We'll Be Through the Worst...

Living in northern Minnesota, it seems like every year after the holiday season, the conversation turns to the weather and how we will survive January and February, typically the worst months, weather-wise. Everyone assures themselves that once we get through January and through mid-February, "We'll be through the worst".

This winter flew by for me, with everything that has been going on. Sometimes, it surprises me when I step outside and it is relatively warm, at least in northern Minnesota terms. One of my friends calls it "hooded sweatshirt weather" when it hits about 25 degrees. Living through the bitter winters, we are shameless when it comes to temperatures that would be perceived as deadly in other parts of the country. The days are slowly getting warm enough that the sun is melting the snow and ice, and there's a steady stream of water that freezes into twinkling icicles on my house. It's light out when I leave work in the late afternoon. Even the air has a distinctly fresh, springy smell to it. It makes you think that you are through the worst of it, and have only bright, happy, springy days to look forward to.

But sometimes, a northern Minnesota spring surprises you, and you discover that you are no way through the worst. The spring that my daughter was born, we had an early March blizzard that dropped nearly 30 inches of snow in 24 hours. It felt as though the wind was blowing straight through my drafty brick house, and I clung tight to my newborn as the lights flickered all around. When the storm passed, it left snowbanks taller than my garage. And not more than a week later, we got hit with another storm that dropped another foot of snow on top of that. The "first day of spring" came and went, and we were still covered in heavy, wet snow. The worst was most certainly not over.

Lately, I've found the same in trying to navigate this whole divorce thing. The past few months have changed me. I know that. I feel better about myself, and feel more positive about my future. I can breathe again. I can be selfish and do single-girl things, like stay out until 3:00 in the morning and sleep until noon, and skip dinner and eat frozen pizza at 11:00. Sometimes, I don't even bother to attempt to clean the house when I am home alone. Why should I? I have more appealing options of things to do when I am at home, and besides, I am not really home all that much. I thought I was through the worst.

Last week, I got a text from my ex-husband that was obviously not meant for me. It was meant for another woman. Even though I have been dating (or attempting to), it irritated me. First off, I have the class and common sense to make sure I send my texts to the right number. Second, it was a casual message, telling her that he stopped at his "midway point for food and gas". I was married to him for eight years, and I didn't get messages like that. He was married to me for so long that he lost that sense of common courtesy, and I'd rarely get a call or a text, no matter where he was or how late he was going to be. That stung, not because it was meant for her, but because it illustrated the total lack of respect that he had for me and our former union.

A couple of nights later, I got a late-night text from him...telling me he was at the bar and sad, because there was a girl there who looked and dressed like me. I rolled over and went back to sleep, not knowing that this was the start of his quest to get me back.

After that text, he became relentless. In a classic quote, he said to me, "Would you rather be with someone that you've known and loved for nine years, or would you rather be alone for the rest of your life?" He knew what he was doing. He knew that indicating that I would be "alone for the rest of my life" would trigger all of my insecurities. But I still stayed strong.

I did, however, make sure I pushed for details on his "date". Turns out he did meet this woman...who did not live up to his expectations at all. They met for their date, and he discovered that she'd "grossly underestimated" her weight on her dating profile. I can only imagine, since I am a size 14. I have the urge to defend her, because one thing I cannot deal with is dissing someone over her weight. But alas, in the protection of my own high self-esteem, I will allow him to be critical of other women, after he spent nine years with the gorgeous me.

As the weekend continued, he carried on with his text messages and his attempts to get into my house (and inevitably, my bed). As he indicated his interest in "working" on our marriage, I was lying in my bed, and suddenly I was gripped with terror. I remember looking at my curtains (for no particular reason; it was just what my eyes landed on), and thinking, "Oh my god...I DO NOT WANT ANYONE SHARING MY HOUSE. I DO NOT WANT A RELATIONSHIP."

It was the first time I've ever felt this. Ever. Never in my life have I envisioned myself happy and complete without "having someone". After going through my divorce--the years of wanting to do it, the complete loss of feelings for him, the technicalities of having him move out, the sense of loss over having my daughter only 50 percent of the time, the finality of the paperwork--I thought the worst was through. Truthfully, I didn't care that I was, by some standards, a failure at marriage. In my superficial way, I still thought that while the worst was through with one marriage, I still needed to find another one. Now, the mere thought of having my freedom jeopardized and having to share my home chilled me to the core.

The weight of having to hurt and disappoint my ex-husband weighs heavily on me. The worst is not over there. I've agreed to a "date" with him on Sunday afternoon, but I made it clear that he won't be coming back to my place, and I expect him to head to his home to spend time with our daughter, since it is one of his custody days. I have told him upfront that I do not feel ready for a relationship with anyone (teensy lie...there is one person who, in my mind, I would like to have a relationship with, especially since I would've married him sight unseen, based on writing and sarcasm ability alone). I told him that I will make him no promises and no guarantees. He still says that he is willing to take this risk for another chance to be with me. I still think that chance won't happen, because I am determined in what I want, and secure with my decision to divorce him.

In movies on and on TV, it always seems glamorous and romantic when an ex comes back and begs for the love of his long-gone partner. In reality, there is nothing glamorous or romantic about it, if you are not interested in this. It just causes a setback in your attempts to be through the worst.

Random But Deep Four-in-the-Morning Thoughts

Remember my last post--the FMH post--where I elaborated that rather than clean my pigsty of a home, I'd rather read my Sunday papers? It only went downhill from there. At 2:30 in the afternoon, I decided I'd much enjoy a "nap".

I hate Sundays. No matter what I do or who I am with or whether or not I have to work the next day, I hate Sundays. Hate them. No matter the weather, my mood is always cloudy, gray and down.

So, for the second Sunday in a row, I have decided to "nap". And by "nap", I don't mean "I will sleep for a couple of hours and then get up and resume normal life activities". What I mean by "nap" is "I will sleep until Monday morning and then get up and resume normal life activities".

Nap involves wake-ups on a semi-regular basis, as so not to tip others off as to your true activities. So, I make sure I wake up at least once or twice throughout the duration of the "nap" to return phone calls and texts, and again in the later part of the evening to turn off the lights, so the neighbors don't know that I've been asleep all day and all night.

My boss, who has himself been through an unpleasant divorce, calls this "depression". I call it "catching up on my sleep". When I was married with a baby, this 15+ hours of uninterupted sleep would've sounded like it was heaven sent, but believe me: it's not as splendiferous or as rewarding as it sounds.

So, now it is 4:00 am, and I have been awake since roughly 2:30. Sure, I could take an Ambien, but--for once in my life--I just don't feel like it.

I could clean my house or catch up on my reading, but that makes me feel like a vampire. So instead, I am lying on the couch, in the midst of my piles of Christmas cr@p, with my iPod on shuffle, just thinking random thoughts. Among my thoughts on this cold and early morning:

* I hate when people sign correspondence "take care". I don't know why, but "take care" holds a certain finality to me. My boss signs everything with "take care", and it certainly does not mean that he is not interested in talking to or seeing me again. It's just what he does. But it irritates me. And it irritates me that a person I would definitely be interested in talking to and/or seeing again signed an email to me with "take care", and now I haven't heard from him in nearly a week. I know I should give cut some slack for the holidays, but "take care" seems so formal and final, and now my OCD mind runs wild, trying hard to re-create what had yet to be created.

* Why is it that I am barely out of a bad 7-year-marriage, I am so anxious to "find" someone? I insist out loud that I don't care if I find another man ever again because I don't ever want to be treated the way I was when I was with my ex. But the truth was that the whole time I was married, I don't know if I ever stopped looking for a husband in the first place. Sure, there might've been temporary reprieves, when my ex was actually good to me, when I postponed this search, but I think, deep down, I never stopped searching. So...where is he?!? If "he" exists, then where the hell is he? Have I been bad in this current or previous life, and now I will live forever without "The One"?

* Why did I never dream when I was with my ex? Never, ever. The only time I would have a dream was if it was traumatic, the sort that always makes you sit straight up in bed, sweat drenched and terrified. And those dreams almost always centered on a certain fighter pilot who got away (after all these years? Really?!?). I assumed that I didn't dream with my ex thanks to the heavy amount of drugs required to chill me out to sleep, but since I can drug as equally now as I did then, that doesn't seem to be the case.

* Why does my iPod play Britney songs like, every other song when in shuffle? Okay, I probably know this answer: because I have too much Brit downloaded, so it is envitable. Never mind.

* Why was I not born a hot girl? My friend H is the perpetual hot girl. She dances on top of bars and gives lap dances. I do none of these things, no matter how much Patron I have consumed. H lost a ton of weight after her divorce and is even having a tummy-tuck in a few weeks. She brought me a bunch of clothes that don't fit her anymore. I am torn between feeling slightly hurt, because now I know for sure that I need to lose weight, and that makes me feel really unpretty. But at the same time, I cannot help but laugh, because she included some corsets and lingerie that she never wore, because in her words, her husband "never wanted to have sex with her". It makes me laugh to think that she thinks that there are men who want to have sex with me.

* Why do so many books and movies need to feature the leading character losing weight to gain success, especially a man. Is that really a cure-all? If so, then why didn't I have more men when I was skinny and fit? And if I choose not to lose weight now, does it mean I have doomed myself to being alone forever?

* Would it be hopelessly sad to announce to everyone and anyone that the reason for my weight is an endocrine disorder called PCOS? Living with PCOS rarely makes me feel angry or cheated or like life is unfair, because I was one of the unlucky ones who got stuck with messed-up hormones. I just live with it, and that's that. But how lame is it to try and use it as an excuse for my lacking love life?

* Why do I work at a job where I am guilted into not taking vacation time, and I do so with a smile? Later today, I have to go in to do payroll, even though I "take the week between Christmas and New Year's off". I will also go in on Wednesday and Thursday, and this doesn't bother me. Am I a sucker or do I merely like my job? Or do I see it like PCOS and I just live with it?

Now that it is 5:00 am, it seems appropriate to end my 4:00 random thought session, so perhaps I will have a bowl of cereal before resuming my nap.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Plenty of Fish in the Sea

Last week, I had a conversation with a recently-divorced friend, and I told him he'd be fine, since he was a "good catch".

He elaborated further on this: he was a good catch, but his wife of 15 years tossed him back in the sea when she asked for a divorce. Now he is a newbie fish, swimming around in uncharted territory, not knowing what to do, especially when it seems as though you are surrounded by other fish who seem to have it down-pat.

It got me thinking to that old adage, "there's plenty of fish in the sea". Really? Are there really plenty of fish in the sea, or is it like kissing 1,000 frogs to find one prince? That a good catch will take at least 1,000 reels to find the big one? If you do find one, will it be fresh and healthy, or will it have some unrepairable flaw and need to be tossed back out into that proverbial sea?

My own experiences with fishing, as in the activity, have not been positive. I have not been fishing since high school, when I went to cast off and promptly caught myself a person. Yes, a person. Hooked right through the nose.

As for keeping fish for pets, my daughter was in love with the fish she'd see at Wal-Mart, so I relented and purchased a Betta fish. She put Play-Doh in the water, and it was dead within a day. Not having much experience with fish--and especially dead fish--I pretty much hoped that it would just float round in a horizontal position until I could replace it, thus (mis)leading her to think that her fish was still alive. Unfortunately, that was not the case. When I came home from work that night, the fish was bobbing vertically, and it was such a gruesome sight that I had no choice but to flush. A conversation with my daughter ensued when she noticed the disappearance of her fish, and it went a little like this:

AC: "Where my fishy at?"
Mom: "I don't know. Where do YOU think he went?"
AC: "He at school?"
Mom: "Yes, honey. He is at school. The private school of fish that can be found only by a flush down the toilet."

Her dead fishy was quickly replaced, and shortly after that, she lost interest.

The job of maintaining these "catches" of hers now falls to me, and I rarely remember. Maybe every few days, I think, oh cr@p! I haven't fed those fish in days! Truthfully, when I go to check on them, I secretly hope they are dead, and that I will no longer have to deal with them. Alas, they live on, no matter how poor the conditions. It's a little like my ex-husband: I ignored him for days on end, deprived him of basic needs, and would wake up each morning, hoping he was gone. Much like the fish that refuse to die, he also refused to leave for a long, long time, well past the lifespan of what our marriage should've been.

Now much like my friend, I have been tossed back into the sea, looking for a good catch who will view me the same. I'm hoping that I can find one, even if I do need to forcibly hook him in the nose to convince him that I am catch-worthy, and this time around, I won't hesitate to flush him away to the private school of fish if necessary.

My Bedroom Stamina, According to Facebook

According to my results on one of those Facebook quizes that I always get sucked into, this is my result for stamina in the bedroom.

"J took the How long can you last in bed? quiz and the result is 00:01:37


- Wannabe -
You tell your friends about the late nights you and your lovers have had but in reality you get excited and "BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE" before you can say the alphabet backwords."

Actually, according to my calculations, this is approximately 00:01:37 more sex than I am getting now, and I am not too concerned about a quiz that has misspelled the word "backwards".

32 is NOT the New 22

Yesterday, I turned 32. My birthday typically goes unnoticed, with its close proximity to Christmas. I got cheated when I was born at this time of the year. If my birthday was in June, perhaps people would notice. Perhaps I'd get double the gifts, instead of the people who give you one gift and tell you that it counts as both your Christmas and your birthday gift. At the very least, I'd be able to get a Birthday Caboose on the tourist railway I work for, as obviously, this train does not run in December. However, since my mother's birthday falls on the day after mine, she has always been aware of the separation of my birthday and Christmas, unlike the general population.

Being single for the first time in 10 years made my birthday slightly less than enjoyable. I don't typically find any birthday downright enjoyable--it's just a birthday. Once you hit 21, there's no real reason to even keep counting and keep track, because you have the same rights at 71 as you do at 21. Sometimes when asked, I even have to briefly think about how old I am, because I don't consider it a daily consideration.

Alas, my loneliness got me thinking back to my 22nd birthday. On my 22nd birthday, I got flowers from three different boyfriend prospects. At 22, I still believed in the myth that Prince Charming would soon be coming to sweep me off my feet, preferably with a fighter jet rather than a white horse. Shortly after my birthday, I chose one of the three flower-sending boys for a relationship, and we were engaged within seven months. Eight months after that, I left that fiance for my now ex-husband, to whom I was engaged after six months. Next time around, I plan to be engaged within five months, to keep consistent with my gradual reduction in time it takes to acquire a diamond ring.

While turning 22 brought many prospects and hope, all of these were blown to hell in the proceeding years. While I did actually marry fiance number two--mainly because I had no other choice, since there was no way in hell I'd call off two weddings in under one year--I was miserable for roughly six-and-a-half years of our seven year marriage. It finally dawned on me that there is no such thing as Prince Charming--that notion is merely an urban legend, like believing that sea monsters live in storm drains or that if you step on a sidewalk crack, you will break your mother's back.


Turning 32 has found me a divorced single mother to that toddler who acts like a caffeinated ferret. I am far more exhausted. I am far more broke. I am far less attractive and fit, at least based on the photo comparisons I have made of myself on Facebook--see left. I am far less hopeful that I will ever find anyone to date me ever again, much less find the much-fabled "The One". Instead of receiving three bouquets of flowers at work, I received none.

The only redeeming quality of turning 32 is that I have a far better group of friends now than I did then, friends whom I adore. Sometimes I worry that my friends will one day wake up and realize that I am not nearly as cool as they are and they will de-friend me, but so far that has not happened. My 32-year-old spirits brightened considerably when last night, they took me out for dinner and showered me with yellow friendship roses and iTunes gift cards. What more could a girl ask for, except maybe an invitation for a date with a cute boy, so she no longer feels completely and hopelessly undateable?

However, as lovely as the evening was, it is always still sad when it ends, because when I go home, I know am going home alone. And that can be a lonely, lonely feeling, and one that when I turned 22, I would've never expected to be feeling when I turned 32.