On the drive to dinner tonight, I felt a twinge of appreciation for my dad being around.  I have memories of him, most of them good, and almost all heart-wrenching after 1993.  “Huey Lewis and the Snooze” as Sid calls them came into the conversation.  I admitted that I have one of the albums, and (Nerd Alert!) I still listen to it.  My dad and I listened to that group on our monthly road trips to Idaho.  A lot of  80’s music reminds me of the good years we had together before I became a free-thinking teenager, and we could be in the same room for longer than an hour without human buffers. 

I have memories of him.

Little Guy has a lot of memories of his dad right now.  According to my grief counselor and a girlfriend who lost her father at 6 years old, those memories of his will fade, unless I keep them fresh in his mind.  Everyone has told me to only remember the good things about Ex and to forget all the rest, especially when it comes to Little Guy. 

Maybe that’s what I should do with the memories of my dad.  He’s still alive, but he won’t speak to me, so it counts more as a non-relationship.  I should remember the good things, and forget the rest.  After all, life’s too short to bother with holding on to anything but the good.

For the second time this year, I have vacationed in a manner involving one-on-one time with Little Guy and socializing time with family during the evenings and weekend.  I find this kind of vacationing more therapeutic and soothing, as opposed to having a vacation jam-packed with activities daily.  Can you imagine Disneyland?  I can’t.  So, Little Guy and I are just hanging out in new territory, walking a lot, and adventuring with Sid and Scott on the weekends.

I have had the time to feel solitary sadness over Ex, pity for Little Guy (not my proudest moment), and celebration for Ex.  I know he’s happier now than he was on this plane.  I never have to think again, ‘Has he really done it this time?’  I’m relieved to let that worry go and to have the time to focus on one feeling at a time.  Yeah, I’m still mad and resentful sometimes, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

On this vacation, Little Guy has gotten to know Sid and Scott well enough that he hugs them both.  Yesterday morning, when I got up, Little Guy was sitting on Scott’s lap talking to him with his head his chest.  I’m also grateful that I have a delightful kid, who has bonded with Sid and Scott as well as they with him. 

Little Guy has tried lots of new foods here, like Persian chicken and beef, Chinese spaghetti (chow mein), jasmine tea, fresh spring rolls, and grilled beef steak.  I have a rule about dinner:  Eat it or don’t!  (We told Little Guy that the Persian meats were elk-chicken and elk-beef to get him to try them.  He talked a lot about liking to eat elk when we first arrived.  Y&H had shot one the Thursday before we left and brought a steak over for dinner that Saturday.)

Scott cooks a lot and with variety.  It’s made me realize how little I have expanded my recipes in the last year.   Of course, we’ve kind of been living in temporary situations.

Before I left Ex, I cooked dinner every night.  I cooked something different every night because Ex wouldn’t eat leftovers.  I meal-planned every week.  When I moved out, I let my culinary skills rest on the back burner.  It was hard to cook using the roommates’ pots and pans.  And the roommates were vegetarians. 

I’ll finish moving into my new house when I get back from vacation next week.  I’m looking forward getting back to my meal-planning self.  Since Ex’s stuff is all Little Guy’s stuff, and he won’t use a KitchenAid or any Calphalon cookware for many more years, I have a kitchen with every gadget I could ever need, and few that I don’t, ready for me to start making new creations and keep Little Guy (and me) trying new things.

I dreamed last night that Ex was still alive.  We were divorced, and he was still alive.  Ex had wanted to plan a Fairy Party in a trendy store in a nearby half-trendy town.  I agreed to help Ex get more information, just like I always used to do.  I drove to the trendy store with a female acquaintance. 

We got there, and I saw a Korean friend from high school there sitting on the green, carpeted stairs that  patrons sat on to watch live music the store held at night.  He hugged me on the stairs and asked how I was.  “Fine,” I said, as tears came to my eyes.  “Nope, not fine, but I will be,” I told him.  (Ex had gone back to being dead at this point of the dream.)

After the live music played, I got up and tried to find who I believed to be the store owner.  I found her, her other manager and the band upstairs at some tables with suggestion of coke use on them.  (Having never witnessed coke use, it always appears as white dust in my dreams.)   I didn’t want to disturb the owner, so I decided to meander about the store in wait. 

When the owner and band rose from their break, they all flitted about like the butterfly scene in Alice of Wonderland when she has to catch the one with the key to get her through the next door.  It was mayhem.  Children ran around in the fuscia, carpeted lower level.  The adults travelled all three levels in various  levels of excitement.  During this time and the height of my frustration, Ex’s headless, alive self showed up from the kids’ lower level.

I finally found the owner again at a podium under the stairs on the lower level.  I spoke to her, wrote my information down, and left with a brochure about the cost of parties at the store.  I met up with the friend who had driven over with me and got in her big, dark Suburban.  As we drove to our next destination, I let Ex know by cell phone that I had gotten the information that he had wanted for the Fairy Party. 

He must have taken the contact as encouragement that our romantic relationship had not ended because he started sending me suggestive texts and photos, just like he had done in real life after we split.   The first message showed a photo of a shampoo bottle and a message about us showering together.  The next photo showed a stack of pastel, handmade soap blocks, then a stack of soaps on him.  The last photo showed him sitting nude in an “L” position with soaps stacked on his abdomen.  ‘Who took that shot?’ I thought.  I showed them to my friend in disbelief at his repeated efforts to get me back in his sheets.

We got out of the car and headed down Main Street.  I realized that Ex had faked his own death.  He had been alive the whole time!  We had held a memorial service and everything, and for what?!?  Seething, I walked with purpose on the concrete sidewalk in a pair of stacked-heel, black leather boots.  I was gonna kick his ass!  Instead, some young chump came up behind me and tried to mug me or something.  I double-kicked him Mortal Kombat-style.  He retreated to a porch.  “That wasn’t worth ten cents,” he said.

I woke up from this dream confused about reality.  It took a few minutes of asking myself if any of it had been true.  Was Ex alive?  Did Little Guy still have a dad?  Had he really faked his own death?

The memory of seeing Ex lying lifeless in the snow drifted through my mind.  No, none of my dream had been true, and I felt a little disappointed.  I know that Ex is gone forever from this planet.  I sometimes find myself half-wishing he was still here.

I am on vacation.  Yes, I took two of them this year.  Why?  Because I can and I need to.  No, I don’t get paid vacation, but I get time off. 

I have had this trip loosely planned since August or so.  Then, when life changed forever for me and Little Guy, I needed to get away and looked forward to it more than I already had been. 

We are staying at Sid’s for two weeks.  So far, we have gone on walks every day with the dog and napped almost every day.  We have had scrumptious meals made by Scott or restaurants.  I have read an entire book and started a second one.  With the humidity, our skin has softened and my hair has more curl in it than it did, well, ever. 

While I haven’t gotten to escape all responsibility of tying up Ex’s loose ends, I have found that it’s not so bad to take care of those things in a warm, sunny, snow-free environment.  As much as I wanted to cry today after making difficult phone calls, those tears didn’t make it past my eyeballs.  I don’t know if the humidity tricked them into thinking they were already running down my face, or if my own stubbornness worked at keeping them in, but I was grateful for them staying in. 

We have a little over a week left of enjoying the weather and an open schedule and seeing friends that we don’t see nearly as often as I’d like.  I hope I get one more day by the pool in my tank top with my sweater tucked behind me for when the cool breezes pick up and to finish the rest of the other book Sid chose for me.  Even if I don’t, what I want most is for Little Guy to remember his first time at the beach and the time we have spent with family here.  I also would like to return home looking rested.  I hear rum drinks help with that.

Cheers!

Since the passing in September, I’ve been a bit on the run housesitting from place to place then back at my old house.  I’ve had about 6 or 7 shirts and two pair of pants and about 6 or 7 outfits for Little Guy with me.  Normally, I dictate to myself that all laundry gets sorted by cold water wash of lights apart from darks then things that need warm water, like unmentionables, sheets and towels.  With all the clothes that Little Guy have been carrying with us from place to place, it hasn’t made sense to separate anything.  It all goes in the wash together. 

Since reclaiming some of my own space in the new house that I’m moving into, I’ve been able to go back to separating laundry.  Now, instead of sorting the lights and darks, I keep it to cold water wash and warm water wash.  Life got simpler this way for me.  I’ve let go one step and one unimportant detail in my life.  The clothes have not taken on each other’s colors, so far.  Laundry goes in two piles not three or four.  I wish I had caught on to this years ago.

I find my zen while doing dishes in the morning.  Sometimes, I can hear the zen chimes.  Crazy, right?  Mostly I have time to think.  

In the morning, it’s quiet.  Little Guy’s asleep.  The sun rises.  I take my time.  

I have the fortune of not having to rush to work early in the morning.  I enjoy getting things done before the day even starts and finding peace and calm early in the day.

As a woman who grew up in Utah in the Mormon culture, I learned that everything is a woman’s fault.  Awesome.  I am the kind of person who feels responsible for almost everything and everyone.  I am the kind of person that takes responsibility for things that are not my fault.  I’d like to change this.  

When I was married, everything was my fault.  Why?  Because everything was my responsibility.  

When Ex went missing, I came back to find him after making sure Little Guy was somewhere safe.  I could have called the Sheriff’s office and told them I had a hunch, and would they please go and check it out.  But I didn’t.  It didn’t even cross my mind that day.  I know that Ex wanted ME to find him, and that I would, and that I would take care of everything, like always.  And I am.  

Last night when I was putting Little Guy to bed, Y&H came upstairs to tell me that he had to make our bed.  ”Oh yeah,” I said.  ”Sorry.  I washed the sheets.”  

Wait.

Sorry for what?  I have been moving by myself to the new house this week, cleaning the new house, and cooking dinner every night, and I’m sorry that I didn’t get around to putting the sheets back on the bed?  For not doing everything?  No!

I went to bed where Y&H was already asleep, exhausted from walking 15 miles that day during his Elk hunting.  I tossed and turned a bit thinking about how I had gotten myself into the same relationship that I had experienced before with Ex.

But wait.  This one’s different.  I can talk to Y&H.  So, I vowed to talk to him this morning before he left in his day-glow orange suit.  

When we woke up, he asked what time I came to bed.  I told him 9:20 p.m., after I had fallen asleep twice with Little Guy, then I couldn’t sleep because of my thought about our relationship.  

“What were you thinking about?” he asked.

I took a breath and felt anxiety in my belly.  ”Was it a big deal that you had to make the bed last night?” I asked him as he put his clothes on. 

“No.  Did you think it was?” he asked.  

“Yeah.”

“Why?” he asked.  

“I’m just a little sensitive to that.  It would have been a big deal to Ex.  I had to do everything,” I said.

“I’m nothing like him, except for one day every three months,” he said.  (He has a bad day about that often.)  He sat on the bed and leaned over me so we could see each other’s faces outlined in the pre-dawn light.  ”I told you.  I cook.  I clean.  It doesn’t bother me.  I was just letting you know that I made the bed,” he said.   

“Oh, good!” I said with relief.  ”I thought I had gone and done it again just when I was thinking that this one (relationship) would really work.”

We kissed goodbye and had a laugh.  Whew, for once it’s NOT my fault.  If I had kept that silly wondering inside and let it harbor and breed resentment toward Y&H, that would be my fault.

I get a lot of spam email.  After Ex died, I wondered if he had signed me up for these as a last dying joke. Emails about Enzyte, Viagra, Meet Christian Singles (ick, blik, yuck!) started showing up.  Okay, the christian singles one started showing up a lot earlier, but I can’t figure out why.  

I know Ex didn’t sign me up for spam email, but it’s a funny, dark thought to think he did.

While staying in the old house, I have realized that I still feel resentful and mad at times over everything that I have to put in order, even though I have Y&H and my mom and a good friend helping me get things straightened out the best they can.  I have a hundred offers from people to help me with anything and not much I can delegate.  I have about a thousand things I need to do that get pushed to the bottom of the list, such as, changing Ex’s Facebook photo that a stranger suggested that I do.

While some things on the Tying Up Ex’s Loose Ends To-Do List grow, some go away naturally.  I love it when those happen.  The child support agency got notified by the state.  Check!  I didn’t have to call them.  Selling his vehicle and weapon?  Y&H is on it and has buyers for both items and a few other things.  Getting this house off my hands?  I have my momma, two attorneys, and a financial advisor helping me figure out that.  And I’m so grateful.

I know that everything will work out eventually.  Now, back to the paperwork, so I can make it happen.  I intend to have papers off the dining room table and into a file organizer by the end of the night and  a complete spreadsheet of all loose ends Ex left behind.  Check!

I took Little Guy trick-or-treating, well trunk-or-treating, on Halloween and then to a community Halloween party.  Little Guy had a blast.  I forgot the camera, so I’ll fake some pics later of Little Guy.  I had a good time seeing friends, but it didn’t take long for the tears to start coming.  It didn’t help that a local business owner and father was there with his family.  I was till sore over his words to me from the day before, business-related.  I glowered at him that night, mad at him for taking his life for granted and for being such a petty dickhead.  

I was okay until a friend of mine came up to me and said, “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.  I’m sorry to hear about your Ex.  You know, my dad was murdered when I was 6, and I don’t remember any of it.  It fades over the years.  It will be up to you to help Little Guy remember his dad.  How are you doing?”

“Fine,” I said and smiled as I held back tears.  People can read me like a book.  

“You’re strong,” she said.  ”You’ll make it through this just fine.  It gets easier over time.  Where’s Girlfriend?”

“I haven’t seen her yet,” I said.  I moved out of her place last weekend and back into the old house and have started to move into a different house this week.

She showed up with her mom, daughter, ex-husband and boyfriend.  ”How are you?” she asked.  And then her mom asked, and I thought, ‘I have a whole year to go of making new memories without Ex.’  I kept answering “fine” to everyone and pushing back more tears.  This is the first holiday of the season, and how am I going to do with the rest of them?  

The same way I did with Halloween.  I’ll make new memories, and it will get easier with each one.  Then, I’ll have a whole year done and full of new memories to look back on next year.  I hope that with each year the first day of Fall and Halloween get easier.  I know they will, and maybe I’ll remember to bring the camera.  

As for the local business owner, I decided that I don’t despise him.  I dislike him in general, but aside from that, I also feel a little jealous that he still has his wife and kids.  So I have somewhat stopped wanting to tell him where to go and really want to tell him to treasure what he has because life is fleeting, and life is short, and if I were him, I’d worry about the big stuff and not the small stuff.  

Because of that incident at his business and the way the management runs the company I work for, I have decided that I need a new job.  So, here’s to a year of making new memories and creating the life that I want.

I went on a date last night, a real honest-to-goodness date.  I needed daycare today while I was at work, but Little Guy’s daycare woman needed him there early in order to make her dog’s vet appointment.  She knows that I never get Little Guy to her very early, so she suggested he spend the night there on Friday.  ”Okay!” I said.  That was Tuesday.  

I was so excited at the prospect of having a night to go out on the town with Y&H that I called him almost immediately on Tuesday evening to tell him of the opportunity.  We had many ideas of what we would do for date night, and we agreed that whatever we did, we would go out.  Last time we had a night to ourselves, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the living room floor at his house, fully-clothed, at 10:45 p.m.  We were supposed to go out to see a band that night, but I didn’t have the energy or desire to expose myself to the various, airborne diseases going around.  

Thursday night we agreed that we would go to dinner in a nearby town and then take a soak in the hot springs.  It sounded so relaxing, so I made myself a pedicure appointment for right after work.  I hadn’t enjoyed a pedicure since Little Guy’s first birthday, so I decided that after 3-and-a-half years, it was time.  I also knew the better I took care of myself, the better prepared I would be to spend a great evening with Y&H and take care of Little Guy after work today.  

At the salon, I picked “An Affair in Red Square” by OPI, a glistening red that reminded me of a marbled bowling ball.  It’s too bad that Y&H is color-blind.  I should have picked a trendy gray, just to mess with him.  Next time, maybe I will.  

I finally got done with the pedicure, an hour and a half later, callus-free, and picked up Y&H.  I said that I would drive to dinner, if he would drive us home.  I felt so tired.  We went to the old house to let the dog out & back in, then off we went to dinner.  We had a delicious, tender prime rib dinner that I didn’t have to pay for.  At the car, Y&H got my door for me.  He reminded me that we were on a date, and that he was going to do those kinds of things.  I am so not used to this kind of chivalry, even after 3 months of dating Y&H.  We drove to the hot springs and soaked and talked and laughed and kissed.  

We got home to my old house around 11:15 p.m., and I thanked him for dinner and the soak.  He thanked me for not fighting him about paying.  I’m also not used to men paying for dates, at least not regularly.  We talked until about midnight, then went to bed.  We both agreed earlier in the car that we should have a weekly date night.  Now that I have Little Guy full-time, I think it sounds like a necessary and welcome event to keep the good thing that Y&H and I have going.