Not a Coincidence Friday, May 23 2008

I don’t believe in coincidences, nor fate. I’m one of “those” that believes in the proverbial “everything happens for a reason.” Case in point. I’m absolutely MISERABLE about the thought of leaving my baby and returning to work. It is made worse by the fact that I wouldn’t have to if it weren’t for the 1) Stupid expensive housing area we live in and 2) His ex-wife. Between the debt and poor financial management she was responsible for plus the childcare payments, I have to work. Garrrr…she is pathetic. Anyway, that’s a tirade for another day.

Back to my divine intervention story. Yesterday, one of the lawyers I’m friends with at my work emailed me asking me if I had some stash from my licensed goods closet that he could snag. I’m not exactly sure why I thought to ask, but in my reply, I asked if he and his wife sent their daughters to a daycare or if she stayed at home. Even if she stayed at home, did either of them know someone who provided in-home daycare? He responded with a glowing recommendation of a retired couple at their church that did indeed run an in-home daycare for babies only. I logged that and resolved to call sometime within the next few days.

Fast forward to the evening. My husband told me on the way to dinner with both sets of parents that he had received an email from a former co-worker of ours that moved, that one of us needed to call ASAP. This particular co-worker was the one who recommended the daycare center where I currently had my baby registered. She had recommended on the basis of the infant room staff was excellent and it was in close-proximity to our work. Not that it was necessarily the best daycare and it was more expensive.

So, during dinner, my husband stepped outside to make the call. He came back in PISSED. You could almost see the steam shooting out from his ears. He sat down and said, “Oh, its a good thing we called her back.” He explained that one of the infant room workers that she had remained in contact with had called her and asked if she knew us. Former co-worker replied yes and the daycare staff lady told her that since she could not tell anyone, would the former co-worker please give us a message. The message was that the property that the daycare resides on, is owned by a community college. Said community college was not renewing the daycare’s lease. The daycare knew about this and was not telling any of the families until a week or so before it closed. What the fuck??? Oh, and it is closing at the end of July. So this daycare is literally SCREWING over hundreds of families for some unfathomable reason. We got lucky having an inside scoop.

Fast forward to later in the evening. I called the recommended couple with the in-home daycare. The lady sounded like a nice person. They charged $55 less PER WEEK than I would have been paying at the shitty center that’s screwing over families. I was praying to God that my visit there would yield the perfect place in which to place my precious child’s daytime life.

My visit yielded just that. I spent over 2 hours talking to her and her husband and observing them with their little charges. Both answered every question I had to my satisfaction and come to find out, our philosophies about children in general are very similar. There are only two drawbacks to the situation. 1) They live in a mobile/manufactured home community. That in and of itself isn’t bad considering their’s is really nice and as large as my home. But, some of the other residences are not as nice looking and who knows who lives in them… and 2) i won’t be able to just pop over to see my baby during lunches like I had planned to do at the shitty daycare that’s closing its doors. The benefits though, outweigh the negatives. The $2,640 savings per year is a HUGE incentive. The couple comes highly recommended from several sources. I feel comfortable with the way their handle children. My mom, who lives locally, can go get her grandson when she feels like it. It just seems like an overall win. And their house doesn’t smell like a daycare. (you know what I’m talking about…poop and Lysol.)

So, on the same day I lost a daycare, I found one I am more happy with and think will be better for my child in the long run. Here’s praying it continues to work out.

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Why? Wednesday, May 21 2008

I’m dumb.

Let me clarify.  I’m not actually dumb.  But I can be, especially when it comes to the newly navigating area of step-parenting and trying to deal with DH’s ex-wife (EX for short).

As I’ve said, I’m an incredibly empathetic and intuitive person.  I profile people with amazing accuracy.  People includes my almost 4-year old stepson (SS for short).  While I’m not his biological parent raising him from ground up, I know this kid.  I get him.  I rarely misstep with him when I listen to what my gut is guiding me to do when we interact.  He is a beautiful, but very sensitive little child.  He is deeply affected by others around him.  He is also all boy as well delighting in anything that moves (such as Thomas the Train) and all things creepy crawly like bugs, lizards and his pet rats.

So why I felt the inane need to contact EX today for “insight” into SS is beyond me.  I suppose it was my lame attempt to 1) show her that I care about what she has to say, 2) demonstrate care as to what her son is currently interested in so I can help make his extended stay comfortable and 3) remind her I exist since she likes to pretend at times that I do not.  As she is also extremely intuitive and empathetic, she will probably see through said lame attempt, write me anyway in too many times rewritten prose that reeks of “I hate this f-ing bitch but will placate her with ancedotes about my son since she will be caring for him this summer” and then go on a tirade to anyone that will listen or read about the inconsiderate former mistress of her ex-husband having the nerve to contact her and invade her space via email.

Next time, no emails, no contact.  Just me and my intuition will do just fine.  Although then I will probably be the arrogant bitch who thinks she doesn’t need help from SS mother.  Oh well.

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Reconnecting Wednesday, May 21 2008

I’ve been undergoing the painful task of reconnecting with old friends that I lost touch with during my “bad” years. Part of the kit and caboodle of an eating disorder is constantly dealing with the emotion of shame. The feeling of shame was further exasterbated by the fact I acted in ways that were, quite literally, out of my mind all while making decisions (if you could call them that) I thought later would send people running away madly with hands thrown in the air away from me. Of course that thought never crossed my mind while I was acting, but later when I started to crawl my way out of the black hole in my brain.

A new shame overcame me at that point. Rather sheer embarrassment that anyone had the misfortune of meeting me during that time in my life. And if they knew me before, they certainly would be appalled at the state I was in. Plus, I was divorced. AND I had met the love of my life while I was still married. AND I shacked up with said person. AND I had a child out of wedlock. AND I got married while 8 months pregnant. After thinking about all of that, I thought there was no way former friends would accept me without judgment. I was wrong. After all. I was a goody-two-shoes my entire life. While I had my share of college drunkenness, I never went home with a guy. The only person I had ever slept with was the guy who became my first husband. I went to church. I believed in God and the Bible. I had counseled the very friends I was now afraid to talk to about their misdoings and mishaps. And now here I was a complete mess. A failure in so many ways. What would THEY think???

Slowly. Ever so cautiously. Sticking on toe in the water at a time. I tested the waters. I reached out first to my best friend and person I admire most in the world. I told my tale. The honest truth. All of the messy details. And I was met with love, “I’ve missed you,” and welcome back. I thought it was a fluke.

So I did it again. Carefully. Maybe leaving out a few of the more sordid details for later. I talked to another old friend. And again I was met with the same response. Love, “I’ve missed you,” and welcome back.

I found the more I opened my mouth, the more I opened up, the more honest I was, I was met with complete love. I’m still learning to forgive myself. While I believe to this day I did not break up my current husband’s marriage, I had a role. While I did not leave my husband capriciously nor for another man, I still left him. I still went outside our marriage. Sick and desperate though I was, I made some bad and thoughtless choices that had real and painful consequences.

Shame and embarrassment are still emotions I fight every day. I AM sorry there are people that have only known me sick. I am truly sorry for things I did and people I hurt during that period. But I am humbled that there are those that remember me as I was and as I am striving to be now and have welcomed me back with open arms. That they know I am a happy person, a spiritual person and one that cares very deeply for others and their well-being. Those are the people that give me hope, keep me going and keep me healthy. Thank you.

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This is it. Wednesday, May 21 2008

This is it. A very simple sentence consisting of three rather common and nondescript words. This three word sentence though has come to symbolize every single joy in my life. Let me explain:

In my first marriage, from almost the beginning I would ponder, “Is this it?” Notice that this question uses the same words from the sentence above. I would ask myself that question in response to looking at the rest of my life with the person I had promised to love and cherish for the rest of my life. And even more troubling than the question were the answers I would give myself. And the most troubling part of all was how unhappy I was with those answers. For anyone reading this, I suppose you are asking why on earth did I marry this poor guy I speak of in my posts. That answer is for another time.

Now, sitting here typing, baby monitor to my side on the alert for anything that sounds like squirming, listening to my husband bang away at the computer in our room building a new website, and swirling thoughts of terror realizing my maternity leave is almost up and we’re getting my step-son for the summer and that means, oh yeah, more dealings with his ex-wife, I still feel more content and happy than I ever have been in my life.  I have so much.  I look forward to the rest of my life.  Sure some of it might be messy and unconventional, but I have a husband who I know is my soulmate.  I adore him and he adores me.  I have a beautiful baby boy with him.  I have hope.  I have love. This is the rest of my life.  And I smile while I think about those three little words, “This is it.”

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Perspective Wednesday, May 21 2008

I was reading another blog this evening that struck a chord with me.  It is by a stepmom that has a biological child (or maybe children).  In one of her posts, she was explaining why she started the blog and it was to put the birth-mother in a compartment.  To have a place to write about frustrations regarding fragmented families, being a stepmom and dealing with the ex-wife/birth-mother.

I’ve mentioned before that I used to have another blog that I used to write about my eating disorder, what it did to my first marriage and ultimately deciding to leave that marriage.  It was called “Self-Therapy By Writing.”  I started this blog, now that I think about it, as a place to put all of my feelings about the marriage I chose.  A marriage, I will point out, that completes me in a way that I never knew possible.  Nonetheless though, this marriage comes with baggage that, at times, I have no idea how to handle.  So this is truly “Continued Self-Therapy by Writing.”

The other aspect I appreciated about the blog I was reading tonight was when it pointed out that another reason she started the blog was so she would not waste precious time with her husband discussing his ex-wife when that time should be spent more constructively.  I wish I knew how many countless hours my husband and I have wasted talking about his ex.  She domineers our conversation at times.  Granted, sometimes these discussions NEED to happen.  They can be constructive, especially when we are discussing our united front in dealing with her and their son.  But at times it is also extraneous, gratuitous and pointless.  While my marriage is most definitely full of joy, delight and the excitement that comes with discovering the person that I love more than anything on this planet, it is built very delicately and is constantly bombarded with issues that do not plague other families.  Such is the nature of our world now.

So I am joining this other step-mom in using this space to, in part, purge my feelings regarding subjects related to her. Ironically, I know she keeps a blog somewhere out there where she probably at times rants about me.  Ah, the tangled web we weave.

When I do post about divorce issues, step-parenting, parenting, etc… please feel free to leave respectful comments and suggestions. I’m new at all of this.  I’ll consider anything reasonable.

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Divorce is a curious thing Sunday, May 18 2008

My husband and I were discussing furniture accumulated during one marriage that is retained by one of the parties during the divorce and used later on possibly in a 2nd marriage. I brought a few things into my new marriage: a dining room set, porch furniture, art and knick-knacks as well as most of the kitchen gadgetry. He had his bed, bedroom furniture, family room furniture and then the point of contention…the baby furniture.

When I found out I was pregnant, after my panic attack, I quickly went into decorating mode. My husband had a nursery suite from his first son that was still in his possession. At the time of the divorce, his ex-wife opted not to take the furniture for their son due to lack of space. Before assuming its use, he checked with her again if she wanted it. She refused it. I did not want to use it, but relented for several reasons: 1) His ex-wife was not taking it for their son, 2) My husband attached great sentimental value to the furniture and wanted his other kids to use it since it was a gift from his parents, 3) He chose it, not his ex-wife, 4) We REALLY couldn’t afford to get new furniture. Even after my parents offered to get new furniture so I wouldn’t have to “deal with” the other furniture, I still agreed to use it because of reason #2 listed above. And I did like it. The wood was nice and neutral and could go with anything really. Given that though, I set about making everything else as different as possible though we were having a boy to erase some of the outpouring of emotions that I felt were permanently attached to the furniture.

Now that our son has been born, I’m realizing I’m still having difficulty with the furniture. I know enough about his ex-wife, though I’ve never met her in person, to know that she’s probably HATING the fact I’m using the furniture. Somehow, a long time ago, I swear some link was opened between our brains because I will get her thoughts and emotions at times out of nowhere. I know this is going on because I’ll start obsessing over something and then I’ll realize its because she’s angry about it and somehow transmitting it to me. It drives me nuts. (Note: She is a highly sensitive person that has some unusual abilities as well.)

Anyway, I’m going off on what this post was originally about when I started writing. We, as humans, associate memories with objects we come in contact with over a period of time. When two people divorce, all of the objects in their possession at the time of the divorce have memories embedded into each of them. These memories fade over time, but energy does linger.

Being especially sensitive to energy in the first place, I am driven crazy by the lingering energy. Case in point, I am not driven crazy by the bed I now occupy because the ex-wife had not used that as her bed for quite some time. However, the bedroom that is now the nursery drove me insane the first year after she was gone because that’s where she had slept (and fumed no doubt) during their separation and divorce (she lived there for almost a year separated). It took coats of paint, remodeling, and cleansing the room of negative energy to get out her residual energy. At one point, before I realized it was *her* lingering there, I thought there was a spirit lurking…no joke. I actually couldn’t go into that room for months after she left because of it. I’ll pick up other bits and pieces of her from other things around the house. I still avoid sitting in a section of our large sectional sofa because if I try to sit there, I get really negative. Come to find out, that bit of the sofa is where she always sat with her laptop spewing angry writing.

Of course my husband doesn’t get any of this… Well, he does in concept but not for himself. If he likes furniture, he likes the furniture. It has nothing to do with whether it came from my previous marriage or not. He doesn’t get other’s energy from objects.

In thinking about the things that went with my ex-husband, I’m bothered by a few of the things he has and if it would be used with a future girlfriend/wife. I am not bothered because I am jealous that she would be using it as his wife. Really. I hope my ex meets someone WONDERFUL that loves him in a way I never could and that he loves in a way he could never give to me. But things that my ex and I picked out together that was supposed to be part of our life together, like our bedroom dresser that he has, yes, I don’t want someone else using it. Most things though, like the sofa, etc…I could care less. If my husband’s ex-wife is indeed angry about me using the baby furniture, I sort of understand. I have no actual confirmation she is hating it, just a feeling. Logic would dictate that she is ok with it given that she did not take the furniture back when offered several times. However, my intuition is overruling logic. Anyway…

This post reads like a rambling mess. I was trying to get across two points: 1) Divorce divides supposedly inanimate objects between two people and those objects have emotional associations attached and 2) I pick up on residual memories at times and that is why I have a difficult time with some of the remaining things in my husband’s possession and things that are in my exes possession that I know will be used someday by someone else. So there. A one paragraph summary of the mess that took me a half hour to write.

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Reading Between the Lines Sunday, May 18 2008

Back on the empathy and empath topic… One area I have a special gift is in the area of extracting a person’s emotional state when they write, or reading between the lines of what isn’t necessarily written, but is thought by the person at the time of writing.  For instance, someone might write something that is obviously angry.  most people reading the message would read anger and take all of the statements made at face value.  I will read angry, but each individual statement, choice of word, arrangement of the paragraph, arrangement of a sentence, etc… will have individual feelings. I will also read lies in the middle of truth. In addition to anger, I can usually tell all of the undercurrent emotions.

I used to wonder why I would get upset at emails written at work.  A very simple email could bring about a myriad of emotions that come out of virtually nowhere.  Some emails seem like they were yelling at me.  Some emails were haughty; some emails insecure.  Blogs even can speak volumes to me about the person writing them, especially if I have a small profile already on file in my head for that person. I don’t know if I have some sort of empathy towards words or the person behind the words rather.

I was telling my husband tonight another bizarre thing that I do and that’s associate a lot of things such as people, words, writing, etc… with colors.  This isn’t the same thing as reading auras.  I’m not seeing a “glow” about people.  Rather, I give colors personalities and sometimes people strike me as a particular color.  Or a word will hit me as pink or avacado green or icy blue.  I told him I saw him as orange.  Not just any orange, but a nice spicy orange.

I don’t know.  The more I talk to people, the more bizarre I think I am.  I like to go deeper than most.  I am affected more than most.  I take things to heart more than most.

I found this awhile back when trying to make sense of my sensitivities. While I am not physically wounded by intense environmental stimuli, everything else is pretty accurate.

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.
To him…
a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create – - – so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”

-Pearl Buck-

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A poem Monday, May 12 2008

I kept a different blog when I was working through my eating disorder and the end of my marriage. I was reading over it the other day. I’ll probably post excerpts from it now and then. Anyway, I found a poem I had written during that time. Here it is:

Where we are is so far from where we’ve been
The relentless nature of life and all it’s done
And the weather we have not withstood
And the wall that has been built between

Starting with my arms open wide
Innocent and unassuming despite the fear
Your story to that point would be the undoing
Before we even had a chance to begin

Haunted by too many words said and actions done
Cold beginning to the time I began to die
Slowly in front of your face
You did not see behind my eyes

The façade I built and you accepted
Too afraid to lose the dream
Never wanting to admit the faults and lies
And that all was not as it seemed

I am awake yet my eyes are closed
Tight for fear you will see me cry
Vulnerability I can’t bring myself to share
Too much time has passed us by

Memories float as I drift off to sleep
Promises made inside my head
Dreams of all we could have been
Are now done and I’ve put to bed

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On My Eating Disorder Monday, May 12 2008

One of the topics I will bring up now and again in various posts will be the fact I had an eating disorder. I say I am an eating disorder survivor because by the time I finally received mental and physical health, I was on a quick decline to death…either by heart failure or suicide. When all was said and done, I was bulimic for 7-years. At my worst, towards the end, I was throwing up 3-6 times a day, 7-days a week. My stomach had stopped functioning properly. I had what was called gastricparesis. Essentially food was staying in my stomach and not moving through to my intestines in a timely manner. So much vomiting had damaged the muscles around the stomach. In fact, it was 5 times slower than the normal digestive rate. As a result, my body was absorbing all of the calories and fat causing me to gain roughly 30 pounds…the exact opposite of what a person with an eating disorder intends when they start. On top of that, all of the vomiting had eroded my esophogus and some teeth enamel causing mouth aches and heartburn. I lived with constant reflux and heartburn. It became part of my daily life so much so that I ceased to notice the pain. The worst physical effect of ED though was that it created a Level 2 Heart problem in one of my valves. I had actually damaged my heart. While the damage might not be permanent, it will take a long time of taking care of myself to get it back to “normal.” All of those problems, and my doctor told me I was “lucky” considering how long and how bad I had been abusing myself. And that is just the physical side of the problem.

The emotional impact of an eating disorder lasts a lifetime. It took years to get to the point I was at in 2005 and 2006. It will take many more years to eradicate the dizzying thought processes that got me to that point in the first place. I liken the whole thing to an addiction…a deadly addiction. Every day I would tell myself that I was hurting myself, but after every fight with my husband, every mistake I made, overeating, etc… whatever fuel I could use to justify the abuse, up come the food and bile into the toilet. I would go through a cycle of self-loathing, desire to vomit, vomiting, release, momentary euphoria and then SHAME. I could never escape the shame. But an eating disorder becomes one’s dirty little secret. Something you sickly hold on to because its yours. A control you have. Something you know that no one else knows.

Reading this now, now that I haven’t thrown up in a year, the whole thing seems demented. Dysfunctional. And it is. There is no way around the fact that I have been sick and dysfunctional almost my entire adult life. My first marriage unraveled as a result as well. Not of the eating disorder (or disease as my ex-husband liked to call it) but because of what caused and fueled the disorder and much of that started when he and I dated in high school and college.

Ok, I’m going to have to continue this post later as I need to get some sleep. There is a lot to this story I can explore in later posts.

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Mother’s Day Sunday, May 11 2008

Tomorrow is my first time as a Mother on Mother’s Day. I am the mother of a beautiful 7 week old baby boy. It brings about many emotions…mostly emotions of complete joy. I could not be happier or more content with the fact I’ve had a baby. I relish and wallow in all things to do with motherhood. Yes, I sleep less. Yes, my boobs are a food source. Yes, it frustrates me at times. But, I am happy. I gave a child life and will raise him with a beautiful man and wonderful father.

But back to the original intent of this post…Happy Mother’s Day to all women out there that have been a Mom in some capacity. This includes the traditional concept of mother, but also first moms (or birth moms), adopting moms, step-moms, “like” moms, foster moms, Grandmas, and anyone else who has had the privilage of making a difference in a child’s life. God bless!

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