Outfit(s) of the Day

I had to make up for some lost time....sorry about that

PS we're suddenly very into the layered look at our house!

The flowery layered look

The glamour layered look

the 80's layered look

Outfit of the Day

Meet Glimmer Shine...the winter fairy!

Happy New Year... Happy New Normal

Well, I like to give us all reasons to keep celebrating any holiday so here I am finally getting around to recognizing the new year, only ten days late!

Being away for Christmas was just what the doctor ordered for Esme and me!. We had a marvelous time in Arizona. We did tons of sleeping in, hanging out, shopping, swimming, watching television, did I mention Disneyland?  Boy were we spoiled!
Christmas Day was expectedly a bit hard but, surprisingly not at all for the reasons I would have expected. It's always those unexpected things that really jump out and get you. All in all it was definitely the best vacation we could have imagined.
And most wonderfully it wasn't even that hard to come home. Sipping a margarita outside in the 75 degree weather with the sun shining on me was admittedly not the very smartest move on the way to the airport, but even that wasn't enough to make me long to stay. Just enough to get me wishing I could...a little bit :)

Of course coming home was just the wake up call I could have expected. Plane re-routed to Fargo, Nearly hitting a deer in the middle of the highway just after midnight on New Years Eve, then at the end of last week the crazy started up all over again, with the return of my husband's GF after only four days with her family and another friend coming to me to confess she also slept with my husband.

You know...all I can say is that the ludicrous doesn't seem nearly so crazy anymore. It's like when you come to realize a "new normal". This is it. I can no longer assume that it's all over. I can no longer convince myself that "surely this is as weird as it can get. There's no way there can be more".
Maybe if I just assume there will always be more, I will no longer be so stunned.

Like any story there is obviously a lot more behind the scenes of these events. A lot more that I'm not sure I have the capacity to discuss. There is good and there is not so good coming out of all these events.

In this New Year I remain immensely blessed to have such amazing friends and family, such a strong support system. I feel intensely grateful for the little bit of truth and honesty that just wandered into my life. I am daily thrilled by the presence of my amazing Esme. And I'm adjusting...to the new normal.

where do you turn for help?

I think last month was abuse awareness month and I was really torn when I read the BlogHer plea for people to raise awareness by sharing their stories. In the end I decided that was not a part of my marriage I was ready to share yet.

The truth is it took me 10 of our 12 years together to figure out the constant strain and fear I was living in was abuse. 10 years to realize that it's not normal in a marriage for one person to bear the full responsibility that everything meet their partner's expectation of perfect at all times. I shouldn't have had to be the only consistent breadwinner, responsible for all practical aspects of every endeavor we attempted, who was then also completely to blame if even the smallest thing didn't go exactly the way my husband desired. Oh and did I mention there must be alcohol in the house at all times?

It wasn't until his family found me crying in the corner of a public restroom, because he was about to find out I messed up a plan, the repair of which would cut into cocktail hour, that I realized perhaps this pressure was too much.

I finally brought myself, months later, to discuss with him that I felt like I was living in an abusive relationship.

As I'm able to reflect now on the results of the conversation I realize that is when the abuse got more subtle.

The emotional side became more about keeping things from me rather than punishing me after the fact and that is when the emotional strain I had all but accepted as part of my life became sheer mental abuse and anguish.

My marriage became a constant guessing game. Every decision, nearly all of which I consistently had to make on my own, was a gamble. Is this the time I will choose wrong? What will he withhold this time if I don't get this to work out perfectly?

Every day felt like a precarious balancing act and every decision a gamble filled with sheer terror.

When I think of the adjustments I made over our twelve years to make this all feel like a normal way to live I am astounded!

I mention this all now, a month late, because yesterday my mantra of the last year: "at least I made it out with my life." Suddenly became all to real.

Yesterday my husband's girlfriend attempted suicide. I hate to say I was not surprised to get the news. So many facets of her new life, for which she sacrificed so much, had to be utterly miserable.

What I hate the most though is the thought that anyone, especially someone who used to be a close friend, someone I can't help but care about, could find themselves in a place where this feels like their only option.

Convincing myself I was abused has been much harder than convincing those who know my story. In fact it is my friends and family who opened my eyes and gave me the strength and support to get out. I am so sad that She severed those important ties in order to pursue this love and found herself in such a horrific situation all alone.

I am relieved to know that her family is there with her, determined to take her home and help her get healthy.

And now in an ultimate stroke of irony I am off to "the happiest place on earth" to celebrate my daughter and family and love that is pure and without expectation.

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.2

You don't have to be Freud

I hate that I haven't had a lot to say lately. It's been a rough couple weeks and I'm really tired of sharing all the bad stuff. I feel like a broken record, or that friend you're scared to ask too many questions... for fear they might actually answer them. And lately no one would like the answers.

I've hit a wall again. Suddenly it seems everywhere I turn in town I'm confronted with my husband's girlfriend. I'm not sure what suddenly changed. Tourists being gone, less places open in town to go, she's getting more comfortable here... I have no idea but suddenly she's everywhere.

Taking Esme to the pool alone on days she's supposed to be with my husband. Dropping off forgotten clothes to Esme's daycare when I asked my husband to go. Coming over to kiss Esme goodbye at the coffee shop when we all happen to be there at the same time. I hate to say it but after a week filled with nightmares it's clearly more than I can handle.

In the first nightmare I nearly drowned in Lake Superior trying to swim to an island in the middle and the majority of the dream was spent in a quandary about whether to go forward and die of exposure on the island, or try to swim back through the sudden all enveloping fog. I swam forward and lived thanks to an unexpected resort on the island that took me in, but....who should be staying there? You guessed it my husband. Life saved hurrah!! I think?

A few nights later I talked my way out of being shot by a gunman in the middle of a city. I was hiding, he grabbed me and we were face to face. All I could think was "I'm supposed to humanize it, if I make him see me as an individual person he won't be able to shoot me." It worked and as he sprinted off and I turned to collapse in a heap from the rush of adrenaline I was shot in the back by his friend.

You'd think that would be enough but oh no, it got worse. The night before my birthday I woke hyperventilating with tears streaming down my cheeks. I had dreamed Grand Marais was actually a college campus and there was some track and field style sporting event going on. Everywhere I went in town there was the girlfriend competing in some different event. Finally I cornered my husband in the bleachers and told him we had to talk about this. Just as we began talking she came walking towards us and he had to leave.
That night I had to attend a dinner, as I arrived late there was only one seat open and you guessed it, it was right next to her. I made it through dinner but then there was some sort of talent show thing that she was in and I had a full on meltdown.  I couldn't get to my shoes, coat or purse without walking right past her in the hallway where she was getting ready. So even though it was about 12 degrees out I just left, bare foot and freezing. Shaking my head and muttering "I just can't do this" over and over to myself the whole way.
That was when I sat up with no breath and a wet pillow.

So you can see, I began my birthday week with a bang. It took me until about 10:30 on my birthday to have any sort of conversation with anyone without crying. I was so exhausted from these stupid dreams and mentally such a mess.

I hate most that I really love everything about this place. I just had one of the best birthdays of my life surrounded by people who love me like family and went out of their way to show their support for me and for Esme. There is nothing I don't like about living here (except the snow) and Them. I want to want to move. There are places I would love to live. SO many places I would love to live. I'm just hoping for a cosmic sign to coincide with the right timing...I guess, so I can finally begin to sort me out.

Outfit of the Day

It just seemed wrong to not give Esme's "flower tail" a place in the outfit hall of fame.

Esme

Today is the day I begin life with a four year old. As she exited the dinner table proclaiming herself done (with half a bowl of food still in front of her) and answered my question "What do you say at the end of a meal?" with "thank you" instead of "may I be excused" then followed that up by choosing not to clear her place...I said "Well, here we go! Four looks like fun!"

She redeemed herself by clearing her dessert dish without being asked and generally returning to her pleasant self. But all day I've been thinking how did I get a four year old? She's like a person now. She has her own thoughts, about everything, she asks insightful questions, uses big words, buckles herself into a seatbelt, has phone conversations (sometimes with people she's called herself without my knowledge). No more baby, no more toddler. Person, small person, but fairly fully formed, right here in my house. So of course every year at this time I have to remember how it all began:

Four years ago this morning I got up at 4am to pee just like I did every morning of the month before that. I lay back down, and immediately had to get up to pee again. This is odd I thought, but I got up again, parted with a few more drops and lay back down. I had to get up again... okay, this really is weird I thought. And as I sat down on the toilet for the third time in like 4 minutes, a little light bulb went off. I remembered reading somewhere that most women's water doesn't break in a gush like the movies. It's more like a trickle... feels like you have to pee all the time.
So this is it I thought, my water is breaking. This Is It...My Water Is Breaking! And the pack and play isn't assembled, and we're not packed for the hospital, and the dog sitters haven't been trained, and I still have a full week of work to get done....
Okay. Pack and play it is!
So I stayed up. Assembled the pack and play, packed the hospital bag then planted myself on the couch with a heavy bathrobe and towel under me, prepared to do as many hours of work as possible. I'd been told by many people that staying still was the enemy of labor progressing. Technically there was no labor yet so I figured if I could just stay as still as possible I could make it at least a few hours.
At about 7 I finally woke my husband "Don't panic, really, it's okay, I think my water broke this morning." [Bleary eyes pop open wide as sand dollars] "No really don't panic, it's just that the water keeps leaking and I need you to go to the pharmacy and get me pads or something."
"But we haven't even trained the dog sitters!"
"It's okay we have plenty of time, like hours, we'll be fine. I just need you to go to the pharmacy."
He returns 15 minutes later "they don't open til 8."
"We live in Manhattan for pete's sake, you can't walk a few extra blocks to the 24 hour pharmacy? Never mind, I'll make it another hour."
So I stay planted doing my work while he goes on with his day. Training the dog sitters, attending some lunch thing.
Finally just after noon when everyone (husband and the dog walkers) has just returned from the lunch thing I feel the first pains. I finally decide I should call my boss and tell her what's going on and I also call the co-worker taking over for me while I'm gone. They both hustle me off the phone just as I'm experiencing my first inability to breathe moments.
I still have a couple e mails to send off before my work is done and my sister always told me that all she wanted while in labor was a hot bath, and that it really eased the pain of contractions. Nothing had ever sounded better than a shower did at that moment so one of our dog sitters (they're god-mothers now by the way) followed me into the bathroom to finish typing up the e mails while I showered.
Upon entering the shower my contractions were about 10 minutes apart. The doctor told me not to call until they were about 5 minutes apart. Husband popped his head in and timed about two contractions in the 15 minutes I was in the shower and when they suddenly hit 5 minutes he panicked. No problem I said, that's just when we're supposed to call the doctor, we've got plenty of time.
They forced me out of the shower, into some clothes, and wouldn't even let me blow dry my hair. The four of us rushed downstairs and out to the corner where our fearless native New Yorker in the ranks nearly accosted a woman about to get into a cab.
"This woman's in labor" [and about to faint from embarrassment rather than pain] "Can they please take your cab to the hospital?"
As a look of confusion crossed the woman's face (perhaps it was the please) she slowly agreed and we hopped in. The cabbie surely heard the whole exchange and after one look at me, which must have been more telling than I would have guessed, said "We're not going to be on the evening news are we?" I have to say that was by far the cheapest cab ride we had our entire time in Manhattan!
I'm guessing it was about 2:30 when we got to the hospital and no one seemed any too concerned about the woman writhing in pain on her chair in the maternity check-in. Finally a nurse on her fifth or sixth pass through the room. Stopped, looked closely at me and said we better get you into a room. Seemed like a great idea to me.
I think we got into that room at about 3:30. The anesthesiologist stopped by, looked at me, whispered something to the nurse and left. The nurse gave me a few nervous, side-long glances and I said "I'm not getting an epidural am I?"
"No, you're too far along she said."
"Okay! Ooookay."
I think the biggest blessing I experienced that day was to stumble into the hands of a nurse mid-wife on her last day in labor and delivery." Without her my labor experience would have been much more mentally painful. She knew just when to cheer, when to encourage, when to be forceful. She was calming, insightful, and patient.
I barely remember the pushing. I remember standing at a high counter in the room, hanging from it with my arms straight. I remember my husband being told to hold a leg, I remember the ice chips, I remember there was some screaming, I remember the pain of being sewn up afterwards (at which point there was a multitude of screaming, including the first swear words uttered all day).
I have this sensation somewhere in the back of my mind that it all must have been excruciating. But for the life of me I can't remember that it actually was.
I remember most clearly the moment they placed Esme on my chest. She immediately began to nurse like it was what she was born to do. I think that is the moment that every other memory, about what it took to get her there, simply disappeared.