Take Notice

My daughter has been in the hospital for nearly a week now. Because of the move, my business trip, and now this, I've stayed in seven hotels, in the last three weeks.

I'm weary.

Last night my husband picked up my sons and took them back "home," leaving me at the Ronald McDonald House, with an empty stroller that he couldn't fit into his car.

My heart felt empty as I looked around at yet another unfamiliar place, full of unfamiliar people.

Who We Were All Meant To Be

Recently, The Littlest underwent a several hour long surgery, and then an extended stay in the Intensive Care Unit.

Although upon his birth it was believed that he had not inherited the genetic disorder that my family carries, it has now become relatively obvious that our initial reassurances were wrong.

Tonight, I was feeling especially worn out. There's a grieving process you go through, when you realize that the life you had planned for your child, might not be the one that they are going to lead.

Remember Always

The baby was fussing this morning, so my daughter climbed into bed and asked me to snuggle him up with her. "He just wants to feel safe and loved mom."

I look at her, loving on him, and the reality of her life hits me. Abandonment. Abuse. Trauma.

Knowing what her biological father did to her and her other brother. She watched him punch an infant in the face! And now, here we are, several years later, and she's giving her new sibling what was never given to her, by one of the people supposed to have protected her most.

It gives me hope for humanity. Hope for my children. Hope in a world that's teaching our children lessons that we are trying to protect them from.

Our kids know how to be good people. They all do. I just pray that they remember that when the world tries to teach them differently.

Remember always, that it's never too late to be the person that you intended to be, when you started out on this journey of life.

It Mattered In The End

****** TRIGGER WARNING******

This post deals with the subject of death, and although I think that the overall message is worth discussing, I respectfully wish to warn you that some may find this post to be upsetting. Should you choose not to proceed through this one, I look forward to your return next time.

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Towards the end of winter last year, we had an unseasonably nice day that also happened to fall on a weekend. Finally able to enjoy venturing out of the house again, The Guy and I were looking for something fun to do. But after contemplating how crowded the zoo would be, and realizing that most of the farms near us were still closed, I suggested that we do something different, and visit the local historic cemetery.

Yes I did.

“A… cemetery…” The Guy said slowly, as if he were trying to mentally absorb the meaning of the words.

“Yes” I said. “Where they bury people.”

“Why would we do that?” he asked.

“Why not?” I asked back.

And because he is exactly my type of person, off we went to the cemetery, taking the kids with us.

We spent the next four hours wandering through the rows of headstones, while the kids did crayon rubbings over the words. The Guy and I chatted about the husbands and wives who were buried side by side, and contemplated what life must have been like for them to have either lived decades without each other, or passed away only days apart. We saw the headstones of families that clearly had died in wealth, while others eluded to the fact that they most likely died while living in poverty. There were men with multiple wives resting next to them; proof of the intimate moments they had gone on to lead — one after another — without the one that they had left behind. And then there were families with centuries of descendants who had died decades before others were born, all grouped together; sharing nothing more in common then a last name, an ending fate, and the fact that their physical resting place will spent forever together.

I'm Lost, And I Have No Idea Where I'm Actually Supposed To Be

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"Uh... you won't let me in?" I asked, the confusion written all over my face.

"Sorry" she said flatly, giving no other indication that she actually cared.

"Um... but... this is a support group... and... I need support. I called yesterday and they said that everyone is welcome. I even got a babysitter and drove 30 minutes here" I said, adding in that last bit for the sympathy factor.

"Well yes, all are welcome, at the beginning of the 12 week session" she stated. "The divorce support group is more of a class than a group, and we require that everyone start at the beginning. We aren't currently at the beginning, we are 3 weeks in, so you will have to come back in 9 weeks and then you will be welcome."

No one had relayed that vital bit of information to me over the phone.

She then closed the door to the not-very-supportive divorce support group that was actually a very strict class, and left me standing in the hallway of a church.

It had been a year and a half since my husband had left and I was having a difficult time. Initially I had jumped right into a relationship with someone else, and if anything, it had only served to deflect a lot of the issues that I really needed to be dealing with. When that relationship had gone down like an atomic bomb, I was left standing for the first time, truly alone, and in the destruction of what was left of my life.

I had absolutely no idea where to turn.

So I didn't turn anywhere, instead, sinking inside of myself and shutting everyone out.

I remember one night in particular where I was lying on my bed, face down in my pillow, and bawling my eyes out. In the midst of my tears, the doorbell rang. I crawled over to my window so that no one outside would see me, and I peeked out to see two of my best friends standing on my front porch.

I could hear them out there talking to each other "she has to be home, her car is outside. Do you think she is OK?" but I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed and answer the door. After what seemed like an eternity, they left and sent me a text that read "We left a case of diapers for The Boy Child and a carton of ice cream for you on your front porch. We hope you are OK. It's alright if you don't want to talk, but just at least let us know you are OK."

I texted them back, apologized, thanked them for their kindness, and I felt awful.

When My Health Issues Landed Me In Court (Part 2)

And we are back for part two! Recapping Part One (which you should read first if you haven't already done so), I'd been diagnosed with a rare medical disorder, my husband had left me, I lost my social security disability case, I had to go back to work so that I could feed my children, my health prevented me from working full time, and then I found out that my attorney had my denial overturned, and my case was headed back to court.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Moving on:

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It had been YEARS since I'd lost my court case! And I had no idea that my attorney had filed an appeal; I didn't even know that was possible. I was so completely caught up in pulling my life back together after my husband's disappearance, that I had somehow missed everything that had been going on with my case behind the scenes.

“I don’t think I am going to win” I told my attorney. “I’ve been working because I had no choice, I’ve been going to the gym because it's the only thing I can think of to keep my health from getting worse, and I dance when I have a good day. I'm not even taking the pain pills that the doctor prescribes me because I need to be clear headed enough to drive my kids around. I'm doing so much, that no one is going to believe how sick I actually am.”

“Just come to court” he told me, “and tell the judge the truth.”

So I did.

I explained why I was working, and how I cared for my children. I talked about the doctor appointments, the prognosis, and I answered more questions than I was expecting to have thrown at me. I sat there and listened to the judge and my attorney argue over my medical files, read reports from state appointed doctors, and I heard testimony from a state hired vocational expert on how my health would affect my job opportunities.

I felt what I always feel in court; removed from the situation, and protected by a layer of PTSD that keeps me from having to emotionally absorb what is going on.

The judge didn't make a decision that day, and it was three months before a letter from the social security office arrived in my mailbox.

I remember pulling it out of the box, and the air being sucked out of my lungs with it. Taking it inside, I sat on the couch and turned it over and over again in my hands; trying to will myself to open it, but not sure what it's contents might mean for my life.

My Ex's Attorney Is A Killer (Literally)

If you didn't read the last post, "I'm Not There Anymore," I suggest reading that first so that this post makes sense.

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It’s been a few days since my day in court, and I’m feeling much better. Overall I wasn’t feeling all that bad to begin with (compared to prior years in court), but either way it always takes a lot out of me.

This whole process has just been ridiculous. As a bit of background on this most current situation that brought us into court, Ex is ordered to pay 50% of all our children's medical, daycare, school, and extra curricular expenses. But about a year ago, he started to fall behind again; which if you are new to this blog, is a constant issue with him. He either doesn't pay the bills and/or child support, I take him to court, he is threatened with jail, and he catches up for a few months on a payment plan, before he stops paying again.

Sensing that we were about to head down the familiar legal intervention path, I told him that if he started paying me a set amount per week, that I would personally eat the cost of anything above and beyond that. The number that I offered him was significantly lower than what expenses actually are, but it would have been worth it just to not have to deal with him. To make the offer sweeter, Mr. Attorney Man graciously offered to waive the fees billed from prior court dates that Ex had not yet paid (since Ex was found in contempt, he has to pay my attorney).

Ex rejected the idea.

After Four Years, I Ran Into My Brother, And It Wasn't What I Was Expecting

As some of you know from my frantic Facebook post a couple months ago, I ran into my brother at a restaurant. I was out with a couple of girlfriends for a ladies’ night, and we were chatting at a table, enjoying dinner, when I looked up and realized that I was sitting about fifteen feet from my brother, who was drinking at the bar.

Oddly enough, even though my entire family doesn’t live that far from me, in four years I have only ever run into one person, and that was the time I saw my mother at the grocery store.

Now suddenly, there I was, looking at the brother that I have not laid eyes upon in years.

Panic does not even begin to describe the feeling that ripped through me, because although I don’t care about him enough to be emotionally uncomfortable by his presence, physically he scares the shit out of me due to his hulk-like temper.

Please Don't Tell Me I'm Losing My Son

"Momma, I'm blowing on a wishing flower, and I'm wishing no more doctors"

Horatio G. Spafford, his wife Anna, and their five children lived in Chicago in the late 1800’s. Horatio was a successful lawyer with a booming business, when tragedy struck and pneumonia stole the life of his young son.

That same year, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed his business.

Not willing to give up, The Spafford family pushed on, rebuilding the business, and holding their family together.

Two years later, Anna and their four children boarded the ship Ville Du Havre, hoping to find some relaxation and rest in Europe, with Horatio joining them a few days later.

But as fate would have it, tragedy struck again when the boat collided with another, causing the Ville Du Havre to sink.

Anna was found floating on a piece of wreckage, all four of her remaining children drowned. “God gave me four daughters" she said to another survivor. "Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will understand why.”

She then wired Horatio a message that simply said, “rescued alone, what shall I do?”

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I didn’t want to come back here; back to this blog. Pages of my struggles, triumphs, chuckles, and tears, all melting together to showcase one thing; My Life.

When I first came here, I set out to see if anyone else felt the same way I did. I was looking for a light to lead me down my darkened path.

The Things You Learn While Sitting In A Cave

The Naperville Salt Cave

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So... I dislocated my elbow, and I don’t even have a good story to tell. No really. I was picking up the laundry basket, and it just popped right out. "What the hell?" right?

Yep.

At least now, two weeks later, it’s looking much better.

Life lately, has been INSANE. I feel like I’m constantly being pulled in a million different directions, and I am one sick day away from my entire schedule collapsing. I know that many of you can relate, so let me ask you, how do you do it?

Because this momma right here, is Worn. Out.

Last Friday night my Bestie and I were trying to make plans to go out for a girl’s night, and we were both so overwhelmed and tired that not a single thing was sounding appealing to us. Suddenly I remembered something that had heard about the week prior....

I Don't Want My Ex To Move Back Into My House

Well, to jump right into it, last week’s post stuck with me more than I was expecting. (If you haven’t read it yet, I’d suggest doing that before you continue on, but for the TL;DR, I've found my feelings of anger towards my ex, reignited as I watch The Guy with my children.)

Anyway, it’s been interesting for me to reflect on last week’s post. Although I stand-by everything I said in terms of not letting my negative emotions consume me, as with any source of anxiety, sometimes it takes a while to figure out where it stems from.

Then sometimes, you figure it out and it just clicks.

I was married to my ex for twice the time that I’ve been divorced, and although I hate to admit it, I still feel more like the wife that was left behind by her first husband, than the wife I am now. 

My Ex Is Ruining My Marriage

Last Friday, she called me at 6am, 9am, 12pm, 4pm, and 2am, and then her family called me at 3pm and 7pm.

And she is just one of my many nonprofit clients.

I absolutely adore her and she is definitely one of my favorite clients, but she is going through some really tough things right now, and even though her life is not my own, I am beginning to feel emotionally overwhelmed and exhausted.

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For Christmas, The Guy gave The Boy Child a Ninja Turtle shaving set, and he couldn’t have been more thrilled.

I Got Into A Physical Fight With My New Husband

I woke up kicking him and shoving him away from me.

“Eden, it’s me! It’s just me, and you’re safe. You are safe, wake up!”

The voice, it sounded familiar.

It was Friday night, or rather, now early Saturday morning. The Guy and I were unwinding after the kids had gone to bed, by watching a movie and having a drink. We weren’t drinking excessively — not even close — but I was tired, and so was he, and at some point we had both fallen asleep in a pile of pillows that we had been using to cushion the floor; which was a much better option than our ridiculously uncomfortable sofa.

When the TV shut itself off and The Guy awoke just after 2am and realized what time it was, he gently shook me by the shoulders and tried to wake me up so that we could both make our way upstairs, and into a bed that would be much kinder to our backs than the floor was.

But my back was already screaming in pain, and I was disoriented just enough by the darkness of the room, my position on the floor, and a man leaning over me, that my half asleep, wine relaxed brain, didn’t immediately piece the entire scenario together.

Instead, it pulled what little information it knew, and it flashed me back to a time when I was 19, and I found myself groggy, in the dark, in pain, and with my ex-husband pushing my shoulders down into his futon.

And right then and there I "realized" that I was about to be raped again.

So I fought.

Marriage Is Great, And We Are Already In Counseling

Do you guys remember the post "My Christmas Tree Might Actually Fall Over," in which I threw out the big tree that I had once shared with my ex, and in an attempt to embrace our new life as a family of three, bought the only tree that my measly budget could afford?

This year, The Guy and I decided to keep that tree, and use it as our one and only. No expensive, six foot tall tree could replace three and a half feet of cheap plastic, that has always had pride and strength hanging from its branches.

So this year, I got to watch my husband put up the tree that symbolized my new life as a family of three, which has now grown to a family of four, and through it all, I watched my past continue to intertwine itself with my future.

It felt amazing.

Now that the dust has settled a bit on my surprise marriage, everyone keeps asking me the universal standard "First Year of Marriage Question," which if you were unaware, is "Sooooooo, how is married life?"

And it's funny, because it almost makes me wonder if there are people who really answer "it sucks. Honestly, I wish I had never done it. I'm like a week in and I already have one foot out the door and another stepping into the grave."

Because there would be nothing awkward about that... 

But since I'm always never awkward, I end up giving nifty little answers such as "it's great, except that I keep forgetting he lives with me now. Like he is there. All. The. Time."

The Truth Will Set You Free

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A couple weeks ago on a Saturday night, I picked up the phone, and to my shock, horror, and surprise, there was a Facebook message from the woman that I believed my ex was cheating on me with during a portion of my marriage.

That would make her the woman that he was cheating with, before the woman that he was cheating with and left me for.

Does that make sense?

Hopefully, because we are moving on.

I almost hesitate to write about it because the timing of it coming right after my resolution to let go of the anger, most likely makes it seem completely staged, but it wasn’t. It really happened and if you care to stick around and hear about it, sweet deal, and if you don’t want to believe me, then you can mosey on along and it’s no sweat off my back.

But anyway, years ago when I was still married, my ex had everything electronic in our house on lock down. I couldn’t use the desktop computer without him unlocking it, he had his own laptop that I could never get into, and he had his phone locked and refused to ever let me use it.

Then, one night while I was sitting there nursing our son and paying some bills, I asked him to get my phone so that I could use the calculator. Being too lazy to actually get up and get it, he, for the first time ever, unlocked his phone and handed it to me.

Now everyone knows that the first time someone gives you access to something that you have been never been allowed to access before, that the smart thing to do would be to earn some trust by proving that you can be trusted, and not snoop.

Too bad I never do the “right” thing.

You Deserve Better Than Settling

“What you want, and what you are willing to do to get it, are drastically different things. You need to decide if you are simply just wanting, or if you are really, truly, willing. Because you can say all day long that you want something, or that you want to make a change, but unless you are willing — right now in this moment — to take the steps that are necessary for that change, then you are forever going to be left simply ‘wanting’.”

My nonprofit has such a long waiting list of clients right now, that they far exceed the services that we have available. So for now, a lot of our clients are meeting with me in what I’m calling “support sessions,” since I can’t legally counsel anyone (and they know that I’m not a licensed counselor, it’s fully disclosed, and they meet with me at their own risk). But it was last week in the middle of a session, when I found myself telling a client that they need to choose "willing" over simply just "wanting," when the hypocrisy of my words hit me in the face so hard that I was barely able to finish the session with her.

I am a hypocrite.

I Have A Dream (That I'll Think About Tomorrow)

Several years ago, shortly after I started writing this blog, I started writing a book. Initially my plan was to follow the course that many authors hope to follow, which would be to get picked up by an agent, sign with a publisher, and release the book “the old fashioned way.”

But then life got crazy, as life tends to do, and the enormity of the work I was doing to overcome more trauma than I even realized I had, led me to blogging here more often than book writing. I spent my days pouring my emotions out into the pages of this blog and reflecting a lot on my past, and even though I had every intention of writing the book, I just (constantly) figured that I would get to it tomorrow.

Over the course of the next year, I started the nonprofit, continued to work myself into an online writing career, and kept up with the blog, but "tomorrow" never seemed to come when it came to finishing the book. The kids had health issues, money was tight, stress was high, and the idea of working on anything that didn’t involve our immediate survival, seemed unnecessary.

I told myself that I would get to the book when life calmed down, and I pushed the idea out of my mind.

Eventually I began to think that maybe going the traditional route of writing a book “the old fashioned way,” wasn’t really what I wanted to do, and that maybe an ebook would be the way to go. It would allow me to work at my own pace, be my own critic, write exactly what I wanted to write, and above all else, it seemed easier.

I like easy. I’m a big fan of the easy route.

So I wrote most of the book, edited it a lot, and when I was just about done, I realized something…

I didn’t like it.

Part Three Of The Threatening Female Friend (And All The Hateful Stuff She Said About Me To The Guy I'm Dating)

If you remember from the last part of this unique three-part-post, I had been struggling to get comfortable with the very close relationship that the guy I'm dating, has with a female friend. Where we left off, The Guy had come to the realization that maybe the relationship he had with this female friend, was not as platonic as he had previously thought. Attempting to rectify the situation, he took it upon himself to email her (cringe!) without my knowledge, and tell her that he needed to redefine the boundaries of their friendship. 

If you have not yet read parts one and two, I suggest you read those first! You can find Part One here, and Part Two here.

As for the rest of you, enjoy the conclusion!

Photo Credit: Giphy.com

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Her response to his email was quick, and it was brutal.

When It Hurts

When I was about 10 years old, I was running up the stairs to my bedroom when my ankle rolled and gave way. Over the sound of my body thudding down each and every step, was a very distinctive and sickening “popping” noise that sent chills down my spine and a searing pain up through my leg.

Crumpled at the bottom of the stairs in a heap, I laid there bawling my eyes out. My mother — who had been walking up the stairs in front of me — leaned over the railing from the floor above me and told me to stop crying and get up.

I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I do know that the conversation ended with my mother turning her back on me to go pack (they were going out of town), and me crawling up the rest of the stairs to my room.

You see this wasn’t the first time that I had hurt my ankle, and quite frankly I think that my mother was just tired of me complaining about being hurt. But I did hurt, and I hurt almost all the time. Not even just my ankle, but every single part of me.

This is actually The Girl Child pouting about who even knows what (so dramatic, the little girls!) but this is basically an accurate picture of how I felt most days.

Later that night, my parents dropped me and my brothers off at my grandparent’s house, where we would be staying for the weekend while my parent’s went on a short getaway. As I hobbled through the doorway, my grandpa asked me what was wrong. “Oh you know her” my parents both chided, “always the drama queen that one.”

Choking back tears from both humiliation and pain, I made my way to the living room where I sat down until it was decided by my parents that I just needed to walk it off. And by walk it off, they meant jump rope. I was given a jump rope and all but shoved outside where adult faces were pressed against the window and I was told that I could come back in after I jumped rope for a while. My grandpa, assuming that my parents were right and I just needed to "walk it off," was cheering me on.

So I jumped.

Newsflash: Bad Things Happen

“Alright” the doctor said, flipping through the test results that the nurse had just handed him. “Hum. Ok” he muttered to himself as I tried not to jump out of the chair and rip the results from his hands.

I mean really now, read a little faster and tell me what the hell is going on.

“Ok” he repeated, this time finally looking up at me and closing the chart. “As you remember, a few months ago your son had surgery to repair a defect in his inner ear, caused by a problem from a surgery he had on both ears two years prior.”

“Yes, I remember” I replied, anxious to move the conversation away from what I already knew to what I was waiting for him to tell me.

“And if you remember, the surgery had not been a success and we were planning on giving it another go around once we let the ear heal for a little bit.”

Waiting for a different surgery last year

“Yea, I know,” I related, “and then he had those problems with his kidneys and had to have an unexpected surgical procedure done, and I’m finally circling back around to take care of this.”

“Well,” the doctor sighed, “it appears as if he failed the hearing test, and at this point the surgery that he is going to need is above what I can do, so I’m going to have to send you to another specialist.”