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It is what it is. |
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This is my third blog (if you only count the ones I didn't get sick of and delete after only a handful of entries). There has been a lot of water under the bridge since I first started blogging here. I know that "Here" is not the place it used to be, I also know I'm not the person I used to be. That's okay. Maybe there's still some of that old spark left. |
| My friend Emma gave me this awesome page a day calendar that features a book recommendation for each day of the year. I have it in my office, and I've already saved several of the recommendations as books I'd like to check out. I don't know when I think I'm going to read all of these books though when I still have so many books on my "to read" shelf at home. Lately I've been too distracted to read anything. I go through phases like that. I absolutely love the website Goodreads because it allows me a place to keep track of all the books I'd like to read along with the ones I have read. I originally joined the site for book recommendations, but so far I haven't been impressed with that feature at all. I'll admit, although I rate almost everything I read, I almost never write a review. I feel like that is a terrible thing to admit... especially on a site that centers so much on reviews, but I really dislike writing reviews. I tried writing reviews back when I joined, but I've always felt completely unqualified to write a helpful review. This is also why I don't participate in writing groups. I'm not comfortable on either side of a critique. |
| It has been an interesting evening. Tony was at the house with the kids when I got home from work. It was less awkward than I had imagined it would be. We have a lot of history together and a lot to catch up on in regard to the kids, so that part was easy. It wasn't as easy when he kept asking how I was doing... what I was doing... what my plans were for the future. I didn't want to talk about me. I need that space and privacy for now, so instead we talked about the kids and family and his plans. He wanted to let me know that there is someone else that he has been in touch with and is interested in pursuing a relationship with. He made this sound like a very important disclosure, but I think he stole his own thunder when he said he wanted me to hurry up and file so he'd be free to pursue other relationships, plus... he's not very subtle on Facebook. My daughter had it figured out right down to the who. So his important disclosure was not a surprise, the surprise for me was when he described the person as someone from his past and then went on to say she was a student at the community college when he was teaching there. That was maybe 5 years ago. Maybe it's me, but I don't think I'd describe a person I'd met 5 years ago while married as someone from "my past." If we'd only been married 3 or 4 years then yeah, but the way he phrased it made me laugh. He says they have a huge amount in common. She herself is a vet, and had been involved in a student veteran's group that he'd served as faculty advisor for at the college. Oh wait, that means it wasn't even five years ago because he didn't get involved with that until he joined the reserves. Maybe 2.5 years ago! He's a bit given to hyperbole.  I told him that I was happy for him, and I genuinely meant it. The whole point of this was so that we'd each have a chance to find what we need to be happy in life since it was pretty clear we weren't the answer for each other. I have a friend who is also going through some marriage difficulties. On a recent trip to her mother's house she was perusing the bookshelf and found a volume of poetry that caught her interest. She browsed through and a found a poem called something like "Death of a Marriage." In the poem the husband and wife both feel that the other is dead weight that they are dragging through life. They are both convinced that it is the other spouse who is dead and they are the one doing all the work, but by poems end, they realize they are both dead and the marriage has no life remaining. A bit of a downer, but yeah... I can relate.  I am relieved on many, many levels, and looking forward... |
| Well Tony is on leave, and staying at his mother's for the week. He plans on coming up tomorrow afternoon to see the kids and to go through stuff and figure out what he wants to take back to Virginia with him this trip. It should prove interesting. He and I talked on the phone today and the good news is we seem able to be friendly enough to each other. I've been watching HGTV all evening. House Hunters, House Hunters International, Property Virgins. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I've been sick the past couple days, so sitting around watching TV is about all I'm up for. Besides, I love watching the shows. I am such a real estate voyeur. I especially like house hunters international. There is a piece of me that really craves the experience of living outside the US. To some extent, I think my willingness to hang in there with Tony for so long was in part because we'd talked about requesting orders for overseas. We'd specifically talked about Italy and Spain. Funny thing really... I believe now that my support for Tony's military career was largely based on an escape fantasy. Now he is gone and I'm still here. Just as well... escaping with him would not have worked out well. Changing geography does not fix problems like ours. |
| So my daughter is at the half way point in her senior year of high school. That seems so strange! She has already been accepted into the honors program at the local university. Her plan is to attend there and continue to live at home at least for the immediate future. Everyone seems to have an opinion about this, and the consensus seems to be that she should go away to college and live in the dorms and embrace the full college experience. If she isn't going to go away to college, then she should at least be pushed to live on campus so she can have that independence. I've given this a lot of thought and have arrived at the opinion that there are a lot of different ways to experience college, and that the experience of leaving home and living in the dorms is a great opportunity for students who are open to it and embrace it, but I also knew a lot of students in college who were miserable and homesick and tried to get home every weekend they could. A lot of times these were the kids who dropped out after the first semester. So when my daughter tells me that she can't handle the idea of living in the dorms and dealing with communal bathrooms and sharing a room with a roommate, I feel I need to respect that. I don't think that missing that piece of the college experience will leave her an emotional cripple for life anymore than skipping the prom would. Ah... but wait... she has wavered on the prom issue. Over the weekend she started looking at prom dresses online. Now, mostly she was making fun of them, but she was looking. So I asked if she and her boyfriend were going to prom. I know that a month ago her answer was a firm no. As it is getting closer though... and more of her friends are making plans to go... well... I think I see a prom dress in her future. I find it reassuring. She is open to experiences, and her "no"s are not absolute. As college gets closer she might reconsider dorm life, or she might still prefer to live at home, but whatever she decides, I will be satisfied that she has considered the options and is making the choice she feels is best for her. And that, I think, has more to do with becoming independent than a change of address. |
| Today I finally told Zack that his Dad and I have decided to get a divorce. I'm glad I waited to tell him because I could say in all honest that it was something that we'd talked about a lot and something we both agreed was for the best. I couldn't have said that back in September. Tony was so hurt and angry then, but he agrees now, and that's what Zack needs to know. Zack teared up, but was obviously fighting it back. I told him it was okay to be sad and upset, but he didn't need to be scared because it wasn't going to be a huge change, and me and his Dad both still love him very much and intend to be there for him. I hope that holds true on his Dad's part. I have some concerns. Zack told me that people with autism are less likely to be really upset about bad news. I talked to him about maybe spending some time with his Dad in Virginia over the summer and talked about some of the things he might get to do or see down there. Zack asked if the reason was because it was because it was hard to communicate with him so far away. I wasn't expecting the question, and really wasn't prepared to answer the why question. Oversight on my part, because I should have planned on the question. I told him the distance made it hard, but that in truth his Dad and I were both just living separate lives and we were both happier living our separate lives so it made more sense to divorce than to stay married. No need to explain that we started living separate lives long before Tony left. After I'd told Zack, His sister came in and asked him if he knew we were getting a new TV. It isn't really new, but it is newer. The neighbors have a big flat screen TV they just replaced. They asked if we wanted the old one. Since I still have a big ol' last century TV, I said yes. Well... this news made Zack very happy. As he pointed out "It is a good strategy to give someone good news after giving them some bad news." I hadn't really planned it, but I'm glad worked for him. At bed time he asked if tomorrow was the day we would be getting divorced. I explained that no, it was a legal process and we hadn't started that yet, but we planned to. I promised to keep him informed of the steps and he seemed reassured by that. We'll see how this goes. Tony will be driving up on the 8th and staying at his mother's. She lives about 40 minutes away. Having Dad visit, but stay at Grandma's will really drive home the reality of the situation for him, and I can only hope for the best. I also worry about my daughter. She is fine about the divorce... maybe even relieved, but she's still vulnerable to being hurt in all this. I told Tony several years ago that he needed to be more aware of the impact of his actions on his daughter and their relationship. I think he believes that I've turned her against him... even if not intentionally. He figures she's picked up on an adopted my attitudes toward him. I told him years ago that I would not take responsibility for their relationship. Maybe I taught her to spot a hypocrite, but that doesn't mean he has to play the part so well. I see her bracing for this visit from her father. She doesn't plan to change her plans to accommodate his schedule while he's around because he's made it pretty clear through his actions where she rates. As she says, he chose to go active duty and then he chose ship duty which would allow him the very least availability to his family. She judges him more harshly than I do in many ways. The fact that he will now be out at sea in June when she graduates is a sore spot. Actually... I'm not sure whether she wants him there, but she get's angry when he goes on about missing it when he has made the choices he's made. It is late, and I've rambled enough about this. I am relieved telling the boy-child is now an accomplished fact. Heh... I'm going to have to stop calling him the boy-child soon and start calling him my man-child instead. Although the man-child of the household is traditionally the husband.  |
| Last fall my mother bought a new house. It is a small one-story home in an older neighborhood that happens to be right up the road from me. It is a neighborhood I routinely walk through when taking the dog out. She says she is ready to downsize, and after having back problems last winter that forced her to sleep on her sofa because she couldn't make it up the stairs to her bedroom, she really wants a single level. The house was literally the first one she looked at. It isn't exactly what she wants, but it is exactly WHERE she wants, so she now has a contractor and is planning to remodel. She doesn't plan to move into the house until the remodeling is complete, but the old house is listed for sale, and if someone makes an offer this winter, it could complicate things! Well, we'd had a series of storms through the area and had snow, then sleet and freezing rain, and then about 7 inches of snow on top of that. The driveway, walkway and porch at the new house were a MESS, so today, Katie and I went over with a snow shovel and an ice chopper and shoveled and chiseled for about an hour. We didn't even come close to clearing it all, but we scooped snow off ice and broke up some of the ice to at least help the melting process. It is supposed to get up to the 40's this week so breaking out backs didn't really seem necessary. Next snow fall we will be over there to shovel before it all freezes solid! While we were working at it, an older gentleman from the house across the street came out to talk to us. He was very friendly. He'd already heard about my mother buying the house and that she had a daughter just down the road. He asked Katie what grade she was in and where she planned to go to college. Turns out, he is a musician and was the band director at one of the local high schools for a number of years. He still plays tuba for the university orchestra as one of 15 or so community participants. He asked when my mother planned to move in and I told him she planned to do some remodeling first. I explained that she was going to take down the single car garage, make it a double garage, and then add a master bedroom suite back behind it. Also said she planned to bump out the back wall in the kitchen to give herself more space there too. "That's just what the wife and I did," he explained and sure enough, looking at his house I saw he had a double garage with the master back behind it. He proceeded to talk about the neighborhood, when the houses were built, and the people who'd lived in them over the years. It was a very pleasant diversion from the ice chopping. While we were out there a couple other neighbors stopped to say hello as well. I think that the neighborhood and the house will be such a good fit for my mother. It took her quite awhile after my father died to get to the point where she could leave behind the house they'd shared together, but I think this will be a very positive change in her life, and it will be nice for Zack and Katie to be able to walk to Grandma's house. |
| I've had a smart phone for a bit over a year now, but only recently really started to explore the range of apps available. Most of the apps I looked at seemed either pointless or to cumbersome to use. There have been a few winners, but others just seem to be spam generators. This week though, I downloaded THE BEST APP! It is one of the few apps I've paid for, but at 99 cents, it seemed worthwhile. The app is Blue Sleep Therapy. How it works is that you lay down in a dark room with your phone positioned so you can see it comfortably. You select a time interval for falling asleep. I picked 15 minutes. The phone screen shines blue light then that fades and brightens, and you focus on the light and synchronize your breathing to rise and fall with the light. This is a bit difficult to do when yawning, but that's okay you don't have to do it perfect to get the effect. The light gradually slows down which in turn has you slowing your breathing. I did not take long before I was longing to close my eyes each time the light faded out. I haven't actually fallen asleep while using it because at some point in the cycle I figure the light is pointless because I can't keep my eyes open anyway. For someone who has always had trouble falling asleep, I find that very impressive. The app caught my eye because I'd previously concerned getting a Nightwave sleep assistant. It was something I wanted to try, but not badly enough to spring nearly 60 bucks for. So yeah, a 99 cent app let me try out the concept. http://www.amazon.com/Nightwave-Sleep-Assistant-Nw-102-Original/dp/B0036FJ7AU/re... Wow... okay so they dropped the price quite a bit since I looked at that. My app still seems like a better deal despite the challenge of trying to position the phone. I finally got a sandwich bag, put the phone in, and duct taped it to the dressed next to the bed. It worked like a charm. It looked very strange, but it worked. I haven't tried it out yet for trying to get back to sleep because fortunately I haven't had that issue this week. I have more problems with getting to sleep than with staying asleep. I've also downloaded an app that reminds me when it is garbage night and when to put out the recycling. It's amazing. I'm going to use it to remind me to change air filters, apply Frontline to pets, and all those other pesky, slippery things I otherwise forget. That way, when I lose my phone or it self destructs, I can be completely, utterly lost and bereft. Woohoo Technology! |
| I was reading an article in today's paper about how scientists are developing computer models and programs to forecast outbreaks of disease. Apparently they are doing so with a great deal of success in some areas. They've done well with predicting cholera outbreaks in Africa as they are largely affected by weather and warmer that usual temperatures. They've also done pretty well with mosquito borne diseases such as malaria and west nile which are largely tie to weather conditions. The article discussed efforts to predict flu outbreaks in an effort to target vaccination programs. The thing that struck me as weird though was the source data. They aren't gathering data on flu cases from doctors. Researcher say the data is too late in coming to have any predictive value, and a lot of people never seek medical treatment. Instead they are combing Twitter and Facebook for reports of the flu. They are also analyzing Google search patterns figuring that people seeking information about flu symptoms probably being impacted by the flu. It kind of scares me to think of a world in which scientific research is relying on data from social media. I think I'll find it even scarier if Facebook and Twitter prove to be the missing link in developing successful models for predicting flu outbreaks. |
| I didn't go into work today. I've had a sick dog who has made it very difficult to sleep the past couple nights. I finally hit that point this morning where I was feeling physically ill from lack of sleep. After I got the kids on the bus, I came back to the house and climbed into bed to warm up. That's all she wrote. I fell back to sleep and had a very strange dream. So in my dream, it was Halloween, and I was in a house that was familiar to me in the dream, but is not a place I know in the real world. I was living there with family, but as I didn't see anyone really, I'm not sure who lived there. I know my children were not there. Everyone was home though, and in their bedrooms sleeping. I was up and concerned about noises outside. Nothing awful, but more sirens and such in the distance than usual. Chatter online indicated that the zombie apocalypse had begun. It was all over Facebook, but I couldn't find anything on a credible news source. Still, it seemed best to take precautions. People need very little excuse to become crazy and reactionary. I was moving through this dark house closing the blinds on all the windows, making sure everything was locked up tight and all the lights were out. I figured it was a halloween thing and the world would be normal in the morning. It was just a matter of getting through the night. So I've made the rounds and I'm ready to go to bed. My room is the last one with any lights on, and I don't remember leaving them on, and I don't share the room with anyone. I will need to take care of that and get to bed. When I look in the room though, I see the window blinds are open, every light is on, and a small redheaded child is in the bed fast asleep. I immediate recognize the child as me! A very young me. I also know that I can't go into the room because I'm already there. This means I can't shut off the lights or close the blinds. I shut the door and back away from it. If something happens to young me will it also happen to me? Why am I there and also here? I think about barricading myself in the basement, but there are no exits from the basement and I hate the idea of becoming trapped. Instead I decide to sleep in a recliner in the living room. I can see the door from there and there are plenty of exits near me. I sit down and recline back and pull a throw blanket over me. Now, I've never been especially comfortable in recliners, I tend to get an ache behind my knees. I felt that ache in the dream. It was really vivid. A gal from work, Jeanette, was sitting in a different chair in the living room. Why Jeanette? I have no idea. I have no relationship with her except that her desk is in close proximity to my office. So Jeanette is there and asks if I think this is the apocalypse. I tell her no. It is a Halloween thing. It is rumor and speculation fueled by the internet, but even that can make people act crazy, so better to be cautious tonight and wait for it to blow over by morning. She tells me that if there are zombies the numbers will just keep growing and by morning it may be too late to do anything to save ourselves. I tell her again that everything will be fine in the morning and I settle back to try to sleep... and that is when I woke up from the dream and called work to tell them I wouldn't be in. Weird dream. I think the seeds of it were in a conversation that I had with the neighbor girl at the bus stop. She was telling me how afraid she'd been to go to school on Dec 21st because of the whole end of the world thing and also because she'd heard about a kid who was expelled from school and threatened to come in with a gun. Now, this was a rumor in many of the schools throughout the district. The superintendent had even called a meeting to reassure parents that each rumor was being investigated and so far no credible threat had been found and it would be safe for kids to come to school on Friday. I explained to the neighbor girl that it had all been a Facebook rumor, but she argued that no, the kid even had a "kill list." Right... and where did you hear that. Just because someone says it on Facebook doesn't make it true. So that explains the whole rumored zombie apocalypse aspect of the dream. But what about the younger me in the dream? What was that about. Had a conversation with a friend who suggested that maybe the dream was telling me that I couldn't save my past self, I can only take care of myself today. I'm not sure I totally buy that my subconscious was trying to tell me that, but it is a pretty good interpretation. What's done is done. All I can do is close the door on the past and back away and focus on doing what I need to do to get through the night and trust that things will be okay in the morning. And what I need to do most is get some sleep. |
| I think part of the reason why I never seem to do any writing on this site is because every time I log on here I see all these little housekeeping things that need my attention and I end up tending to those things rather than writing. Here I am though. Writing. 2013 is going to be a rather monumental year in the life of Kay. This is the year my daughter graduates from High School and starts college. It is also the year when I'll go from married to divorced. I have not filed yet. The plan had been to wait until Tony's deployment ended in March and then file. Since things seldom go as planned, Tony's deployment ended ahead of schedule. He was back in port in December, but had Duty over the holidays. He'll be up this month to see the kids, and then at the end of February he'll be deployed again for 4-6 months. When I heard the change in plans, all I could think was "Thank God I told him in September that I wanted a divorce." I had entertained the idea of not saying anything until after the deployment, but had decided it would be unfair to him. It took a lot for me to have that conversation with him. It was painful for both of us, but apparently he's resilient because his biggest concern now is that I still haven't filed and he'd like for me to hurry up and do that so that he will be free to pursue other relationships. Hmmm... I guess I should mention that Zack hasn't been told yet. I am going to do that this weekend. I did not tell him back in September because he was about to start a new school year in a new building, and I didn't want to add any more stress to that. When Tony's deployment ended early, he put a lot of pressure on me to tell Zack right away, but I just couldn't tell him right before Christmas. Of course, I don't think it will be all that upsetting to Zack. When I told him that Tony was back from his deployment, Zack looked kind of blank for a moment and then asked "Where's he been anyway?" like he'd just noticed that he hadn't seen him in awhile. Zack lives in his own little bubble, and I'm not convinced it is all the autism. I think part of it is just him being a typical self-centered teenager. I think it's not a bad thing. It'll probably insulate him from negative emotions about the divorce. In truth, since Tony hasn't lived at home for so long (about 22 months), very little will change in Zack's life. So those will be the defining events of the year I'm sure, but I'm counting on some surprises too. My New Years Resolution if I must, is simply to try new things and to remain open to new experiences. I am going to be joining a gym so that I can get back into Yoga. I am also going to attend a one day meditation retreat/training. I am looking forward to that. I think I would definitely benefit from focusing and centering myself instead of going through life like a (to borrow my Dad's expression) fart in a whirlwind. The older I get the more strongly I believe that I can have control over my life, my health, and my emotions. I think we fall into a trap of blaming genetics, or medical conditions, or just a busy schedule. We throw up our hands and say it is out of our control, but most of the time there are things we can do to feel less stressed, to sleep better, to experience less pain (both emotionally and physically), but it requires something more or different than we are used to and so we stick with what we know. So there it is... trying new things. Staying open to new experiences. Exercising control where I can and practicing acceptance when I can't. Over the course of last year, I developed a mantra of sorts that I used a thousand times over. "It is what it is." I said it so frequently that my daughter made me a t-shirt that said "It is what it is" for Christmas. Now, I am going to post this (unedited) and go to bed. Night owl that I am by nature, these days I am rolling out of bed by 5:40 AM to get the boy up and ready for the bus by 6:25. So really... it is already past my bedtime. |
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I too am house hunting. I'm off to do some viewing tomorrow. Not moved house in 33 years so it should be an eye opener. Don't think I'll be looking under any kitchen sinks, but will keep the advice about unwanted furry visitors in mind. I rather like mice though, but don't want to cohabit with any. 