Don't let anyone tell you to put something off because there is plenty of time. I'm here to tell you that life can change in instance and the best laid plans can fall to the wayside.
Three weeks ago I had just returned from a family vacation back to the Washington D.C. area with my husband, sons, and parents. Came back home with the intent to settle back into work, enjoy the time I had left with my oldest who is going into the military soon, and sit down with my husband and plan on what we were going to do in the upcoming months.
Now, three weeks later, my husband is gone. Off to live his life on his own and figure out how he wants to live his future. I on the other hand am trying to figure out exactly what my future is. I've been married for 23 years and never truly on my own. All I have in my future with any certainty, is uncertainty.
I still keep hoping that I'll wake up from a bad dream, but I've pretty much accepted the fact that I'm wide awake. I've moved to the next fantasy which is that my husband is away on a really long business trip.
In reality he might as well be. My oldest came to visit 4 days after he moved in with dad. He informed me that he had seen his father for maybe 5 minutes total, because he was always at work. He then asked if he could take a nap in my bed before going to work and asked if he could come back after work. I take some comfort in knowing that even though I will never be renowned for my domestic skills, I've always been and always will be there for my kids. It frustrates me, because my son is leaving soon and his father is missing hours of opportunity to see him before he's gone. At least I know that I will not.
So my advice to you is not to wait until tomorrow because tomorrow may not turn out like you planned.
No, it's not what you think.
One of the side effects of Cushing's Disease is weight gain and we're not talking 20 or 30 pounds. You often hear of people gaining in excess of 75 pounds over a relatively short period of time. In my case, I put on over 100 pounds.
I've been toying with the idea of getting a lap band but I'm not convinced that my issue is with what I eat entirely. I think I just put on a lot of weight and my calorie intake is such that it is coming off very slowly. I've lost 30 pounds over the last year, but I still have a long ways to go.
I've been reading and researching using a very low calorie diet. My self esteem is shot and being as overweight as I am isn't helping. So today I ordered a month's worth of food from Medifast. I'll give it three weeks and then assess whether it is something I can and will continue.
Some will probably say I'm crazy for starting a diet in the middle of everything else, but in some respects I almost think it will help. I won't have to worry about cooking, except for one meal. That one meal will be fine for both my son and I, because he loves veggies, chicken and fish.
The primary reason though is I'm doing this for me. I have to take control of my life, no one will do it for me and this is one of the places where I'm going to start.
Seventeen days before we had an official no tear day. In fact, we have had two days in a row of no tears.
I'm pretty sure I know why. I haven't physically seen my husband. I've talked to him on the phone and I've gotten to the point that if I concentrate really hard, I can do so without my voice cracking. It's seeing him that does me in.
I try to keep busy. I've decided to do an employee craft show the end of October. I've decided if I can make at least the equivalent of a stopper a day, that I should have approximately 50 to take to the show. God only knows what I'll do with 50 stoppers if they don't sell.
I'm taking a few stoppers with me when I go to my brother's over the holiday weekend. He's in the middle of wine country and my sister in law has offered to peddle my wares. So we'll see where that goes.
So life goes on...it's just different.
I'm sitting in an empty house tonight. Not physically empty, but empty of children and of course my husband. It will be that way all night. My youngest went to spend the first overnight trip at Dad's place. My oldest has a serious girlfriend and a job from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., so I haven't seen much of him either. It will be even less so after this weekend because he is moving in with his dad.
So here I sit. The cat seems to enjoy it. She is stretched out in the middle of the kitchen floor. A month a go she wouldn't of dared take up the position for fear of getting stepped on. I suppose some people would relish having a quiet house all to themselves. I'm not one of those people.
I know those of you that have a glass addiction like myself are now screaming "Go Torch!!", but my ambition and drive is lacking. Hopefully with time and pharmaceuticals it will come back. I start on a new set of medications tomorrow that will hopefully improve my outlook on life...keep your fingers crossed.
I'm beginning to wonder if I should start a tally of how many days in a row tears have fallen. I get up every day with the lofty goal that I'm not going to cry. I still have to achieve that goal, it's been 14 days.
I suppose it is a good thing that I'm seeing a mental health professional tomorrow. This one specializes in medication management. The one next week specializes in counseling. I guess the days of an all in one package are gone.
I'm hoping that some how they'll help or numb me. I can't sleep without popping pills. I've tried every few days to skip them, only to wonder out a few hours later to take them anyway. I have never been one for makeup, but I'm considering taking the practice up in an effort to cover the dark circles under my eyes. Of course they don't make makeup to cover up red eyes.
Perhaps pharmaceuticals will save me...
I spend a lot of my waking hours asking myself this question. Does he miss me? Does he think about me? When he sees something does it remind him of me?
I suppose if I was smart and didn't want to drive myself totally crazy, I'd try to think of other things. Believe me, I've tried, but haven't been very successful. It seems that everything I see, do, or hear ties back to him. Songs on the radio, television shows, an item in the house.
It makes my heart ache and I wonder if he is going through the same thing. I guess if I knew he was it would give me some glimmer of hope that he still loved me and would come back one day. Of course I could also find out that it has just the opposite effect for him and that would be devastating to me. So rather than find out the answer, I just wonder.
I feel like I'm lost in a haze. Caught in one of those dreams where you're not sure if your awake or still asleep, except I know I'm fully awake.
Now along with the hole in my heart, there are holes in my home as well. The master bedroom closet that was once full to the brim stands with one side completely empty, only dust bunnies occupying the space. The TV stand in the master bedroom is empty as well. I walk into our psuedo office space and large gap now takes the place where once my husband's desk and computer sat. It's like that through out the entire house, everywhere I turn is a gap to remind me that he's gone. Soon the kids will become one of those gaps, albeit a gap that comes and go, but the reality is that I'm quickly approaching being in this house alone.
The thought of being alone scares me to death. I've spent the better part of the last week and half trying to keep the thought from overwhelming me. Perhaps if I was one of those individuals who had swarms of family and frienda, I wouldn't be so scared. But I don't, I have a few close friends, a few close cyber pals and a small immediate family who are scattered across the state.
The reality is I'm going to have to learn to handle being alone.
I'm not sure where to start...I'm still trying to get used to the gaps....
Every morning I wake up and lay there a moment, wondering if it's real. If I really am laying in bed alone. I have a mental argument with myself on whether to turn and see if he's laying there. I can smell him, his pillows are still there. I open my eyes and turn my head, it's only pillows.
The tears come every morning, either in bed, the shower, on the way to work, there always there, just a matter of when. Hard as I try to get through the day and past the morning water works, they always show up later in the day. If it's a good day, maybe only once. A bad day, I don't count. Throw in an almost daily occurrence of a panic attack and you have my life for the last 5 days.
I made myself walk yesterday after work, over to the high school track, around the track 4 times, and then back home. I had told myself on vacation because I had walked so much during it that I would continue when I got home. Yesterday seemed as good a time to start as any, plus I couldn't stand being in the house.
I wish one of these mornings I would open my eyes and it would be all a bad dream, I'm not very optimistic about the prospect.
I'm happy to say I slept last night. God bless pharmaceuticals and a non paranoid doctor. I actually slept through the night and an added bonus of no bad dreams.
Of course when I woke up and reality hit me the tears started all over again. Then I got angry. You know what, I am a house slob, fully admit it, it is something I have never been good at and that practice has not made perfect. I know that, it doesn't mean that I intended for my work a holic husband to work his 16 hour day and then come home and clean. What I've wanted for years is to have a maid come in and do it. Why not, we both work full time, make a lot of money, and have two kids that carry their mothers slob gene. So why not make everyone happy, have someone help with cleaning and live life. Why not? Because it costs money and if we just put a little effort in we could get it done. Well if that was truly the case we wouldn't be in this position now would we?
And I won't be in that position in a couple of weeks. I'm opening a bank account on Monday, rerouting my money into it. I'll pay my half of things and out of the leftovers, I'll hire a maid. If he decides to take me back he takes me back with the maid in place. If we go our seperate ways, I figure out where I can cut costs and hopefully keep one in place. I'm not asking for permission any more.
The other thing I'm mad about is my husband expects everyone to rise and meet his standard. He is a type A, obsessive compulsive person. If I had to put a label on him, I'd say he has ADHD, just like his youngest son. He has taken his challenges and used them as strengths and is very successful. But he works a minimum of 12 hours days, 6 to 7 days a week. He's always pushing for a goal and as soon as he reaches it, he moves it ahead, never stops to savor the accomplishment. What about compromise, what about taking a step back for the greater good?
I wish he would relaize that it isn't all me causing the problem. It's me, him, our sons, and his job. I'm hoping I can drag him to a counselor eventually and they'll point out the same things. Maybe if someone else tells him he'll listen, he won't listen to me.
Even with his faults, I love him, for who he is. He's changed over the last 23 years but I have/had no desire to end a marriage over it.
So if you're tired of whining and bitching, stop reading now. I can't venture that this blog is going to pleasant for the immediate future, but I've decided I'm better off writing than internalizing. So if you stumbled across this blog in error, I'm sorry, but this life, like it or not. If you're looking for the sugar coated stuff it's the second door down on the right.
I've survived the last 36 hours on 3 hours of sleep, a half cup of chowder, and a box of Kleenex. I discovered a new ailment today called "anxiety attacks" I have enough of a medical background to know that even though it felt like I had an elephant sitting on my chest in between the sobs, that it wasn't a heart attack. I also decided that I wasn't going to spend the weekend sleep deprived and gasping for air. So I drug myself into my doctor told him what was going on and that I needed a little help coping. He agreed and sent me home with 30 pills of sanity. I'm hoping tonight they'll bring me 8 hours of somewhat peaceful sleep.
My oldest son had escaped before everything happened to the beach house with his girlfriend. I took my youngest to his great grandmother's house so that my husband and I could talk this evening. It mainly consisted of him talking, me sobbing with a word worked in here and there.
His perspective it's all my fault, my perspective, some of it is my fault, I have work to do on my shortcomings and I'd do anything to make ammends. But it's also a two way street and I'm not walking it alone. He's too angry and hurt to listen.
He's moving into his own place when he can find one that fits his budget and we'll go into a holding pattern for at least 6 months. I have the name and number of a counselor that I will be calling Monday morning. Regardless of what happens I have to take care of me, with any luck perhaps the other will work out as well.
In the meantime, I'll keep my hand over the hole in my heart...
It seems like the only time I ever post to this blog is when I'm facing a challenge. Of course that is how this blog got started, dealing with a challenge. This posting is not exception.
Today the man of my dreams for 23 years told me he wasn't happy and out the door he went, suitcase in hand, me sitting on the couch, tears streaming down my face, my 14 year old wrapped around me sobbing. I felt like I took a sucker punch to the gut and now 10 hours later the feeling still persists.
I knew we were in a rough patch. I wanted to fix it. When I emailed him this morning and told him we needed to talk because I was concerned about our relationship, it was my intent to work on fixing it. It seems his intent was something else.
So here I sit wondering how I go on, how do I live? This is my soul mate, the man I wanted to grow old with and he's gone and I don't know if he is coming back...