Teh Awesome

We hear about heroes all the time. My daughter Bailey is obsessed with Optimus Prime from Transformers. She calls him her hero. She’s five, so that’s pretty logical. I have had many heroes in my life. Some deserving of that title, some, not so much. We hear talk of sports figures as heroes. The news will call any celebrity a hero if they do something good for the community, or the world.

Real heroes though are different. They are not super powered individuals. They aren’t just the mutli-millionaire celebrity who gives away a certain amount of money every year. They are normal, every day people, who happen to do something that helps someone in that moment. Or at least that’s what a hero is to me.

Yesterday, there was a shooting outside of a middle school in the greater Denver area. A crazed man showed up outside of the school as kids were leaving, with a high powered rifle and shot two innocent kids. (One is in critical condition, the other was treated and released.) A math teacher attacked him. Wrestled the gun away from him and held him down until the police arrived. He saved who knows how many kids lives yesterday, just by reacting in the moment. His name is David Benke. He is a middle school math teacher. He is a hero.

Last year, Chesley Sullenberger, landed a freaking plane in the Hudson. A plane full of people. On the Hudson. Everyone remembers his name. Or at least they remember the name, Hudson Hero. Here is the thing that I remember from all of the press he got last year. In every interview, he said, I was just going on instinct. I was doing what I needed to do, without giving it any though. He saved, what a hundred people that day? He was just a pilot doing what he needed to do in the moment. But he’s a hero. Every time I get on a plane, possibly for the rest of my life, I will tell myself that he is the pilot. Even though I know it isn’t true, just thinking it gives me hope, makes me feel safer. That’s what a hero does.

My grandfather built a woman and children’s shelter for battered women back in the early 90’s. He saw a need, he had the resources, so he had it built. It’s an amazing, beautiful building. He never talked about it after it was done. He wouldn’t let anyone put it on a list of his accomplishments. He had a long list, trust me on this. But he’d never add that one. A few years ago, I asked him why he didn’t want anyone to know about that. He told me that it wasn’t that he didn’t want anyone to know, it was that he just hadn’t done it for that. He did it for the women and children that weren’t protected. He said it was one of the few completely selfless things he’d ever done in his life and he wanted it to stay pure and innocent. He wanted to be able to think about that as one of his greatest accomplishments in life, as he died. His thing, the thing he did right in this world. My grandfather? Was a hero.

He was my hero for the majority of my life. For a million reasons that don’t matter. For small things, for big things, for being the man that he was. He’s been dead for almost a year and a half and I’ve yet to find a new hero. Maybe he was enough. Maybe he can still be my hero in death. I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that one.

Real heroes aren’t created. They aren’t made. They become that way in the eyes of someone, generally by accident. For doing something out of the ordinary, for doing something ordinary. It doesn’t really matter which.

So…who is your hero? Who was your hero as a kid?

I want to write a book. I’ll call it, Divorce for Dummies. I’ve tried to find something like it, but it doesn’t seem to exist, which means, I can write it. I think there is a need. There is a need for those of us who never thought we’d be in this situation, to know what to do next.

Maybe since the, For Dummies thing has been done by others, I’ll need to call it something else. Divorce 101? Divorce, the baby steps? Title needs work, but I’m not kidding on the book.

It’s the big things that people think about. The big huge emotional crap. The, how the hell did I get here and what did I do wrong? The, oh shit this is really my life now? Those are the big things that I think….okay obsessively think about. Because this isn’t easy. None of this is easy. I have no idea what I’m doing. The big stuff, I won’t write about. Because heck if I have any advice. I’ll leave that for shrinks and Dr. Phil. I’m just happy if I make it to the end of the day.

No, I won’t be writing about that. I’m talking about the small things. The things you wish someone would tell you. The things you have to figure out the hard way. The things you wouldn’t even think about. This is going to be a work in progress, because well I’m only five weeks into this shit. I’m not exactly the poster child for a successful divorce story yet. What I can do is share with you what I’ve learned so far.

1. ALWAYS and I do mean ALWAYS, check to make sure you have toilet paper before you go to the bathroom at night. In the day time, you may be able to scream for a kid. A kid who will make fun of you, but whatever, they’ll still bring you toilet paper. But it’s hard to scream at your children at 9pm for toilet paper, when they’ve been asleep for an hour. (Or when they are sleeping at their dad’s house.) Don’t think I didn’t consider it, because I did. Just trust me, check the toilet paper.

2. Sleep in the middle of the bed. Take up all the pillows. Enjoy all the blankies. Flop around. Kick your legs. Stretch your arms out. If you want, buy pretty girly sheets. Know why? Because you can. If you were used to the sound of light snoring and can’t seem to sleep, buy a noise machine, fall asleep to quiet music, something. Know that it takes a while to feel okay in the middle of the bed, but you’ll get there. It’s cozy there.

3. The remote is now yours. You can now DVR or watch whatever you want, whenever you want. Well unless you have an eight year old like mine…in which case, I KNOW YOUR PAIN. Ahem. It was really funny to me when I was talking to my bff one night and realized I hadn’t been watching CSI NY for years because Logan has issues with Gary Sinese. I’ve now been watching it for the past few weeks.

4. It’s okay. It’s all okay. It’s okay to cry for weeks. It’s okay to not cry. It’s okay to feed your kids cereal and grilled cheese for weeks. It’s okay to eat out, often. It’s okay to suddenly let your five year old into bed with you every single night if you want. It’s okay to not know what to do. It’s okay. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

5. You will find yourself correcting your words all the time. You will think you need to say, I, me or my, instead of we all of the time. Yes, eventually you do. But not at first. I’ve been with Logan 16 years. Nearly 11 years of marriage. If it takes me a year to learn to say me, instead of we….well it’s just the way it is.

The small things. You don’t realized the small silly things you don’t do, don’t say, don’t watch because of the other person. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it, when you are in a relationship. It’s the way it should be. Both parties tend to give up certain things, because it makes the other crazy. However, now I am single. Now, I can do those things. I’ll keep sharing as I come up with more.

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.

-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.