And Tomorrow I Go March Against the Tyrant. I March For Women’s Rights And The Rights Of All People
Change is scary
An Open Letter to Hillary and Melania
Dear Hillary and Melania:
During these days of campaign rhetoric and insults flying as hard and fast as missiles; there is something you both share that you have failed to recognize. You are both women who have been emotionally abused and publicly shamed by your men. Like it or not you are in the sisterhood of the betrayed.
I know both of you didn’t ask to become the poster child for women with men who stray like wild dogs in the night. I know that their poor choices have nothing to do with you and you are not to blame. They both did what they did of their own volition, their lack of morals, and with no concern for you or your children’s welfare. You were a background distraction while they cheated to appease their own egos. Their dishonesty to you and all involved is nothing you need to take on yourself nor defend. That is for them to do. You are the innocent here. You both need to realize that old song, Stand By Your Man, is seriously outdated.
Yet, just because you are not responsible for what your men have done, there is something that I would like you to consider. Like it or not you are role models for millions of women and girls out there. You are both women of privilege. You are women who have worked hard to get where you want to be. And in some small way your actions or inaction influence other women. So my question to you both is…why do you stay with men who value themselves, their penises, and their egos more than they value you?
Yes, the choice to stay is your choice and yours alone to make. I do not presume to understand the complexities of your relationships with your husbands. But I want you to think about this … there are millions of women in the United States who are beaten by their spouse, cheated on, or disrespected in front of their kids. These women are actively contemplating getting out of a situation that is physically dangerous or crippling to their psyche. They know they are in relationships that are emotionally unhealthy for themselves and their families. Yet, they are attempting to be brave, strong, and do what is right by their children even if it is just one step at a time until they have a plan in place and they can safely leave.
We all know that deciding to leave a marriage is never easy. But it is especially difficult for women without power, wealth, and fame. So when we see the two of you, women with all sorts of emotional and financial resources stay with men who have hurt and emotionally abused you on a national stage; it makes it just that much harder for any woman to leave her own tormentor. How can girls have the courage to move on when you don’t? How can women separate when they see you defend a man who has not earned the right to that kind of loyalty from you? If you can’t do it with all your privilege, how can other women who are less fortunate than you?
I am so glad we live in a time when you have earned the legal right to do what you want in regards to your personal relationships. You have the luxury of being able to choose. I recognize that it is not your job to divorce for the sake of all women but dammit perhaps if we saw you refuse to put up with the crap your spouse has heaped on you, it would give others women the courage to do the same. Perhaps if we saw you value yourselves we could value ourselves in the same way. And perhaps if we saw women like you be bold and refuse to put up with men who love themselves and their desires more than they love their wives; we wouldn’t have to have these kinds of discussions thirty years from now. For the future for women everywhere will only change when those at the top lead by example not rhetoric, show courage not complacency, and love/value themselves more than they love power or money.
Yes, it is up to us to stand on our own two feet, but I have to wonder, that if perhaps if you stood just a little higher, if it would make it easier for the rest of us.
Gone For Good
Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep I had a wonderful idea for a blog piece. I knew I should kick the covers off of my feet, trot downstairs, and write the idea down. But I didn’t and, of course, this morning I can no longer remember what that most excellent idea was. Believe me when I say it was fabulous because it was…the fringes of my mind tell me so.
This isn’t the first time this “mysterious” loss of memory has happened. I have had “million dollar” ideas that would change the world in profound ways that were lost somewhere in my dreams. I have had ideas for novels fly down the rabbit hole and other important thoughts vanish into thin air upon awakening. But the worst thing about all this is that my memory loss no longer occurs only when I lay my head on my pillow but throughout the day as well. It’s getting scary.
Just yesterday, I walked into a different room three times during the coarse of the day and could no longer remember what I had come into the room for in the first place. I also call my children the wrong names to the point that they now answer to “Hey, you!” And I have five pairs of glasses from five different periods in my eyewear life floating around my house because I can never find the current prescription pair. One minute I have 20/20 vision the next 30/70….no wonder my brain seems so scrambled…it’s constantly getting mixed signals!
I have tried various things in an effect to improve my memory. For a while kale became my “go to” snack. I ingested so much fish oil that I started to grow gills. I increased my sleep time but than only seemed to increase the fog. I even bought one of those free improve your memory apps but it expired before I remembered to use it. Yes, I think I have tried it all.
You would think with all the pharmaceutical “cures” for this disease or that affliction that they could come up with something that would help those of us who are “memory challenged.” I have even gotten so desperate that I have considered pilfering my neighbors viagra because:
a. I know his wife doesn’t want to have sex with him anymore and I owe her big time because she has kept her mouth shut after what could be considered a blackmailable event.
b. I figure if that if little blue pill can make a dick go up then it certainly can make my memory quotient and IQ increase as well. I am fairly certain that if it mimics what happens “down there” way “up there,” it should make my mind stronger, straighter and last much longer. And we all know that men’s brains reside in the head of their penis.
Unfortunately, “Tom” keeps this “family jewel” of a prescription locked up tighter than Fort Knox so testing my hypothesis is proving to be more difficult than I had originally anticipated. And while I would like to think viagra would increase my ability to remember things, with all my luck it would just give me “iceberg” nipples for the rest of my life.
When my friends and neighbors begin to realize the extent of my problem they tried to be tolerant and kind but after you have stood them up for coffee five times it grows old. Yet, they still continue to assure me (I think) that this is only menopause fog and that it will get better especially once all of my kids are out of the house. These same friends have also begun to share their deepest darkest secrets with me knowing that within two hours I will no longer remember what they have said and they swear my advice is good as gold.Yes, I’m now the confessional priest of my neighborhood to such an extent that I am sure church attendance is way down and that the “Vatican mob” will be coming after me soon.
Yet, even with all my memory loss issues I still believe I am way ahead of the game and that a possible presidential run is in my future. After all, Hillary is unable to remember where 30,000 emails disappeared to and The Donald has uttered the words “I don’t remember” probably close to a million times during the hundreds of depositions he has given in court proceedings against him.
In the meantime, in an attempt to keep myself safe, I am contemplating a reverse tattoo which when viewed in a mirror will list my address and phone number so that I can make it home. And I think it might work …. if I can just remember that it is there.
Struggle
I am struggling not to go there. Not to go to the dark part inside myself that sees things in the shadows that may or may not be there. That part of me that is distrustful when it is not warranted because my issues with distrust developed when I was a little girl so many years ago and are exacerbated by the unexplained things that sit in my Place of Mysteries.The Place of Mysteries…303 Days To Fix This The place that calls out to me from under the door “Look at me now. Look at me, even though your information is incomplete. Go ahead jump to the worst conclusions.”
I am desperately trying to hold myself back from this sort of thought process but I am finding it difficult.
So here’s the thing. When B was at camp I had the chandelier hung. I also had a broken electrical outlet replaced with a new outlet that also has two USB charging stations incorporated in the design. This new outlet is the same place where B has charged his phone for the past ten years.
A few days after he returned home from camp, as I was going to bed, I noticed his phone was not at the station charging so I decided to go find it and plug it in for him. I was trying to speak his love language by doing something kind, but I couldn’t find his phone anywhere. Strange… but I didn’t think too much more about it.
Anyway, the next day I noticed the same thing. And the next and everyday since. Again the phone is no where to be found and is not in the place he has charged his phone for the past ten years. B usually gets up about an hour earlier than me but today I got up early and his phone was charging at the charging station. Last week I kind said, “I noticed you aren’t using the charger.” He said something to the effect he liked using the plug in and I didn’t really think anything about it…but now I am.
I guess I am concerned because most people don’t suddenly change what they do unless there is a reason for it. I am confused why there is this sudden change of habit and a phone that is out of sight when it has never been this way before. I want to know the reason. Maybe it is something simple or maybe not. Yet, with the new found attempt to re-kindle our relationship I am afraid that if I bring it up it will cause problems and the “you don’t trust me” statements will be hurled at me like a cannon ball.
I will say here that I do not know B’s password to his phone and I have not looked at his phone for over a year. We used to have each other’s pass codes but I have not had his for a year and frankly I am assigning meaning to that lack of information and perhaps I should not. Like it is some sort of tell-tale sign of the health of this relationship especially since it was not that was before.
Frankly, I am not even sure that this wondering of mine has to do with not trusting or if it is more of a sense of curiosity. A wondering if this has implications that I am not even aware of which makes me unnerved. That these new behaviors B is exhibiting are saying something about our relationship in some sort of foreign language that I don’t understand.
I don’t like this…this feeling of secrecy and tip-toeing around afraid to ask legitimate questions. And as time passes I often wonder if this is the way I want to live. I am an open book. My computer is always open and my phone is available to anyone who wishes to see it. I think that this is what I am wanting in my relationships. Transparency.
I don’t know if transparency is the norm. All my friends have access to their spouses phones, computers, etc. Is this important or not?
But still, I wonder, does this indicate there is a problem in other people’s marriages or mine? I guess time will tell….and there goes my positive post pact. SIGH.
Black Hole-10 Minute Poem Challenge
We are like the night sky
You and I
Once bright stars
With secret twinkles
That only the two of us could see
Our relationship for years
Shining brightly
Casting our light out into the world
For all to witness
That spectacular show
But then we began to dim
With age
Shining so brightly
We burnt ourselves out
The twinkling came less often
And the light began to fade
Until, lifeless, we were sucked into a black hole
So vast and deep
It appeared there was no way out
Of the eternal prison
Black holes were thought to be
But Hawking told us otherwise
That once inside the vastness
Things could get out again
And in colliding against
Stones thrown our way
We created a new form of energy
Together
And we plotted our escape
Back into the universe where love reigns
And where we are able to shine again
Realigned with towards the other
Energized and free
To cast our light
In ways that feel right
To each of us
Without past debris
Clouding the universe
Of our new lives together
While the light renews itself
And slowly gets brighter
Homesick
At 10:00 p.m. the first night I dropped her off at camp I received the call I had been dreading.
“I’m homesick,” sob, sobbing harder, and then louder.
“My roommates didn’t show up.” SOB, tears falling so hard and fast as they hit the phone it sounded like rain hitting the roof.
“You don’t have roommates?”
“Yes, I convinced two other girls to join me.”
“I hate it here!” WAAAAHHHHHHHHH
“Don’t you like the pool?”
“No, its horrible!” Sniff, sniff, sniff
“Are you learning any new skills?”
“N-o, I h-a-te it h-e-r-e” hicup, hicup, hyperventilate.
“Are you wanting me to pick you up?”
“Yes, come immediately!!!!”
“Honey, by the time I would get there it would be 3 a.m. and I just drove home from their today. I can’t do that and I won’t do that!”
WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
And the longer we talked the worse it got until I finally realized I was in a no-win situation and she would keep this up until Sunday, the battery power on her phone died, or at the very least until the sun rose.
In exasperation I said to my littlest
“Honey, I have to go, so put on your big girl panties and tough it out. Here’s the thing, you have the ability to choose what this weekend will be for you. You can choose to be miserable or you can choose to be happy, to have a great time, learn lots and create a bunch of memories. It’s your choice. Personally, I would choose happy because that is the only REAL choice you have if you want to have a good life. Start practicing making good choices.”
And then I hung up the phone before it got wet as the salty drops started to splatter around me.
Letting Go Again
It’s been going on for over a week now.
“I’m nervous!”
“I won’t know anyone there!!!”
“What if I get lost???!!!!!!”
“What if there is nothing there for me to eat?”
“What if I land wrong on the board and hurt myself?”
This is what I have been hearing from Gracie lately and it intensified as the day drew closer for her to attend diving camp at a large university four hours from home. These are the words of a child whose age is between the first double digit and her teens. Excited but scared to death especially because she knew no one who would be attending camp with her.
She’s good at what she does so I wasn’t worried about that aspect. She has accomplished in three years of doing her sport what it has taken of most of her competitors 6-8 years to do. Learning and practicing wasn’t the issue but being away from home was.
Gracie has always had difficulty separating herself from us. I often wonder if she would have been this way if she had been born to us or if her adoption has played a role in it. Not knowing if people will come back to you or if they will stay with you does tend to put doubts in your head. And as we spent last night together in the city she looked as if she might cry. But I knew that she needed this camp to teach her about courage and accomplishment not so much in her sport but in life in general. That’s what we are suppose to do as parents. We should give our children experiences which allow them to separate with confidence so they will be able to be independent adults when they go off on their own.
Waking up this morning was hard. Her nerves were bouncing all over the place and I was watching as a “bad hair day” started to unnerve her even more. I said all the right things and did all the right things. I asked if she was okay and told her since she could do double rotations she had nothing to be afraid of. Finally, it was time to go and check into the college dorms. Now, I was getting a little hesitant.
We drove over in near silence with Gracie taking in everything around her. After unpacking and making her bed I saw that Gracie was beginning to get her groove back. Her confidence began to soar (or at least she wasn’t going to let anyone know anything different just like she does when she dives). Just before she was to go to the pool with her group she remembered she had left her water bottle in the car so we dashed off to get it. As we walked back I took her into my arms and said, “You’ve got this baby. You will be okay.”
And with that she lifted her big brown eyes, looked up into mine, let go of my hand and said, “Geez mom, you worry too much!!!”
It was at that moment I knew she would be just fine and that in releasing my hand she was letting go of so much more.
372 DAYS TO FIX THIS
When I began this blog it was with the intention of blogging everyday for 365 days as I fought to keep my marriage intact. I didn’t because life got in the way. A lot. Life has a tendency to do that when you have a husband, 5 children, a dog and 3 grandchildren.
I purposely decided not to blog about reaching 365 days on the one year anniversary of B telling me how unhappy he was in our marriage and that he might want a divorce. I didn’t want to “celebrate” much less acknowledge one of the most agonizing days of my life. That day, one year ago, was a full of intense pain, enough tears to officially end the drought and it lead to months of increased struggle, anger, and hurt. The “I Think I Might Want A Divorce Day” brought me to my knees and my life changed at that instant. Thirty years of togetherness, memories, marriage and great sex were on the verge of disappearing in a blink of an eye. I am not sure why but on that day I asked B to give it 365 days to fix our broken relationship and with it a blog was born. Six hours later he left for a week to take the boys to scout camp.
Frankly, it was never my intention to spill my guts the way I have; nor allow my anger and dismay to swallow me whole with witnesses along to pick their way through my mess. But I did and it did. I am not really sure what I expected when I started writing but the rawness of some of my early posts bring me back down to earth with a thud. Divorce was for other people. Not me. Damn it.
There are many things that have happened this year that have stretched and surprised me. The major one was that at some point in the past year B and I reversed roles and I decided I wanted a divorce but to my surprise he didn’t. That was an awakening and hurt almost as much as when he said he might want one. Frankly, I didn’t know quite what to do with that. But we both know that with three kids in the house, two of them with autism and other issues that impact our marriage in a big way; that divorce would be akin to picking up tiny pieces of a huge pane of shattered glass and that someone would get cut. Deeply.
I wish I could say I handled all of this with grace. I didn’t. I did however get a therapist whose help has been invaluable. She has taught me to be mindful. To sit with things and let them brew without my influence. We have also been going to joint counseling and B now has his own counselor too so that he can learn to express himself rather than keep things bottled up inside for years. But the best thing we did was attend a Marriage Encounter weekend. It is what has started us down the path towards healing, understanding and really listening to one another. I am not sure that had we not attended that my blog would count off 372 days. Really, it made that big of a difference. We just had to be open to it even though we are not Catholic and the things were heard were nothing more than what we would have heard at any religious gathering. I urge any of you who are struggling in your marriage to at least consider attending.
The changes I have made over this past year have been accomplished through a lot of hard work and perseverance . At times I have taken one step forward and two steps back. Those steps have been humbling, courageous, and have often felt like I had a huge splinter in my shoe while I was taking them. I have had to do a lot of changing. I used to try and live my life with a guarantee arm-wrestled from others…an impossible task. I try not to do that anymore. The biggest thing I have accomplished to date is that I have stopped yelling. That was a major victory and has changed our family for the better in so many ways. I am now working on trying to remove a sense of harshness from my voice and it is a challenge to say the least.
I have implemented many new ways of doing things and new ways of considering how to occupy my place in the world. This is what I have done that has been helpful for me:
- I listen to the Meditation Minis podcast by Chel Hamilton. It’s free and it is only 10 minutes a day. Those 10 minutes have allowed me to decrease the negativity I has feeling in my body and mind and replace it with acceptance and positivity.
- Thanks to my therapist I now have a Place Of Mysteries. This is a place in which I put on a shelf things I do not have enough information about so I do not carry them around with me. I then examine them when I have more facts so that I can make intelligent decisions.
- I am working really hard on not saying things the moment I think them. I now try to let my thoughts gels before spouting them.
- I try to look for the good instead of the negative
- I make a conscious choice all day long to CHOOSE LOVE. When things irritate me I CHOOSE LOVE and try to act accordingly.
- I try to give the benefit of the doubt to the positive attributes I know that B has instead of jumping to conclusions.
- I try not to TIME TRAVEL to the future and the past. Instead, I try to stay in the present collecting the golden nuggets of life that are in the here and now.
- I try to think rather than just react and ask for time to do so when more time is needed.
- I get more sleep realizing that there is always tomorrow to get things done.
- I keep a sex calendar which serves as a gentle reminder that too much time has slipped away since our last loving encounter.
- I work on being mindful of what is going on around me and within me. I have slowed down to really think about the ramifications and unintended consequences of what I am doing.
- We dialogue every night in the way we learned to do at Marriage Encounter. This has allowed us both to learn more about what the other is feeling and gives us a loving perspective in which to view our mate and his/her actions. Dialoging gives us the time to ask questions and clarify, not just assume what is meant by words/actions.
- I have lost weight but not for him. It is for me only and it shows.
- I am learning to just sit with things and not try to force a desired outcome.
- I am trying to learn to do things with joy in my heart while doing them. After all, the house does need to be cleaned so why not do it with joy instead of resentment?
- We try to have a date night every week or so. Time spent with each other without the interruptions of family life has allowed us to look at each other as individuals with unique feelings instead of as just Mom and Dad.
- We have a GRATEFUL log that we keep to remind us of all the wonderful things the other has done for us and is useful to pick-up and read when things are a little bit off.
- Whenever I feel like I am getting “hooked” I try to take a pause and relax.
- I have come to realize that life is not static. We are fluid beings and as such things will change. I don’t have to stay “stuck” in a particular way of acting or doing things especially when it is causing me or my loved ones harm. I am sowing seeds everyday that will blossom as suffering or joy depending on how I plant them and care for them. I try to keep this in mind as I interact with others.
So a year as come and gone. A year in which I did not get divorced or separated although we came close. A year in which we both worked hard to improve ourselves and our marriage. It has been a lonely year that has been frightening yet also enlightening. We have had to expose our own vulnerabilities as we have attempted to open up to one another in very deep and personal ways. And as painful as it has been I am grateful for it because I have become a better person, a better partner, and a better mother because of it. I have grown and become a better me. A person I am proud of and a person who is more comfortable in her own skin. And I have a marriage that is better than I believed would ever be possible. Does this mean that in 365 days I was able to “fix this”? Heck no. Does this mean I have a perfect relationship? No. Does this mean we will be together forever? I think the opportunity for that has increased tremendously but I no longer try to look for guarantees because there really are none for this type of thing.
What I do know for sure is that once again B is at camp for the week and this time when he left my heart was filled and my brain was quite. For this time around, I have a confidence in myself and a belief that together we can conquer those things that are holding us back. Things may not be perfect but they are getting better everyday and that is really all you can hope/work for. But perhaps the most important thing is that I am happy, really happy, and sometimes even joyful. I am becoming who I want to be as I enter into my mid 50’s and discover what it is that is really important to me and what I can leave behind.
So thank you for sharing this journey with me. I am sure there have been times you have wanted to kick me in the ass. I am sure there are times where you would have liked to have screamed “WAKE UP.” But believe me I have felt your loving arms wrap around me and hold me close when there was no one around to do so. And for that I will be eternally grateful!
Self-Deception
When did I …STOP…
Seeing myself as a StRoNg
And CoNfIDeNt Woman?
Was it when…
I didn’t finish my Master’s Degree?
DoUbTfUl
Was it when I stopped working
To take care of a family…
The loneliest Job in the world?
Maybe
Was it when those unexplained absences
Occurred
On those silent nights
When you were gone?
Didn’t help
Or perhaps I never really was
StRoNg and CoNfIdEnT
Those powers lost when I
Was But a ChiLD
Struggling to UNDerStand
A World I Couldn’t
Possibly know
A world made for adults
At which I played dress-up
Taking tea laced with whiskey
Trying to act cool
And impress people
I shouldn’t have bothered with
Did they BeAt me down?
Or did I do it to myself?
I would guess the latter
Yet, I would also suspect
This is a more recent
Phenomenon
That has arrived
Tangled in those few gray hairs
I pluck at
To remove from sight
That age I should be celebrating
Instead of fighting
Like an epic battle
Between GoOd and EviL
Lost in a dark forest
In which most of the trees were
Felled long ago
But where shadows remain
With a poster tacked to
The BriTtLe bark of a downed tree which reads:
Lost…StRoNg & CoNfiDeNt Middle Aged Woman
With Blue eyes
A big heart
And dark circles under her eyes
If Found
Please return her to…
ME…
I miss her
Into The Dark I Go
So this week I went to see my therapist. We had an interesting discussion in which she told me that I do not have to say out loud every thought that enters my brain. And while I have “understood” this for quite a while I have a hard time putting it into practice for it stems from some parts of my childhood and marriage that are not yet resolved. For whatever reason, I associate that saying what you feel it = honesty. Not saying what you feel = dishonesty.
“How is that working for you?” she asked. “Not too well is it? I have to say your radar on honesty and dishonesty is out of whack. It is a defense that has nothing to do with true honesty and you need to work hard to figure it out.”
Even I have to admit she is correct. Evidence shows that this way of operating befuddles me and creates unnecessary pain for myself and others.
She went on:
“You think you are being honest when in fact you are not because you are not allowing time for things to gel. By jumping the gun you are getting facts wrong or putting them in a category that they do not belong in. You are not containing what you are thinking long enough to see if the facts line up with your powerful intuition and when you speak from intuition without the facts you are not being honest.You are not being mindful. In fact, by not allowing time to pass in which you can throughly examine what is before you, well, you are contributing to some of the dishonesty that occurs in your life.”
Ouch.
“Further,” she went on, “When you speak too soon it shows that you are not operating in a conscious and mindful manner. It shows that you are just surviving which is not healthy.”.
Ugh
Again she is right …which makes the near future a whole lot more difficult. Because once again I have got some heavy duty work to do on myself which means unpacking a lot of boxes that lie in the Place of Mystery which are hidden in the deep and dark recesses of my mind. And while I know it will be worth it in the end, right now it feels like trying to unwrap a house that has been encased in yards of cellophane one layer at a time. This feels hard, tiresome and exhausting. And it will be. I try to remind myself that to produce the change I want to see, I have to put forth effort. So today, I start by unpacking one box and putting one foot in front of the other… so I get eventually get where I want to go.
With the light of wisdom
We leave behind the forest of confusion.
With determination we learn,
We reflect and practice -Thich Nhat Hanh
Gardy Loo Pismire 