Vacation Part II November 20, 2009

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.

Ponderings November 2, 2009

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!

Making New Memories November 2, 2009

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.

 

TT – I never thought I would be ….here May 8, 2009

I never thought I would be here, at a coffee shop, having coffee, breakfast and conversation on a Friday morning before work.  I’ll tell you why I’m here.  It’s a funny story.

My roomie left town on Tuesday.  I was off on Tuesday with no plans and nowhere to go.  Just a day to clean the house and play with Little Guy.  I went to get my keys so that I could go to the skate park that afternoon, and they weren’t where I had left them.  I KNEW I had left them on the bookshelf by the door.  

I texted roomie to see if she had seen them.  No response.  It bothered me to no end that I had lost my keys.  I have NEVER  lost my keys before.  Wallet, yes.  Phone, yes.  Important papers, temporarily misplaced often, but never my keys.

I began to tear the house apart looking for the keys and for the spare set.  Man, and I had just gotten the house almost perfectly clean. Schnikies.  

The next day I told Roomie that I still couldn’t find my keys.  She confessed to picking them up by mistake thinking that they went to her car.  She had them in her parked car in Denver while she was in Texas.

Hooray!  I hadn’t lost my keys.  Whew.  

So, for the last 3 days, praise the stars for my friends, I have gotten rides to and from town.  This morning, Daycare’s husband picked me and Little Guy up and drove us into town.  I was in town before 8a.m.  Let’s take a moment and celebrate that small miracle that hasn’t happened in a year.  I don’t have to be to work until 10:30, so I went to a coffee shop for breakfast since I hadn’t eaten or had my tea yet.  I also needed to get some work done on the computer that had been ignored all week since I had no internet or transportation. (Normally, I borrow internet access at Boyfriend’s.)  

What has this week made clear to me?

It pays off to be good to friends and love them and take care of them, so that they do the same for their friends.  It’s been an adventure this week.  A good one!

Namaste.

TT – Green August 3, 2008

Not to brag, but it’s midnight, and I just got home from a night on the town, and it wasn’t work that kept me out late.  I feel tired, and my mind’s going a mile a minute, at least, and that’s kind of slow for me.  

I’ve been listening to Nicole Torres for the past 2 days and LOVING it.  I can understand her when she sings, and that counts for a lot.  I can relate to her songs, and I like her stories.  

“I breathe the words ‘I love you’ into your mouth so you can taste them.”

“I’m impatient.  I’m impulsive.  I’m selfish.  I’m self-destructive.”

Nicole Torres plays the guitar, and speaking of guitar, I was at an after-wedding party for a mutual friend of mine where a rockin’ local band, Mooseknuckle, played.  Man, if I could play guitar half as well as either of the guitarists in that band, or well enough to be a guest guitarist on a Nicole Torres album, I would be happy, even if it takes another 20 years before I get there.  

Well, I don’t know if I can wait that long.  I’m pretty green at the guitar right now, and it feels like it might take that long.  Oh dog, and I haven’t practiced for at least 2 weeks.  We didn’t have Spanish/Guitar trade lessons for a couple weeks.  He had friends staying with him who travel as a band, and they keep musician hours.  I had a presentation on lesson morning, so I cancelled the last time.

Oh, I had a presentation!  I presented my writing services to a small group of local business owners.  I got a bite, but I need to bite back, call back rather, get the guy’s number and see what’s going on with his project.  If nothing else, it was a good experience, and I hope to do more of them, with less shaking in my voice, even though I didn’t feel that nervous, and I practiced and practiced, just like I was in a play, and I was on stage, and I LOVED that!  Until the hard questions came.  Oh well.  Live and learn for sure!

Now, I’m tired.  I think I had to calm down from a night of socializing and getting my butt grabbed more times than it did last week when I went out for Girls’ Night with my girlfriend.  This week, I just found the physical contact with strangers alarming.  Maybe it’s because most everyone had started drinking hours ago at the wedding.  I did meet some nice people tonight who had control of themselves and who apologized for their friends who did not.  Did that one guy get asked to leave or did he retire to the patio?  Don’t know, but I’m glad that we ended up in opposite places by the end.  I’m glad I got to spend time with friends, and we weren’t at work for once.