The Grief Ninja

Did I mention that I’m a shit magnet?  Because I didn’t mean for the universe to take that literally.  But somehow this week I ended up with shit, literal shit, backing up into my shower and tub.  Yeah.  Like I don’t have enough poo in my life.   I handled it like a boss.  I didn’t cry or get weird.  I just called the plumber.  Water was pouring into the basement.  They acted all like, “Yeah, we’ll look at it tomorrow, no problem,” and I acted all like “Umm, hell no you really need to come NOW.”  And so they did.  Turns out the plumber was a hottie.  For your amusement I tried to take a picture of him, but I couldn’t without getting caught.  Anyway, he was only slightly hot.  He didn’t look like this:

Now, that, my friends, is smokin’.  Ya hurd me, Adonis? 

I noticed another weird thing while the plumber was here.  My boys are really, really attracted to any male figure.  Even a stranger, like the plumber.  They stuck to him like glue while he was here, sitting next to him and pulling out toys to show him and stuff.  The yucky sewerage in the tub didn’t make me cry, but my kids trying to get attention from a strange man did.  Fuck you, Dave.  How dare you harm my kids.  I’m so angry.  He had thousands of opportunities to make the right choice for years leading up to this.  He didn’t choose them.  The path of destruction is so fierce.  My two little ones have been talking about it alot this week.  Bringing it up at circle time in school, in front of the plumber, at inappropriate times, etc.  I hate thinking about it.  So I will just say fuck you Dave one more time and stop.

Today I have fever.  Shit magnet.  I haven’t been sick in like 10 years.  My biggest fear since ‘the incident’ is that something will happen to me and I won’t be able to take care of the darlings.  I mean, seriously, I do A LOT in a day.   If I’m not well enough to do all that, well, I’m not sure exactly what is going to happen.  I will confess that last night my little kids did not bathe and they ate pop tarts for supper.  Let’s hope this doesn’t last long because that is so not going to fly two nights in a row.

You know what I hate most about grief?  I hate the sneakiness of it.  The grief ninja orchestrated a surprise attack Saturday when I found myself alone in the car for a mere 10 seconds.  My blaring radio switched to this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSxyffSB7wA  and I had to cry really hard.

Leona Lewis’ Better in Time.  I guess I never paid attention to the lyrics before.  Here they are.  I hope releasing them into the blogosphere will allow them to exit my head.

It's been the longest winter without you
I didn't know where to turn to
See somehow I can't forget you
After all that we've been through

Going coming, thought I heard a knock
Who's there no one
Thinking that I deserve it
Now I realize that I really didn't know
If you didn't notice you mean everything
Quickly I'm learning to love again
All I know is I'ma be ok

Thought I couldn't live without you
It's gonna hurt when it heals too
It'll all get better in time
And even though I really love you
I'm gonna smile cause I deserve to
It'll all get better in time

I couldn't turn on the TV
Without something there to remind me
Was it all that easy
To just put aside your feelings

If I'm dreaming don't wanna laugh
Hurt my feelings but that's the path
I believe in
And I know that time will heal it
If you didn't notice boy you meant everything
Quickly I'm learning to love again
All I know is I'ma be ok

Since there's no more you and me
It's time I let you go
So I can be free
And live my life how it should be
No matter how hard it is I'll be fine without you
Yes I will.

Take II, Mean Shit

I’m not exactly sorry to report that it’s the time of the month again when I have to curse everyone out, and then slink off to the Moon Lodge for quiet reflection.  Random Mean Shit, Take II.

Over the last month, it has suddenly dawned on me that I’m 43 years old, and single.  Everyone says I still look young, but I’m somehow convinced they are liars.  They just don’t want to hurt my feelings, because I’m a sad fucking widow.  I have become obsessed with every flaw on my body, and now I’m pissed off at myself.   When I look into the mirror, I’m appalled that I’m not 25.  And so tonight, I’m here to say FUCK YOU SELF.  Stop being a punk ass ninny because you are so fucking awesome it’s not even fucking funny.  You own the fucking world.  You OWN IT.  You are awesomeness in a bottle.  People are dying for a drop.  The girl with nine lives.  Kung Fu, Ninja chick, kick your fucking ass goddess of everything.  So fuck you.

Fuck you, Dave.  Because I thought I could be comfortably married to my best friend for the next 40 years, and now I’m single and not comfortably married.  You’re a fucking loser piece of shit for doing this to me and the boys.  They are so fucking awesome, they get more awesome every day because of me, so we are all awesome and you’re a piece of shit.  Fuck you.

Are you fucking kidding me about how much laundry and household chores I have to do by myself?  I know some dumbass spouses don’t help their partners, but I didn’t marry a dumbass man who didn’t help.  Much worse, you trickster.  We were 50/50 on chores.  Now it’s 100/0.  This cuts into my own time, my own personal time and it’s not fucking fair.  If any of you are married to a non-helper, kick them out.  It’s bullshit.  This can’t be tolerated.

People, quit telling me you are tired and don’t feel good if you eat shit that is not food.  I’m tired of looking into your baskets at the store and seeing stuff that is not food.  Why do you eat stuff that you can’t pronounce, that you don’t even know what it is?  Then complain that you don’t have energy, can’t lose weight, have stiff joints and aches and don’t sleep at night.  Eat food.  Just real food.  And shut up.

It’s spring.  If you don’t have nice plants in your yard, you should.  Go plant stuff so you can look at it every day and be happy.  And so we can stop looking at your ugly yard with nothing planted.  If your house is ugly, fix it.  Stop making me look at ugly stuff.  It pisses me off.

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Thank you and Fuck you

Something is happening to me.  I swear the acupuncture and all my crazy tons of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and supplements are working.  I’m feeling different.  I’m not feeling like I'm living someone else's nightmare.  I’m starting to believe that this is my own life.  I’m more patient with my kids.  They aren’t getting on my nerves.  I don’t feel like I’m going crazy.  I’m not super high.  I’m not super low.  I’m just coasting.   I think the word is normal.  I might be normal!!!  I’m not saying I still don’t feel sad and cry…I do…but it’s brief and it doesn’t drag me down into the abyss.  I think about it, I shed a tear, and it’s no different than the other things I do every day.  You’re thirsty, you drink.  I’m never going to be able to change what happened.  Can't undo it.  So we are just chugging along, me and the darlings.  I’m still a little afraid of summer time.  It’s a lot of boys without a break.  Ever.  No school.  People keep asking me about camps.  There are no camps for babies, people.  The only camp age kid I have is my 10 year old.  I’m not an idiot.  I’m not sending the only one who can wipe his own ass away.  I will find some baby sitters and figure it out.  We'll swim, go to the beach alot, do Disney, play ball, swim some more.  I will figure things out.  Except for this:  Between June 3rd to July 5th, we have to get through our anniversary, Father's Day, Dave's birthday and the anniversary of his death.  All in one month.  Umm...yeah.  Mini freak out.  We're gonna deal.  Not sure how. 

We had a day last week where the 5 year old spoke graphically and in great detail about Dave being dead on the garage floor.  I started to be really freaked out about it, then remembered that the goal is for him to be able to express it and sort it out and move forward.  So, that day, before we even made it inside after school, we hugged and cried and sobbed and squeezed each other so tightly in the front yard.  And it was ok.  It’s our story.  We can’t change it.  Our life isn’t ruined over it.  Because I’m not letting it be ruined.  Later that day we all talked about how things are getting better.  How our lives are not ruined.  How we are, somehow, still happy.  I think this is as much of a shocker to them as it is to me.  I can’t even express how certain I was that I was destined to be some kind of lunatic person.  The person who could overcome all odds, except this one.  I kept saying that to my friends, and they kept laughing and assuring me it wouldn’t happen.  I was afraid I’d die a bag lady; dirty and living with cats in a hoarder’s house.  I really thought I might go that crazy.  I really felt that crazy sometimes.  This grief stuff, it does make you question your sanity.  I look back to the last 8 ½ months, and I’m horrified at what I see.  Me, yelling and screaming and crying and hyperventilating and trying to take care of the darlings at the same time.  Yeah.  That wasn’t so good.  There are a lot of moments mixed in here and there that I’m not that proud of.  I sucked as a parent.  I guess that is to be expected.  I did the best I could; I still wish I could have done better.

This week lots of beautiful sun shiney sunflowers are starting to pop up and bloom from my potted plants.  Because in Dave’s last week, when he was so manic and crazy, he constantly had a mouthful of sunflower seeds, spitting them everywhere.  I kept collecting them, sweeping them from the patio, pulling them from my hair even….they were flying around that much…and going “Dude, what is the deal with the sunflower seeds?”  He was going crazy, that’s what the deal was.  He was in a major depression and full blown manic on top.  A deadly combination which results in suicide 30% of the time.  Oh, to know then what I know now!  It’s so ironic…mother nature.  To put these flowers in my pots right now.  Thank you.  And Fuck you.

Pink Elephants

The big darling and I went back to the eye doctor today.  “The” eye doctor.  The place we were when we received “the call”.  I stayed true to form, and had several mini freak outs over the last few days.  I had already postponed the appointment once, and flat out didn’t show up another time.  I suck.  We had to go.  Why did this bother me?  Besides the obvious reason, I think it was truly causing added anxiety because of something I probably have never mentioned.  And that is that when we received the call and knew what was going on, we ran to the front door to leave and the door was locked.  The door was locked and the lights were off!  We were facking locked in!!  Couldn’t leave!!  Couldn’t find anyone.  The place was closing.  We were the last patients.  And because I am SUCH a SHIT MAGNET I was left kicking and tugging and pulling on a locked door while screaming hysterically for someone to let us out.  Imagine….why…yes…your husband may be dead, but for added torture, you cannot leave, dear.  Stand here longer, savoring the fact that every second feels like an eternity.  Bwahahahaha!  What kind of evil is running this show?  Anyway, this place is a maze, I can barely find my way on a normal day.  So we took off running, like mice through a maze, screaming hysterically, all sorts of nonsense, of course.  I found a maid, pushing a cart.  She didn’t speak English (shit magnet) but she spoke my language in that moment and led us to a side door. 

My kids’ therapist has encouraged them to replace some of the more gruesome images with a silly image.  Something like….a pink elephant.  Something to just distract and get over the hump quickly when the image is burning a hole in your brain.  I kept thinking about what I would do when we got there.  Just in case I freaked out.  Turns out I was super distracted by an old friend that I adore.  I was busy texting and being inappropriate and laughing at pictures and the dreaded eye doctor was a breeze.  Didn’t hurt a lick.   Thank God for pink elephants.  Mine was special today, the timing was perfection and I’m so thankful.

In other news, it is now time to shop for a bathing suit.  I tried one on and was in line to buy it but there were two horrible parents who were letting their baby scream so I had to leave.  I’m pissed off that my ears and my heart are just so damn tender that I can’t listen to a shrieking baby.  I wanted to hold him.  I wanted to take him away from them.  They didn’t look like they cared.  The father who looked like a total addict was even being mean to the small child, maybe 18 mos old, and telling him to shut up.  It was 2:00.  The kid obviously did not have a nap.  I know this.  I wanted to get all ninja on them.  I wanted to kick them.  Steal their baby.  Give him to someone who knows how to raise a kid.  I thought about saying something to them.  Like please have more patience, he’s tired and probably hungry and you guys are assholes.  But I just prayed really hard and left without my cute bathing suit.  I’m kind of angry at myself for doing nothing, but I’m not in charge of the world.  Even though I should be.

On the subject of bathing suits, I will now make a public service announcement.  It is really unfair that many of us muthas are thin enough to wear a bikini but have less than perfect stomachs because of many pregnancies.  This was discussed in the nail salon today.  I have too much skin right on top of my belly button.  I am not alone.  It sucks and is grossly unfair.  We want to be bikini girls.  Not mommy looking people wearing tankinis.  Screw tankinis.  We have alter egos to satisfy.  I thought there was maybe a quickie belly button fix I might be able to get one day.  However, someone told me today that to fix this, you have to be sliced open with a filet knife and you can’t lift your kids for a month.  Umm…yeah…that is never happening.  So you all will have to just deal with our extra skin.  Ya heard me?  Deal with it.  If I stand up straight it’s not noticeable.  When I bend over it’s worse.  So I don’t plan to bend over.  Be prepared to hand us drinks and pick up our beach towels since we can’t bend over.  Don’t worry, after you hand me a few I won’t care about the skin and then I’ll pick up my own towel.

Finding out

Tomorrow we have to go back to the eye doctor.  The place where big darling and I were when we got ‘the call’.  “The call” that I ignored the first two times, because we were in with the doctor.  On the third time, I figured I better answer it.  When I did, it was my mother in law, screaming that I needed to come quick, because David was ‘hurt’.  When I asked what happened, she said he somehow shot himself in the stomach.  I stood up and screamed that we needed to go, something had happened to daddy, he was badly hurt.  We rushed out of the room and to the front door.  Our wait in the lobby had been a long one, we were one of the last appointments, and when we got to the front doors, THEY WERE LOCKED.  Oh my God.  I was frantic.  I could feel my body shaking.  I was trying to make sense of what the fuck could possibly be going on.  Why did he have a gun?  What the fuck was he doing?  Dear God….did he shoot himself on purpose?  I remember screaming hysterically at the front door for someone to let us the fuck out.  And running to where I thought another door might be.  It is a maze, this place, and I couldn’t find the right way.  I saw a housekeeper, pushing a cart.  Don’t even know if she spoke English.  But she saw my terror.  She spoke my language in that moment. We ran out the side door, to my car.  I called my step daughter when I got in, because it was she who had called me the first two times.  I knew she had been home, with the two little ones.  She could only say the same thing, through a voice shaking so badly she was barely audible.  He was shot in the stomach.  Is he alive?!  IS HE ALIVE?!!  GODDAMNIT IS HE ALIVE?????!!!!!! “I don’t know” came the answer.  I don’t know.  Dear God.  He cannot die.  At the time, I was trusting that he was shot in the stomach.  But that wasn’t true.  He was shot in the chest.  It only looked like he was shot in the stomach because of gravity.  The most blood was there.  In my sternest and calmest voice, I said “Listen to me.  If he is shot in the stomach, he can survive this.  He can be ok.  Pray.  And do not stop.  Do not stop praying.  Do you hear me?  Everyone just needs to pray without stopping, right now.”  I am driving 100 miles an hour now, and I have my right hand behind me, because I’m holding hands with the biggest darling. We are praying.  Out loud.  We are begging.  I’m trying to figure out what to say to him.  I tell him whatever happened is really bad, and that daddy might not even be alive.  But I think he is.  And I think it will be ok.  I am driving so fast.  With my left hand.  He was so quiet.  I couldn’t see him.  It’s ok.  Because it’s going to be ok.  He’s going to need a liver transplant, or a spleen.  This is going to suck royally.  I’m picturing us in the hospital.  Him saying he is so sorry.  Me saying it’s ok, it’s all going to be ok now.  I just know it.  Because this is my family.  This is my husband.  This is my goddamn fucking children’s FATHER and he is NOT GOING TO DIE.  He can’t.  Only he did.  And I knew it right away.  I knew it the moment my car turned onto my street.  Because the first thing I saw was an ambulance.  It was still there.  It hadn’t left.  Maybe there had been two.  And the one he was in had left.  But when we jumped out of the car, it wasn’t good.  My sister’s eyes, I saw them first.  I knew.  The first thing I said was, “The ambulance is still here, he’s dead.”  Silence.  There was yellow tape around my yard.  I lifted it up and tried to run to the garage.  The police.  They stopped me.  “You can’t go back there.  Who are you?” from judgmental eyes and a terse voice.  “I’m his wife.  I live here.  Is he dead?”  Silence.  “What the fuck happened?” I scream.  Silence.  Eyes piercing into mine, trying to read me.  I know what the fuck he’s doing.  He thinks I did it.  But I know I didn’t and he must know too, because I wasn’t even fucking here.  My sister takes the oldest darling to her house.  I am left standing there.  And my whole world is ripped out from under me.  The feeling is a physical one.  It feels like I’m not standing, or breathing.  Everything is bright.  I can’t breathe.  I’m aware of the blood pulsing through my veins, because it hurts.  I can feel my heart beating. I can hear it.  How fast can it go before you die? My head is spinning.  The ground is moving, closer.  And then I hear myself screaming.  And I’m falling down.  Then I’m standing in the gutter in front of my home.  And my husband is dead.  My children do not have a father.  I stand there a while.  I don’t know how long.  I feel so sick.  I might throw up.  I’m coughing.  I’m hyperventilating.  I scream the word “NO!” repeatedly.  As loud as I can.  To make it be undone.  I know we won’t survive.  It’s too much.  It’s too bad.  I know he did it.  To himself.  I know he killed himself.  Because we’ve been fighting.  I’ve been threatening.  Threatening to leave.  Threatening him that he’s not right.  Threatening that things have to change or I will leave.  I suddenly realize my kids need me.  I run down the street, on knees so wobbly I don’t think I’ll make it.  I grab them.  Everyone is crying.  There is nothing I can say.  Nothing.  He is dead.  It’s over.  Our lives are ruined.  I can’t console them.  I have to ask them.  I have to ask them what they saw.  I have to know.  So I ask.  And they tell me.  They saw him walk into the garage.  Then they heard a noise.  Went into the garage.  Saw him laying there.  Covered in blood.  He moaned.  He shook.  He died.  With his eyes open.  They saw him die.  It’s not real.  It can’t be real.  My babies’ lives are ruined.  I know this.  There is no recovery from this.  My middle darling is 4.  The baby is 2.  My step daughter is 16.  The baby doesn’t cry.  He is in shock.  He doesn’t move.  He doesn’t speak.  He is limp.  For hours.  He is just still, like in a coma. The police question me until I curse them all out.  They ask me to identify the body and I refuse.  One by one, family members and friends arrive.  There are a hundred people standing in the street, every neighbor is out, no one knows what to do.  People start calling.  I don’t know what to do.  Don’t know what to say. After a while, they bring me his wedding ring.  I put it to my lips.  I smell it.  I will never touch him again.  There is talk, about what to do.  Who will clean the blood.  Where we will go.  People start coming with food.  I try not to vomit. My stomach is retching.  I keep almost throwing up.  It feels like I’ve run 10 miles.  I just can’t catch my breath and I’m increasingly aware of the fact that we all need to hurry up and die too, immediately.

I don’t know if I can go back to this eye doctor tomorrow.  I should have changed it to another location.  I know this is ridiculous, because I go into the garage several times per week.  I know I’m being irrational.  Because several times I have used the very scrub brush that I think someone cleaned the garage floor with.  I used it this weekend to scrub my patio floor.  It’s stupid, because I should throw it away.  And change the appointment.  And run away.  And move.  And change my name.  Where does it end, when there is no escape from reality?

Time to bloom

It’s been 8 months.  It’s weird because the way our life is now is starting to feel like ‘normal’.  I don’t think about it constantly anymore.  I’m in the habit of pushing the thought from my mind a lot, because I don’t want to be sad.  I’m tired of being sad.  I’m tired of crying.  I’m tired of analyzing.  I’ve never in my life had to be sad for so long.  I still miss him.  See…tears are right there…just because I had the thought.  The mere typing of the words “I still miss him” causes the tears to well up. 

I amused myself a couple weeks ago by reading an article about the proper way to mourn in the 1920s.  Women were to wear black for a period of one year.  They were not to do anything fun.  They were not to be seen in a theatre or attend any social events.  The transition to normal clothing was expected to be gradual.  I take it people would have been aghast if on day 366 you wore a bright yellow dress to the circus.  Dating was not to resume for a period of one year, except if the widow was considered young.  Hmmm.  I wonder if I would be considered young?  I’m certainly not dying to be in a relationship again.  I know I’ve said repeatedly that I have no desire.  Actually, my exact words several times have been “he’d have to be superman.”   That, and he’d have to look like the Greek Adonis.  And he couldn’t be a whack job.  He’d have to have a witty sense of humor, ‘cause God I need to laugh again.  A lot.   Would have to have a positive attitude because I just can’t stand negativity.   Has to love kids.  Has to love me, of course, but also worship me, in a goddess sort of way.…secretly knowing that no one else would ever measure up.  Tall order?  I’m quite sure this doesn’t exist in real life.  I plan to hold out for it anyway.

The baby has been hurting my feelings all weekend by wanting only my sister.  He slept there two nights in a row.  He still managed to find the time to scribble with a purple permanent marker all over the wall in my kitchen.  He stood on a pack of paper towels so he could draw up high.  When I caught him he was sitting on the paper towels, leaning forward with a very intent look on his face.  When I saw the wall, all I could do was laugh and I had to quickly hide my face.  I didn’t even fuss him.  He blamed it on “wootie” with the marker still in his hand.  When I said ‘bedtime’ tonight, he ran to the front door and said he wanted to go to my sister’s house again.  Little booger.  I will admit having a significant break from him this weekend was nice.  When he cried by the door for her I said “What about me, what about mommy?” and he pushed me and said “No.”  I pretended to cry and he ran to me and threw his arms around me and said “I still wuv mommy.  I want mommy.  I don’t want to go to bed!”  I haven’t a clue how I would have survived the last 8 months without these boys.  These boys that I love so damn much.  Without a baby in my bed every night.  Little dimples on the backs of his hands.  Patting his little diaper.  Hearing his little baby voice, smelling his sweet baby neck.  Kissing his sweet baby toes.  How could Dave leave this?  How could he not want to be right here?  There are times when I feel he did this to punish me.  But then I think of them.  Surely he didn’t want to punish them.  Surely he was just out of his mind.  I don’t even care anymore.  I’m so damned sick of thinking about it.  I just want it all to go away.

For the past few months I’ve been keeping my eye on this beautiful orchid that Dave gave me last year.  Usually I kill orchids.  And then I throw them away.  But a couple months ago, I noticed this one was not  near death, in fact it was going to bloom again.  I’ve been convinced that the bloom would open on a significant day.  The first of several flowers on the stalk opened this weekend.  I’m taking it as a sign that my life will be blooming again too.  New beginnings.  Being reinvented.  It is spring after all.  The sun is out.  Everything is fresh and new and dewy.  I wish I was fresh and new and dewy…like I was when I was 25 years old.  But I think I can be fresh and new and dewy again, only now much smarter, much wiser.  Having extracted all I can from this hellish nightmare I’ve been living.  But willing to bloom again.  Funny when I took the picture just now I noticed there is a tiny angel on the pot. 

Oddballs?

The TLC Channel is changing my view of the world, and I’m increasingly disgusted by it.  I’m actually quite scared.  You bunch of scary oddballs!  I just saw the ad for their newest show, My Secret Addiction.  Grown men dressed in baby pajamas drinking from baby bottles and playing with legos.  Grown men making out with and masturbating and humping their vehicles.   A grown woman with a house full of dolls.  DOLLS woman, they are called DOLLS.  But she doesn’t let anyone call them DOLLS.  You have to call them kids or babies.  I would so love to NOT participate in that charade with her.  I hope she lives near me, so I can knock on her door and call them dolls repeatedly.  I mean seriously, if the baby pajama man were standing in front of me right now, I’m not sure I could even verbalize my extreme disgust.  What IN.THIS.WORLD is wrong with people?   Add to this all the hoarders we now know exist, and let’s face it; we share this beautiful Earth with a bunch of whack jobs.  There is a part of me that doesn’t even want to believe this is real.  That it’s all staged because the rest of us ‘normal’ people have become so obsessed with ‘reality shows’ that suddenly, the weirder you are, the better.  It’s scary to me that we are encouraging ILLNESS and putting it on TV.  Ratings, right?  For the record, I watch no reality shows, only hoarders.  But what if it’s true.  Even just a smidgeon.  What if you are the single mom with 3 kids who lives down the street from one of these ‘oddballs’.  These people obviously need help, not glorification.

The only good thing that has come from watching hoarders is, well, actually, two things.  One is that I don’t feel badly anymore about throwing so much stuff away.  Not that I felt badly before, but I went from feeling neutral to feeling good about trashing shit.  Secondly, I feel validated that I never eat stuff from strangers.  We have a family member that likes to bring us food from potluck dinners at her church.  Are you kidding me?  These people could be hoarders.  They could have dead cats in their kitchens.  They could have fungus and poo on their fingers.  Who knows what kinds of filth could be lurking there.  No way.  I used to feel badly about tossing the food.  There are starving people in the world.   I think about starving people a lot because my kids waste a lot of delicious food.  Thanks to hoarders, I don’t feel badly about tossing the very possibly tainted church food.

Also, in case you are following the story that I mentioned before, the man’s ass that was packed with gauze because of some fucking schmucking disgusting ecoli bacteria, well, he is still ill.  Quick phone update today from this particular family member on that matter, as I was eating my lunch.  She knew I was eating, because I was chewing loudly.  Mind you I don’t know this man.  At all.  I think I saw him once.  We might have said hello.  I feel certain he doesn’t know she is updating every person she talks to about his ass bacteria.  And yes, this is just further confirmation as to why you shouldn’t eat food from strangers.  This man may have touched the ecoli ass and then cooked.  You can die from that shit.  I’m not  kidding.

The Missing Piece

Got my chain jerked the right way again today at Live Oak TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine).  Bliss.   See my earlier post “Xiao Yao San” for more about my incredible acupuncture spree.  Just in case my prayer is really working I said it again right away.  “Lord give me refuge in your Sacred Heart.”  My first thought thereafter was that Dave was present, in the Sacred Heart, with me.  Wowser.  I’ve been so mad at him, have hated him so much, that I haven’t grieved all that much over the last few weeks. I’ve been sad…but I haven’t had what I feel like is productive, flowing grief.  I haven’t spoken a word to him, haven’t said out loud “I love you” or “I miss you”.  I’ve only said “I hate you”.  Today, before I left for acupuncture, I stood in the yard, blooming with flowers, heavy scent of heaven, and said “I love you and I miss you.”  My heart felt like it was being stabbed with a knife.  But, I think I’m realizing it is better to love than to hate.  Even though both hurt, the hating is negative and doesn’t feel good.  And it doesn’t make me better. The boys notice when I hate.  They don’t like it.  I know one day they will understand.  But for now, I must stop hating.  It’s not doing me any good. I realize it’s all a process. 

I knew the angry phase would be a big one for me.  Not because I’m an angry person.  Because I am not.  But because if you harm me, especially this much, then I have to kill you.  I’m a Scorpio girl.  I sort of require revenge.  Only I can’t kill him.  He’s already dead.  So I’m stuck.  Revengeless.  It’s all wrong!  All I can do is leave the LSU flower arrangement at the cemetery.  He would be embarassed of it and it's my only way of getting him back, for now.   

I almost cried while I bathed the little ones tonight, because middle darling is so negative, still.  It scares me.  Is he ruined?  Am I ruined?  Are we all just fucking ruined?  I walked out of the bathroom for too long while the tub was filling, and when I came back, there was more water than usual.  Wow, I said.  That’s a lot of water.  No it’s not, he says.  Sure it is…it’s more than we usually put, I say.  Well, I like it higher he says.  Yes, I know, but this is more than we usually put, so be happy to have more than usual.  But he can’t.  He continues to tell me over and over that it’s not more than usual, it’s not good, and he only likes it higher.  This is just classic.  He’s the kid that you hand an ice cream cone, and after he finishes it he cries and says he wanted a snowball.  It’s constant.  All day.  With everything little thing.  I don’t know how to parent a kid like this, a kid who doesn’t possess the gift of spin.  We struggle.  And honestly, except for him being eternally negative and me being eternally positive, we are so much alike.  Maybe this is why we struggle more.  We are alike because I know he feels more.  He’s emotionally charged.  I relate to that.  

He picked Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece to read tonight.  We haven’t read that book in years, not sure why.  It’s about this ‘thing’ that is missing a piece.  The ‘thing’ believes that he needs this missing piece to be happy.  Only when he finds the missing piece, it messes everything up, and he realizes he didn’t need it afterall.  I tried hard to talk to him after, without crying, and I told him we had everything in our hearts that we needed to be happy.  I told him we didn’t need Daddy to be happy.  Daddy is in our hearts anyway.  And we are in his.  And all of us are in Jesus’.  He told me his heart was happy and that he wanted to feel happy. 

Assholes Abound

Today was another beautiful, sunny day so I decided to quickly cut the grass sans kids.  Only, there is really nothing ‘quick’ about this process.  It’s starting to feel like cleaning the kitchen or doing laundry. Overwhelming and never ending, with weeds growing too fast, ants everywhere, and I see I’m quickly losing control.  So as of today I’m looking for a cheap lawn service.  One that may be inclined to give me a discount because I’m sort of witty and cute, and also a poor widow.  I have no clue what this costs, we’ve never had a lawn service.  I’m deathly afraid I’ll have to give up my twice a month housekeepers, and I can assure you I would rather be eaten alive by a pile of the ants.  

After stirring up pollen from a hundred oak trees my eyes were itching so badly I seriously thought they might be bleeding.  I stumbled inside, frantically tossing bottles around in the medicine cabinet looking for the Visine AC.  I was such a ridiculous wreck, the itching was so insane, I came way too close to squirting pin worm medicine in my eyes by accident.  Once I could see again I realized my house was a complete disaster.  I practically funneled a cup of coffee and at 2:00 I knew I had no choice but to turn into the super freak maid.  I quickly cleaned the kitchen, swept, did laundry, made beds, and picked up enough toys to satisfy an entire African nation.  I still needed to go to the grocery.  Monday’s are soccer nights and big homework nights.  There is a point to all this mundane shit, and it’s basically that I was exhausted.  When we finally arrived at the grocery, I was looking and feeling rather hagg-y, felt like my eyes were full of tree sap, and as soon as we walked in the door, the baby calls out “I have poo!”  UGH!  When don’t you have poo?  But we can’t leave, we have to have these groceries. 

He sat on one cheek, like an old man trying to fart, through the slowest turkey slicer in all the land, and through a too long discussion with middle darling about what kind of sausage to have with red beans.  I knew we were on  borrowed time.  I was charging down the aisle when I saw a “slow shopper” up ahead.  His movements were like a tree sloth, he was wearing socks and crocs, and he was studying everything, oblivious to me, and that’s fine.  Only I was coming rather quickly, grabbing things off of shelves frantically, and on a mission to get this not-normal smelling diaper out of my face.  The smell was both wafting around and lingering and I was afraid people would notice.  I looked and felt disgusting; they might have even thought it was me.  The slow shopper was busy studying a can, and there was more space in front of him than behind him, so I scurried in front of him.  I didn’t really say anything, didn’t mumble an excuse, didn’t look at him; I had a nose full of something foul and I was exhausted and frazzled.  As soon as I passed him, he barked loudly, “Well excuse you!”  at my back.  Shivers!  The hair raised on the back of my neck.  He must have seen me go rigid.  My first thought was that this mo' fo' has no clue who he is talking to.  ‘Cause I am so done.   My next thought was to hike the tot onto my shoulder thereby allowing the diarrhea diaper access to his nose while offering a very long winded apology.  I decided to just keep moving.  As I took a few more steps, I thought about turning around and making fun of his crocs, or asking him just what exactly I needed him to excuse me for?  I just got finished blogging that there is an epidemic of assholishness going on, and now here is another one standing right behind me.  Who’s asshole is this? 

I kept thinking about it this afternoon.  Why do I care?  I know I'm overly sensitive right now.  But did I really do something wrong by not asking for him to excuse me while I walked in front of him, the path of least resistance? Why does it even bother me enough that I thought about it several more times?  I guess because I’m just so exhausted, because I’m just trying so hard, because I’m trying to do it all, trying to be two people, trying to turn this shit around, trying not to let it overcome me, trying to move the hell on.  This man, he is nothing.  He means nothing to me.  But I realize so much now that we don’t have a CLUE what is going on in anyone else’s life.  I often think about the strangers standing around me in the grocery line now.  Does someone have cancer?  Did someone lose a loved one this week?  People keep saying how we are all so connected. It’s a buzz phrase that seems to keep popping up. And it’s true, we are. I get that I wasn’t courteous. But I don’t think I was mean. I’m just a girl, walking down the aisle, with my smelly kids, trying to feed my family. Cut a mutha some slack.  Asshole.

  Now, if you'll just do me this one favor and click the Top Mommy Blog banner below.  I'll be eternally grateful.  In return, if I ever see you wearing crocs, I will just raise the corner of my eyebrow ever so slightly, purse my lips and say NOTHING.

Stopping the train before it wrecks

The weekend I have dreaded for months.  Father/Child Weekend.  The weekend where all the lovely dads take their darling children to go and camp out.  All the dads from school go, and they lovingly take all their kids.  A big school tradition.  Dave used to be all about it.  Got excited about it, took the big darling every year, and had a great time.  My boy…he’s so brave.  I don’t know how he can even be so brave.  But he’s out there.  With his little 10 year old self.  He’s out there without a daddy….and I’m just a mess.  I’ve been busy with the other two boys, and not 2 seconds after they fell asleep I just lost it.  I can't stop crying.  God Damn you asshole how could you do this to him?  I’m so thankful to all the dads who offered to bring my boy this weekend, and to the dad that did take him.  He was undecided about what to do and whether he would go, and he finally decided this week to go.  I pray those dads out there will make a tight circle around my boy and pray for him and his daddy every time they see him this weekend. 

Ladies, I know there is an epidemic of assholishness going around with men right now.  Apparently we are entering the mid life crises stage, as every other person I know is hating on her man, kicking him out, or divorcing him.  I know you all hate when I say this, but it’s so true, I just have to say it over and over.  I would give anything, anything, to hate my man right now.  In real life.  I would take every snore, every fart, every spitting of mucus.  I would give my limbs, all of them.  I would give everything away and live in a dumpster.  All of it, any of it, to have him back.  To have him with my boy this weekend.  To have him here with us together forever and ever.  I know they’re assholes.  I know he was an asshole.  But he was my asshole.  I know there are some good men out there.  Some of you have one.  Some of you don’t.  I don’t even know what to say to the one’s who have assholes, except that, perhaps, if you could, if you would, just think about what I would do with 5 more minutes.  With 30 more minutes.  How much I would forgive.  How much harder I would try.  How much more I would love.  How much more accepting I would be. 

These assholes, I think they do try.  They are just a different breed.  Truly, they are.   And no one knows what to do with them.  They lie.  They cheat.  They drink.  They are apathetic.  They avoid you.  They don’t do what they are supposed to do.  And they do what they know they are not supposed to do.  Maybe just one or all of the above.  What do you do?  I can’t decide for you.  But I would allow many more lies if I knew what the end result was for me.  I didn’t know.  I tried to make him better.  I threatened.  I begged.  I pleaded.  It was harder than it needed to be, most of the time.  Why?  I don’t know.  For some of you it’s not going to work, ever, and divorce is the answer.  For some of you, I can only say don’t let it get too far gone.  It’s never too late to put the fucking brakes on and scream ENOUGH.  Fix it.  Make it work.  Try harder.  Try even harder than that.  Remember the beginning.  Go find what was there.  Stop putting your kids first. 

Believe me, if there is anything I have learned in the past 8 months it is that kids are extremely resilient.  They don’t need us as much as we think they do.  It’s good for them, even.  Let them buck up.  Put that extra energy into your marriage.  Just do it.  Some of you can stop the train before it wrecks.  But the first thing you have to do is put the brakes on!  Please do it now.  For me.  I’m pressing my foot really hard into the stool right now.  I’m trying to do it for you.

Random Mean Shit

This is really just a bunch of random shenanigans that I need to get off my chest.  I really want to quit cursing, so I’m going to get this out and then quit cursing again for Lent.  I’m still at peace, except for this.

First and foremost, I am contemplating cutting my head off and kicking it down the street, because I feel another zit coming out right between my eyes.  I am 43 facking years old.  I have had enough of this!.  I wash my face.  I eat healthy.  I drink water.  I use Retin A.  But still I must look like this, with wrinkles and pimples on top of each other, competing for space?  Why can’t I get pimples on my back or my ass, where they are hidden? 

The next person who tells me their “system is down” is getting slapped  cut.  I’m tired of giving out “my info”.  No, I don’t have a job.  I’m not single or married, I’m a fucking arachnid widow.  I’m not giving you my insurance info over the phone.  I’m going to say every time you ask that I don’t have it on me.  Because you can just make a copy when I get there, that’s why.  I am so not walking to find my purse, digging through my wallet, looking all through my wallet for my card, squinting at the card, walking around some more to find glasses, then saying all those numbers.  Member number, group number, member ID.  No. I’m not doing it.  Ever.  Plus I have ants in my purse.  Well, not anymore.  But I did.

Also, quit telling me I will find a man again.  I know where plenty of men are.  I don’t need to find one.  Don’t tell me I will find one right after you tell me you want to lose the one you have.  I don’t have to hear man farts right now.  I don’t have to worry about what anyone else is doing or not doing.  I have the whole bed to myself in the beginning of the night.  I watch what I want.  I eat what I want.  And it’s not all this shit you have to cook either.  Fuck cooking.  Every night. 

I may have to stop capitalizing some words that should be capitalized.  Because for months now I’ve been blogging on a laptop that has a broken shift key.  I’m getting tired of using the other key all the time.  It’s too awkward.  I walked into the kitchen one day not too long ago to find the littlest of the darlings had pried every key off my laptop.  Who the fack does that?  At first I couldn’t figure out what the heck all those little tiny black things were, all over the counters and the floor.  Most of them popped right back on.  The bigger keys do not pop right back on.  Some keys I just placed randomly, who knows if they are in the right place or not.

Ants.  What the fack is up with ants? How do you kill them?  Can a woman even kill ants?  I feel like our whole yard is an ant pile.  My ants, they eat poison for lunch and laugh at me.  The next day the pile is 3x bigger.  They are mega invincible ninja superman ants.  It’s like a plague.  Someone said if you have ants, it’s good, because you don’t have termites.  I say BS to that.  On Valentine’s night as I was cooking with all the doors open because it was nice out, the littlest darling stood in the kitchen and said “Wow, that’s alotta ants!”  I looked down to see hundreds of what I think were termites crawling all over my kitchen floor.  What the hell?  Why don't these plagues happen to other people.

Shit.  Literal shit.  I’m so sick of shit.  I have a 10 year old who has not flushed his shit down the toilet in 10 years.  Not once.  He is an anti-shit flusher.  Don’t know why.  He just never ever flushes.  I have a 5 year old who should be wiping his own butt, but damn….do I really want those poo-y fingers everywhere?  UGH.  And I have a baby who shits in a diaper.  Quit shitting so much.  I’m sick of wiping your asses.

Litterbugs.  I will chase you if my kids are not in the car.  I will call the police on you.  I will lie and say you were weaving all over the road, smoking pot and funneling a beer while driving.  I will fuck you up.  I once chased a taxi who threw a whole McDonald’s bag onto the neutral ground.  I picked it up and chased him with it and when he stopped I threw it into his nasty cigar smelling foul facking cab and told him he dropped it. 

The people who put yellow signs on every corner that say “Queen Pillowtop Mattress” $250.  See above.

Ugly girls who think I want to see their nasty bras.  Please refrain from standing in front of me in Rite Aid if you are wearing an obese man’s wife beater inside out, that shows your whole flesh colored and very dirty bra, all over.  Not just the straps showing, but the cups too.  She may or may not have had pants on!  I couldn't tell.  Get dressed.  Wash your disgusting bra or throw it away. Get a new one from Goodwill.  I bring one every week.  

The tides have turned

I’ve been in the moon lodge for the past couple of days.  Please read my earlier post “You can’t changethe tides” if you don’t know what that means.  I began my time at the lodge with acupuncture.  I walked in there thinking about what a lunatic I’ve become, actually pondering if I was indeed losing my mind.   I walked out feeling as if I’d been on a morphine drip.  I was contemplating an end to the blog, thinking I’d said all I wanted to say.  The Indians say “the veil is thin” when you are in the lodge.  I was curious what the Master would reveal.  My first image was of me on a giant bird, with giant wings.  Mother Goose like.  We began to soar.  And then I fell asleep.  I decided the message was to keep writing.  Because my exact words when I started the blog were “I’m letting it fly.” 

Besides that  I needed to rest and focus on me.  I ate chocolate covered strawberries after dinner because it was Tuesday.  I splurged on a bouquet of flowers.  I bought rose oil and put it in a diffuser.  It’s supposed to help stabilize emotions.  I hope mine get stuck right where they are now.  As an added bonus, the smell reminds me of my grandmother.  I thought briefly about the fact that Dave can now spend time with her.  I drank sparkling Italian water instead of faucet water because I’m Chardonnay.  Chardonnay doesn’t drink from the faucet.  I replenished my supply of vitamins and krill oil, the things I never run out of but had indeed run out of weeks ago.  I cried on the phone for one hour with my sister.  The next day I sat on the porch and smoked a cigarette and talked with my girlfriend while we enjoyed a spring breeze.  We discussed summer plans and I began to get excited about summer.  I flipped the calendar from February to March.  Strangers responded to my blog saying they had thought of suicide before, but would never think of it the same way again.  Others said my words were helping to repair their broken lives and grief.  That was never my intent, but I’m so incredibly humbled by it.  God is indeed the Master of Spin.  I stopped being mad at God, and I resumed my prayers.  The sun came out while I was in the lodge.  I did my best to reconnect with nature.  As best as one can do in the city.  I used power tools.  I blew millions of leaves into a pile and then mulched them with my lawnmower and scattered them into my flower beds.  I bought hedge clippers.  Because my neighbors think I hate them due to the 20 foot hedge growing between our homes.  I tried to explain that I’m not always prone to dressing properly.  And I never close my blinds.  I can’t close them because I love the sun so much.  I need the hedges.  The woman yelled at me that they weren’t twisted Peeping Toms while the old man gazed down my blouse.  I gardened.  I need a manicure anyway so I did it without gloves.  I wanted to touch the earth.  I didn’t care that it was in my nails.  All the exercise felt good.  I thought about how I do secretly like to do ‘man stuff’, like landscaping and using power tools.  I love blowers and pressure washers most of all.  I thought about how it’s funny that I do it in wedge flip flops.  How I’m like a tom boy, but perhaps a transvestite tom boy, because I still love pink and anything sparkly, I get excited over trendy jeans and handbags and shoes.  I thought about Angelina Jolie’s leg.  I’m not so much bothered by the leg, as I am concerned with her arms.  I’m concerned with her arms because she has at least double the number of children that I have, but her biceps look nothing like mine.  And I know why. It’s because she doesn’t hold her kids.  And that is why people should be talking about her arms and not her weird leg.  I can only hope she has some awesome nannies with biceps that look like mine.  We passed a garden center on the way home, and middle darling said “Mommy, look at all those pretty flowers!”  Big darling laughed and said, “Don’t try to get mommy all sucked into that!”  Dave and I, we used to garden together.  A lot.  Before we had kids, our backyard was a lush landscape of trees, shrubs and flowers in every color; perfect rose bushes, bird baths, winding brick pathways, ponds.  It was a lot of work.  We were slaves to it.  But for a while it was our hobby and it kept us out of bars.  Over time we became slaves to our kids instead.  The big backyard was lost for a bigger house.  And we lost that thing we used to so enjoy….together.  I think of him constantly when I garden now.  But I’m not going there….this is not going to be sappy or sad because I’m at peace right now.  I thought today about the 3 little darlings who gardened with me yesterday.  After I lopped five feet off the tops of the shrubs, I turned around and realized Dave wasn’t coming behind me to pick it all up.  But it was ok, because they were.  The baby amused us by walking around and snipping tiny leaves with my kitchen scissors, big darling used the loppers, and truthfully middle darling didn’t help at all.  He stayed inside and helped by beating levels on wii.  My housekeeper angels were scheduled for yesterday as well.  So my house is clean and sparkly, my shoes are neatly organized, my pantry is organized like the shelves of Whole Foods, and I’m one happy mutha.  A wood floor that smells of Murphy’s Oil Soap…well…it excites me.  We had Jimmy Johns for dinner (thank you Drew Brees) because I didn’t want to dirty the sparkly kitchen and I was happily tired from battling the hedges.  As I cleaned up from supper by simply throwing away some bags, my Girl Scout cookies were delivered by a neighbor and friend that I love.  I hid them from the kids immediately.  My sister showed up unexpectedly and bathed the little ones while I picked up big darling from soccer.  I ended the day by slipping into clean white fresh sheets that smell of the slightest hint of bleach.  When they told me the grief thing was like a roller coaster…they so weren’t kidding.