Month: August 2015

20 Days Yell Free…345 Days To Fix This

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

Photo on 8-12-15 at 11.08 AM #3

So I have been trying to think of ways to incorporate little reminders of the changes I want to see happen in my life. I had considered a tattoo but having worked in healthcare for so many years with the geriatric set I have seen what age does to an ink job. What once looked like a bombshell of a woman now 64 years later looks like a crone. Even worse, the boobs on many tats that I have seen have fallen significantly lower than my own which is quite a feat. So for me, tats are out…or were out until yesterday.

While waiting to go to my therapists office, I was pleasantly surprised when I found a henna shop. Bingo! I had found the answer to my problem. So I walked into… Bollywood…and I loved it!  A rich, sultry incense filled the air, Ganesha looked down from a bubblegum pink wall and pictures of dark haired women in shimmering sari’s filled every inch of the place. Frankly, I was in East Asian heaven. Since I knew little about henna I was thrilled to be directed to a book of henna design. When I saw the interlocking hearts I knew immediately that I was destined to wear it. I saw it as a positive reminder that we did love each other and would survive this crisis in our marriage.

After much oohing and ahhing about my choice by the shop’s owner, I was directed to a seat and the henna was squirted on. Unfortunately, I do mean squirted because I think the woman applied too much pressure to the tube and all this henna came flying out thick and mud-like producing a look of astonishment on the woman’s face. Since I had no experience in these matters I kept quiet thinking that perhaps the lines would shrink and become the delicate artwork that I had always imagined it to be. WRONG.

After waiting three hours to remove this huge poop looking mess I was elegantly sporting on my arm, the design looked even worse than I imagined. It looks like something a kindergartener would draw. I suspect these next 10 days are going to be a bit warm as I wear shirts that cover this hideous gaff which now graces my skin.

Yet, I will not let this ‘ink gone wrong’ experience deter me. I am already planning my next visit to the henna shop but this time I think I will look at a peace sign to help me remember to keep a peaceful household and engage in gentle, calm thoughts even if the henna artist messes up! For I truly believe that these little temporary reminders are easy visuals that will help me blossom and become what I am envisioning for myself in the 345 days to come.

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19 Days Yell-Free (almost) 346 Days Left

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So I have not yelled in 19 days (almost) and it feels good. About the almost…yesterday I came home with a load of groceries in my arms and lugged them onto the kitchen countertop, spilling a glass of red juice all over the cabinets and floor I had just spotlessly cleaned. Without a moments hesitation I yelled out “Oh Fuck!” which immediately put me in the running for ‘Mother of the Year Award.’ So while I did yell I did not yell at any living breathing being in my home I did send that utterance out into the universe. It should be bumping into you just about now!

One of the many ways I have been working on not yelling is by swimming for 30 minutes per day and as I swim I say positive affirmations in my head like “I am calm, I am loving, I am content with things as they are, I no longer yell, I am joyful, etc.” I find this very easy and it keeps me occupied while I swim so that the result is that I swim longer. The biggest bonus is that while underwater I can not hear my children bickering. For when I hear the fighting it  makes me want to grow gills and fins so that I never have to get out of the pool and hear, “Sheeeeee touchedddddd meeeeeeee!”  in stereo sound again.

Everyday is a challenge but thus far I have succeeded when no one thought I could. That said, I have been spending more time in my closet listening to Chel Hamilton meditation podcasts. I figure that is a small price to pay for not yelling and feeling better about life in general though it also means that I need to find another place for my husband’s smelly undershirts. For me, sweat and serenity do not go together and should not inhabit the same place.

Time Revisited

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I went back to look at something I had written about my husband approximately 12 years ago. This is what I wrote:

I can write about just about anything but B because no words I might use to describe him and what he means to me would ever do him justice. It’s like trying to describe a shining diamond. While one can attempt to describe its brilliance as it sparkles in the light you would still miss some aspects of its perfection just by not being in its presence. You would miss the subtle flickers of color cast around the room; the blues, pinks and yellows. You would be unable to count the thousand little points of light that dance around the room. It’s just one of those things that you have to be around to fully appreciate its incredible beauty. That is how I feel about B.
 
B is my inspiration. He is whom I strive to emulate. He is kind, considerate, compassionate, joyful and he has a soul that is at peace with itself. He pushes me to try to be the best I can be and he teaches our children not through mere words but from example. B is also dedicated to our family, to making the world a better place and to living his life in a manner that is ethical and sincere. He is a wonderful father to our children and is always helping them find their way to themselves.
 
For years I struggled in a job that gave me little in the way of satisfaction, creativity and fulfillment. It was B who gave me the encouragement to try writing for a living and in doing so allowed my life to return to me in unexpected ways. His support (both financial and emotional) has allowed me to learn about myself, warts and all. Thanks to him I have been able to follow my own twisted path to enlightenment and happiness. If I died tomorrow, I would die happy because I am one of the fortunate ones to have experienced true love from a man who has often put my selfish wants and needs above his own. A man who heart knows no bounds and for whom love is endless and complete. B is my diamond.

So how do I feel about this now? Do I feel the same when I re-read it 12 years later? For the most part I have to say I do. Time has eroded the sense of B being as ethical as I once thought he was at least as far as our personal relationship goes. I still believe he is ethical in his dealings with others, just not me at times. He is still kind, he continues to try to be joyful ( although I would say it has diminished some but let’s face it we have serious challenges in our family), compassionate and he still helps me try to be the best I can be.  He is still a wonderful father and now he is a loving grandfather.  His soul is definitely not at peace and that is due to our strained relationship and the stress he is feeling at work and whatever else he refuses to share. But what really strikes me about this writing is this:

Thanks to him I have been able to follow my own twisted path to enlightenment and happiness.

That is not true. At All.  On so many levels.

And so what I really come away from in re-visiting this piece I had written is that things change. Quietly. Continuously. Changes exaggerate and expand as we age and get to know each other better. But in truth, we are who we are and although we will change we must also grow. And there is a difference between the two. Our relationship has changed but not always grown and we certainly have not grown together only further apart.   And I have yet to find enlightenment.

A Goodie For Me (And You)

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I haven’t mentioned that while possibly losing a husband I have gained a therapist. The husband is definitely cheaper but the therapist actually listens to me so the trade-off is worth it. Yes, I am paying her to listen but one might say I am paying off my husband to listen to me too…just not in cash…and frankly he does half the job that the therapist does.

Anyway, my therapist has instructed me to do four things every day to take care of myself.

  1. Exercise at least 30 minutes per day. Check. I’ve got this!
  2. Spend time in your own spiritual realm
  3. Mental-Spend time reading, doing something that engages your mind and helps you learn
  4.  Social/emotional- Spend time really being aware about what you are feeling and what those feelings are telling you.

So one of the best things I have been doing for myself the last 10 days is listening to the meditation/hypnosis tapes of Chel Hamilton. They calm me right down and keep that calm surrounding me throughout the day. I believe that Chel has helped me with that horrible yelling habit of mine. She also has done podcasts on finding joy, improving your relationships, increasing self-esteem. Best of all they are short (about 10 minutes) and they are FREE. Chel has a podcast and you can find her here:

http://chelhamilton.com/free-hypnotic-meditation-audios/

Seriously, these are the best 10 minutes I give myself during the day. And it is better than living in my closet trying to escape the chaos outside my door!

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Honesty…The Double Edged Sword

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I pride myself on being honest and feel that it is the most important quality a marriage must have to survive. But recently I have also come to realize it is a double edged sword. Take last night. B and I were out walking and I told him I thought I was working hard on changing those things that REALLY mattered to him. For instance, I have not yelled once in almost 2 weeks, I am definately keeping the house cleaner, we are being much more intimate, etc. I even went so far as to leave him THINGS TO DO LIST on the refridge telling him that until we went to marriage counseling I was willing to show him he is being heard by having him write one thing per day on the list that he would like done around the house. I, of course, would continue to do the other housework but would add this chore to the list of things that needed to be done. That was a biggie for me but I felt it was important that he knew I did value what he wanted and how he felt.

So as we were walking I asked him if he thought I was working hard on changing things that mattered to him like not yelling, cleaning more, buying out Victoria’s Secret, etc. He replied yes he did think I was. Then I went into the land mine asking him if he thought he was doing the same. And he said “Yes” and I I thought, “really, cause I’m not seeing it” so I asked “How?”. And he replied by being more intimate and making you feel desired. WHAT????? Really…because that isn’t benefitting you at all is it? NO, really I want to know BESIDES SEX what are you doing to change and then I realized that I had stepped on the trip wire just by the look on his face. And then I saved the night by saying, “Well I have noticed you are listening to me more” and in doing so lied. I lied because I didn’t want him to feel like “oh there she goes again I can never do anything right.” I lied because I realized I was going to ruin what had been a lovely evening by “going there.” I lied because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by saying, “NO, I really don’t feel like you are doing a whole lot of changing except for the fact you are having more sex. No, I really don’t feel like you are working very hard on yourself. In fact, it feels like you are being more selfish while sitting back and watching me run around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to make things better.”

Sorry to inform you but we are BOTH going to have to change if this marriage is to survive.

The other side of the blade also looks like this. Now that you have told me you love me but don’t really like me and now that you have told me that you might want to divorce it is hard for me to trust you and our relationship, whatever that may now be. And since you don’t share your feelings I fear that you will just walk in the door and say, “I’m done.” And that just makes me feel hopeless, scared and vulnerable. Sure, I know that I have to stop the yelling and that by doing so it will benefit everyone and also have a profound spiritual, mental and physical impact on me.  So whether B stays or leaves this is something that I am needing to accomplish for myself. But it feels so wrong to feel like my head is on the chopping block with the guillotine blade being held up by a thread. And that needs to somehow change if I am going to move forward and not sabotage this chance at saving our marriage.

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My List

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So in writing our lists of what we would like to change about ourselves I realize that I have a lot of work to do. Serious work. Hard work. Uncomfortable work. But I feel ready for the journey that all this work will send me on because my life should be an expression of the gifts I have already received. And it is not. So here goes:

  1. I NEED to find new ways to express my anger or shut it off. New ways that are not hurtful to others but still make me feel like I am being heard as I think a lot of my yelling stems from feeling that I am not being heard or respected. I need to break this destructive habit because it is hurting everyone I love AND it is hurting me because when I lash out, I then feel bad, and then I beat myself up and it is a vicious cycle. I AM HURTING THE PEOPLE I LOVE, I AM INFLUENCING HOW THEY WILL ACT TO OTHERS IN THE FUTURE, AS IT GOES WITH NOT CORRECTION MY ANGER GETS WORSE. It affects my health, my sanity and my sense of self worth. Same with my kids. I don’t want my kids to be afraid of setting their Mom off because that is so wrong on so many levels. I want to teach by good example how to handle things in a calm and loving manner. Yelling breaks my kids and my husband’s sense of trust and comfort in me.
  2. I need to find a way to minimize the daily physical pain I am in.
  3. Some of the time I think when I get yelling it is because I am not hearing things correctly and it causes real problems. Maybe now is the time for hearing aids…but sometimes it is a relief not to hear things like Andre alarming in full stereo sound and I am afraid if I hear EVERYTHING it will increase my stress level. This seems like such a 50-50 thing.
  4. I am lonely. I need to make some friends, belong to a group, do something that is meaningful to me
  5. I am going to try yoga, go to meditation class and I have already signed up for a workout class. The fear for me is that I am afraid that all this movement will increase my pain so I have avoided it.
  6. I need to find a way to really ENJOY my kids again. Maybe more one-on- one time? It just seems like so often it is a battle to do game night, etc and it discourages me to keep trying. Special needs kids can suck the life out of you with their idiosyncracies, demands and high maintainence. It is hard to enjoy them when your normal is anything but.
  7. I need to learn to trust again.
  8. I need to feel like the things I am doing count and that they matter. How do I do this?
  9. I need to decrease feeling defensive when B criticizes me.
  10. I need to regain that sense of hope for myself and my children that I feel I have lost in the past 6 months.
  11. I need to have a sense of adventure and accomplishment in my life. That is why I love ____ because I am challenging myself and discovering new things.
  12. I need to stop living in fear about finishing writing my book and having it rejected so that I don’t even do it.
  13. Maybe I need to be a little less honest  or learn to say things so that they do not seem as harsh. I REALLY need to understand that I don’t have to say or do everything in the minute that it occurs and not let what other people are doing affect me don’t stress about other peoples things.
  14. I need to find out why I am not remembering things. Is it stress, hormones or dementia. It is truly scaring me
  15. I need to be able to put into practice what I believe if B does decide to leave our marriage or if I do. I need to remember that he is a very wonderful man and admirable man who has given me so much and that I am thankful for all he has done and that he does deserve happiness and if he cannot find that with me he needs to find it somewhere. I don’t want to hurt him or our kids by acting in less than an admirable way.
  16. Find my sense of humor in this bizarre life I am living,
  17. To not let my perceived feelings of not measuring up to what B wants/needs make me feel as if I have no worth
  18. Become more positive sounding. I think I am or used to be until very recently upbeat and positive but perhaps B does not see that. L does. N does but not sure B does. I don’t think he sees that for me solving things is very positive even if I voice negative in order to solve it.
  19. I need to find ways to work with Paul better. He and I are very much alike and both feel emotions intensely so we butt heads. How can I change this?
  20. Stop over analyzing things and just let my brain rest. I don’t have to figure out …what this will do to all our kids adult and little, where I am going to live, how will we do holidays, how will this effect Paul’s mental health, how I will support myself, how we will get the kids to school if I have a job, what college I may need to go to, how Gracie can continue to go to gymnastics if there were two households to support, what if I don’t like his new wife, if one of us moves, and what will need to be done… all in the first hour that B tells me he may want a divorce. I need to just try and live in the moment without projecting.
  21. I need to pay attention that I do not sabotage this relationship because I am scared by over analyzing, by not being able to enjoy the good moments because I am worried about the future and if I make a mistake it will all come tumbling down. I have run in the past when things got tough and even though every fiber in my being wants to run I will not do so.
  22. Accept how things are and be happy with how things are. Don’t constantly beat yourself up.

Lies and Deception

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Okay, I have to be honest here. I KNEW THIS WAS COMING…SOMEDAY…just not now… this minute, this hour, this year. Even though I have seen this played out in my mind 100 times I was still dumbstruck when B came to me and uttered that ugly seven letter word D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

So you might be wondering if you knew; why didn’t you do anything about it?  Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. The fact is my husband stuffs his feelings, doesn’t share and honesty scares him. I knew this was coming because I began sensing it about two years ago but no longer trusted in myself to be my own determiner of truth. Frankly, I asked, begged, and cajoled B but…”nothing is wrong… everything is fine” were the only words I heard. But it wasn’t. Obviously. And today, after the “shock” no longer has the power to kill the soul but just send this heart in life threatening arrhythmias; I am mad. Really mad. Why?  Because if my husband is the man he has claimed to be, he shouldn’t have let his disappointments/anger/frustration at me and our relationship build to the point that he casually tossed a match and in the process burnt the house down. No, in my book, you are suppose to share and be honest, which in turn puts out the little fires before they become the raging inferno that feels like it is now consuming my very soul.

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And here is the other thing… by not being honest with me it made me experience this vague sort of “unscratchable itch”…a feeling that something wasn’t quite right, keeping the Unisom company rolling in unexpected profits as I lain awake night after night trying to figure out what, if anything, was going on. And in doing so it was forcing me to be less than honest with myself. It felt like I was cavorting with Alice in Wonderland and not living an authentic life.  This lack of honesty made me feel even slightly crazy and left not believing in my own powers of intuition and maybe that hurts most of all. Because if you cannot believe in yourself and what you know is true, well, what CAN you believe in?

But mostly, I am mad because in knowing this was coming I have been living in fear with a sense of dread mixed in a/k/a LIMBO that soul sucking state of being from which there is no going forward and no going back. I was just stuck and I’ve been there for the past two years, living as if a ghost was haunting me. A ghost that no one believed in, yet, I felt its spirit was there taking up space in my mind and in my home. And now I am left to call in Ghost Busters or Myth Busters, for at this point they are one in the same and the bill to clean up this mess will make the National Debt look small. And it didn’t have to be that way if B’s own fears about honesty hadn’t held him captive.

The Lists

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So on D-Day (Announcing I might want a divorce day) we agreed to make several lists. The first is our WISH LIST of what we would like the other person to change. The second was what we need to Change About Ourselves and the third was Fun Things We Could Do As A Couple. The Things To Do As a Couple List has its own issues. Like can I really take dance lessons without throwing out my back? Do I have to own a Harley to shoot pool in a pool hall? If I text a sexy message to my husband will it be intercepted by a child and what is the code word for nipples?

I have been working diligently trying to put together my list in a way that either a) just lists what the thing is b) what the thing is and how it affects me c) what the thing is and list an example or d) all of the above. When I started the wish list I wondered if I would get even eight things on it but as a wrote it began to just flow out of me and I ended up with 21 things on his list and 23 things on mine. As I sit back and think about this I realize if I could come up with all of these items so fast then obviously there are things I have chosen to ignore, things that have bothered me over time, etc. Maybe I should have worked on some of these before now.

The lists also made me mad and got me thinking thoughts like “Hey, buddy the decision to keep going in the marriage or to end it is mine too. And you might be surprised how the ending will be different than the ending you have pictured in your mind. Maybe I will move away and attend college and you will have the kids while I do so.”  This is not just your game to call.

Of course, we cannot exchange lists now because B took the boys up to Church Camp the day after he dropped the bomb and they are gone for a week. The sad thing is I do not miss them a bit but then again they have only been gone 24 hours. I am soaking up the quietness of the house like a future skin cancer victim soaks up the rays of the sun.

Frankly, it is so nice not to be met with the constant battles of a teen who has autism. The “I don’t want to’s”, the non-stop “no’s”. Honestly, I think I have been overwhelmed by all the special needs in this house for the past year. I know I have lost a sense of hope for Andre which is a terrible thing because I have always had hope and it has sustained me during the trying times. To be without hope feels like walking in a swamp with no moon and no flashlight; the alligators lining the banks ready to take off your toes. Or worse.

If I am honest there are days where I dream of a place consisting of cabana boys to do my bidding, maids, and professional low-calorie meal making chefs. A place where the word, “MOOOMMMMMMM” is banned and people smile as they pass you and no one gives you the finger when you accidentally slide into their lane of life. Right now I feel like the cosmic middle finger is raised in my honor!