One of my besties has a great post up on his blog today called “The Countdown”.  It inspired me to steal his idea and write my own version. 

In case you are too lazy to read Stanley’s post, here’s the synopsis: 

It’s only November and the countdowns have already started: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanza, New Year’s Eve, and the list goes on. Yet, these countdowns refer (more often than not) to how much time remains for you to accomplish your to-do list, instead of when you’ll celebrate the holiday; thus it begs the question, what do you need to accomplish before 2010 is over?

It’s probably no surprise that 2010 was a year of highs and very low lows.  My marriage imploded, the house was put on the market and finally sold amidst tons of drama and last minute financial wrangling, I moved into a very old rental house that was 2/3 smaller than the original house, my kids started a new school, i had some health issues and my kids have both been struggling in their own unique ways.  On the upside, I’m mentally stronger and healthier than I’ve ever been, mostly I’m doing fine, my businesses have survived yet another year in a crappy economy, I have some amazing friends and family, and my health issues are under control. 

This all begs the question: what do I need to finish up before 2011 begins?

First, I want to finish the half marathon.  Not only do I want to finish it, I want to enjoy it.  Before the end of the year, I will have completed:
- my first training program
- my first 10K
- my second training program for the summer
- my third training program for the half marathon
- the Run Like A Girl 8k in Richmond
- the half marathon on November 13
- the 10k Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning
- The Christmas Tree 10K on December 11
- The Resolution 4 Miler Run on New Year’s Eve

I write this all down because I really want to commit to doing them all.  For a girl who had never run, I’m excited and motivated to stay in the shape I’m in and improve. 

Secondly,  I really, really want to improve the quality of my children’s lives. I have no idea how I’m going to do this but they have been through so much change this year.  Before the end of the year I’d like to have a better visitation schedule hammered out between me and Mike.  I’d like to ensure that it injects the minimum amount of chaos into their lives and I’d like to see both them acting more like their happy, carefree selves.  Seeing Lily a bit withdrawn and Arden doubly full of piss and vinegar is not only making their lives more difficult, it’s preventing them from accepting and moving on from all the change in 2010. 

Third, I’d like to have better communication with Mike.  This is mostly up to him.  I’d like to work on talking (not texting or emailing) more regularly so that we are communicating about the girls and what we notice or what is happening - not just the bad stuff or when one of them is sick or needs help with a school project.  I think that the disconnect between us is making things harder on the girls.  We don’t have a lot of continuity or agreement on how we discipline/reward the kids because neither of us knows what the other is doing.  Additionally I’ve been reluctant to share my struggles with him because I don’t want him thinking I suck as a mother more than he may already.  I have to get over this.  I’m hoping he can get over the very difficult task (no sarcasm here, I know how hard it is for him) of being in the same room with me or talking for more than 30 seconds to me.  Seeing him recoil from me or look like he’d rather be having a Brazilian wax is very painful - for both of us - and probably not very productive for the kids.

Fourth, I wrote a novel last November.  It’s disjointed but you know what?  It’s pretty decent.  I’d really like to finish rereading it - and maybe get another 1/3 of the way through editing it.  Instead of wasting my limited free time on Facebook, I could be working on that instead. 

Fifth, I want to make a firm decision on a couple of business questions. I am seriously considering closing one of my websites.  I’ve got some financial/analysis-minded friends looking at it and I will make up my mind before December 31 unless they tell me not to.

Sixth, I want to lose another 10 pounds before December 31.  My weight loss stalled during the training program - I’ve been reassured that this is normal, but I don’t like it.  I will say that my rear end is extremely muscular now and my body shape has definitely changed for the better, but I’d still really enjoy seeing the scale move in a downward direction. 

So what about you?  What’s on your list?  What are you proud of - and what do you want to change or improve? 

This house is less than half the size as my old house, and although I tried - really tried - to be organized, the piles are growing.  I clean up one morning and by evening I’m already staring slack-jawed at a new pile of stuff.  This evening, I crawled into bed - where I currently am hiding - to find a half-eaten cheese stick, an apple core, and something dark and sticky and as yet unidentified (I think it might have been a raisin - once). 

The food comes from the girls - I had an afternoon where I had to trust them to entertain themselves, and to be fair, if they’d have asked me, “Mommy, can I chew up and spit out a bunch of apples and cheese sticks on your bed?” I most likely would have answered, “Why, sure, dumplins’ . . . have a good time.”

Whenever I am overwhelmed, I chant my writer’s creed.  These bad days or bad experiences will be SUCH good fodder for my book - the one I’ve been writing in my head since I was 8.  This book, in reality, will never exist, but I’m always using my trainwreck of a life to add another chapter.  This book already makes War and Peace look like a short story. 

I realized tonight that the level of chaos in my new home directly relates to the level of chaos in my brain.  The house is either frighteningly clean - and even breathing on the table wrong makes me cranky - or like it is tonight.  There are dirty clothes on my hope chest (which, ironically, is empty - literary illusions much?), running shoes and gear thrown around, apples rolling around on the kitchen table, yet to be sorted into piles to give away.  The dog needs a bath.  I managed the laundry yesterday, and managed to fold it today, but it’s in piles running almost the entire length of the family room.  I had a to-do list today; one thing was done.  I spent at least 2 hours trying to motivate myself to get out of my pajamas and do something productive but frankly, I failed. 

Theresa rescued me from having to cook dinner and took care of my children’s nutritional needs as well as mine.  The kids tormented each other with a fake spider while I tried to hold it together.  It’s been a year now - shouldn’t things be dramatically better?  They are, I know this - but the bad days are just still so very achingly bad that I forget all the progress I’ve made.  Everything is more effort than I have.  When provoked to answer a question I don’t want to, I’m not a nice person.  And let’s just be honest.  Sometimes I give way beyond the point of what’s good for me, and I usually don’t realize it until I’m already bleeding out. 

We came home from Theresa’s house.  I looked down at the Sweaty Bands Theresa had sold me, knowing full well they would never make me look as cute running as I hoped.  I took them straight into my room and placed them on my bed.  I fed the dog, got the girls into weather-appropriate pajamas, sucked it up and turned on the heat, knowing the bill would cost a lot, washed my face, and took my medication.  I kissed them goodnight, held them and loved on them.  The few times they were home when I cried, I hid in the laundry room pretending to organize the pantry.  I think they are still like animals, and can sense when something is off.  My poor kids have sensed something’s been off for a long time now.  I thought about my running, and for the first time since I started, I didn’t want to.  Even if I could have left the kids alone, I wouldn’t have. I was too tired.  Sweaty Bands or not, I’ll be out there tomorrow acting “as if” and faking my way through a run and hoping that the next goal - the next race - will make me finally realize I can do “it” - whatever that “it” is

I’m angry.  Every time I think I’m strong and out of the woods, some scorned ice skater comes out with a baton and whacks the hell out of my legs or knocks the wind out of me with an expert backhand.  To be fair, I get up much quicker these days.  There’s a chance by the time the toothbrush hits my gums in the morning I will be human again.  But I can’t explain how scared I feel when I have days like today and it seems like I’m still perilously close to the edge I experienced last year.  It’s not fair.  I deserve better for myself. 

I’m wondering if I can keep the piles in my house contained, the piles in my brain will go away too.  Maybe the key to all of this has simply been that ability to use shelving and compartments and doors to keep the ugliness away.  Or perhaps I can skip the work and just hire a cleaning lady, and she can do it all for me while I hide in my bedroom on sheets that smell of string cheese and apples. 

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.