Divorce

Anniversary & Divorce

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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Today is our anniversary. Yesterday was too. But I’m not exactly sure how to mark this momentous occasion. I mean, when someone says that might want a divorce and you are shooting for one year to see if you can still be together, how does one celebrate? I’m not sure even as I write this for a second time. After all, a celebration implies feeling good about something and being uplifted by it. At this point I’m not sure that the good outweighs the sad.

How does one laud the fact that B has returned to being cranky and argumentative just like he was before he dropped the D bomb signifying his general unhappiness? Do you mark that with a toast to all things surly? How does one observe the day when you are still wondering if you will ever feel good the majority of time about what you have together. It used to be that I believed you had a good marriage if you were happy 92% of the time. Now I would settle for 75%. Seems to me the only thing we can wrap up and put a bow on right now is the vague discontentment that we both feel nibbling at our souls.

So as I write this we have decided to go to breakfast. I am sure that signifies something…I am just not sure what that something is. No grand dinner. No grand plans. Just breakfast…a place to start your day together.  Warm coffee. And maybe even warm sentiments will be on the menu. Perhaps that is enough when you are together 30 years.

Where Am I AND Who Am I With?

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

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I just returned from the beach where it rained 3/4 of the time we were there but I loved it anyway. Something about that salt air makes me feel calm and peaceful. There I can enjoy all that life has to offer…easily. I am thinking if that is all it takes perhaps I should buy a noise machine that sounds like waves and an automatic scent sprayer that evokes that sea salt smell so I can trick myself into bliss 24 hours a day.

Speaking of bliss, while we were up north, B shaved off his beard and moustache. I haven’t seen him without it for over 25 years. Five of his six children had NEVER seen him that way either. It was quite a shock. But underneath it all there was something edgy and sexy about having a new man by my side. The smooth skin of his face now matches the smoothness of his balls and it does mind-tripping things to the fingers as they slide along matching parts of his body located at different ends. I have to admit I felt a little bit like Mrs. Robinson taking her young smooth talking boy to bed with her but take him I did and was I ever glad I did!  After 30 years of stubble… smooth felt like velvet on my body and my body responded to these new sensations extremely well especially for a 50+ year old woman with four children sleeping under our roof.

Tomorrow (which is now today as I write this) I leave for the southern part of the state where I will spend time with my kids and doctors. When I will write the magazine article that is due sometime in the next six days is beyond me but who cares…I have decided to be carefree and refuse to worry about what MIGHT bite me in the ass because of it! Until then, I am heading upstairs to get in touch with my husband’s new bare-ass naked wild side.

See ya!

I Will Be Happy….Damn it!

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

My oldest  girlfriend read my blog and told me that I sound like I’m manic depressive in my writings. She says if she didn’t know better she would think I was ready to throw myself off of a bridge and in truth I would have to agree with her assessment. Okay, not the one about throwing myself off of a bridge…we both know I am too vain to do that. I mean wrinkled and bloated…I already do that well enough without adding  rushing water.  No, I am referring to the part about the ups and downs of my recent writings.

Frankly, I am working hard at writing from my heart which at this time swings low and then high in 1 second flat. One moment I can see/feel the love the next moment it feels like it may be gone never to return. Frankly, I am a mess. While it felt for a while that things were improving we are both noticing old unhealthy patterns returning. I think my writing reflects this. Perhaps that is because the sadness and disappointments are easier to spot and to write about. I suspect that is because they are such intense emotions whereas happiness  or some variation of it, while beautiful, is not shattering and just creeps silently in without shouting out its arrival. Unfortunately, I think most of us just don’t reflect and analyze happiness like we do those negative emotions.  Pain, sadness and concern rock us to the core while happiness drifts over us sometimes appreciated and sometimes not. It just doesn’t have the sting that sadness does.

I think there is also that adage in play here about writers having to suffer angst to know the human condition and write about it in a way that gives it the justice it deserves. And while I know that this is indeed hogwash I also know that I bought into it to some small degree when I started writing for the newspaper all those years ago.

So tomorrow I am off to the beach for a holiday and I have pledged to write something uplifting, kind and noticeably happy to see if it influences any other parts of my life. Until I get back...choose to be happy damn it! … and give happiness the attention that she deserves in your life!

 

End Of Marriage Or Beginning of Acceptance?

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 5 Comments

Today was not one of my prouder days as a mother. Constant issues, constant disrespect, constant ways of intentionally pushing my buttons by Andre in a most difficult and autistic way. It’s a pattern and unfortunately I sometimes allow myself to get sucked up into it even though I know better. And it disappoints me as a mother and as a human being when I react while being poked with an intentional stick instead of laughing and walking away. I was downhearted due to my handling of the situation and I even (god forbid) yelled…something I have been successful at avoiding like the plague since the July.

I fell asleep while listening to a meditation and awoke to the call to dinner. Seems B had come home early and heard I had a rough time of things through Paul. He had made dinner to help out but I clearly saw the disappointment in his eyes.

Later I asked if he wanted to take a walk during which I poured out my soul about myself, how the day went and what I was feeling. As we walking and I was having this heartfelt conversation we were getting ready to turn at our “normal” spot when I said I would like to keep walking and B replied he wanted to get home so he could play his bagpipe.SCREECH! BING-BAM-BOOM. It felt as though he SUCKER PUNCHED me.  I told him I would keep walking by myself because it was obvious where his priorities lie. He said, “No I will come with you” but I sent him home. The possibilities for closeness and understanding felt broken. And for a while all I could think of was that that was the exact moment when my marriage ended because I realized the futility of it all. But in truth that is not what I really want because I still love this man even though I no longer understand him.

Yet, as I walked I began to think about all that was going on and wonder…  is this relationship as it stands now enough for me? Is half of a walk good enough or do I need more? Do I want someone who will listen to me until I decide that I am done whether that’s 2 minutes, 20 minutes or 2 hours… or… do I accept that this is all I will get? Can I just be grateful for a walk? Can I just accept a good gesture instead of a great one? Can I be happy with the wonderful things I get from this man and not concentrate on what I am not getting and being hurt in the moment due to his inability to respond like I would like him to? Why do I feel so vulnerable and raw all of the time? Can’t I just be happy in the way he wants me to be? Because that is all he wants…for us to be happy. As Nicole said “He wants happiness and unicorns on his terms because he doesn’t want to deal with any messes.”

Later when we were laying in bed we discussed the situation and of course he felt hurt (seems like we just keep feeling hurt by the other lately) I asked him when was it you realized that I wasn’t everything you wanted/needed but you decided to accept it and he replied  without a moments hesitation,”I don’t know ten, eight or maybe five years ago.” And truly, I felt shattered that he had been walking around for that long knowing and I didn’t have a clue. Because until tonight I had never thought about it that way. Maybe I should have.

 

 

Raw

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

I read a few of my writings to him

He was hurt and upset

Believed my words and thoughts were raw

He said:

“Why didn’t you let me see these

Before we went into the therapists office

Why would you save this for in there?

Why didn’t you let me see your words and let me

think about them before going in?”

I think:

It’s suppose to be a safe place

Exactly where we are suppose to take

Our deepest hurts and fears

Where we have someone to help us

Through the words and through the tears

He thinks:

Why did you ambush me?

It’s his real question

Unspoken with words

But spoken just the same

I think:

Maybe I just want to hear from your heart

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And not listen to your rehearsed

Very logical answers

Maybe I long to know

What you really FEEL not THINK

To hear words spoken from the heart

Not encased in the laughter you use

To deflect the feelings that threaten

To overwhelm you like a bad case

Of poison ivy

I am:

Guilty and sad that I hurt him

Wishing that I could say with words

The things I so easily write on paper

Perhaps they would be less complex

And easier to hear

But I am not sure that words are whats needed now

Maybe its deep feelings

Because we both want to run from them

Instead of dealing with the pain they contain

I know:

I still love him

That it hurt me deeply to hurt him

Even if that was not my intention

My intention was to be HEARD

And I wish I could take back the words

I said because I don’t want to see

Him retreat

Because of my pain

And his pain

Because really he just wants peace, love and rainbows

Happiness and joy

He claims he is a simple man

Uses it as an excuse

Not to touch those parts of him

That make him feel vulnerable and afraid

He says:

He is a simple man

But we both know better than that

 

 

 

Assigning Meaning To Things

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 6 Comments

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I am hurt and I am pissed and my therapist says I have no right to be. Sigh. I hate it when she is right.

Let me explain.

Right before B stated he “might want a divorce” I had ordered a chandelier from Pottery Barn. I rarely do such things. It was extravagant. It was sparkly. It shined from every angle.. And it would look oh-so-right in my dining room instead of the $25 builder installed light that has been hanging there for the past 10 years. So after much thought and angst I bought it. I am just not a big spender and this was wayyyy over my usual $50 budget for such items.

It arrived in a huge box that sat in my living room for many weeks. And then B dropped the bomb mentioning the chandelier while he listed all his dissatisfactions with me and our life together. About two weeks after his “I might want a divorce” pronouncement he said he was going to put up the chandelier and I told him not to…that I didn’t want to have to leave it in the house should we decide to divorce. I told him that if and when he felt our relationship was in a good place and we would stay together then he could put it up as a sign that things we going to be alright. And so the chandelier was moved out to the garage where it remains to this day, silently sparkling away in its huge box its beauty wasted on  all but the occasional insect who might pass by.

While I realize nine months is not a long time to deem a unhappy marriage “cured” I am beginning to resent the chandelier and all it stands for. Everyday when I back my car out of the garage I see that ugly box sitting there as a reminder that the light is the sole determinant of whether our marriage is healthy or still on the rocks and I have left it to B to make that determination. And I am mad. I am mad at the chandelier for all the meaning I have given to it. I am mad at myself. And I am mad that I have given B the power to determine the state of our marriage all based on whether or not the damn thing gets hung.

My therapist says that the chandelier is not indicative of our relationship and it is not fair to all involved that I have pinned so much meaning on it. That, “come on, you know B does not attach meaning to things like a chandelier whereas you do.” That he probably doesn’t even get its significance to you and your relationship. But I’m not so sure. That whether our marriage is viable has NOTHING to do with the chandelier. And that I should let go of this meaning I have assigned it and love myself enough to hang it up even if it means taking it down in the future because I LOVE IT. Because it sparkles in my dreams. Because it is just plain beautiful and deserves to be in the place that it was intended to be instead of hidden away in a dusty garage.

And while I know my therapist is right I also wonder if I can ever hang this chandelier or if it will always remind me of this unhappy time in my life. Can I ever trust that my relationship with B is healthy again or will I always wonder if the sparkle is blinding me to all the things that B is unable to say/do that has made him get to this point that he wanted to leave? Right now I have no clue. But someday I hope that the sparkle of that chandelier will be indicative of the sparkle in our relationship. That is my dream.

 

The Best Things About Young Love

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

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I was 23 years old when that I first met B. I had been on my own since I was 15 and at 23 I felt I had “been there/done that” in almost all areas of my life. I was a single mom, enrolled in a specialized medical program and was feeling like I had already experienced everything life had to offer. Then I met B.

One of the things that first attracted me to B was his fresh-off-the-farm innocence. He had grown up poor and had experienced little of the “finer” things in life. This made me fall in love with him. His unbridled excitement and appreciation of trying new things allowed me to see the possibilities that life offered through the eyes of an innocent. That virginal way of looking at things was sexy, spiritual and energizing. We visited museums, spent time in parks and ate out often. Once we went to a high-end Chinese restaurant where I basically forced this shy guy to get frisky under the table with me. Later our very telling fortune read, “Conscious the small part of you that realizes someone maybe watching.” He almost died of embarrassment.

Another one of my favorite things to do back then was to say outrageous things just to watch him blush. At that time saying something like “You are so hot” out loud  in a crowd would make the red spread and I got off on it. My new goal was to see just how red he could get in 1.2 seconds and I loved him for this unrehearsed ability that he had but didn’t necessarily want.

That is the beauty of young love. Its the discovery of EVERYTHING  new and relative to your relationship. The excitement of trying things together while exploring each other and the world. It is finding “your” song, “your” treasured places to dine and “your” favorite positions. While in this phase of love it as if the stars have alined and NOTHING will ever come between the two of you because you are meant to be. FOREVER.

I wonder if that is why marriage is often so difficult to sustain. After 30 years of it,  I can no longer make B blush. Our favorites have become habits and finding things we haven’t done is difficult or at our age impossible to do without knee replacement surgery. The things that would excite us at 23 just don’t at 55. Maybe this is why so many partners leave. Not because they were looking for a new love but because they were wanting to see that freshness and innocence in somebody else’s eyes. After all, it is quite alluring and intoxicating.

This makes me wonder how can one recapture this sense of innocence in a long-term relationship? Is it even possible after so many years of marriage? What is it that might stir those feelings for the two of us once again? Frankly, I have no idea. We’ve done the trips, ate new foods and taken out the Karma Sutra.

Maybe that is the true beauty of young love…that it stays fresh and true within our minds and can never be recreated. That it gives us something to look back upon and smile especially when the tough times are upon us. And perhaps young love reminds us of all we shared, created and enjoyed together while giving us hope that we can find the unfindable again. Maybe it is what keeps us going when young love fades.

 

 

 

Have We?

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 3 Comments

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Have we fixed what ails us?

Are we walking the path together

In a straight line

Or are we only connected together

By a line of oxygen tubing

That keeps us artifically alive

When in fact our relationship

Is terminal

Have we fixed what ails us?

Will we ever again feel

That closeness

That is beyond mere words

With an ability to finish

Each others sentences and thoughts

So connected that

Random young couples see us

And say

“I want to be like them”

Their (our) love still shining bright

Like a beacon of hope

To all the lovers and dreamers

Who have their hearts set

On having it all…forever

I used to think we had it all

Even with all the chaos that

Is our life with kids who have

Major disabilities that add

An extra layer to the complexity

Of our middle-aged lives

Now I am finding it hard to trust

Anything we have

Because I am afraid

And unwilling to settle

For something less than 100% honesty

But the truth floats through the air

Like a ghost

Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs

That leave me feeling

Hungry and unsatisfied

With what I have consumed

Where once I never questioned

My own happiness

Now I wonder if it attainable

With you in my life

Because I no longer know who you are

What you are and what you want

To Me, to my heart and to my soul

Whereas I was once willing to let things slide by

My happiness included

Happiness is now important to me

I am important to me

And I want to know

All things real

And not have to guess at meanings

Anymore

Where does that leave us?

You started this process

Maybe I will be the one to finish it

Or maybe I will begin to trust again

Right now the future is unknown

But isn’t it always?

 

 

Dyed Love

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 5 Comments

 

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I loved you once you know

Deeply. completely. selfishly

I devoured you…wanting you to know

Everything I was thinking

Because you couldn’t tell me

What was in your own head

So , instead, I put ideas into your head

While trying to force you to examine things

You had hidden away

From yourself for protection

Of a soul shredded

Long before I came on the scene

I am tired of you blaming me

For what the ghosts in your past

Did to you

And I am tired of seeking answers

From a man is not brave enough

To figure out whether he wants a life with me

Or without

I feel raw, used, scattered

Blown up into pieces that are gone

There is not enough glue in the world

For me to painstakingly put them all together again

Because I am busy and tired of trying to fill up

Your empty spaces and your selfish wants

The ones you know about (yes… those ones you selfish bastard)

And the ones you aren’t even aware of yet

but I am…

I am aware of more than you give me credit for

But I cannot put you together anymore either

You have to do it yourself

Stop depending on me to make

You feel good about yourself again

I can no longer carry your feelings for you

I can barely carry my own

When I remember I even have them anymore

Instead I remember a grenade

That exploded deep within my soul

And you are the one who threw it

Wounding us

You and me

And I wonder if we will ever be the same

For I am running on fumes

Somewhere near the end

Of wanting to figure all of this out

Wanting to run away from the pain

From You

From this life

That at times no longer feels right

Or loving or kind or cherished

A life that is made more complicated

By the issues of others

Until I can no longer differentiate between

Their issues and yours

But find I am growing tired of both

Of giving of myself 100%

When I just want to retreat

Somewhere deep. silent. and kind.

A place where I am no longer wounded

On a daily basis

A place where I can heal

And I can stand up again

Full of confidence. happiness. and belief

That I really do have purpose in my life

And that it starts with me

My purpose. my wants. my needs.

Alone

Without having to consider

And put first

The needs of anyone else in the world

 

 

 

 

 

The Return

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 1 Comment

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When you walk into the house after a week away you expect to feel that your husband is delighted if not intoxicated upon your return. Instead, it felt guarded and a little cold with a hint of resignation thrown in for good measure. Not what I expected at all.

Yes, Paul attacked him that morning. Yes, the grand babies are crying. Yes, things are stressful at work. I get it. I feel weary too at times. Actually, often. Sometimes it is hard not to in this household.

Tonight after being reunited, as I lay in B’s arms, I asked “Do you ever think we will get back to where you really love me. Like it used to be?”

Might as well be putting a gun in my hand and pressing it up to his head.

Why do I even ask these types of things?

I guess I want reassurance that he can, that we can, get to a place of love that once felt as wide as the Grand Canyon but now feels somewhat like a sink hole.

But I don’t get the answer  or the reassurance I am looking for. I get a question turned around on me?

“Do you think we can?” he asks, which tells me he is feeling this disconnect too. Which saddens me and makes me feel even more insecure.

Why do I have to always ask the hard questions? But even as I ask the question I know the answer…I don’t want to have to continue to try to guess. To try and read the mind of a man who doesn’t even know how he feels much less knows how to try and share it. I ask these questions as a gauge as to how our relationship is in his mind. But the thing is…I am not even sure I want to know. Sometimes I think I would like to just keep floating down the RIVER deNILE. FOREVER.