Beginning Again

Why Now?

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 14 Comments

There were several times in our marriage that we might have broken up.  When your family refused to meet me not because I was me but because no girl that your mother had not picked out for you would be the “right” one. And in our early marriage in my total immaturity I would say, “Okay, let’s get a divorce” when we had an argument.There was that time in 1989. And when we found out we could not have biological children together. And when the IVF failed. When over a period of several months I could not reach you in your hotel room at 2 am…four different times at four different hotels. I counted. I remember. When I found those not quite dirty but not quite innocent texts between you and Gweniffer. So many times we could have just walked away… so why now?

Why now when we have six children depending on us? Why now when I have hit middle age? Why now when I have been out of the job market for many years raising our children together? Why now when we have created something that so many would die to have/experience what we have? Why now when we still have amazing sex… or does doing it for the 5,687 time bore you? Why now when you have  seven years until retirement? Why now when I have done what you have asked? Why now… even though I am not perfect, I have been a good wife moving so many times for your career and always cheering you on?

Sometimes I wonder how you could be so selfish and so harsh. Is that how you see me?

Sometimes I wonder how you could be so blind. Is that how you see me?

Sometimes I wonder how you could be so disconnected. Is that how you see me?

Sometimes I wonder how you can have sex with me when you no longer love me the way you want to?

Sometimes I wonder how we could have unraveled so far?

So why now? After over 30 years of togetherness? Can you just not stand me that much that you will sacrifice our family and our life together? Do you think it will be easier with the kids by yourself? Do you think you will find someone younger, prettier and better than me? Maybe so but maybe not, yet this I know… I no longer know what to think. I no longer know what to feel. I no longer know what to do. I am at a complete and utter loss…and you have put me there.

IF

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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If I was an oarsman…I would paddle through stormy oceans

To bring you back to me

If I was an engineer…I would shovel the coal and steam full speed ahead

To bring you back to me

If I was a pilot…I would fly around the world searching

To bring you back to me

If I was a a trucker…I would pay the tolls

To bring you back to me

If I was a mailman…I would apply as many stamps as needed

To bring you back to me

If I was in the Special Forces…I would hack my way through jungles

To bring you back to me

But I am none of those

And incapable of bringing you anywhere

You have to walk to me

On your own two feet

Of your own volition

With love in your heart and strength in your eyes

You have to plumb the depths of your soul

To figure out

Who you are to yourself, to me, and to our children

And where you want to be

You have to make the decision

To find me again or not

For I am here with empty arms

Waiting to see…

If you will choose the hard path or the easy one

If you will honor your vows

If you will be here because you want to be

If you will be the man I used to know

If you will allow yourself

To fall in love again

With me and all that I represent

And know this

If you choose to walk away

I will not take you back

So be sure what you are doing

Will bring you the happiness that you

Are sure that you are missing

And know that we will all be forever changed

As you search for what you think is out there

No oarsman, pilot or trucker now needed

To bring you back to what you already had

That is now gone…forever

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STANDING ON THE OUTSIDE

As you stand on the outside

Looking in

You will see that I still have

A smile on my face

And deep love in my heart

Our children will still laugh

And I will still sing

With you firmly on the outside of our lives…

As you stand on the outside

Looking on in

You might see a new man

Being the father to your children

That you swore you would always be

Yet, he is with them now

And he is with me

A woman still capable of happiness and great love

He was lucky enough to find me

And smart enough to know a treasure when he saw one…

As you stand on the outside

Looking in

You will see your reflection in the glass

Will you like what you see?

Will you be proud of what you have done?

Or will you wish

That you had been wiser

And realized that your perfect ideal of a “happy” life

Was just a fantasy that never came true

As you searched for greener pastures elsewhere

And you gave up something

Rare and beautiful

For nothing…

As you stand on the outside

Looking in

On everything beautiful

You once had

But didn’t appreciate

Will you appreciate it now

That you are standing on the outside

Excluded and alone?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ooo-La-La…Sexy Men In Kilts

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

I never thought that men in kilts would do anything for me. I mean, after all, knobby knees don’t make me weak in the joints. And hairy legs just make me look at my own and run for the razor. Men in knee highs…well, it is the stuff that horror movies are made of and I have never really had the inclination to lift a skirt regardless of who it belongs to. But this weekend might have changed all that.

Over the past four years or so I have had to get used to watching my husband walk around in a kilt. This kilt-wearing began after a trip to Scotland. I was interviewing a bagpipe maker and B went along for the ride. As we exited the quaint shop in Sterling he said, “I think I want to play the bagpipes.” I almost fell to my knees. First off, B had never played an instrument in his entire life and even the best piper can at times sound like a goat caught in a fence. The odds were not in his favor for becoming the next “Bach of the Bagpipes.” Secondly, for the most part men like B just don’t wear kilts. They wear hardhats, they wear steel-toed boots and they wear Calvin’s tighty whities. They wear those whities because boxers make them highly uncomfortable… there is not enough fabric to protect and hold up what lies within. So an open-air let-’em hang kilt…forget it…I just couldn’t imagine such a thing would ever happen. I was wrong.

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Not only did B buy his pipes he came home and found a pipe band to teach him how to play. It was only a short time later that this Irish lad came home attired in a Scotman’s clothes complete with a sporin. The first time I saw him I looked at those knee socks and thought, “Well there is no way we will ever have sex again!” But eventually I got used his tartan as his ability to play and his demand increased. Now he is a full-fledged member of the band and spends time performing at funerals, store openings and Celtic Festivals. But still the kilt just didn’t do much for me…until this weekend…Really.

Now I don’t know if it was the whiskies talking or the rain but about 2 hours after I started drinking those men in plaid started to look mighty fine. The more I drank the better they looked and those knee socks began to even look like something that might come handy in the bedroom.

And then I spotted my husband… glory be…that Irishman looked better than any Scot in the place. As we stood listening to the rockin’out pipers of Celtica I put my hand on his butt and…oh laa laa…no thick blue jean material between me and his Calvins and… it felt round and good. Really…the perfect handful.

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“Hmmm, maybe I have been missing out on something,” I thought. “I better test this out some more.”

So I did.

That butt felt better the second time around. And I found out the benefit of a man in a kilt. Just where those folds open … how…and why. But I’ve never been one to kiss and tell. Guess you just better go out and find yourself your own man in a kilt so you can find out just exactly what they wear (or don’t) under there and grab your own handful…you won’t be disappointed.

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Falling Spirits And Falling Faces

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 5 Comments

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My face is falling as are my spirits

My life in free fall too

The jowls of my life crammed and swollen full of life’s misery

While the jowls of my face sag and slide into other parts of my body

Lines like jump ropes criss cross my life

Over which I play an endless game of jump rope

The beat as they interrupt my life kerplop, kerplop, kerplop

In rhythm with my teardrops falling

While my heart goes into an arrhythmia making up its own disorganized beats

The lines around my eyes crinkle

Belting out a song sounding like an opera of sadness and worry

Madame Butterfly perhaps

These lines now permanent reminders of times gone by

And things yet to come

Scary things, sad things, worrisome things

Over which I have little to no control

Will I find joy with the hand I have been dealt?

Or must you look for it under rocks and in deep dark forests?

Elusive joy. Elusive happiness. Elusive everything

My eyes are closing through no fault of their own

Loose skin moving like an avalanche

And weighing them down

The suddenness of this onset surprising me

Taking me down

Down further than I have ever been

I hate it down here

In this sad and lonely place

I have given myself a week to digest this doctor’s news

Give myself a pity party

And then I shall climb back up

Plaster a smile upon my face

And find some sort of life

With the new knowledge at hand

What it will look like

I have no clue

Do we ever?

Copyright 2016 as are all writings put onto this blog

 

 

 

 

Getting Back To Life

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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When I started this blog I made a promise to myself that I would write everyday and have pretty much stuck to that come hell or high water. I made this commitment out of a primal need to express myself after B had talked about a “maybe” divorce. This was/is my safe place to vent those things weighing heavily on my mind. It was/is a place I could use to say the words I needed to say but not always to B because they were too painful and raw. Blogging was my escape from life in the sense I could look at my life as if I was an outsider and consider it as such. I thank everyone who has read what I have written and given me a nudge, a kind word, or pointed things out that I needed to consider. So many people have helped me on this journey.

Recently however, I have decided I must get back in the game of my life. In my “real” life I write magazine articles and since the “maybe divorce” I put those assignments on hold. I also stopped working on the three novels and a child’s picture book that are all in various forms of disarray. While the blog has been helpful in that it helped ensure that I didn’t check out all together, it has also taken up time that I probably need to use to complete what I started and finish SOMETHING… ANYTHING. So while I will continue writing, maybe still on a almost daily basis, I have decided to allow myself a little flexibility. We shall see what happens!

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Of course, now that I have written this I will probably blog more than ever…go figure!

 

 

Trying To Find Our New Roles In Life

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / Leave a comment

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Throughout our lives we have roles we take on. Some have been forced upon us and some we take on willingly. Many of these roles we discard as time goes by, some we reinvent in a slightly different form, while some we seem to keep until the day we die. Somehow the latter seem to be the ones that we like the least and yet we retain them the longest.

This weekend was difficult for us. I think that when you are over 50 and going through a “maybe divorce” that one of the biggest issues is the discarding of roles and the discovery of new slots out of which you are now going to behave. After operating from one set of expectations for thirty years it is difficult to recognize and accept new patterns of doing things and unfamiliar ways of thinking. Years of acting one way are difficult to channel into something else and difficult for “the other” to accept.

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I know that in your 50’s it is suppose to be a time of gains. Money, richer relationships, second homes, etc. For me, it feels like a time of discarding stuff including those parts of myself I no longer need or wish to operate from. As I take out this “stuff” I am forced to really look at it and contemplate whether it is of value to me anymore. As a result, I am feeling lighter and freer than I ever have before. But that doesn’t mean it is easy especially for the other person involved. Honesty, in the form of being true to myself, has moved to the forefront of my life which at times hurts B. And while I dislike seeing B feeling uncomfortable and knowing that I have caused his discomfort; at this point in my life I am not sure that I care anymore as long as I know that the truth of who I am…who he is…will make things better in the long run. But what exactly is BETTER? What does that mean?

I guess I won’t know the definition of BETTER until we reach the end of whatever all this is. And I’m okay with that because either way whatever changes I have made I suspect will have led me to a more authentic me.

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And this relationship? It will either be or it won’t but in the end I will be all that I have envisioned and right now that is what feels important.

Finding Hope…326 Days To Fix This

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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Joseph Addison once said ” Three grand essentials for happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.”

Lately my something “to do” has been to work on fixing our marriage.

My something “to love” has been trying to reclaim the love that B and I had once shared.

But hope for this relationship…well, I wasn’t feeling or seeing it. Maybe I had cut myself off from feeling hope. Because, realistically, if you have hope you have to go all in and not hold back due to fear, and frankly; I was feeling fearful, scared and the sense of trust to just let go wasn’t there.

This weekend I reclaimed hope and it felt wonderful. I am seeing the glimmers of a future together where last month I saw a black hole. I see a man who is trying like hell and a woman who is too. I see two people exploring each other again and finding that there is much to like and to love. I see two people who are sorry for the wrongs they have inflicted on each other and for words never said that almost mortally wounded their future together. Most of all, I see two people who really want this “marriage thing” to work out and who want our family to remain intact. And if our marriage still bottoms out it wasn’t because we didn’t try like hell.

This weekend hope felt like… moonlight walks around the lake, like long heart-felt talks around a campfire and just holding hands while watching Gracie fish. It felt like sharing a cup of coffee, getting a little grab-ass in the shower, and listening to the frogs croak their love songs throughout the night. Hope felt lovely, new, light and right.

Hope made me recognize that we are doing the hard work to put our marriage first and to make it work in a new way that is better for both of us. Hope has made us both want to jump all in. Sure we have a long way to go, much to negotiate and to learn new ways of communicating but I believe that for the first time we both have hope…and that is enough for now.