House/apartment/townhome/condo hunting has been discouraging, to say the very least. In the last 4 days, I’ve seen more than my fair share of black mold (“it’s just a carpet stain - it will come right out!”), cat piss (“Really? You smell cat pee?”), downed phone/electrical wires in backyards (“it wasn’t there yesterday!”), front steps that were warped and rotted (“Really? I didn’t notice that!”), decks waiting to collapse (“it’s totally fine - it just looks rickety.”), backyards full of rusted nails and rotting wood (no comment from the landlord on that one), ant infestations, houses that reek of wet dogs (“Really? You smell wet dog?”), and houses that have not seen the receiving end of a vacuum or sponge in at least one year. My favorite experience from yesterday: walking up the stairs in a house where the master bedroom was locked. Apparently the landlord “couldn’t get the door unlocked” to show it to us. Perhaps it had something to do with the blood stains on the stairs and wall? I guess some people will rent a house without seeing all the rooms - not sure about that. The second bedroom featured a mattress on the floor covered in leopard print sheets. It reminded me of some sort of brothel. It smelled similarly.
Sometimes, when I forget that I’m bringing my kids along with me, I can laugh about the sheer wackiness of the situation. But when I remember that I’ve got to find a place acceptable for my children, I stop laughing. I usually end up crying in the car and feeling sorry for them and not myself.
The rent in the Richmond area remains absolutely ridiculous. Add this: I need to be within 15 minutes of Lily and Arden’s elementary school so I can get there to drop off and pick up. For those wondering, there is no way I can stay in the same school district. One bedroom apartments here go for minimum $850. I need at least 3. All of these places I’ve looked at? Not one has been less than $900/month. Most range between $1100 and $1495.
I’m upping my rent range to see if that helps. I’m sure I can make some extra cash selling my body on West Broad Street, right? Yeah. Maybe not. The days of wine and roses are going to be replaced with the days of ramen noodles and bare dirt backyards.
And oh, the craigslist scams. Here’s a response to an inquiry I sent.
Hello ,
It is a great pleasure that you are interested in my house. Thanks for your
email,It’s my pleasure reading it.I am Mr. Bethany Turpin**, ,the Owner of the
house you are making enquiry of. Actually I have been living in the House for Seven years with my Wife,Kids and Family Members,due to the nature of my kind of work as a Bulilding Contractor, I was transfered with my Boss to West Africa Nigeria
for the Constructions of Bridges and roads,so presently i’m in Nigeria . But
my House is yet to be rented,formally i wanted to sell the house but i decided to rent it out because am only staying here for four years. my house is still vacant for now.And the fee is just $800 including the Utilities like Hydro,Washer, Security.I know you will like it.Please i want you to note that,i am a kind and honest Man and also i’ve spent alot on my property.So i will solicit for your absolute mentenance of
this house and want you to treat it as your own,is that taken?Money is not
the matter here,but I want you to keep it tidy all the time,so that i will
be glad to see it neat when i come around for a check up.I do that once in
a while.I also want you to let me have absolute trust in you.
I was then asked for:
RENT APPLICATION FORM
Also,Pls let me get this answer.
1).Your Full Name
2).Your Full Address & Phone Number
3).How old are you?
4).Are you married?
5)...How many people will be living in the house?
6).Do you have any Pet?
7).Do you have a Car?
8)if this apartmen is being given to you,
how long do you intend staying?
9)when do you intend moving in?
10)your picture and your wife picture?
Looking forward to hear from you with all this details so that i can
have it in my file incase of issuing the receipt for you and contacting
you.Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the
document and the key to you,please we are giving you all this base on trust and again i will want you to stick to your words,you know that,,so please do not let us down in this our property .
Hilarious stuff. The pictures of the house? The idiot didn’t just steal them and upload them to Craigslist. Nope. They are still linked to the original property in Bradenton, Florida. Good stuff.
Getting back out there again today - here’s to more cat piss and mold!
(P.S. Friendly suggestion to people wanting to rent their houses and investment properties: Dude. Clean them first.)
I love the cheesy phrase “Is that the light at the end of the tunnel, or just an oncoming train?” It sums up any kind of journey, or deviation from how your life was supposed to look.
So, I’m not sure what the light is right now. My heart tells me it’s the end of this particular tunnel, but I’m not dumb enough to assume that’s the only tunnel. The dark parts make the light so much brighter.
The house sold. We are now waiting on bank approval for the short sale. Our first mortgage company will probably grant it; the second, well, who knows. They aren’t going to get paid at all. President Obama recently announced a new program that is supposed to help people in our exact situation, where the 2nd mortgage company holds up the short sale. Not sure it’s going to be really underway in time to help us, but hopefully it will help others. Today contractors are being deployed to look at a “huge crack” in the garage floor. It was there when we bought it, but our home inspector never said a word about it. I just assumed all garage floors cracked over time. Stupid me.
I know the people buying our house. Their daughter is a good friend of Lily’s. I haven’t gotten around to telling her that in all probability, her friend who has spent the night here before, may be living in “her” bedroom. I had a mini-pity party yesterday as I looked at the first rental house on the list. It was quite undesirable. Arden’s first words as we pull up to the house: “This house is HIDEOUS, Mama!” Lily’s words, a few minutes later, “What is that SMELL?” followed quickly by a whispered, “Mommy, I don’t want to live here. This house is scary!” Scarring my children by looking at random weird houses is really not fun.
It was a cross between the homestead on Little House on the Prairie and a crack house. $1200/month I might add. Pass. Next. Looking at 3 more today and one tomorrow.
The Property and Settlement Agreement (a nice way to say, All The Crap We Agree To Before We Can Get Divorced) is signed. Neither of us got everything we wanted. Actually, Mike wanted none of this entire thing, so he really got the short end of the stick. I am still trying to figure out how I’m going to live on my monthly allotment. When I heard the papers had been signed, I was on my way to Yorktown to visit Anja and family. I cried in the car. I was careful not to get snot on the interior, however.
A few people have made it clear they have no sympathy for me. I don’t want sympathy so that works fine for me. What these people don’t get is that even though this was my “idea”, it’s still hard. It’s hard to get your marriage boiled down on 17 pieces of paper with neat paragraphs and lines dividing your assets and debts, dividing the two of you. If marriage is an unnatural state, as many have asserted, divorce is a genetically engineered goat with 5 heads.
I cried again last night while eating cheap Mexican food with Robey and Nicole. It’s easy to point to my hospitalization as the reason for my divorce. Writing me off as crazy is a quick way to say, “She’s stupid, and doesn’t know what she’s doing.” I personally believe that my visit to CrazyTown was the end result of not being crazy, and not the other way around. There were some factors that finally pushed me to separate from my husband, and those factors pushed my brain to separate from my body. If it makes it easier for others to write off my behavior as irrational and bipolar, I’m okay with that. It fits into a nice box and is easily dismissed.
That is not what happened, however.
The factors that led me to the place where I realized how it really was for me are hard for me to look at now. I don’t want to be reminded of anything that resembles the hospital, the music I was listening to at the time, the smell of the ambulance, or my lack of sleep. Something happened last week that reminded me of that time in my life, and it threw me for a huge loop. I couldn’t figure out why at first. Robey kept poking at me last night, asking questions, digging. She knew I hadn’t figured it out yet. Turns out I associate many of those things with the end of my marriage, and looking at them even months out is very, very painful. It was truly the worst time of my life. I was weak, I was needy, I was exhausted, and I wasn’t rational. It is an understatement to say that I wasn’t acting as I normally did. No one wants to look at that kind of stuff again, once you are past it. Being forced to look at it wrecked me for a couple of days. I didn’t even bring it up in therapy. I promise to next week.
There are many endings happening right now, followed closely by beginnings. I’m started to feel less like I’m living in a nightmare and more like I’m living in a resigned state. Resignation by its very nature is not a negative state. It means finished and accepting. I am resigning from my old life, and starting a new one. It may not be the prettiest year of my life in terms of finances or high end furnishings, and unless Robey can get me a big discount on designer jeans, it won’t be a year of dressing well either. It has been harder than I’d like to admit letting go of the house and the suburban perfectness that is Wyndham. I hate it, but seeing my kids looking at me with big eyes made me want to crawl under the Lexus SUVs in the carpool lane at school and end it all.
(reality: kids are resilient, and pretty bedrooms don’t equal happy children)
(reality: i am not going to shrivel and die without a sunken tub or a screened porch or grass to cut)
For now, one major obstacle is over. We wait to sell the house; I wait to sign a lease. After that, there is a wait for the divorce to be final - which will be at the end of August. And after that, I find out if it’s a train or a beautiful blue sky with lots of sunshine.
Today, my iGoogle page presented me with this quote:
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it’s just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
-David Sedaris
David Sedaris is an amazing writer, and one I adore, so I am immediately assuming it’s 100% true. It has been for me.
With that in mind, my family will read this post a certain way. If Mike’s family reads here (and I have no idea if they do or don’t), they will read it differently. My friends will read it and either truly agree or disagree, or they won’t be able to help the judgment in their heads. I get it. I’ve been there.
Saturday, some truly wonderful people are going to help me move a few pieces of furniture out of the house. Mike will be in Pennsylvania visiting a friend.
It’s a long story, but I know someone through the Twitterverse (ironically I have completely stopped tweeting, but that’s another story) who has been going through a separation. He has a young son. One afternoon we met up at a play area and let our kids go at it. While they beaned each other in the heads with balls and made the walls vibrate with their loudness (mine, not his), we talked briefly about what we were both going through. Other than a scheduled group ski trip at the end of this month, we haven’t seen each other since and I wouldn’t call us friends. We are acquaintances. However, he was familiar enough with my situation to know that I had tried to lease an apartment near our house, but cannot afford to actually move into it.
He called me a week or two ago and said he was going to be renting a room out in his house. I checked it out - it’s a room. Nothing fancy. But it’s cheap, and he eventually agreed, after meeting Mike, to let us switch off weeks. Mike will stay with the girls one week, I will stay with them the next. Whoever is not in the house will be in the rented room. I’ll still see the girls every day as I am on mom-duty every afternoon, and I can’t imagine going that long without at least a couple of evening visits. As for how Mike will handle it, I don’t know.
We had a very raw counseling session this week. I know that things are going to get worse before they get better, but I have been unwilling to deal with it. I am finally at the point, and I think he is too, where we know we need to face it and separate for real and see what happens. I assume we’ll continue going to marriage counseling, but it’s as fun as getting my bikini line epilated. I look forward to it about that much. I will say that I learn more in that single hour than I do in an entire week. At home, Mike will avoid telling me the full truth about things, but in counseling, they come flying out faster than I can absorb them. Individual therapy is always hard, but I see now why so many couples bail on marriage counseling after a few visits. A root canal (and Mike can vouch for this, having gone through it recently) is faster, cheaper, and a lot more fun.
We sat the girls down tonight. It went the same as it did back in the beginning, when we told them we were separating. I mentioned that during my on weeks, Daddy would still come see them a couple of times, maybe for dinner. True to Arden’s form, she said, “Um, can I pick where we go? Cuz I want to go to McDonald’s.” Lily asked if one of us is moving out permanently (meaning she thought one of us was going to disappear forever), and we reassured her that is not the case. Then she scampered off to make whistling sounds through a straw shaped like a pumpkin.
This is not to say that on Saturday when I begin dismantling our guest room bed, they aren’t going to freak out. They will want to know why, again, they will want to see the place, they will not get it until it actually starts. Having been through this in our earlier stages, I know that the questions are just beginning and we are totally not off the hook.
The guilt I feel is often overwhelming. I want a lobotomy, I want to forget, I want to reverse time. I want to change who I am, what I want, how I think. None of those things seem to be available for purchase, so I am firmly stuck in the present that I have created by speaking the words that have been growing in my brain for a very long time. No one says it directly, but many people want to wish it away. Hell, I do too. This isn’t fun for anyone.
So people will read this in the way they want to. Some will blame it on the big bad wolf, bipolar. Some will say I’m flat out crazy. Others will think that I have everything they want and can’t I just be satisfied, dammit? Others will understand, having walked in my shoes. Some will tell me they are proud that we’ve spent so much time working, and congratulate us for taking the separation step for real so we can get some answers. Some are disappointed with Mike, many are disappointed with me. I’ve never intended to tell both sides of the story. I haven’t even written mine, because it’s not important.
No matter what happens, I will always be able to say I worked hard, I tried everything, and whatever decision we come to, I will eventually be okay with it.
Arden: Mommy, how did you know I was in your tummy after Lily?
Me: Well, I started to get a big belly!
Arden: Ummm. Okay. So how did the baby get there? Like, ummm, how did you make it? Can you just make one by yourself?
Lily: Someone at school told me that your daddy carries half of it, and the mommy carries the other half.
Me: *chokes/snorts* Trust me, girls, daddies do NOT carry babies. Only mommies.
Arden: So can you make one by yourself?
Me: No, you need the daddy to help.
Arden: So what do you need to make love?
Me: *freaking* - my child just said ‘make love’!!! !!!!
Arden: I mean, what are the ‘gredients in love? How do you make it?
Me: *ooooohhhh/laughing* Well, there are no ingredients. You know how you feel about Thora, or me, or Daddy, or Lily? That’s love. It’s natural. You don’t have to mix it, there are no ingredients - you don’t even have to bake it.
Arden: Okay, well, then I want to make some when we get home. Without ‘gredients. Can we do that today?
Lily: I knew that boy was lying about daddies carrying half the baby. That just makes no sense.
Hey, internets. I’ve missed you. Being without any kind of connection to this part of my life was difficult, to say the least. I did a ton of writing while I was on “vacation” but I had to do it by hand. Man, has my handwriting deteriorated. I could barely read it and my hand kept cramping up whenever I wrote for too long. I would have sold my soul for a computer while I was gone.
When I finally reconnected today, I had 283 messages, a ton of voice mails, and 12 orders to process. Thankfully I was able to do a lot of yoga breathing and only freaked out when I realized Mike had tried to “fix” the wireless and actually ended up connecting it incorrectly. It took about an hour and a phone call to Verizon, but I’m online again and halfway caught up.
This post is not going to be pretty. I’ve spent a lot of time deciding whether I was going to write about where I’ve been since Wednesday, and in the end, I’m doing what I always do. I’m accepting who I am and where I’ve been and if you want to ride this train with me, there will be ups and downs. I went through, and am currently going through, the lowest point of my life, hands-down. The blogs I read are other writers who can be honest and raw and brutal with their lives. It appeals to me, and has helped me immensely when I’ve gone through my own trials and tribulations as a wife, a woman, a mother, a daughter, a business owner, a friend, and a writer. I wear a lot of hats - and this hat I’m wearing right now is not something to be ashamed off. So much stigma surrounds mental health and depression. Here, within the confines of the borders on my blog, I’m creating a bubble where it is perfectly safe to discuss what I’ve been through. If a future employer or random person from my past stumbles on this post and thinks, “Holy batshit this girl is crazy!” then so be it.
Wednesday was, um, a pretty bad day for me. Some of my friends who know where I’ve been have asked what happened. To the best of my ability to explain how this happened, these are the factors that lead up to Wednesday:
1. I hadn’t been sleeping well in about 4 weeks (averaging 3-5 hours a night)
2. I had separated from my husband and was going back and forth between two houses, all the while trying to keep up with the normal household duties I have.
3. I had a lot of stress and despair over a couple of relationships in my life and I was hurting pretty badly.
4. I was trying to pretend to EVERYONE, even my closest friends, that all was a-okay and I was fine and strong and clear. With the exception of one person (hi Susan!), I didn’t let anyone know how hellishly bad I was feeling.
5. Wearing a mask 24/7 takes a lot out of person.
6. I was expending energy on things that weren’t giving any energy back to me. Think black hole.
7. I wasn’t eating very much.
8. I was trying to figure out my financial future, and it looked very grim.
So back to Wednesday. I had a realtor come to the house and give me a comparative market analysis on our house. She looked grim when I came to the door, so I knew it wasn’t going to be good. Because she is a friend of mine, she told me she cut commissions to the core (1.5%) and still had no good news. We bought our house at the peak of the market and proceeded to renovate and redo a bunch of stuff. We still had an equity line from our old house that we rolled over. The short version of the long story is that we are upside down on our mortgage. The house is worth $100K less today than it was when we bought it. Yay us!
Some other factors on Wednesday that will remain private happened right after the enlightening discussion with the realtor. I literally felt like that last vestige of hope I had was stripped away. I was thinking that if Mike and I stayed separated, we could sell the house and both of us would end up with a small nest egg and we could start over. Even if we stayed together, I wanted to get rid of this house - it’s come to represent a lot of things that I feel are wrong and fake about my life. I’m not stupid enough to think that it’s the house’s fault - it’s just brick and mortar and light fixtures - but it’s symbolic.
I held it together while I picked up Lily from the bus. I smiled and waved and did my Robo-Mom impression. I made snacks and got juice out of the fridge. I changed a load of laundry and folded some. I even ironed. Then I just felt everything fall apart. I literally stood up from the ironing board and felt as though my insides were falling out. I sent the girls downstairs and put on the electronic babysitter (tv). I started crying. I called Mike at work. I told him to come home, that I couldn’t take care of the kids. I went upstairs and I got in bed. I had my second panic attack in two weeks. My heart was pounding, my face was tingling, and I couldn’t breathe. By the time Mike got home, I had totally lost it. I couldn’t form a sentence and I was trying to call my therapist and talk to him at the same time. Somewhere in those two conversations, the therapist suggested going to St. Mary’s since they have a mental health unit. We dropped the kids with a neighbor, called my parents to come up, and left for the hospital.
Thankfully I have a few good friends in Richmond. I was able to text them on the way to the hospital and all of them immediately went into action mode, sending emails, canceling things, helping me with my website, telling me not to worry, sending love, just virtually holding my hand.
I find myself unable to really talk about St. Mary’s and the time I spent there. It truly was the darkest time of my life. When one of the docs asked me if I was suicidal, I think I responded something to the effect of ‘No, but I don’t want to be here in this body anymore. I can’t take one more piece of bad news. I thought I was strong but I think I’ve broken and I don’t know how to survive this.”
During a blood draw, I passed out and had some sort of seizure and kicked over a table and bumped my head. When I came to, I was only conscious for another minute before I passed out again. When I woke up the second time, I was in a bed and I was literally sweating ice. I was shivering and nauseous and panicking because I had no idea where I was. There were no beds available for me at St. Mary’s, so I was transferred elsewhere. By the time I got through intake and was screened and searched by a nurse, it was 4 am.
Thursday was a haze. I looked like a b-grade zombie actor trying to function. I kept thinking I was going to wake up from my nightmare. When I realized I wasn’t allowed to have hairspray in my room (I might hurt myself with the aerosol nozzle), I knew where I was and the reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I was ashamed, embarrassed, scared as hell, needy, isolated - you name it. Unfortunately the first person I came into contact with was not very affectionately nicknamed “Bible Lady” on the ward - she got messages from God in her ears and by laying on floors and predicted things like the Lions winning the Superbowl this year based on God’s word. She also said I was going to end up married to another guy on the ward and that another guy was going to become a professional boxer and be trained by George Foreman. My first experience was waiting in line for vital signs while she sang “Amazing Grace” at full volume. This was at 6 AM, and I had no caffeine in my system. I thought that if I wasn’t crazy before, any more time around her would make it so.
Then I met a couple of other people who made a huge difference in my stay. I attended every group session, every group meeting, every activity, and I wrote like my hand was on fire. I wrote letters to my daughters. I wrote one to Mike. I wrote one to a close friend of mine. I wrote to myself. I forced myself to talk to people. My medication, which had been at a literal pediatric dose, was doubled. I learned ways to manage my panic and anxiety attacks. And while I was there, I realized I was about to lose another friend in this whole process. I could feel it coming, and I used some of my time there to deal with the sadness I felt. Some people in my life can hang with me right now and just comfort me by being there. Others can’t, and I respect the honesty it takes to admit that I am too much for them to handle. At least I have no illusions about where I stand, and clarity is half the battle.
I got a chance to sleep a little bit. When I met Chris and Amanda, both suffering from severe depression and some other stuff, I had my unit buddies. We ate together. I learned how to play Spades. I had long conversations with Chris about what it’s like to raise kids alone (he’s only 29, and his wife died 4 years ago). Amanda and I talked about our children and we shared the stories of how we ended up together. We were an unlikely bunch from various backgrounds, but Chris said, “Hey, just because we’re in here doesn’t mean we’re crazy.” That single statement sustained me. I was there to get better for my children. I was there to learn how to cope better. I was going to have to make some painful cuts in my life, and I needed to build up as much strength as possible in order to do so.
People who give up and off themselves are the biggest cowards alive. It’s such a cop out and it leaves the rest of the world to pick up your mess and your pieces. I knew that I was hitting the wall, and I knew that I had to take drastic steps to get better.
I will be honest and say that coming home today has been hard. Dealing with the pile of work on my desk, a friend breaking plans with me, seeing how Mike looks, being hugged by my children and feeling the guilt of being gone wash over me - it was all a bit much. I used some of the tools I learned in the hospital but I’m taking it minute by minute. As usual, a bunch of people stepped up today and are there for me. I’m having coffee with TCG, Bradley said I inspired him to do something major, and Dan has been listening to my litany for weeks now. I made a difference to Chris and Amanda in the hospital, especially when Amanda got some bad news. I made people laugh, which makes me feel better. I realized what a great mom I was and how much better I could be if I only would focus. I told myself the rest would work out, and it surely will. It’s just never the way you think it’s supposed to.
So that’s where I’ve been. Can’t wait to take a shower and shave. I look like Chewbacca, but the idea of shaving in front of a nurse held no appeal for me. I’m mostly glad to be back. You can only hide out in the ward for so long before you try out the new legs you’ve grown while inside, and take the first few steps.
