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It’s Valentine’s Day.
And you know what? I feel great.
Happy, satisfied and not at all incomplete.
I went to Whole Foods and so many people were bustling around buying flowers and sweets and special meals for their romantic evenings … And there I was with my stress-busting supplements, my dairy-free milk alternatives and a couple tofu spring rolls for my dinner. I didn’t envy them, or feel any pangs of loss or think “next Valentine’s Day …” I drank my coffee, sampled everything I could and slathered my dry hands up with moisturizer testers.
It was nice. And relaxing, despite the overly crowded store and the risk of getting run over by shopping carts every time I left an aisle. Because I wasn’t in a hurry. I was going home to watch HGTV and get caught up on my magazines and then take a bath. In the car I got to listen to my iPod and belt out songs I love, then come home and play couch potato before taking a bath and belting out more songs I love.
(I’m totally into singing in the car and in the bath. So much so that I never take baths when people are around because it cramps my singing style. And why I especially don’t take baths when the girls are home, because I cannot play their white noise loud enough to cover Frank Sinatra *and* me at like 90 decibels.)
I’m totally taking a break from any thoughts of dating. My eHarmony subscription renewed itself and now I’m stuck with it until my birthday, so I’ll see if any matches come through that really light up my switchboard, but so far there really haven’t been many guys that interested me. I think, technically, I’m ready to move on. But I don’t think I care enough to do it. I don’t mind being alone, in fact, I kind of like it. The responsibility and the stress of it sucks sometimes, and life would be easier with someone else in it, but that’s not a reason to date. So until I feel inspired enough to say “I really want to share my life with someone”, I’m taking my hat out of the ring.
Besides. I’m still holding out for Henry Rollins.
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Apparently, I didn’t even bother with a New Years’ post last year. I wanted to look back and see what hopes/plans I had, but between being a new mom and my marriage failing, I hoped only to survive one day at a time and not make plans.
It’s funny, but, minus the dark cloud of a year ago, my hopes and plans at this juncture are very similar.
My life is now more of the present than of the distant future. I look a few months ahead at a time, but The Future is such a vague, unformed concept. I presume that I will eventually meet someone to share it with, and know that I’ll return to work and I’ll live that 9-5, kids-in-daycare life that I never wanted or planned to live. The girls will grow up, learn and develop; they’ll go to school and eventually go to college. But fine details of their lives, hell, even large details of mine, I don’t think about or focus on anymore.
It’s liberating and frightening at once, this Life Without a Plan. When you’re in a relationship, you plan plans. When you’re single, you don’t. There’s too much unknown to plan with any certainty, so you just don’t bother. Not in a nihilist “nothing matters” kind of way, but in a pragmatic “practical thinking” kind of way. With so much of my future still open to chance and fate, it’s hard to make a resolution or identify a goal or dream. I’m changing by degrees every day, and the big things coming my way will amplify, negate or otherwise affect those incremental changes – what goals I set today may be impossible to achieve a week from today.
So I’ll just do my own thing, expect the best and enjoy yet another clean slate.
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Bean’s doing well with her casts. At least physically. It seems to be taking a toll on her emotionally, though. I was just remarking a couple days ago about how much better things had gotten, behavior-wise. Today I was remarking how there is simply not enough bourbon in Kentucky to get me through a day. Her behavior has been just awful over the last 30 or so hours. Awful. Between approaching three and a half (which is supposed to be a period of ‘disequilibrium’, according to what I’ve read) and having these big-ass bulky and awkward casts on her ankles, she’s just downright pissy at times.
But, the good news is they don’t seem to be causing her any *direct* pain. Indirectly is a whole ‘nother story, as her clumsiness in them has resulted in a ton of falls/stumbles that have hurt her. She’s still complaining about the arm she biffed yesterday, although that was *pre* casts, when she was toe-walking in to PT and tripped on a curb and fell on her forearm. {sigh}
Here’s my girl the day of her casts. Princess dress and all …
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I hope everyone enjoyed (or is still enjoying) whatever other wintertime holidays they celebrate. Me, I’m a Festivus kind of girl at heart, but I tend to air my grievances year round. And it wouldn’t be fair to challenge the girls to feats of strength …
The girls received some great gifts, but Bean’s favorite is fast becoming her Poingo. Miss O loves anything that helps her walk, so the hippo I bought and the walk and ride toy my folks got her are her favorites.
We were supposed to do a gift exchange and breakfast with a friend and her family this morning, but both my girls ran fevers overnight, and Bean has been complaining of a sore throat. Rather than share the gift of cooties with them, I begged off with apologies. I’ll probably still take the girls out today, but we’ll go to the mall or something, where their cooties will be like a deck chair on the Queen Mary.
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Le sigh … I started this the morning of the 26th and then got caught up with the girls. It’s now 7 a.m. on the 27th. I wish I could say that I was just waking up, but my morning began sometime after 3. No, not a typo. 3:00. That’s when Bean woke up and wanted water, then tossed and turned and said she wasn’t sleepy until Miss O woke up around 4:00. Then Bean ramped it up with tears and shouted “no!”s when I told her to lay down and go to sleep. By 5:30, I had O back to sleep and Bean was telling me she wanted to go read books in the other room.
At that point, my Senseo was calling much louder than my pillow, which had fallen into an exhausted murmur of “come back here …” every few minutes, reminiscent of the way my mom used to protest “I’m awake” when she’d nod off holding the TV clicker and one of us would try to get it from her.
(And now it’s the 28th. And this 7:00 post time is legit – Miss O let me sleep until 6:45. Woot!)
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Speaking of mom, she remarked the other day that I’d made it through two big events in short order – my former anniversary and Christmas.
And you know what? Neither hurt. I don’t hold any anger/bitterness/resentment/hurt from the divorce itself. The anger and frustration I feel is based on present-day events and the feeling that Dave and Shannon don’t always put the kids first. But any residual feelings I may have had have faded. Even under the anger I feel when we’re hashing out what’s best for Bean and Miss O, I can still feel some desire for friendship beyond mere amicability.
There are things I like about both Dave and Shannon, and when I focus beyond the arrrggghhh feeling of debating things like if they sleeping together with Bean in the room and if physical discipline is the way to go (I’m sure y’all know I fall on the ‘hell to the no’ side of the debate), I have these “we could all be friends and do birthdays together, break bread together sometimes …” kind of feeling.
It’ll probably never happen, because to them, any concession to me (on what I want for the girls) or any show of friendship crosses “boundaries”. I refer to this as ‘hooey’, because boundaries are different from me having very valid concerns about the impact their choices have on the girls’ well-being. It’s mind-blowing to me that rather than discuss things in terms of how they impact Bean, every discussion I try to have with them (I say them because it goes through this joint email thing they say I have to use, but it’s usually Dave I’m ‘talking’ to. I think.) centers on how things affect their relationship and about boundaries.
I just feel that there are boundaries and there are ‘boundaries’. Boundaries are me trying to insinuate myself into the day-to-day happenings of their life. That’s not my business, and if I tried to make it my business, I’d be way overstepping. ‘Boundaries’ are me asking them not to shack up with Bean in the room. Yes, it’s something in their home. But it’s something that could have a negative impact on Bean long-term, and that *is* my business.
Like I said, arrrggghhh.
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I have another lunch date today and he’s picking me up at 1:00 to take me out. How very traditional. I’m still kind of freaky about the whole ‘dating’ part of the equation. I love talking with him and we get along great, but I get a kind of weird feeling when I think of it as more than just friends …
I’m going to post this now before I get distracted again.
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Life, by the numbers.
A while back, it occurred to me that the last three homes I’ve owned have similar numbers:
12504
504
1204
It just struck me as kinda doo-doo-doo-doo-ey that the numbers had such … continuity? To kick the Twilight Zone factor up a notch, the house I lived in as a kid in Wisconsin was number 54, and the house we lived in for forever in Florida was 5426.
Huh.
My b-day is 4-21 … which is almost 1204 backwards.
I don’t know what, if anything, it all means. It’s just kinda weird that there’s such continuity in the numbers of my most significant homes. And my birthday.
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A couple Beanisms from yesterday evening:
Mommy: Do you want to give the cats a treat?
Bean: All. Day. Long!
(This was said with a huge smile and such enthusiasm that it just cracked me up)
Mommy: That’s pretty cool, huh?
Bean: Yes it is, sister.
She said some great stuff today, too, but I don’t think I got any of it down on paper 
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So, I signed up with eHarmony yesterday, just for shiggles. And I have 14 matches. One of which already started a guided communication with me. I’m looking at it as more of a casual distraction right now, but who knows. I’m not in the market for a serious relationship at the moment, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have lunch with a guy now and then … I’ve got about 8 hours every other Sat and Sun that I’m kid-free, so why always spend them alone or shopping?
The more BS that goes down in my post-divorce life, the more I realize how little the divorce actually had to do with me. While I still have processing and recovery to do, I don’t have any huge flaws or detractors that need fixing. I didn’t do anything that would cause a marriage to collapse, I just didn’t realize that I married a guy who didn’t love me the way you need to love the one you marry. I’m not saying that it was okay that he did that, just saying that it wasn’t really my fault.
So maybe I don’t need to wait a long time to start dating. Hell, I’ll never know if I don’t try right?
Lyrics from Jimmy Buffett’s “He Went to Paris“
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Le sigh.
It’s tough being in charge sometimes.
I had planned to set up Miss O’s crib this afternoon, but I was out for awhile and then got caught up watching “Legally Blonde” on Oxygen. Can you believe I’d never seen that movie? So then I thought – I’ll do it when she gets home from Dave’s.
No dice. She had a sum total of about 30 minutes sleep in the 8 hours she was gone (in his defense, he tried to nap her in his bed to support my ‘she needs to sleep in a bed’ campaign), so when I took her to my room to get her ready for bed, she melted down and that was all she wrote.
Silly me thought it might be a smooth evening since she was so damn tired, but another two-hour sleep struggle has reaffirmed my belief that I need to get her sleep patterns changed. Thankfully I didn’t just spend money I don’t have on a more comfy long-haul carrier … {insert eye-roll emoticon here} At least I’ve hit my post minimum for The Baby Wearers’ for sale or trade board. I need to sell my woven wraps, too, so hopefully I can unload a few carriers pretty quickly.
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Did you see the headlines over at nfl.com? My boy threw a career-high six TD’s today – not bad for an old man, huh? Some sick yardage on those balls, too. Almost makes up for the Gators’ sad performance yesterday and the Packers’ loss today … almost. The ‘Skins beating the ‘Boys helped a little with the football morale boost, and if Chicago can stay on top of Philly, I’ll call the weekend a wash.
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I was talking with a friend today about divorce, and I realized how healthy I am at a relatively early stage in the game. There may be setbacks ahead, but right now I’m thankful to be in a good place. I’m also glad that so much of what I thought and felt has been captured in my blog. I just wish I had been blogging, or at least journaling, in the few months between implosion and my agreeing to a divorce. They were such emotionally turbulent months, but it was something I didn’t want to talk about in case things didn’t go all the way south, you know? It was bad enough knowing I’d have all the emotional/psychic wounds to heal and carry around if we managed to not get divorced – I didn’t want to have my friends and family have any baggage or say a bunch of stuff they’d later regret.
I’m proud to say I’m not bitter … it would be easy to be, and no-one would fault me, but I refused that emotion a long time ago. I hate bitterness. It always seems damaging: it doesn’t help a person heal or move forward, it holds them back. Anger can be useful, at times, and feeling hurt has it’s place, but bitterness is just useless. I definitely wallowed in hurt feelings and lashed out in anger a few times – hell, sometimes I enjoyed doing it. It was righteous and it got some of the venom out.
What also helped me work some things out was writing an email to Dave that I never sent. When I started it, and as I built it, I fully intended to send it; it was my chance to say my piece – to really tell him how his choices had impacted me and how they made me feel. I was doing a no-holds-barred “you did this to me” email – he was going to be sorry for what he did, dammit. I worked on it for several weeks, adding hurts and spewing vitriol. It was an awesome piece of judgment.
After I had put most everything I wanted to say down, I sat on it, waiting for the right time to send it. I wanted it to carry the most impact possible, for him to receive it when he was most vulnerable to my words and would feel the worst about what he had made me feel.
And then something happened.
I stopped needing him to know any of it. I stopped needing to even say any of it. I was almost uncomfortable with everything that was in there – uncomfortable that I had felt so much pain and anger, and that I needed him to know what I felt. There came a time when I realized that even if I sent it at just the perfect time and it had the desired impact, even if he came to be sobbing and begging for forgiveness (not for another chance, just for my forgiveness) it wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t change what had happened, it wouldn’t erase all the pain and anger that I had felt and it wouldn’t change the future. It just. wouldn’t. matter.
I deleted the email. It had served it’s purpose and in writing it – and in deleting it – I had exorcised the demons it represented. Writing it gave life and legitimacy to the emotions, and deleting it gave them a good death and a respectful burial.
Lyrics from “Paying the Cost to Be the Boss” by the incomparable B.B. King.
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Ya know, I appreciate that Dave hasn’t exactly been a paragon of virtue and trustworthiness, and I get the strong emotions.
I’m not chastising anyone for their opinions, at least not in a mean or harsh way. I put it out there, I take the comments, good or bad. (I may 86 the anonymous comment feature, tho.)
But I don’t see any reason to expect Dave and Shannon to deliberately undermine me as a mom. Nor do I expect them to force terminology and feelings on the girls. I’m not saying, with absolute certainty, that it can’t/won’t happen, but I *am* saying I do no expect it to happen. I expect things to go as well as they can. Why should I expect things to be bad when it’s just as easy (and way more healthy) to expect them to be good?
Shannon is someone’s mom. Dave is the girls’ dad. I can’t imagine that either of them would deliberately want to cause the kind of pain that trying to push me out as a mom would cause me AND the girls – they both value and treasure their own roles as parents and, hopefully, can imagine their own feelings were they in my place. I know when I’ve talked to Dave about this, he knows that introducing Bean to Shannon was really hard from the ‘new mom’ perspective, and he has no plans to cast Shannon as anything other than daddy’s friend Shannon. Bean (and eventually Miss O) will be allowed to create their own labels/roles for what Shannon is to them.
Yes this is hard for me, and yes it hurts. But I do not want to be in The Bad Place about all this – I have to trust and believe that neither Dave nor Shannon would deliberately try to replace me or undermine me. And even if I didn’t trust and believe that, what could I possibly do about it? A big, fat nothing. So why go there?
But Dave does have a right to insert Shannon into the girls’ lives. Just as I have a right, as soon as I meet a guy who wants my washed-up old self, to insert someone into their lives. How we handle introducing and involving the new people is what is paramount. And rather than focus on a bunch of negative scenarios, I’m choosing to trust that neither of them have any interest in harming my relationship with the girls.
Lyrics from “Que Sera, Sera“, sung by Doris Day
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Beanism du jour: “Your pancakes are not my best. I like Village Inn better.”
I’m going to console myself with assuming she means the microwave pancakes I made her yesterday, and not the scratch-made pancakes I make on weekends. Because I just know she doesn’t mean those.
The little turdburger.
But – speaking of turds … we now have two days in a row of poopie on the potty. I’m so excited for her!! I think the key was giving her the option of being able to wear a Pull-Up when she wanted to poop. The kid really likes control … I have no idea where she gets that from.
She’s still a bit of a PITA about actually going to the potty. She doesn’t tell me herself, and her immediate reaction when I ask her to go is “no”. So I just have to take her – but it’s a fine balance between removing her control and making sure she’s trying often enough.
I’m trying to decide if I have the wherewithal to take both girls to the Ice Cream Festival. If it was cooler and I could wear Miss O, I’d be a lot more inclined to go. But I was there last year and know that it’s not a super stroller-friendly environment, so struggling with a stroller while hoping Bean doesn’t run away (and she’s going to run away) is probably a bit more than I can handle in 100-degree-plus temperatures.
Oh joy – Bean crapped in her pinties. Le sigh. Potty learning while I have one who naps on my back is just not easy. I spend an hour unable to take Bean to the potty and this is my reward.
Well, since that’s such a non-joyous occasion, it makes a nice segue to the following.
So Bean met Shannon yesterday. She’s in town visiting Dave and rather than keep being at odds about this, I chose to just agree to a brief meeting at the park. She seems nice enough and Bean loved meeting her, as she talks to her all the time on the phone. It’s still something that I’m a little uneasy about, on several levels, but as long as it stays very low-key and Dave stays consistent with the ‘friend’ messaging, I’d rather just stop butting heads about this one.
Shannon’s style of interaction with Bean was a little more “in your face” than mine and Dave’s, kinda that hyper-involved thing that just isn’t my style. Don’t get me wrong – I’m very involved with my kids, but in more of a laid-back way than a super smiley ‘right there’ kind of way. And I felt like she was bit more forward with my child than I would have been in her shoes, but the good intent is there.
I don’t know if the being forward was just how she is, or if she was maybe trying to hard to make sure I thought she and Bean would get along or what … my approach would have been to be more of a “speak when spoken to” kind of interaction with Bean, rather than the way Shannon kind of usurped me, but like I said, the good intent is there and likely more important than the style of interaction. I do want to talk more with Dave about all this, but I wasn’t horrified and I think I handled it all as well as I could. It’s really not something any mother wants or likes to do, introducing their child to someone who will be sharing the “mom” role … I get the cosmic “more love” thing, I just can’t stop the ache in my heart about sharing the role. I’m fairly certain every parent’s gut clenches at the thought of a second ‘them’. I don’t have any problem with Bean spending weekends at Dave’s, but the thought of them all playing happy family with my children is not an easy pill to swallow. It’d be different, I think, if the girls were older …
But it is what it is, and while it hurts, I’m working hard on not letting it hurt more than it has to; that is, not torturing myself with ‘more’ than what is. Dave has said there’s no reason for Bean to know her as anything other than Shannon any time in the near future, so I’m hopeful that continues and that no-one will be forcing her to call Shannon anything else or to feel more for Shannon than she does on her own at any point in time. I don’t think she assigns any special significance to her yet, as she’s not said another word about her since the meeting. I’ll have to talk to Dave about not overselling Shannon, and letting Bean react/progress naturally about all this. I don’t know what his thinking is on it, but I hope we’re close to some agreement … the being in opposite corners thing all the time gets so old.
The things we do for our children … even when it rips our hearts out to do it.
Lyrics from Martina McBride’s “In my Daughter’s Eyes“
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Guess what Miss O did today? C’mon, guess!!
She took her first crawling “steps”. She was just pleased as punch with herself, and Bean and I were cheering her on. She only makes it one or two paces before she drops, but she’s able to repeat it, so I know she’s got it down.
Yay Miss O 
Bean insisted that we all (she, O and I) wear hats, and then announced that we were married. You know she’s her father’s daughter when in a fit of pique (at me, for allowing Miss O to hold the green plate in spite of Bean’s dictate that she only hold the orange plate) she rips her hat from her head and announces “I’m not married anymore!”
Come on- that’s funny, right?
She then ran from the room and threw her drama queen self on the sofa. A split second later she came running back, hauled off and smacked my back (I barely choked down a surprised laugh) and ran back to the sofa. She’s in time out as I type this, reflecting on the wrongness of hitting mommy. Mommy who is, incidentally, still chuckling to herself about the whole meltdown.
It was a day chock full of Beanisms again, but sadly, I always think I’ll remember them and then forget them. I posted about the above Beanism as soon as it happened, and jotted this next one down earlier.
She and I were playing kitchen, where she cooks something and serves it on plates. I got her a small rolling pin and some baking pans at Ikea yesterday, so she’s been rolling out dough for bread ever since. She’s been very bossy lately – wanting everything done the way she wants it done, and gets pissy if you don’t immediately comply. Since that’s about as fun as a root canal, I thwart her bossiness at every opportunity. So when I balanced a plate on my head and she demanded I stop, I kept balancing it and then making it fall before she could grab it away.
She sidled up next to me (I was expecting her to hit me but let it play out without pre-empting) and after I made the plate fall off she said: “Don’t worry, dear (then patted my arm a few times). I will help you. I’m right here.” And she put the plate back on my head, thinking she could help me get it up there properly so it wouldn’t fall off. Even little turdburgers have their moments
Actually, I’ve been thinking to myself that I kind of like three. The bossiness is a bit much, but I don’t find her that difficult to handle these days. I’m sure I can credit Zoloft with a little of that, but her “bad” behavior isn’t all that bad. I really only find myself badgering her when I’m trying to get her to do something *now*, and/or to stay focused on what it is she’s supposed to be doing. Like if I want her to clean up before we go out, it takes a lot of nagging, standing over her and like a hundred “1, 2, 3 …”s (which likely defeats the purpose of the 1,2, 3 thing anyways)
I’m kind of in a Zen place again about the damn divorce … don’t get me wrong, I have moments, but I’m better able to shut them down. Not in a suppressing kind of way, but in an “I’m not going down this rabbit hole” kind of way. I just don’t really have a whole lot to gain from the way my thoughts were going, and while the speed with which this all took place for me and the continued breaches of faith from Dave are hurtful and understandably anger-inducing, I just can’t extract anything of value from it.
I can grow personally from this, but I don’t need to drag myself (and Dave and Mariah by extension) thru the dirt to do it, ya know? I need to – I *have* to – choose to let a lot of this just go. Yes, he’s a douche for the way things went down; yes, it all sucks; no, I didn’t have any type of heads up before my world was knocked out of orbit; no, I didn’t deserve this. But my obsessing on any or all of those points isn’t going to change anything or make the wrongs, right. And, most importantly, it isn’t going to let me move forward. And that’s the path I choose.
Lyrics from “I Used to Love Him” by Lauryn Hill
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I feel like I’ve totally lost the high ground I once had … I’ve got no business calling names or being so damn snarky. Well, I guess I kind of do, but still … it really should be directed at Dave and not at Mariah. She *should* have stayed far, far away from him. She didn’t. That’s pretty much the extent of her culpability in this. She couldn’t have poached him if he wasn’t poachable; he wouldn’t have fallen in love with her if he was still emotionally involved with me.
Sometimes the pain and anger still get the best of me. And I don’t think, in the exchanges I’ve had with him, that he really gets just how bad what he did is. He took years, supposedly (years, I might add, during which he was still telling me he loved me, having sex with me, sending me sweet notes and emails, telling me he missed me when he was away, taking me out for nice dinners … in other words, years where his facade was that of a happily married man) to fall out of love, to stop wanting to be married to me, to disengage. That’s horrible. And he did that all, *and* met someone new *and* fell in love – all within the safety of a loving (from my side, at least) marriage.
And I’ve basically had, what, 8-9 months to come to terms with all of that? And with the fact that the man I loved and thought I’d be with forever didn’t love me and felt nothing but apathy toward me? I only agreed to divorce 7 months ago, and we separated at the end of April – which is when all of this really hit me. Yet he still seems surprised that I still have feelings about all of this, that I haven’t fully moved on, that I sometimes revisit the past … that, on rare occasions, I let the pain and the anger get the best of me and I lash out at him and her.
I know I need to let all of this go at some point. And really, I want that point to be soon. I don’t enjoy wallowing in pain and memories, but sometimes I can’t help it. I don’t enjoy being spiteful, but sometimes I’m so damn angry about all of this that I can’t be anything else.
But then there’s that bigger part of me. Not necessarily bigger in that it always overshadows the petty, vindictive part – but bigger as in bigger person. That bigger part of me still wants to be his friend; wants to put all of this behind me; wants to see Mariah as just another person who will love my girls … that bigger part of me really does spend a lot of time in the forefront of my psyche, it’s just no match whatsoever for my freakouts when they happen.
I’m scared, really really scared, that because he’s gone back on so much of what he said would happen already, he’s going to try to take the girls from me at some point. I can’t believe I actually put that in words, because it’s such a real and visceral fear that to see it in writing has me almost in tears. And I think that underlying fear makes everything else that much sharper when it happens: when he goes back on his word that Bean meeting Mariah will be a joint decision, it’s like he’s not only taking that ‘promise’, for lack of a better word, away, he’s threatening the ‘promise’ that he would never go after custody.
And the fear is much harder to let go of than “just” the pain and the anger. Every time I’ve relaxed and assumed we’re on level ground, he’s taken something else away – so now I can’t relax. I feel like I have to fight and kick and scream for the few shreds of what I have left. It feels like my complacency and my wanting this to be amicable and to not be contentious have allowed him to take so much of what he ‘promised’. It’s sadly ironic that I believed he’d honor all these post-divorce ‘promises’, when he couldn’t honer the biggest promise of all, but that just shows you what a trusting idiot I can still be.
So now I’m struggling to somehow put all that fear, and the residual pain and anger, into a small box that I can keep closed off at times. A box that I can open up and sift through at times, but one whose contents don’t dominate my life, my thoughts, my emotions. It’s so much easier said than done …
Lyrics from Jimmy Cliff’s “Struggling Man“
I usually put this kind of post in my book blog, but this was a really good book and one I’d recommend: The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls.
This is one of those books that makes me grateful for the life I’ve lead. While my current situation is not always the best, there are always worse roads to travel, and Jeannette Walls walked many miles on one of those roads. A brilliantly-written memoir of a life that could easily have condemned her to failure and misery, but one she, and her siblings, survived and triumphed over.
Not a whole lot of challenge-worthy creativity going on. I think I’m going to bake with Bean tomorrow … I just have to decide between real bread and chocolate chip cookies.
I did apply for a telecommuting job, and will probably apply for a couple more over the next few days. I really need to have some extra money coming in, since I underestimated some expenses, and may have to pay the difference between what Dave agreed to on insurance and what COBRA will cost, as private insurance is not easy to come by when you actually have a medical history. Le sigh. So I’ve been dipping into my savings and if I don’t find a way to stop that bleed and shore it up, I’ll be up the creek in a year.
I think, also, that having a “real job” will be invaluable to my somewhat diminished self esteem. It’s a good way for me to take a small risk, too, and ‘put myself out there’ in a less scary sense than dating. Not that I’m even remotely ready for that (unlike some people, who seem to need to set their new relationship at warp speed as if taking it slowly would leave too much time for reflection … Dave), but if/when I do start dating, I need to be a little less skittish about the ‘risk’ of being left again.
I’ve realized that knowing Dave never gave me or our marriage a chance is kind of cold comfort; yeah, it makes me all righteous and all, but it kind of underscores the frailty of all relationships. Not y’all, my happily married readers with good husbands/wives. But for loosahs like me who apparently can’t pick a winner The optimist in me wants to be able to say “yes – *that’s* what went wrong, and so in not doing that, I can divorce-proof my next relationship.”
But I can’t. No-one can. I’ll be just as exposed next time as I was this time.
There’s a line in Nora Ephron’s book, Heartburn, that resonated with me when I read it the other day: “… And then the dream breaks into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream.”
Today’s Beanism came when I asked her if she had fun at Grandma and Grandpa’s last week. She plays outside there, in a blow-up ‘pool’ (an old inflatable raft/boat thing), and loves to play with the hose, too.
Mommy: Did you water any plants?
Bean: Yeah. I did it all by myself!
Mommy: You did? Did grandpa help?
Bean: He tried to water me and I said ‘Grandpa! What the heck are you doing?! I’m not a plant, I’m a (insert her name here)!’”
Her tone was so indignant, too. So grandpa, don’t water the kid, ‘kay? She’s not a plant.
Lyrics from Dido’s Life for Rent
