Totally hating the fall right now

I love the fall…normally.  The beautiful leaves, the crisp wind, the lower more snuggle-friendly temperatures, the yummy fall food…what’s not to love. 

But today, today I hate the fall.  I loathe it.  I despise it.  Damn leaves.  Damn rain.  Damn wind.  Every night when I get home, there are leaves.  Every morning when I get up, there are leaves.  Every afternoon, there are leaves.  DAMN LEAVES!!

Maybe I should explain.  I did know the joys of homeownership once, but the shortly after the bankruptcy, my house was foreclosed on, and that was that.  My house was great though.  Just the right size, in the country, brand spanking new so very little maintenance.  And even though we had about 1/3 of an acre of land with it, the yard work was minimal.  Sure there was lots of mowing (which I inevitably did the most of…but we won’t get into that) but it was ok. 

Now I live in Mr. W’s house, and it is a beautiful house (townhouse to be exact).  It’s the perfect size, has a small yard, but nice nonetheless, with a canopy of wonderful mature trees…oak, maple, whatever, just big and nice.  It’s great in the summer when they provide just the perfect amount of shade to cool off under in the back yard.  But in the fall…oh the fall…I hate them!  Seriously, every time I go outside, there are more leaves to sweep.  Every time I finish sweeping, there are more leaves to sweep.  Every time the wind blows, or a squirrel jumps from limb to limb, or the trees just feel like puking on my yard, there are leaves to sweep.  It never ends!!  Now, generally I would just leave it and let nature take it’s course, falling leaves, blowing leaves, snowed on leaves disintegrating into the ground.  Nature does these things for you, for her, the circle of life…  Then I could love fall.  BUT, there are stairs back there which lead down to the basement.  There is a drain at the bottom, to stop the water from collecting and finding a way inside.  Of course, if there are leaves over that drain, the water won’t go down, and will, in fact, find a way inside.  Crap.  AND, it has been raining, sort of, for three days.  I say sort of because it’s that annoying, spitting rain.  Enough that would make one hell of a rainstorm for about 30 minutes if combined.  But noooo, fall has to go and stretch it out over three days just to annoy me further!  So that leaves me, daily (probably should be more than daily) trudging outside, in rain or cold (or both as it has been lately) sweeping and bagging, bagging and sweeping, getting pelted in the head by falling leaves as I’m bagging and sweeping.  Seriously, in the head!  It’s as if those damn trees are laughing at my efforts!  I swear it!  I hear  them…

I’ll be glad when the winter snow comes and freezes their little tree tushes off!  But then, crap, there will be snow on that bottom step, and that means shoveling…crap, crap, crap!

And I call him Mr. Wonderful

Damn, I’ve been neglecting my blog….oh yeah, it must be all the other crap I have to do.  Have I mentioned that I hate Physics now?  I used to love it, hence the part-Physics major, but now, just hate.  Just so you get an idea of the current hell I’ve entered, my hitchhiker’s guide to hell Physics book is 1307 pages of 8 font Times New Roman word problems!  Yeah…sucks ass!

Ok, enough of that.  I should have time to catch up this weekend, as the kids are with the ex-men and Mr. W is going away for his drill weekend …”in the Navy…”  (hee, hee!)  The lack of responsible dedication to my need-to-dos (vs. my want-to-dos) is part my fault too…part.  (can’t take all the blame now!)  We, Mr. W and I, agreed that we would try not spending so much time together to the tune of spending at least a couple nights a week at our own respective houses.  So…Post my recent trip to NJ* I was tired and just wanted to relax, take a shower, and go to bed, so I suggested he just come by to pick up his car (which I borrowed for the trip…30mpg vs 17mpg, you do the math) and then we would both stay home.  I called later that night to say goodnight: washed face, toothpaste applied, pi-jams endowed, in the bed…and *bam* he hits me with a “request to come over late at night for personal companionship.”  How could I resist?  No details, but you should all know there were candles lit and a pillow-blanket pile in the middle of the living room when I arrived.  (And I call him Mr. Wonderful!)

And then there was the storm.  I was fine Thursday night.  I went up the road to get my tat touched up and had happily returned home for some time on the computer, listening to the thunder and rain in the back of my head, getting ready for bed.  Then he calls. “GET IN YOUR HALLWAY NOW AND STAY THERE! A tornado was spotted, I’m coming over.”  Two minutes, one half-smoked and rained on cigarette, and about 300 calories burned from shaking later, he calls again: ”I can’t come now, the storm is too bad to drive.”  WTF!!  Probably 5 minutes later, although it seemed like an eternity of crouching in my hallway, eyes glued to the weather update on the laptop screen, I peeked outside to find much less wind and rain, but sirens all around.  I called him this time and had some lame excuse for him to come over to bring me something. 

Never having lived in a tornado-y area, I never knew I was afraid.  I knew I have a thing about earthquakes, mostly because they come without warning, and there really is no escaping them…like, you can’t run from an earthquake.  Hmmm….what does that sound like….A TORNADO??!!  So now I have a new fear.

Of course, I tried to pretend nothing was wrong, I wasn’t scared, I’m cool…ya know, wassup wid you, dude?  Yeah, right.  I weaseled my way into an invite back to his place, insisting all the while I was fine.  Once snuggled in his bed, arm around me, he quietly whispered in my ear: “Baby, are you alright?”  I replied, “yeah, I’m fine, why?”   “Um…you’re kind of squeezing my thumb really hard.”  Well, crap…there goes my Joe-cool facade!  And then, he did the most amazing thing…he made me forget about the storm, about the jarring thunder claps and the intense flashes of lightning that were lighting up the whole sky to a daylight blue every other minute.  He made me forget about the ”when we were kids they told us that the tornadoes come when the rain stops” and the waiting and listening for the rain to stop.  He made me forget the whole world outside of him and me, and then he made me fall into a deep, blissful sleep.  And I call him Mr. Wonderful! 

 

*Went to NJ (8 hours drive, round trip) to pay someone $150 to let me sit in a way too small room with X-1 and fight…yes, fight, with more intensity than when we were married.  And, oh yeah, I’m doing it again next Friday…JOY!!

Update…date night…night calls

Quick update: Pulled out of my class with a D+..so that’s passing right??!!  Yea me! 

I had a wonderful evening with Mr. W last night.  He had promised dinner (Chicken marsala, homemade..yummy!)  but suggested dinner and a movie instead, and he would cook for me tonight.  I gladly accepted the opportunity for two fabulous nights, so we went to see Sex in the City.  I was an avid watcher of the series, so it only seemed appropriate to watch the movie, and he was actually quite cooperative with the idea. 

The movie was good…but very long (2 1/2 hours!).  It seemed a little drawn out, like they could have got it all in one episode, but still ok.  Also, the copy our crappy little theater had showed the sound booms, microphones, and light shades in almost every scene…distracting! 

We ate dinner at Cheesburger in Paradise…an ok place with ok food, but we ate outside which was beautiful…until it started pouring down with rain.  But still, not that bad.  Not cold, just rainy.  Then he broke the news…

Apparently STBX Mrs. W has been more comfortable with their getting-along-ness lately, and is attempting to use her wiley-womanly-ways to lure him over for a late-night rendezvous.  He totally didn’t go for it.  Then today, she wrote another poem to him on her blog.  I know what she is doing.  I did the same thing when we were apart.  I know he reads my blog.  I know he looks at my myspace page.  I posted about my feelings that I couldn’t tell him straight out.  I put songs and quotes on my myspace page knowing he would hear them and read them and know what they meant.  She’s a smart girl…she could figure this stuff out too.

I do trust him.  If he wanted to do it, I’d get it.  She’s beautiful, she’s intelligent, they shared 5ish years of wonderful happiness together, she’s beautiful…you get the idea.  I wouldn’t blame him.  What pisses me off (and I do mean pisses me off! )  is what she is doing/planning/trying.  She hurt him, badly, more than once.  Now she is trying to get him back when she is feeling a little low, with no intention of following through, which means she would hurt him again.  She doesn’t know about me, so this has nothing to do with me or him moving on.  I don’t for a second think he would go back, even for that, so it’s not a jealousy thing.  Yes, she is a little intimidating with her beautiful-, intelligent-, years-sharing-happily-ness, but still, not worried there.  It just pisses me off that she would make an attempt to chance hurting him again. 

But I’m dealing, mouth firmly held shut, tongue firmly held between my teeth.

Alone is a terrible place to be

It’s still raining. Thinking positive, right…the rain helps things grow, it washes away all the crap build up on the ground, it keeps my allergies from taking over my body…all good things.

A glance at my site here says I’ve made it over the “400 hits” mark. Yea, me!! And I discovered yesterday that someone has actually added me to their blogroll. Yea, Morocco!! I’ve been browsing around the mom-blogs quite a bit lately. (Check my blogroll for some of my faves) and I’ve come to discover in the absence of actual mommy-friends, these mom-blogs are pretty damn helpful. At times, even better than the real thing.

I had played with the idea of writing a book about a year ago based on my marriage and stories of marriages around me. Not all the pretty happy stuff, but rather the ugly stuff that no one really likes to talk about, let alone admit that they are in the same boat. (The book idea is still in the wings, but with everything else going on, it is just going to have to wait.) It just seems to me that there are so many of us out there going through much the same crap day to day, whether it be in our marriages or with our kids that we should help one another out. But again, it’s not something very many of us are ready to face, let alone share.

So here is me, mom of two, ready to be divorced twice from a loveless and a semi-abusive if not altogether “dysfunctional” marriage, going through the toddler years alone, dealing with it all with as much grace as I can muster on a day to day basis.

To all you other mommies (and wives) out there, please know you aren’t alone. No matter what you are going through, someone else is going through it too.

“Happy” Mother’s Day

With Mother’s Day quickly approaching, I am unpleasantly reminded of one of my “anniversary” of sorts.  I’m trying not to let it get to me, and I’ve been doing better at that over the years, especially since the births of my son and daughter.  The memory and regret still loom though, particularly today.  Ironically, it has been pouring down with rain since last night and the gloom and gray are just adding to it all.

Nine years ago today I had an abortion.  It’s not like I planned to have it done Mother’s Day weekend, it just sort of timed out that way.  I was dating a guy who was leaving for the Navy a year after we met, so we both knew the relationship had an end date, and we were both ok with that.  About 3 weeks after he left for boot camp, I found out I was pregnant.  I was going to school and working full time and living in Section-8 housing near the college just trying to make it on my own at 19.  I tried to think of ways to keep the baby, but it just wasn’t going to work out well for either of us, and in the absence of the father I was forced to make the decision on my own.  (Consequently, when he came home from training 3 months later, he 100% supported my decision.  He is now married with two beautiful children of his own.) 

I still vividly remember that day, every detail of the day.  I can see the Planned Parenthood office, the waiting room, the procedure room.  I remember having a conversation with my dad about the ridiculousness of the Ja Rule video on the TV in the waiting room.  I remember the entire procedure.  I remember that machine that looked like something out of a twisted human science experiment.  I remember the feelings, both physical and emotional.  I remember the recovery room with it’s white divider curtains and cold sheets.  I remember the emptiness and the self-loathing.  I remember the long ride home and the welcoming darkness of my room which I stayed in for three days after.  Nine years ago today could have been yesterday for all the detail in those painful memories.

It wasn’t until 2004, after the birth of my son, that I celebrated Mother’s Day.  I couldn’t even send cards and good wishes to my own mother (much to her dismay) without tears and bouts of depression.  Even with the boy in my arms that first year, I had an overwhelming feeling of guilt.  Thankfully the STBX got it and kept me distracted week-long for that anniversary, fostering new memories with my kids to dampen the memories of what I’d done in the past. 

This year, my kids are with their fathers for Mother’s Day and the week surrounding it.  The STBX offered to let me pick up the girl for the day, but I declined, although I’m not exactly sure why.  It seems even now, nine years later, I still feel “him,” the one who never was.  I still see all the blaring detail of that place and feel all the pain of that day.  I know what I did was the best I could do at the time, but…