A little Tears for Fears reference reminds everyone including myself that I’m so a child of the 80’s. 

I thought I’d hit rock bottom last September.  I’m guessing now that there is no real bottom - life goes up, goes down, goes sideways, busts off the rails, wrecks and reassembles.  I bounced down again last night, but I think that as horrible as the rocks feel right now, they are there for a reason. 

It’s really hard to see the silver lining in a snowstorm, but I’m trying.  All year I’ve been pushing myself to my limit and beyond.  The most important things in my life have been smashed down to make room for other, more pressing things.  My health has taken a serious hit.  I’ve already had one major health scare; this latest one isn’t a scare. It’s a fact. 

I’ve got to make some sweeping changes.  I have to take care of my children, then my businesses.  In order to do that, I have to take care of me.  This means that with the exception of work I have to do, I’m focusing solely on my kids and running and yoga.  That’s it. 

This past year has been physically challenging, but some of the emotional challenges have been far more demanding.  I’ve got some serious trust issues right now and they aren’t going to be resolved overnight.  And it’s no surprise to anyone that bad things happen to good people - all the time.  My friend Susan is a shining example of this.  I wondered, sitting up at night, if this is karma and I’m being punished.  Then I tell myself that these are all lessons, some packaged in prettier paper than others, and I need to be mindful and aware of what is happening to me.  None of this is accidental.  And maybe what it finally took for me to admit I need to slow down was a health issue. 

I’m trying to get over the part where I let people down, where I fail in delivering on things I said I would. I need to be okay with hibernating and protecting myself for a little while.  The hurts this year have come hard and fast.  Some of them were sucker punches; others were slow, drawn out kicks.  Nearly 12 months after this all began, I feel like I’ve been in a year-long car accident and my body is finally begging for mercy.  I’m giving in to it.  I’m giving it what it needs.  I’m giving it a break. 

It’s a mass crazy blog post, like a casserole of randomness!  Here goes.

It’s a hole.  In my nose. 

True to my mid-life crisis (thanks for that mom), I got my nose pierced on Sunday.  I’ve wanted to do it since high school.  I waited until I was slightly wrinkled and nose piercing was mainstream before doing it.  My friend Stanley went with me, and it was a good thing, because I passed out, had a seizure and was very ill after the experience.  He had to drive me home.  His hand has permanent impressions in it from me gripping him.  He also saved my life last night too, but that’s in a different paragraph. 

It was worth it.  I’m happy with it, it’s healing well, and no, I’m not getting any more piercings and I’m still tattoo-free.  It was simply something I’ve been wanting to do, so I did it.  My kids wanted to know why I didn’t get a “bigger, sparklier” diamond.  I told them that the little one already gave their grandmother a heart attack.  They seemed to understand. 

Kick Me Dating.

I’ve already got a book in the works about the year of separation and divorce. About 80% of it is written - I wrote it last year during NaNoWriMo.  The remaining 20% is being written right now, and it’s going to be about dating at nearly 40.  It’s been QUITE the experience.  I’ve dated an emotionally stunted boy who was old enough not to be a boy.  I dated a guy with more mental issues than myself, but unlike me, he wasn’t willing to address any of them.  I went out for coffee with different men.  One had hobbit toes and spoke exclusively to my breasts.  There was not a second date.  One guy thought I was wanting to meet for coffee during work hours and called me a loser for not having a “real” job (???) - turns out he misread my email and realized I was suggesting 8 pm, not 8 am.  There was no first date with him.  Another guy sent me a long-winded note through a dating site, explaining to me in elementary-school-appropriate wording that he wished me the best of luck as no one really wants to date a woman with kids, especially not an almost 40 YEAR OLD woman.  Then he asked me out.  Guess what I said?

Then, I dated a guy - as in - we had more than one date.  He was normal.  He was good looking.  He worked out. He was healthy.  He was over his past relationships.  He was not hung up or full of issues.  He was funny.  He was mature.  He thought Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a well-written show.  He liked kids, but had resigned himself to not having any of his own. 

He changed his mind.  I can’t fault him.  Having your own kids with someone you love is a pretty cool thing.  It was hard for him to tell me that he had changed his mind.  We were getting along, we were laughing, we were “fine”.  It’s one thing to decide you don’t want to date because you spot some warning signs or the person has an annoying, throat-clearing habit.  Or is afraid to drive downtown because someone might scratch their car.  Or because they talk exclusively to your tatas. 

A part of me felt really badly that having another child is just flat out something I’m never, ever doing again.  Two is enough and frankly, my body and my brain cannot tolerate the pregnancy experience ever again.  And for him, he can date younger.  He can find someone he is compatible with that is in their early 30s and still willing, able, and excited about having a baby. 

I learn every time I meet someone new.  After my first experience, I said I wasn’t going to date anyone younger than 37 (arbitrary, I know) and I wasn’t going to date anyone who was that age and had never been married (judgmental, I know).  Now I wonder whether I can ever really believe what people say.  I change my mind frequently about things - why shouldn’t they?  It is just unfortunate that he wasn’t a psycho jerk or an asshole.  He’s a genuinely good and decent person, just like I am.  It’s much easier ending a relationship with someone who calls you names or throws temper tantrums or is completely self-absorbed.

A note about dating and me.  There’s been some judgment, but most of it has been concern from family and friends that it is “too soon”.  Timelines are arbitrary as well.  I felt alone in my marriage for quite some time.  When I finally left the marriage, it was only physically.  That’s a hard thing to admit.  It is also the truth.  My goal was to simply date - just to get my feet wet, so to speak, learn how to talk to people I don’t know, date different types, be casual and have fun.  Part of me still wants to do this.  Part of me wants to curl up in a fetal position with my daughters and hide forever.  He told me how “strong” I was - how I was such a “good person” - how I “deserve better”.  Yes, yes, and yes, but the next person with a penis who says this to me is going to lose one, if not both testicles.  As my sister said, what choice do we have?  Strength is relative.  Of course I’m strong.  Duh.  Aren’t we all? 

True to my commitment to 2010 being the year of honesty, 2010 is also the year of gray.  No black or white ultimatums for me.  Somewhere in the middle of the wacky world of dating in middle age is where I’ll be. 

Stanley and Robey came by with champagne and laptops.  Robey gave me a stern talking-to and Stanley distracted me with chatter about the half-marathon training team we are starting Saturday.  Robey cleaned up the spilled champagne (I’m a clutz) and Stanley told funny and sad stories about his life growing up.  We are both Latinos and I understand the culture even if I suck at speaking the language.  We gossiped and I cried some more.  I fell asleep before they left.  It is those moments when your friends surround you, even when they are tired of seeing you cry, that you realize what strength is all about. 

The definition of “family”. 

I’m finally starting to do some volunteer project management/board work for GayRVA.com.  I have mad respect for the people who run it, and the person who created it (waves at Kevin Clay - hi Kevin!).  It fills a need in Richmond and it is full of passionate people.  In answer to my mother’s question, posed silently and hanging over my head, no I am still not gay and no not everyone in the organization is.  If I could have jumped the lesbian fence, it would have happened long ago.  Anyway. 

A post on the website yesterday generated a lot of interest. Reading it infuriated me.  As a private business, they can do what they want, but to say it’s because they follow Virginia’s definitions of “family” is a big cop-out.  Especially when you see how many other gyms offer family memberships to all kinds of families. 

Where do you stand on the issue?  Perish the thought that we might actually allow gay marriage in Virginia . . . but denying family GYM memberships?  As one person said, American Family has no problem taking their money as individuals.  As I said, they have no problem with their gay employees (theoretically - maybe they use don’t ask, don’t tell there?), or gay people working out and spending their money there.  But to offer them a family membership discount crosses some invisible line.  I truly don’t get it.  As a marketing weenie, the negative PR alone would be enough to make a company revisit their “policies”. 

That is all. 

In answer to the question of the day, No, We Have Not Closed Yet. 

There are lots of concerned people in my life and I’m super grateful for the fact that those people still care enough to ask.  But I hate never having new information to give.  It makes me a little more cuckoo than usual.

Nope, no closing.  An excerpt from the voicemail I left for Citi yesterday:  “You are about to lose what amounts to a half million dollar deal over $6500.  Either work this out, or come and foreclose.  There are no other options.”  I was NOT nice.  Between the lawyers calling and the realtors calling, my voicemail was #6 for yesterday.  Squeaky wheel, anyone?  It’s so insane that we are this close ... and yet, nothing.  Both banks are digging in their heels.  Neither is giving.  Neither is talking.  The rest of us are running around, trying to tell the two petulant children we have in our lives to please play nicely or we’re all going down in flames.  So far, threats of time outs and no stories at bedtime have not worked. 

We have no leverage, no ability to say no. The worst part about this process has been that we are at the buyer’s mercy.  We have no alternatives, they know we are backed into a corner.  I can feel the glee emanating from their corner of the world.  Tomorrow they take possession of the house, without paying rent.  If something breaks or they decide they are unhappy with something else (and there’s been plenty so far), we are on the hook for it.  In the meantime, Citi’s collection department calls me no less than 8 times per day (including Sundays!) wanting their mortgage payment.  Oh, the irony!!!  We’d LOVE to give you the money owed if you guys would get your heads out of your rectums long enough to let us close. 

In a “normal” situation, as the seller, making money off the deal, we could have said long ago, “take your money and pound salt”.  Because they are actually negotiating with the banks, we have no say in just about anything.  Every time I want to dig my heels in, my realtor tells me to take a time out or threatens to verbally spank me.  If we call their bluff, we could end up in foreclosure.  And to be this close - for all of us - and still end in foreclosure - well, let’s just say that there will be a lot of angry tears over the situation.  Especially for the buyers and the realtors.  We have no money to make, so it’s a bitter-making potion for us that everyone else is getting the benefits of the disaster that is our life right now.

I don’t know.  I want to be positive - I really do - but I would like to see something become final.  I would like to be able to go away this weekend knowing that the house in Wyndham is gone, baby, gone, and I never, ever have to go back there unless I want to.  I would like the weight of this house off my shoulders for the first time since January, and I would like to sit in the hot springs of Virginia alone with my thoughts about anything - literally anything - other than the house. 

Hi there.

I know we haven’t been talking much these days.  Hell, we haven’t been communicating in years.  I know you are angry at me, and I understand that anger.  It’s unfortunate that you can’t just scream at me or throw something and be done with it.  Understand that I too am angry.  Very angry. I am angry despite you thinking I have no right to be angry. 

See, I don’t mind cleaning up my own mess.  I say this even though I tell the girls that I don’t care who made the mess in the crayon drawer - it’s up to both of them to clean it up.  Okay, I’ll clean it up by myself because it’s my mess, and I “wanted” this. 

This mess has taken me literally months to clean up.  While you floated through your days, at work, spending your energy hating me, I was negotiating with people who make me sick to my stomach, fielding phone calls from collection agencies, begging, pleading, cajoling everyone involved in this process to please help, to work together, to make this go.  At the 11th hour, we are nearly there and are going to escape this (relatively) unscathed. 

For a month and a half, I spent my evenings tearing through the wreckage of our life.  I packed boxes that tore me to shreds.  I had to decide what things to toss and what things to keep for the kids, even though I felt like I was being burned at the stake looking through some of the scrapbooks and remnants of my now-previous life.  I found your wedding ring shoved into a toothbrush cover.  It was about to go into the trash; I heard it rattling and realized what it was.  I know it was your way of saying to me:  Go To Hell and Take Your Trash With You.  Message received.  Note taken. 

After the packing and the moving and more negotiating with a slew of extremely demanding and unsympathetic people, I spent more time unpacking, fixing, redoing.  I thought about the girls and the chaos and upheaval.  I didn’t sleep much, because I wanted to make things as okay for them as I could.  The weekends you had them, I unpacked and painted and scrubbed.  You probably spent more time hating me then too - throwing all that hatred into the pool as you soaked in the sun and watched the children we had together splash.  I know some of the hatred was obvious even to our children when Lily asked me about it, catching me unprepared as always when she drops those questions during a car ride. 

So it must be nice.  It must feel great for you.  It must be heaven to sit across from me in a lawyer’s office, signing documents that will relieve us of the biggest financial obligation or anchor we have, and looking me in the eye as you tell me you won’t help me.  As you stick it to me, you have legitimized your right to be angry and to make me “fix it”.  All the years of me fixing everything came rushing into that lawyer’s office and I nearly exploded.  The words out of my mouth were measured but you know me well enough to also know that there was fury behind them, mixed with exhaustion, mixed with desperation.  It’s FINE.  I will take care of it.  Put the nails through my hands and feet; I’m a martyr, and I’ll fix this like I always fix the messes.  You sit down, sip your beer.  I’ll take care of it. 

I wonder what would happen if I adopted your attitude.  If I stopped caring.  If I told everyone - realtors included - to go screw themselves and see what happens.  If the closing were to fall through, would you help out then?  Would the realtors step up?  Would anyone do anything to make the deal go?  It must be nice to shrug your shoulders and say, “You did this, now you take care of it.”  I’d like to say that to you as well.  You did this, now you fix it.  All that yammering in marriage counseling about taking responsibility - taking two to tango - taking two to destroy a marriage.  I think those were words designed to make me think you actually believed it.  You don’t.  This is squarely on my shoulders.  It is my spilled milk to clean up.  I’ll clean up yours, because it’s there too, mixed and curdling.  It’s too much effort to figure out where to divide the mess, and make you clean up your portion of it. 

I used to feel such huge amounts of guilt.  I used to think you were the victim and I was a terrible person for making decisions that were best for me.  I don’t anymore - or at least not today.  We both built this life, and we both ruined it too. At some point you will emerge from your rage and start rebuilding your life, as I have done with mine.  Maybe you’ll take a hard look at yourself and attempt to avoid the mistakes you made with me, just as I’ve done - tearing myself into tiny bite-sized pieces so I can make myself a better person.  Maybe you won’t.  At this point, I’m beyond feeling badly about it. 

Today, I know you’re feeling good.  The house is nearly gone, your wife is nearly an ex, and you only have to stomach seeing me through car doors or apartment windows.  Standing the elevator together, I could feel the hate steaming from your skin.  Where once we were magnets, the poles have been reversed.  We stood on opposite sides, as far apart as possible.  When we said goodbye, it was code for “screw you”.  Today, you stuck it to me.  You enjoyed the power of making me suffer, even if it’s just a little bit.  You can have that.  Enjoy it while it lasts.  One day I’ll be in the same position you are, and I’ll remember this, and I’ll do the right thing instead of letting my anger control me and turn me into the lowest kind of person. 

It must be nice.  For you. 

I’ve said it before, but sometimes I feel like the biggest mistake I ever made was not having an anonymous blog.  On the other hand, I always read anon-blogs as fiction, and part of my big chest-pounding on this blog is that it is real, even if it’s only my version of reality. 

There are two huge issues in my life right now that are off-limits to the blogging world, three if you count the intricacies of my impending divorce.  I can write about the general feelings or the good/bad days, but getting into specifics crosses the line I’ve put down for myself and eventually for my children. 

I’m reading Perfection by Julie Metz right now.  Although her situation is very different than mine, her feelings are similar to my own struggle(s).  But I can’t help wondering, as I plow through the pages, how will her daughter feel about this? She’ll be a teenager now, with a famous author as a mom, the intense, sordid details of her deceased father published for the world to read.  Her father can easily be categorized as a bastard because he was a cheater, and a liar.  He’s also more than that.  Her mother, sometimes neurotic, mostly spot-on with her feelings and her reactions - it’s all there too, including her first sexual encounters after the death of her husband.  I just can’t imagine Lily and Arden reading that about me until, well, never - or at least until I was dead and didn’t have to look them in their beautiful eyes. 

The blog is bad enough.  We’re going on a year now of a lot of sadness, introspection, criticism (mostly self-induced, I admit), failed friendships and relationships.  It’s hard for me to read, but I am compelled to keep writing.  I’ve also been compelled to start writing letters again, stored privately on my laptop, not sent.  Some of them are to myself.  Many of them are to other people: those who have “wronged” me, those I’ve wronged, the friends I’ve neglected over the past 12 months who no longer have patience for me, the friends who have stayed with me through lots of dark times and bad phone calls, who handed me tissues and told me I had snot on my chin.  One of the most difficult and draining relationships I’ve had has received a ton of letters that only my computer has read.  I rarely can bring myself to read them once they are written.  Eventually I can have a bonfire burning party and dance around the flames.  Instead of burning my bra, or censored books, I’ll be burning up all those words and tears and joy and maybe then I can move beyond the anchors holding me down and back. 

Between my therapist and my life coach, I’m mentally healthier - and more aware - than I’ve ever been in my life.  As I notch the days under my belt, each morning marks another small success.  I made it.  Each time I am able to love my kids, or cuddle them in the mornings when they smell of sleep and salt, it’s a victory.  Each time I allow myself a few minutes to cry or express the complete and total exhaustion I feel mentally, I’m winning the war.  So many moments curled on my bed in fetal position or stretched out on the floor of the screened porch while I ache and feel hopeless end up adding to the anthill of strength I’m home-growing with organic intensity.  I used to doubt I was going to survive this, but I’ve got no doubts about any of that.  I have no doubts regarding the decisions I’ve made, or the ugly path I’ve walked to get to this day, this point in the long process.  I have no doubts that I’ll emerge better, more content, more lovable: a better friend, a better girlfriend, a better partner, daughter, sister, aunt, niece, dance partner, designated driver, confidante, wingman.  Wingwoman. 

I had a major epiphany last night, out of the blue.  I was brushing my teeth and wham.  Suddenly the confusion in my head cleared.  I realized that I’ve been punishing myself for wronging my husband, destroying his life, dragging my kids through this chaos - into the land of camel crickets and shared bedrooms and non-manicured lawns.  I took on a couple of people - messed up in their own private ways, their sole purpose in my life to punish me for what I’ve done to others.  I allowed them to make me feel worse about myself, to control me, to put up with crap I never would have in my previous lives (let’s not count college, shall we?).  Even these people have served their purpose, but I’m done with that lesson now and it’s time to cut and run. 

The second piece of the epiphany was that in one case, I realized the relationship was so very similar to a past one where I had no control over anything. I acquiesced, I bent.  I pushed my needs so far into my chest I no longer realized I had them, except for a lingering sense that something was terribly off.  At a time when I am supposed to be expanding - doing the things I’ve wanted/needed to do over the past decade plus but haven’t, for so many reasons - I was retracting, narrowing my world, narrowing my expectations, giving up. 

The third piece was that I have no control over others, but I can allow them to control me.  For so long I’ve placed my own needs secondary to everyone else.  It is the epitome of selfishness to say that I truly want to focus on me for a while?  Healing myself, being a better mom - not only for the kids, but for me?  I don’t want to settle - for anything.  If that means many more days and nights of fetal positioning, rocking, and snot on my chin, I think I can survive it.  I’m hopeful.  All signs, says the Magic 8 Ball, point to ‘yes’. 

In the meantime:  this day is “bad”.  This day is hard.  I am tired of hard and bad days; I am tired of writing about them.  I am tired of being tired, exhausted really. I am tired of killing bugs and cleaning carpets.  I’m tired of drilling, hanging things, trying to make this home feel like home.  There are piles of laundry in 3 rooms.  I feel like doing nothing about them.  I feel like sleeping.  Instead of that, I will have lunch with a friend who puts up with me and has as of yet not deleted me from her life because I am so tapped out.  I will stick to my hard decisions even though they completely and entirely suck right now. I will also run 3 miles this afternoon in sweltering heat, and I will not pass out or vomit - at least not publicly. 

Later, I’ll make dinner for the kids and myself and we will sit at my cleared dining room table in a darkened room that still doesn’t quite feel like mine yet, and we will talk about Puffles, Club Penguin and summer camp.  I will do laundry, work, add inventory to my site.  Later I will get into my bed, still my favorite space in the universe, and I will stretch out because it’s all my space and there is no one to demand anything from me, including pillows or leg room.  It will be an odd mixture of terrifying aloneness and blissful solitude.  The house will make weird sounds; Thora will growl or sometimes bark.  She will end up, against my wishes, at the foot of the bed.  She is the only thing I will allow to share my comforter.  In the morning she will lick my face and I will awake, victorious that another day is behind me and a new one is in front of me.