggling to just make it. To make sure my kids make it. To get out of bed each day. I have nothing left.
I get up every day and do what I need to do. I take care of myself. I take care of my kids. My house is mostly clean, the laundry is done, the dog is fed and well cared for and there are meals made each day. I have showered each day. I have been and will keep going to therapy. I swear, I am taking my meds. I haven’t fallen of any cliffs.
But I’m tired of faking it.
You want to know the truth? The truth is my husband says he hasn’t loved me in over a year and a half. Our son isn’t even that old yet. I thought he needed space, time, to grow up or something. I was going to suggest he move out for a few weeks. He has already brought up divorce.
The truth is, I had to tell my girls about this myself, because he couldn’t be bothered to find a time to do so. He thought I’d just lie to them about where he was, until he made time for it. While it might have been easier, it wasn’t the right thing to do. Telling them, helping them deal, giving them space to rage and cry and be angry, is the right thing to do.
The truth is, I don’t have it in me to read posts, to comment, to play on Twitter or even really to play bejeweled. Instead of that? I spent half the day making a ‘Best Of’ page on this blog. Not that it was really any easier to read old happy posts of my own either. But that’s what I did today.
The truth is that I’m overwhelmed. That I started crying last Friday night at Liz’s house and haven’t fully stopped since then. I know I CAN do this. I know I WILL do this. But it’s scary. And big. And hard.
Somehow I have to learn to deal with the fact that the life I’ve had since I was fourteen years old, the life I had with him is over. My life, my kids life isn’t over. But that life, that true love that I had, or thought I had, is over.
All that’s left is my pain and my inability to fake it. Sadly, that is one of his main issues with me. I guess I have become to real. Too real for him. So here we are. This is my new life. That’s my truths and I just can’t fake it anymore.
The truth is that I’m heart broken. My heart is crushed. Gone. I can’t fake otherwise. Instead? I’m going to try to deal with it. To be sad. To grieve. To try to rebuild my broken heart. Because that seems somehow easier than faking it.
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