That’s all I’ve eaten of my kids candy. One teeny tiny kit-kat last week on Friday. I call it the have an ovarian cyst burst and then get infected and get a sinus infection diet. It’s not all that fun, but it is effective. Pretty sure I’ve lost 10 pounds in the past week. Ha. Every single year I’ve said, hey I’m not going to eat any candy this year and well now I’ve figure out the way. It’s the new diet!
You know on second thought I’d of rather eaten the kids candy. Ha.
It’s strange to me how one small thing can change how I see things. Or at least change what I do next. A call or a text can make me decide to clean my whole house. A photo found in a book makes me decide to go through all of our clothes and donate tons. I didn’t say it always makes sense, yet this is how I’ve always been. This time it was a letter in the mail. A letter from the fertility clinic I went to for years. The ones with a 93% success rate or something. Guess I’m in that other percentile. A simple letter requesting a survey done made me realize I have finally done what I said I’d do over a year ago. I really have let go of the thought of a baby for now.
For now I say, because I still in my heart and soul know one wee baby is still missing from my life. How and when this will happen I don’t know. Now isn’t the time. This I know. I could blame it on money, or my realization that I’d likely need IVF for an attempt to maybe work. I can blame it on the Natalie situation.
The truth is probably a bit muddled with all of it. There is the money piece and the I want to move into the mountains to give Natalie and I more chance of a normal life piece. There is the part where it’s really fucking hard to keep trying something that hasn’t worked. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. All of it is hard.
The reality is that maybe adoption is the answer for me. I’m not ready to look into it yet, but at 33 years old I feel like I have time. Time to move. To build a house and start over once more. Time to decide how and when and where things can happen. Time. I finally feel like I have it.
One little letter. The letter I shredded. No need to bother. I haven’t set foot in their doors this entire year. I can’t answer the how have these changes effected your experience questions. Check mark. Done. For now at least.
The second was a hidden stash. The baby stash. The things I couldn’t help but buy each time I thought my latest attempt was successful. I hid that stuff from myself as much as anyone else. Hidden under pillows and old sweaters in a wooden trunk. Yesterday though, I knew it was time to get rid of it all. When it’s my turn again, I will buy new things. Two boxes sent to people who need these things more than I need to keep hiding them. Check. Done. There are no more baby items in my home.
Check. Check. I feel better. Mostly. If only there was a check mark for my heart.
As of yesterday I’ve been divorced for three years. I keep wondering when it won’t matter anymore. When I’ll forget the day. When I will stop being pissed that I decided that an October divorce date was okay with me. October used to be my favorite month. It’s cool, but generally sunny and not snowing. The leaves are absolutely gorgeous. Pumpkin things are in full effect and there are no holidays that involve me wrapping nine zillion things or driving a zillion hours. We’ve generally gotten back into the school routine by now and the darker Sunday mornings have always made me happy. While all of those other things are still true, there is this undertone of bleh-ness that follows me through the month.
Yesterday I was depressed and actually took the day off work and watched Flip or Flop on HGTV all day in bed. Today I’m pissed off at the world and all the things and just GAH!
I’ve really tried not to care. But I guess I still do. Maybe next year.
This morning I called about every Party City between California and Florida. I was told there wasn’t a single on available in the state of Colorado. Everywhere I knew someone, I called the store closest to them, trying to find a girl Minion costume for Natalie. I was a woman on a mission and I was coming up empty handed. Ebay has a few but they’re three times the cost and I just can’t afford to do that.
I haven’t tried this hard to find one of my kids anything in years. In fact, over the years I can only think of two other times and they were both the hard to find toys at Christmas. Thankfully the Halloween gods were smiling on me and when I walked into the third Halloween store of the day, someone had just returned the costume she wants, in her size.
It seems silly I’m sure. A nine year old should be able to handle having to pick out a new costume. Truth? She would have been sad and then she’d of gotten over it if I’d had to make her pick something else. Because that’s who she is. I’m the one who may not have been able to get over it.
It’s so much more than the costume.
It’s hard to know what to write and what to not right. I’m still finding my sea legs here I guess. I’m hesitant. However here goes nothing. Natalie lives with me full time. She has since May. She doesn’t see her father anymore. It started out by a fight. With him and his wife smack talking her imperfections and her over hearing it. I tried to make them work it out. Oh holy hell I’ve tried. I tried to get them to do therapy with her. I made him come see her just him once or twice a week for two solid months. Yet, he just flat out seems incapable of fixing this one. He won’t fix it. He won’t work on it. He thinks she is too much work. You know, because she talks in class sometimes and you have to redirect her at home when you need something done occasionally. Supposedly it’s because she’s too much like me. Maybe it started because of their baby and she feels displaced. Who knows really.
What I know is that six weeks ago he just gave up even with the pitiful attempt. Last week he canceled her health insurance. He gave me basically two days notice to get her covered for October. “She’s all yours now then you should cover her” were his exact words. I don’t know what to do anymore except give up. Natalie has fully and completely given up on him. He still has the other two every other week and things are fine with them. In some ways it’s easier now to not try and get them to be together, to get him to parent Natalie, but it still sucks the big one.
She’s such a trooper. She’s very matter a fact about all of this and while I know it hurts her deeply, she’s done really well. She is an absolutely amazing kid. Perfect? Hell no. But no one is, despite what my ex believes.
I couldn’t disappoint her. I just couldn’t. She’s Minion obsessed. She rarely asks for things and is adamant about them. She is an equally opportunity toy/movie/game/book lover. When she wants something, if it isn’t there, she will gladly accept anything else. I mean really this is the same kid who played with plastic spoons and an EGGO waffle box for a good year as a toddler. But she wanted to be a Minion and she wanted that costume and I dropped the ball. I waited way too long to buy it and the manufactures of it just plain didn’t make enough.
Some days I feel like I’m all she’s got and I need to try harder for her. It’s such a small little thing, a Halloween costume and while I knew it was probably silly, I couldn’t not find it. I couldn’t let her down. So thank you Halloween gods.
Yesterday my great uncle passed away. He was old and sick and I’m very happy he’s not in pain anymore. Yet, it’s also really sad. I’m struggling with my thoughts today. It doesn’t make it any easier that I’ve said to myself at least five times a year, I really need to go and see them. Yeah….I haven’t ever actually done it. I’ve not seen him and my great aunt since my grandmother died. In 2006. Yeah. Right now I feel like a bit of a failure.
My dads family is very small. His mothers side came over from Russia right at the beginning of WWII. His dads side escaped from Poland in the middle of it. Both families were the only ones left after the war. My grandfather was one of two children, although his younger brother died as a young man. My grandmother was the oldest of three. Her younger sisters husband is the one who died yesterday. They only had one child and I’ve often wondered if that was by choice or if my great aunt has some of the issues I have. Not that I’d ever ask her. Older east coast Jews don’t discuss such things. Every few years our little family loses another member and it doesn’t seem like my generation is very good at adding people to the list.
My great uncle was a good man. He was a good husband and father and a wonderful grandfather to three girls. He provided very well for his family. He was one of the first people to have heart bypass surgery, so he has had heart issues for a very long time. He was an corporate accountant in NYC for his entire career and loved the fact that I’m now working as one. At one point a few years ago, he and my aunt even told me they’d pay for school if I wanted to go back and get an accounting degree….but I declined. Ha. Not what I want to be doing long term, although I am good at it.
We used to make jokes about him being so cheap he squeaked when he walked. Although now that I’ve spent five years working in this field, I do understand. Back then, I didn’t. The man had butt loads of money so why in the world would he need to debate the price of toilet paper at Costco? The world may never know.
My favorite two memories of him are completely odd but I thought I’d share them anyway. The first was when I was five years old. They had flown into California and rented an RV and drove us all to Vegas for Thanksgiving. Why Vegas? I’ll never know. It doesn’t seem like a great spot for a family reunion but hey it worked. He and my dad took us kids to Toys R Us in a Limo (now I know this wasn’t probably any more money than a taxi) and told us we could all buy whatever things we wanted. As we weren’t used to getting much stuff at that point in our lives, I believe my brothers and I each picked out two small things. Pretty sure I picked a purple Care Bear and a pack of bubble gum. The man probably spent less than $50 on that entire excursion. I remember him telling my dad that he was doing something right with us and him laughing and saying, you three are pretty great, I should take your out more often. I think playing with all of the toys was the highlight of his trip.
The other memory, strangely enough was when my grandmother was dying in the hospital. We’d all gathered at her bedside and basically had to leave her on life support until my uncle, the executive of the will, could get back from a trip to Vietnam to let her go. It sounds horrible and in truth it was, however it was also a time where our family connected in a way that we hadn’t. We played board games and card games in the waiting room and told each other grandma stories. That was the trip where he went to Costco and bought toilet paper. The hotel brand was crap he kept saying and he decided he needed to go buy his own, but I guess it’d been a lot of years since he’d actually bought any himself and the price was just OUTRAGOUS in his mind. He didn’t care that there were four of us sitting there laughing at him as he discussed TP prices with three separate bewildered Costco employees.
His name was Seymour and he’ll be very missed. Peace be with you uncle. Love, Melissa
It has seemed for the past two weeks that I was forgetting something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Oh yeah, it’s this space. ha.
I had a good rant on Facebook earlier about the lack of PE & Recess in my kids school, yet they continue to send helpful notes home about getting kids moving. That might have been a good post. Honestly, one recess a day which is part of lunch and one PE class a week is ridiculous. I’d like to go shake some school board people.
There are a lot of things I want to say about the fact that Natalie lives with me full time. She rarely sees her dad anymore, much less lives there. But….I’m unsure how to proceed on this one. I don’t know that I even know where to begin. For now I guess it’s a story that will be stuck in my head. The other two still live with him half the time, so I also feel like I’d be better off keeping their lives off of this blog. Just know that I’ll likely discuss Natalie a lot more…because I have no other person to answer to about it.
Is there an easy button that anyone has found in regards to kids growing and parents blogging? No? Sigh.
Homework and a certain nine year old may be the death of me. I’m to the point now where I wonder if I could hire someone to help her learn to focus long enough to just EFFING DO IT AND BE DONE ALREADY! While my 7th grader seems to be capable of getting three times the amount of homework done in no time what so ever, the 4th grader and I sit there for literally hours. Also the new, turn in the homework on Thursday morning thing is a bullshit move.
Last night I tried making that overnight oatmeal thing that seems to be on every blog right now. Yeah, it tasted like nasty soggy cold oatmeal. Either I’m missing something or the Internet has a funny sense of what is tasty.
I love having this little spot that is just mine again. I just need to get back to writing again. I know I’ll get there eventually.
Please forgive the over exuberant title and the exclamation points. It’s been pouring nonstop for over a week in Colorado and today there is sun! The rain, oy the rain. We have floods and washed out roads and small creeks are now giant rivers and it’s all a bit more than Colorado can handle, but we’ll figure it out. There came a point yesterday when I wished it was snow instead of rain. Can we say crazy?
The nonstop rain combined with me changing my crazy meds last week (hey it turns out that they can just stop working after a few years) has made the last week extra tough for me. I believe my exact words to someone just now was: LIFE IS LIVABLE AGAIN!
Over dramatic, me? Never! Heh.
However when making grilled cheese for dinner feels like I’ve been asked to run the NY marathon or something wellllllll lets just say my kids ate a lot of McDonalds and cereal last week. Whatever. They lived. I got up every day. I worked every day. I even managed to drive us to my moms house this weekend. That one was partially for entertainment for the kids that wasn’t me, but hey, I did it. All in all, we survived and that my friends, is enough in the moment.
In this moment, I feel like things are looking up.
Yesterday while at Starbucks a nice guy was chatting me up. We talked about the weather (day five of rain in Colorado), how it’s like California and how people here don’t know what to do with rain. He complimented my shirt and nicely bought my coffee.
Yeah. It took me until after I left to realize that he was probably hitting on me. I’m slow like that. I did what any woman who has no clue about these things would do, I texted my best friends. I commented that maybe he was gay, because he complimented my shirt. The answer is still cracking me up: “Gay doesn’t buy you coffee.”
Huh. Good to know. I’ll assume this is true, even though said best friends are happily married to amazing men who they’ve been with since they were teens.
One day I’ll decide I am ready to date. When that day comes I’ll need to take lessons so that I, you know, NOTICE WHEN SOME ONE FLIRTS WITH ME. Ahem.
One of these days it will feel natural again. One day this place will start to feel like home. In the moment it feels like I’m trespassing somewhere. Like I need to whisper and not make any sudden movements less I get found. Of course it may be that I’ve just been watching too many episodes of Bones and I’m a bit paranoid. Something like that.
I’ll get there. I know I will.
When I was thirteen years old, I quit playing the piano. I’d been asked to perform someplace in front of hundreds of people and that was exactly hundreds more than the amount of people I felt comfortable playing in front of. Which was exactly one person. I adored the piano and loved that I knew tons of brand new songs. I could hear something once and then just play it. (Which unfortunately meant I lied and pretended I could read music, which I never really understood.) For eight years the piano was a true love of mine. The options in my mind were do the thing I dreaded or quit. So I quit. Holy fuck thirteen year olds are stupid. I hate that I quit when I did and just couldn’t say, no I don’t like to perform, please help me find someone who will teach me just to teach me.
Over the years people have asked me if I could go back and change one thing about my life what would it be. This isn’t number one, but it’s in the top three.
For years my mother just thought I got tired of it and that’s why I quit. Last year I happened to tell her the truth for the first time ever. My following words, which were true, are ones I now regret: I’d love to have a piano and get back into it.
Sigh. Do you see this lovely thing?
I love it so very much. I really do. In theory at least. My mother and step-father gave it to me for my birthday. They are amazing and I love them for it.
I’d hoped it would come back to me. It didn’t. I’d hoped I could re-teach myself by YouTube. I can’t. It’s just another thing I can’t manage to find time or energy to deal with.
It makes me so freaking guilty. It sits there are clean and shiny and waiting for me to play on it. I walk past it 72 times a day and I’ve learned to not look at it.
I wish I’d said, I’d love to re-learn to play the piano when my kids were grown or maybe when I retire. Or something. Something that would have not made them think, oh lets get her a piano!!!
Now it’s my guilt piano. Maybe one day I’ll find a way to change that. Until then…I just won’t look down at it as I walk past.
ps. I know that everyone and their brother reads The Bloggess. This post today? Was the most real thing I’ve read online in a long time. I understand and honestly feel the same way about 99% of the time. I thought I’d share. Because well…I remember that bloggers used to do that.
Crazy with a chance of nuts 