Flowers and Rings

The news is in on the Cancun trip that Lisa took with Man on the Side and her husband and Oh yea, Man on the sides pregnant wife.  Yep, just two happy couples enjoing a trip to Cancun. 

Right….

Man on the sides wife sounds like she is catching on to the fact that her hubby likes Lisa better than her which meant they fought a lot.  Lisa and her husband managed to fight so bad in a drunken state that he took her passport and threatened to leave after he hit her and destroyed their room.  The good girl can hit back and inserted his balls in his throat long enough for her to grab her passport and go find Man on the side.  Man on white horse anyone? Lisa is now just trying to make it through the Holidays and I’m going to try to not hit her husband myself.

Perhaps there was only one happy couple there.  Lisa and her Man on the side.  While they didn’t get time to sneak away together they had lots of sweet talks, come hither looks and everything that makes a girl swoon (that is for you nysoonergirl) that is leading them to start to think of this as more than just sex and that perhaps they may love each other.  Because that is the words that are now falling out of their mouths to one another.

Upon return to the cold states her Man on the side gave me a call.  He told me he wanted to get Lisa something for Christmas.  A something that would then have to be from “me” that he could give her.  I almost drove off the road.  They are falling in deeper and I’m scared for the both of them. 

I felt jealous.  Honestly.  Won’t lie.  I admitted as much to Dustin and he looked at me like I was crazy and asked Why?  I’m not jealous of the affair part.  I’m jealous and miss the other parts.  The part where someone wants to give you a gift.  The little gifts Bill and I left for each other.  I miss the flowers he would leave on the seat of my truck or my desk.  Flowers were something I hated till he started giving them to me.  He was the first man who made them mean something.  It was the cards I would leave in his truck or the notes on his desk.  The coffee I would bring him in the morning and the Reese’s he would leave in my desk.  The little things that shows someone is thinking about you.  Dustin merely laughed at me and told me that was ridiculous.  But aren’t those the little things that keep the relationship going?  That keeps the surprise there?  So what if I feel that nostalgia.  Dustin could never give it to me. 

So on my way home tonight I bought myself some flowers and Man on the side is going to buy Lisa a Posey ring that says Believe in Love.

 

 

One last puzzle piece

I have been going through this thing lately where I have been trying to get Bear to not watch so much TV.  So to give her other options I suggested we pull out an old 1000 piece puzzle that my Grandma had given me a while back and tackle it.  I haven’t done a puzzle in, well, forever.  This will state how much of a dork I am, but I forgot how relaxing they could be.  Her and I set it up at the kitchen table, turned up the Christmas music and started it on Saturday evening. By Sunday she was dead bored with it and Dustin and I were addicted. 

We spent most of the day with her under the kitchen table setting up her Barbie wonderland (why is it under the table is so fun) and Dustin and I worked on the puzzle in a silence that was only interrupted by Bear thinking up new ideas for her Christmas list or singing all the wrong words to Rudolph.  You could look in our window and think we were the perfect family.  You wouldn’t have any idea that I was thinking about how much my life was that puzzle.  How I couldn’t get him out of my head.  How my nightmares and dreams have worsened in the past couple of weeks with him. 

You work and you twist the piece, swearing it goes in just that spot, when in reality you are so far off.  There is that satisfaction you get when it slips into place but then you have a new piece to tackle.  A new goal in life. I still don’t have my puzzle piece with him.  Where is it? We finished that puzzle last night and stood back.  Bear came out from under the table with a Barbie head in one hand and the half-dressed body in the other. (Damn knots in Barbie’s hair) She turned her head a little and said Oh, There is one piece missing. There was.  Right in the middle.  Glaring enough at you that you couldn’t call it over and done with.  We looked around but couldn’t find it. 

Damn those last pieces to the puzzle. 

My last therapy session happened this week

Hell of a week for me to have my last session with my therapist right? It wasn’t this set in stone date by any means.  A few weeks ago I finished this stack of papers, or worksheets if you will, on losing someone.  Since then our time has slowed down and there isn’t much left to say.  As helpful and wonderful as she has been I seem to know the answers myself already.  There isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been said. 

So halfway through my session she tells me she doesn’t think I need to come in anymore unless I really feel the need to.  This surprisingly didn’t freak me out any and she said she wanted to leave me with a few key things to think about….

• She believes I am one of the most mentally healthy people she knows and she sometimes feels as if I should be sitting in her chair.  I have apparently been one of her most favorite client in years.  Good ego boost.
• I should never feel there is a time limit on this. Not seeing her doesn’t mean I should now feel 100% better.  It just means the worst is over but I still need to handle my grief as it comes.  Not ignore it.
• I need to keep writing.  I know this, she knows this.  It has been one of the best things I have done.
• Use my support system.  Keep them in tack.
• Continue with the goals that Bill and I wanted to obtain even though he isn’t with me.  Like my trip to Wyoming.  I can do those just fine on my own.
• Be selfish.  This time is very much for self discovery and soul-searching.  Use it to the fullest extent.
• Don’t hold back the tears.  If I still feel the need to cling to the kitchen floor then I need to get it out but always remember I will get back up. 

After a few laughs and even a few tears she gave me a big hug and told me to call if I needed anything.  Then she caught me as I opened the door and made me promise to call her if he ever did come back around.  She laughed saying I didn’t even have to call her as a therapist, she just wanted to know what the explanation was too…and any other juicy details:) I told her no problem.  That would be the biggest post I have ever written.

Here is to taking that next step forward.

I made it four days

I made it four whole days.  Four days before the tears happened.  How fucking hard is it to be happy?  That is all I’m asking.  Just to enjoy what I do and be happy at the end of the day with my life.  I fucking try.  And I know I should be grateful because that is what Dustin keeps telling me and my Mom, well, she isn’t such a great support either.  But it has been four days at this stupid job and today was it.  I’m so overwhelmed and I can’t stay in that seat anymore and stare at the computer and pick through numbers.  Plus, the silence in there is deafening.  There is no one yelling from room to room and making jokes.  Just tapping on keyboards and murmurs into the phones.

I woke up this morning unable to breathe very well.  My heart was acting up and as I sat there training today I struggled to catch my breath and breathe through it but there was no where else to go.  There was no one that knows.  I couldn’t go around the corner to his office to have him make it better.  He wasn’t there to rub my back and give me a hug.  I need him to walk me through this like he always has.   

To make matters worse my boss came through at one point and called me Shanny.  He said everyone needed a nickname.  That is what Bill called me.  He was the only one I ever allowed to call me that because it is the dumbest nickname ever.  I looked my new boss straight in the eye and told him if he ever called me that again I would quit. It would not be tolerated.  He looked at me like my hair was on fire and walked out.  I turned back to the policy in front of me to check the name and of course it was Bill.  I made it to the bathroom before the tears started flowing. 

I’m figuring out why the hell they hired me.  It was to scoop up the fucking shit behind them and to have everything laid on my desk.  I’m better than this.  I worked for something better than this.  I have to start looking for something else already.  I won’ t quit but I sure as hell can’t quit looking for another job.

The new job

I started work Monday.  My new job.  My big girl job.  My next big step.  I put my heels back on and my cute outfit and set off.  Nerves were bouncing in my stomach so bad the night before but Dustin was having none of it.  No support.  Ok, I could do this.

I was immediately ushered into a meeting.  I haven’t sat in a Monday morning meeting in 8 months.  It was the first crash of my day.  I stood amongst strangers around the edge of the room while the important people sat around the conference table.  I used to be the one at that table next to the head honcho.  Here I was a nobody.  I tried to push it down and not think about him but I couldn’t help it.  These weren’t my people.  They were mostly women and middle age and dear God where was he?

I was shown to my cubicle and my original outlook about this job was plummeting.  You have to understand something.  My biggest goal coming out of High School was to never, ever, under any circumstances, have a cubicle job.  Here I was being shown to one without a window in sight.  My chance for advancement wouldn’t be an office but the same cubicle, just a pay hike.  I was certainly dumped down a few notches.  But I was suppose to be thankful and happy.  Yea, that was fading.  I was handed a 1,000 page commercial policy and was told to match up numbers.  Two hours in I almost started crying.  Then the other girl who started 3 weeks before me, in the same position, came over and said she is ready to quit and oh, how she hated it. 

There was no where for me to run.

He wasn’t around the corner to holler at.  There was no office for me to wonder into and have a sit down to make it better.  I even missed my old pain in the ass secretary.  It wasn’t home. 

I was expecting some sort of peace within myself.  Some sort of completion and there wasn’t any.  I was scared and had never felt so alone.  I was a few blocks away from him and I felt like I was at my first day of school in a new school and was drowning. 

I went straight to do two hours of yoga afterwards.

I wish I could say it has gotten better since Monday but it hasn’t.  I crave writing.  I didn’t realize how big of a deal this was for my soul but I miss you guys during the day.  I miss getting it out.  That is what I was meant to do.  I’m realizing this more and more.  I was beyond ecstatic to come home tonight and grab a glass of wine and catch up and type.  Does that make me pathetic? Probably.  But I have to tough it out and realize there are plenty of other people who don’t have a job.  But why do I feel like I’m doing more harm to the path in my life than good?

Saying goodbye to that last love

Callie and James met in college and quickly began dating.  She was my roommate.  James was Dustin’s roommate.  We spent hours on end together.  We took trips, drank too much, tutored each other, sat in class together, and began growing up together.  James had a baby back home that he had in High School with his girlfriend and he proved to be a great father.  Just wanted to make sure he did something successful in his life to care for that baby. 

We spent hours in our dorm room with James and Callie in the top bunk and Dustin and I below sharing stories and hiding our sexcapades.  We were our own family.  We were separated one summer when James had to go back home so we loaded up in the car and headed to Colorado to see him.  We saw concerts, met his family, went to Pikes Peak, and made incredible memories.  James and Callie were suppose to get married in the same way Dustin and I did.  Because wasn’t that the next step? Wasn’t that what came next?  His family loved her, they were a team.

During our senior year of college Dustin and I moved off campus to raise Bear and we lost touch with some of the friends.  We needed to grow up fast and they were enjoying the last of their care free college days.  What I didn’t know was that James and Callie broke up after graduation.  She says they were to young to handle the distance.  They didn’t know how to take the next step of growing up together because there was a lot of maturing for both of them to do.  It was a rocky ending that left them miles apart without a lot of closure. 

Callie eventually married, as did James.  They sent a few emails back and forth.  At one point 6 weeks ago she found old pictures of him and his son and emailed them to James.  That was the first of many emails they would share over the next 7 hours, well into early morning hours, together.  Callie asked if marriage was hard for him because it most certainly wasn’t what she anticipated.  He shared he was struggling in ways he never imagined with his own wife.  As late night hours have a way of doing things to you, they began sharing those deep secrets.  The ones they both had locked away.  The fact that they still loved each other.  The fact that they didn’t love their spouse as much as they had loved the other.  Between Callie and James there was never a forced love.  It was natural.  It was the stuff movies were made of.  Why didn’t they ever give themselves a second chance?  Because neither was sure if the other was willing. 

Callie saved all those emails from that night 6 weeks ago.  It would be the last contact she would have with James not knowing that this past week he would take his own life.  Not knowing that his wife, a  woman she had never met, would call and say More than anything he would want you there.  So, Dustin, Callie, and I piled back into a car to drive to Colorado.  We hadn’t seen each other in 5 years.  It felt like that time had melted away and here we were again.  Her husband tried to understand her desire to go with these people he didn’t know and say good-bye to a man she once loved.

We drove the same route, picking up another old friend along the way.  We discussed the how and the why’s which were merely guesses.  We stayed in the same hotel, and went to the same pizza place for cold beers.  We walked into his visitation and she grabbed my hand once we hit the door.  There was our James laying in a white casket with his favorite Red Sox cap on his head and in his hands he held the mini baseball bat Dustin and him bought the day they got their tattoos.  Callie gripped my hand and we let our tears flow.  We ended that night with to many rounds of beer and shared old memories as she shared the love she knows she still had for him. 

We marched hand and hand once more to his funeral the next day where his own son, now 11, stood a few feet from us. The picture that centered around all the flowers was one that Callie had taken at the park one day.  His sons Mom said gripping emotional words, his father had to be helped off the stage, his brothers shared memories of the light-hearted, funny James we all knew.  The questions we had about his wife grew more as she got up with a straight face and said some odd statements.  The family seemed to rally around everyone but her.  We felt we were missing out on some piece of the puzzle.   

Before we left his father and mother came up to Callie and gave her a big hug.  His father leaned in and choked up on his words.  He loved you.  I know more than anything how much he loved you.  He always did.

It was a quiet 10 hour drive home.  Every now and then you would hear her ask a question from the back seat.  Will her husband understand her grief?  How did James do it?  Why did he do it?  Had he been sad enough that there were no signs?  The same questions we had been asking all weekend and ones that none of us knew how to answer.  No one was really answering, just asking to the unknown. 

Dustin and I got home last night and I said Isn’t it amazing how 48 hours can change your life?  How it can give you new perspective?  He hadn’t said much all weekend.  He hadn’t so much as looked at me or held my hand.  His only answer was Yep.  With that he went to bed.

I just needed a quick share

I haven’t been able to write lately which I’m finding makes me a bit cranky.  I have things to pass along, and thoughts, and moments.  Whether you care to hear them, I care to share them.  But I got that whole new job thing so I spent hours shopping because, lets face it, my old wardrobe won’t do anymore.  I had some of those clothes for awhile and the rest reminded me of Bill and really a new job just means new clothes. 

Then my sister finds out her fiancé is having an emotional affair with some stripper over the internet who lives in Vegas.  This causes my mother to act like we are in the middle of some soap opera and in one night she gives this more attention and support than she has given me in my entire situation.  This obviously pisses me off to numerous levels.  When I tell her about my elation of the new job her response was- Perhaps you can learn to mind you P’s and Q’s at this job.  Thanks for killing it for me, Mom. 

In the midst of the drama and the crazy stripper threatening the shit out of my sister (which really you should not threaten her, she can be mean back) I kinda sent her fiancé an email saying he had a lot of explaining to do.  This lead him to return an email calling me a tramp, hypocrite, and other fill in the blanks that lasted a very long paragraph.  My mood continued to fall.

Now I’m adjusting Bear’s schedule for the weekend because we leave for the funeral tomorrow which is 10 hours away and we are coming back the very next day.  But there is an old friend (my college roommate) going with us and people to pick up along the way at airports and people meeting us there.  Hotels to book, clothes to pack, and we are going to be missing Thanksgiving with Dustins side of the family, early I know.  But my bitch of a sister-in-law still wants me to drop off the food items I was suppose to contribute.  So there is more shopping. 

Oh, and remember Lisa is in Cancun?  Her sister is in town watching all three kids and running the house and having morning sickness all day.  So I spend a lot of time running the 20 minutes (ok I don’t run, I drive) over to her house to bathe, feed, pick up, and make sure the kids are still alive and the sister isn’t losing her mind. 

Not to mention the conversations Dustin and I have partaken in the past few days and I’m on one hell of an emotional roller coaster.

I got a job!!

I can’t believe I am going from such a horrible post this morning to this post but I have to do it and sometimes that is the way life goes. I got a job!! A career job!  I interviewed with a company yesterday that called today and said they canceled the other interviews and were just going to go with me! ME! They even matched my desired salary!  It isn’t my dream job but it is one of those companies that once you are in…well, you are in.  Then I have lots of room to grow and advance!

7 Months! 7 Months of looking and it finally paid off!  I can slide my heels back on and the adorable outfits and go to work and meet new people and be important again.  I can feel accomplished and that by the end of the day I have made myself a better person!  Yay with hand clapping!

P.S. My last day at the shit eating photography job is tomorrow.  I’m not going. 

Phone calls we dread

Last night we received a phone call that everyone dreads.  A friend of ours from college committed suicide leaving behind his 11-year-old son and wife of 2 years.  He was a baseball player with Dustin and his roommate and best friend for 3 years.  My college roommate and very good friend dated him for 3 years.  The four of us were inseparable, spending every weekend together and partaking in several road trips.  They were to the point of getting married when they decided to test other avenues and never got back together but remained friends.  He moved back home to his family and son that he had in high school.  He was an outstanding Dad for being so young when he had him.

The phone tree started last night and every player was contacted, flights booked, cars rented, hotels booked, and a car pool for the rest of us put together.  I picked up the phone and dropped the news to my former roommate who I have since lost contact with over the years.  She lost it.  Absolutely lost it.  I wish I could have been next to her instead of 20 minutes away over the phone.  Instead we sat and cried together and recalled memories and asked why? We could have picked 20 other people from college that would have chosen this path before this man. 

Once all the phone calls were made I sat on one couch and Dustin on the other and I cried.  He had yet to say anything or shed a tear.  I wanted some sort of comfort, take my hand, give me a hug, anything.  But instead he said he was going to bed and with that left the room. This is our marriage.  Denial. Denial. Denial.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  I know him well enough to know that there will be no more acknowledgment than just this.  We all deal with things in our own way but pure denial at all times doesn’t do the soul much good.

Ding Ding Man

So after battling another rough night with minimal sleep I put on my heels and headed to a job interview.  One of the very few I have had considering my pathetic, annoying, really hated lovely photography job is up at the end of this week.  Yay!  I had a good gut feeling about this place.  I didn’t feel the weight of Bill on my shoulders as I pulled in the parking lot.  I was doing good till I got out of the truck and began walking to the door and giving myself a pep talk.   I heard it off across the street….the dinging.  Can I make it 5 fucking steps in my life without a memory pelting me in the face?  The answer here is apparently no.

It was last year at this time and Bill and I had to run into the pharmacy.  We pulled in the parking lot and I bounced around in my seat clapping my hands.  The ding ding man is out! It is officially the holidays! Bill looked at me, quite used to my outbursts, and asked what the hell a ding ding man was. You know, the man from the Salvation Army that stands outside the stores to collect change during the holidays with the red kettle and the bell that goes ”ding ding”.  He just laughed and I jumped out of the truck and we headed into the store.  Bill got change with his purchase and turned to hand it to me.  OK, holiday dork, want to give the change to the ding ding man?  Of course I did.

Every time he went into a store that had a ding ding man last season he would dig in his pockets for the change and text me to say how it reminded him of me when I wasn’t next to him.  Made him smile every time.  He also proceeded to make fun of me often for this.  He was just as much a holiday dork too so it made us laugh.  Does he think about it this year?  Does it stop him in his tracks?

Well, the fucking ding ding men are back out and instead of my normal joy, I stopped dead in my tracks and saw him smiling at me, that memory slamming together like it was yesterday.  I know the holidays are going to be brutal.  It is just the beginning of what I’m going to have to push aside.  So I left the memory at the door and went to attack another interview.