Ruminations and Release

It has been almost a year since I put fingers to keyboard to write in this blog.  My last one was a requiem for 2017 and it is interesting to see where I was this time last year.  I feel like every year of the last half of a decade of my life has had huge changes.  But this year, this year I finally took control and made my own changes instead of letting them be forced on me by others or circumstance. 

I sold our too big house and now live in a 1300 square foot apartment in the middle of Denver with everything I own fitting within its walls.  Madeline and I have never been happier.  We have our own balcony where we can sit and watch the city go by, blow bubbles, grow flowers and watch the sun set.  We love walking to the park and around our neighborhood.  We needed to have our own house for a while and it served us well.  But we needed to move on and I took a scary leap and let it go.  I released the idea of what "normal" adulthood and parenting looked like.  I need to do what is best for Madeline and I and let that dictate my choices.

The house move necessitated a new school for Madeline and I really agonized over this.  This is her 3rd elementary school and she has gone through so much change already.  But she has blossomed in her new school and the growth I see in her in just a few months is beautiful to see.  She is surrounded by loving teachers that understand her, help her grow and be who she is.  She has found a small group of friends and new interests like role playing games and coding to pursue.  She also got to flex her singing and acting muscles as Shenzi in The Lion King.  She worked so hard and had so much fun and though I am biased, Madeline had a real stage presence.  I released my mom guilt and trusted my gut.

We experienced the loss and gain of new family members this year.  We said goodbye to Wink, our 17 year old beloved cat and Madeline's cuddle buddy.  She is still working through his loss and is her first experience with death in a tangible way.  We both had to deal with his loss in our own way - she with the death of the pet she grew up with and me with the loss of a pet and a last remaining link to my previous life.  Wink lived a long and love filled life and his passing was as peaceful as we could make it.  Shortly before his death, we adopted a new dog, Ludo.  He was found as a stray and is estimated to be 8 years old.  He became part of our family almost seamlessly, like he was always meant to be there.  I released my fear of owning another dog and we gained another family member.  I didn't realize how much I truly missed the companionship and love of a dog until we met Ludo.


Paying off all my debt this year and having money in the bank afterwards was a huge relief and one I don't take lightly.  Being able to travel and have so many experiences with Madeline is something I will treasure long after she has grown up and moved on.  2019 brings a long awaited trip to Hawaii together and my first solo trip overseas to sail the Nile and explore Egypt.  I am nervous and a bit overwhelmed, but I am releasing my fear and going for it.

My word for 2019 is release.  I have released a lot this year, but there is so much more for me to let go of.  I am already working on releasing my reliance on emotional eating, working with a nutritionist and changing how I treat myself and take care of this body I have abused and taken for granted.  I am beginning to separate from toxic people and relationships, no matter how hard or painful.  I am letting go of chasing after people and friendships, of trying to turn myself into something I am not just to fit in better.  I am working on being the best version of me I can be and accepting who that is.  I long for the feeling of loving who I am and not looking to find that love and acceptance in another person.  I am hoping to travel in 2019 to Iceland, New Orleans and Las Vegas, the latter two sans Madeline.  New Orleans has been on my list for a very long time and I must see the Tim Burton exhibit and Area 15 in Vegas.  I am letting go of the belief that I can't be more than just a mom during this season of life. 

Two major areas that I seem determined to address each new year and haven't tackled yet is my trepidation of leaving my job and my paralyzing fear of dating and relationships.  I am releasing myself from being disappointed or frustrated if 2019 is not the year for these.  These will come in their own time.  For the first time in a long time, I am excited for the new year to come.  Bring on 2019!

Requiem for 2017

I am late to the party of year end roundups.  My excuses are holidays, single momhood and a contagion that will not leave me alone.  But another part of the reason is that I needed to ruminate a little, see where I am at the end of another year.  I make a list of goals every year that I want to accomplish.  This year, like many other years, I didn't get most of them accomplished.  I tend to beat myself up about these things, feeling like a failure for not doing or being all the things I planned.  I realize now in looking back at them that it wasn't a failure on my part.  Not this year.  The goals themselves were the failure.  Most of them were things that weren't right for me or not important in the grand scheme of things. 

I also picked a word for 2017 and that was "brave".  I think I was this year.  Not in some grandiose way, but in my own quiet way.  I became a producer of burlesque shows, pushing myself way beyond any limits I had ever imagined.  I let people see the real me a little more, trying to reach beyond myself and make genuine connections.  I still struggle with this, but I am working on it.  I took a large trip solo with my daughter in 2017, navigating taxis, airplanes and lodging as well as activities all on my own.  I have become more politically active in a way I never have been before and I hope that this continues to grow in my life.  I filled my year with theater, art, concerts and books because they fill me with joy.  If I have to go alone, I am not scared to do so any more.  I don't want to miss out just because I have no one to go with me.  I also did something that was so hard to do, something I put off for too long this year.  I went on medication for depression and anxiety and I am feeling better than I have in a long time.

My 2018 word is "change".  I have a lot of goals I would love to accomplish.  They are pretty lofty and require a lot of change - in myself, in my physical environment, in my career, in my romantic life.  I am very hard on myself and always have been.  But these lookbacks at the past year help me see that I have accomplished more than I thought I had.  Maybe this year I will find someone that wants to be a part of my life, a partner who sees me for all that I am and isn't daunted by what that entails.  Perhaps I will spend another year single.  Maybe this year I will move into another home, selling the house that is too big for the two of us alone.  Perhaps I will find another solution.  Maybe this year I will finally find another career, one that challenges me in a completely new way.  Perhaps that may still be down the road a ways.  Whatever 2018 brings, I am ready for the change.

Sex and the Single Girl at 44

Dating in 2017.  What words are conjured up in your head when you read that statement?  For me, I think the following: frustration, terror, abject fear, comedic, deficient, critical, weird, unwanted.  I know, I know.  Don't be so negative, just put yourself out there, dating should be fun etc.  Not for me, never for me.  You see, I don't date.  I never, ever have.  I truly don't know how.  My high school boyfriend and I dated for 2-3 years, went into a dry spell for 5 or so years after that with a date or two thrown in and then I went on my first date with the man I ended up marrying.  We were together 16 years until we separated and then divorced.  I found myself single again at 41 years old with absolutely no idea of how dating works now.  Fast forward to 44 years old and I still have no clue.  I have been single for three years and had exactly 2 dates.  Yes, I needed to heal, work through my baggage (which I am still working on, by the way) and take care of myself and my daughter.  But the real reasons I haven't put myself fully back out there are a lot more personal than that.

One of the reasons I haven't thrown myself headlong into the dating scene is that I feel really self conscious about my lack of experience.  Not only do I have very little dating experience, but you can extrapolate that that applies to the bedroom as well.  I am not embarrassed of it.  I am who I am.  But I feel like others will see me lacking in some way, damaged goods somehow.  When you reach the age I have, where your body is MUCH different than it was the last time you were single, this adds another wrinkle into an already fear inducing situation.  There are classes for everything else under the sun.  Where is the Dating and Sex 101 class for those of us out of the game for so long?  I can't imagine I am the only one in the world.

Another reason is that I honestly have no idea what I want out of dating.  Not at all.  I don't know if I can do the strictly casual thing, but I really don't know if I want a full fledged relationship either.  Relationships are a ton of work and I just don't know if I have the bandwidth for that right now.  I know I worry too much about things, but it is just the way I work. Relaxing and letting things flow is a foreign concept to me.  

I also have realized during this whole process of rapid evolution that who I am looking for has changed in a pretty fundamental way.  I am just looking for a person that gets me, with all my many quirks and foibles.  I am not sure how to label that or if I even can, given that I have only dated the male species up to now.  It is just something I am coming to know about myself.  It is damn hard to find people that get me and who I feel comfortable sharing myself with.  Why would I limit myself to one gender at this point in my life?

So there it is.  My messy thought process related to dating.  I tend to figure things out best by writing them out.  Not sure that I did that with this one, but boy, does it feel good to get some of that off my chest.  Anyone else out there like me?  Reach out and we can be confused and weird together.  Anyone know a sex ed/dating teacher for adults?  Send them my way.  I could really use one.  :)  Happy dating to all of us singletons!

Try a Little Tenderness

I had a panic attack tonight.  I was at a birthday party with lots of people, people I care about, and I just locked up.  I couldn't breathe, my heart started racing and I had to run for my car before I dissolved into tears and collapsed on the floor.  It took me over 30 minutes to pull myself back together, sitting in my freezing car, sobbing and hyperventilating.  It took every ounce of strength I had to go back to the party, to face my embarassment and shame.

Why am I talking about this monumentally painful episode?  Because this is par for the course when you live with anxiety, especially social anxiety.  I don't remember a time in my life that I didn't have a soundtrack running in my head, telling me that no one likes me, no one will love me, you are an idiot, ugly, horrible, etc.  That has been my day to day life since I was a child.  It has gotten worse lately and gets progressively worse the more tired, burnt out and drained I get. Living with anxiety is exhausting and gutwrenching.  The more people tell you just to get over it, the worse you feel.  If there was a way for me to stop the constant negative self talk and worry I have immediately, I would do it in a heartbeat. I am trying not to believe I am weak, but that usually turns into another chance for the voice in my head to go to town on me.

It is hard to maintain friendships and relationships when you live like this. You believe that if anyone truly knew the real you, they would run away in horror.  Your anxiety builds walls around you to keep you "safe".  You have no idea how to talk to people, always seeing yourself as less than, not good enough.  When you speak to someone and say something you perceive as awkward or dumb, you replay it over and over in your brain for days afterwards.

People that love and care about those of us that suffer from this were not given an easy task. Some may not be able to handle it.  It requires patience, compassion, empathy, understanding and love.  I don't need anyone to coddle me or treat me like a child. But I do need more reassurance than most, that I am good enough, that it is ok to be me.  I need sleep and time for self care and a friendly shoulder to cry on sometimes.

The only way I know to take the poison out of my body - the hurt, the sadness, the anger - is to write it down.  So that is what I did with this blog post.  I am doing the best I can and I am trying to be a good human.  I know I am a really tough person to get to know and even people that know me well are not able to deal with me.  It is too much work, not worth the effort.  But I know I am not alone, that this disease eats away at others as well.  We have each other tonight.

How to care for people with anxiety: https://thoughtcatalog.com/kirsten-corley/2017/01/this-is-how-you-love-someone-with-anxiety/

Requiem for 2016

In so many ways, 2016 was a dumpster fire of a year.  I feel like half of my childhood died this year and don't get me started on the election and the ramifications of electing a dangerous and ignorant man who may or may not sell us to the Russians.  It seems like so many people are hurting, struggling, in pain for so many different reasons.  My personality is such that I absorb all the negative emotions and add them to my own plentiful supply.  It has been a hard year for that, particularly the last 6 weeks.

But there have been so many happy moments as well.  Moments when I surprised myself with what I was able to do.  I took a burlesque class and performed in front of people.  I took Madeline on several trips, just the two of us. We did a pinup shoot and a tintype one as well.   I saw a bunch of Broadway shows and concerts that made my heart happy.  We have new people in our life that care about us.  Madeline loves her new school.  I got to tour Paisley Park and walk where Prince walked.  I went on my first date in 17 years.  I did a solo trip around Colorado.  I dyed my hair red.  I went into therapy again to work on becoming the me I'm meant to be.

I look at that list and know I should give myself credit for doing all that.  But I know I could have done more, been more.  But I am paralyzed by fear.  Fear of what people think, being laughed at, feeling the fool.  So instead of doing something I want to do, I do nothing.  Frozen by fear.  Sometimes the sheer number of choices possible to me is overwhelming.  When you are used to being defined by your connection to other people, trying to redefine and know who you are is a skill one has to relearn.

I have not achieved all of what I was hoping I would in 2016.  I feel like I stalled on personal growth and am disappointed.  I know beating up on myself serves no purpose, but there has been a fair amount of that this year.  Feeling I should be more, over more, healed more.  I can objectively see progress, but I feel it isn't enough.  I'm impatient, wanting my new life now.  I am working with my therapist on a bunch of garbage that is painful, sad and hurtful.  And it has been so hard and made my emotions boomerang all over the place.  But Aurora, my therapist, tells me this all means I'm on the right track.  That the sludge has to be gotten through in order for the dam to burst.  There is no time table and it will happen in good time.  I am ready for my life to burst open.

I have no idea what to expect from 2017.  It is all so up in the air right now. Madeline and I are headed to NYC over spring break and I would really like to do another big trip in the summer or fall.  Travelling as much as I can is one of my goals for 2017.  I have goals for 2017, but no resolutions.  I do have a word for 2017, one that I am concentrating on.  It is "brave".  So many things in my life that I am not doing comes down to me finding the bravery within.  I have to defeat the fear.  It has run the show for far too long.

To 2017 - my year of living bravely.

We are Family

Family is a word that encompasses so much, yet doesn’t begin to capture the complexities of the relationships within.  When you go through a divorce, you can’t help thinking about family, what it used to look like, what it looks like now, what it will look like in the future.  The communicating, the navigating of feelings, the new people brought in or not brought in, new names, new definitions.  It can be overwhelming and seem completely impossible.  And yet, if no one gives up, if you continue fighting, a breakthrough starts, so slowly at first it seems like one is imagining it.  And then you arrive at a new normal, still working through issues as they appear, but more settled.

I am lucky in a sense that this is even an option for me.  I realize that for many divorced couples, the best that can be accomplished is a polite and cordial relationship.  And even that may be beyond what can be achieved.  I am not saying that this was easy to come by, far from it.  I had to get over a mountain of pain, hurt and anger to get here.  And Brian had his own demons to wrestle with. 

But we are still a family, a family of three.  We may add other people to this mix as time goes on, it may change shape or it may disappear altogether.  I’ve stopped assuming what the future holds.  A major life event can do that to you.  But I love Brian and always will.  He has been my best friend for the better part of two decades and I cannot bring myself to throw that huge a part of my life away.  Our relationship will never be what it was before and that is how it should be, though I still get sad about that from time to time.  But we are creating together what this new iteration of Melissa and Brian’s story is.  I know that I am seen as a fool or idiot by some and that we are confusing or too much to deal with for others.  But my daughter is the beneficiary of her parents not just being cordial or being solely co-parents, though we are that, but true friends and family.  And I am a beneficiary as well.  I keep my best friend, my family for so long, as part of my present.  I may lose potential romantic partners because of this and that is fine.  When your life gets blown up, you get to choose what the rebuilt version looks like.  Our family unit, different, but still intact, is too important for me to sacrifice.

When you divorce, the extended families are affected as well, thrown into confusion and forced to pick sides, especially when one or both of the former spouses get into a new relationship.  There is no side to pick, there never was.  The only side is Madeline’s.  Was there bad stuff that went down?  Yes, there was.  Was it forgiven by the parties involved?  Yes, it was.  My personal hope is that anyone that enters Brian’s life will become a friend, to me and to Madeline and vice versa.  But that is each person’s decision.  I hope that someday the whole family will be healed.  But I can’t force that as much as I would want to. 

We are an unconventional family, a unique one to say the least.  But one of the things that I am most proud of in my 43 years is what we have rebuilt from the ashes.  It will stand as one of the biggest accomplishments of my life.  It will continue to be hard from time to time, contentious, frustrating and painful.  But it will also continue to be imperfectly beautiful, loving and as weird as we all are.  The Ball family has been battered and bruised, but we’re still standing.

One is not the Loneliest Number

I am approaching my one year anniversary of being divorced.  It is not something to celebrate in the truest sense and yet, it is.  I think about where I was one year ago and I can see how I have evolved and grown.  The work is not done by far and the roller coaster ride continues, but it is better than it was.  I tend to get wrapped up in the day to day and I don’t realize the tiniest of baby steps taken on a daily basis have started to accumulate.  It’s hard to look back a year, even two years ago and believe I made it through.  But I did.  And I continue to.

A big priority for me personally these days is being ok with being alone.  For a lot of people, when you end a marriage or relationship, the overwhelming urge is to replace the person you lost with someone else right away.  I’ve seen it happen time and again.  I felt the urge myself - to immediately run out and find someone who would make me feel worthwhile, beautiful, interesting and important again.  I got on all the dating sites, tried to find someone, got depressed with what was out there and despaired that I would never feel worthwhile again.  I tried Meetup groups, trying to find friends, men, anything that would help the loneliness, the loss.  But ever so slowly, in such small ways that it was barely noticeable, I started to back off, to not feel the panic, the urgency, to fill the space in my life.  I was content to sit with myself, to spend time alone, to enjoy my own company.  I go to movies alone, I read alone, I watch TV alone, I sit in coffeehouses alone, I even travel alone.  I just did my first solo trip and have planned another one, longer this time, for September.  I am not a hermit and spend lots of time with my daughter, my book club ladies and some people at work.  I even had my first date in over 17 years a few weeks ago.  The man was very nice and wanted to see me again.  But I wasn’t feeling it.  Instead of grabbing on to a man to make me feel good about myself, even if I wasn’t interested, I let him down politely and easily.  I’ve realized that I want people in my life that add something to it, not people that fill holes I have in myself.  I am ever so slowly coming to accept that I am ok, just as I am.  I don’t need other people to tell me that or make me feel it.  I have to love and accept myself in order to have healthy relationships going forward.  The longer I am alone, the more at peace I am with being that way.  Someone is going to have to be pretty amazing to have me add them to my life and I am ok if that never happens for me again.  I have a life to lead that is more than just a romantic relationship.  There is so much more for me to do, to see, to be. 

I am far from perfect at this and it is all very much a work in progress.  I am still terrified of doing certain things and try to talk myself out of doing them.  I am a coward just as many days as I am brave.  But I am fighting, every day, to make a new life, a better one.  There is a quote from Carl Jung that explains this journey perfectly: “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”  I am perpetually terrified, but still in the arena, fighting this fight, to be me and to be proud of who that woman is.

Sleepwalking

I have thought a lot about how we as humans have a tendency to sleepwalk through our lives.  Given the events of the past several months, I have been jarred from life as it was into a brand new reality.  I think for most people, life is like the movie, Groundhog Day.  We get up, go to work, deal with our kids, dinner on the table, speak a few words at our spouse, usually about the house, errands or the kids and then fall into bed, exhausted.  The next day, we get up and do it all over again.  Our lives settle into dull routine, punctuated once in a while by some one off event or vacation or catastrophe.

After having my life upended the way it has, I have realized that perhaps it was a blessing in disguise.  It has taken me a while to get to this point, but here I am.  I am 41 years old, soon to be 42, and I am not living a life even remotely close to the one I want to lead.  I have felt dissatisfied with my profession for a long time and long to put some business ideas into something tangible.  I want to travel more, experience more.  I want to write more, create a blog that allows me an outlet for my writings.  In other words, I have dreams, large and small.  And life has sped by, until I find myself here, at this moment.  I am at a crossroads, for lack of a better analogy.  I have felt stuck for so long, complaining about how unhappy I am, but doing nothing.  Fear, frustration and potential failure has kept me inert, terrified to do what needs to be done to move forward.  One benefit of having the rug of your life pulled out from underneath you is realizing that nothing is guaranteed.  What you once feared has happened and you are still standing.  If that is the case, why fear failure?

I now control the narrative of my story.  There is no necessity any more of worrying about making someone else happy, compromising my dreams away.  My daughter's health and happiness always comes first, but as my therapist tells me, our kids do as we do, not what we say.  If I want her to be her own woman, to forge her own path, I have to show her a woman doing just that.  Having the future wide open to you is a scary thing.  But terribly exciting at the same time.  I wish the separation didn't have to happen for me to realize all this, but it is what it is.  I have to stop being afraid of failure and embrace the possibilities.  Life is too damn short and I have too much to do, see and be.

From the Ashes

I have been itching to spill the words running around and around in my brain for several months.  But it has been hard to actually do the writing.  I am not normally a person that talks about their personal life, especially online.  But I feel compelled to write something about my life the past several months, just in case it might resonate with someone.  I have used blogs and articles to get through the multitude of feelings and crap I have experienced lo these many months.  This won’t be as eloquent or beautifully written as most of those, but this is my truth.  And maybe, just maybe, I can help someone else feel less alone.

I am now mostly a single mother and I am getting a divorce.  Those words are ones that I never imagined in a thousand years I would ever type.  My husband and I went on our first date a little over 16 years ago and were together from then on.  It was an epic first date and the start of many happy years and adventures together.  But something changed for him as our daughter grew, as he worked opposite hours from me with people 10 years his junior.  He told me he isn’t meant for this life any more, this life we have spent 16 years building together.  He wants out.  At first, I was floored, shocked, devastated.  I never saw it coming.  What happened, I asked, over and over again.  No answers were forthcoming and they really haven’t arrived to this day.  I have my suspicions, but that isn’t for me to elaborate on.  That is his story, not mine. 

I went into panic mode, trying to fix it.  Marriage therapy, trips, date nights, long, painful talks.  But he had checked out a long time ago, wanting a brand new life.  There was a final straw for me after desperately trying everything I could think of to fix what was broken.  And he moved out of our home. 

The time leading up to the move out was the most wrenching, painful, humiliating and soul crushing time of my life.  I kept giving him chance after chance, begging him to care, to fight.  I literally fell to my knees some nights, racked with sobs, unable to stand from the weight of it.  I got to sit down and tell my daughter that her father was leaving and wouldn’t live with us anymore.  Talk about a parent failure moment.  I was so consumed with pain and grief that I know I didn’t give my daughter everything she needed.  And that made me feel even worse.

After the move out, honestly, there was a sense of relief, a decision made.  No tension in the house, no arguments.  But adjusting to being alone, at first, was painful and lonely.  I have had my husband with me for 16 years.  Once my daughter was in bed, the nights stretched out before me.  But I sadly realized that that has been how I have lived the last three years.  Alone and lonely.  It almost felt like nothing had changed from how it had been before.  But in other ways it had.  The ripping apart of a life built together is not easy.  There are good days and there are wretched days.  Days when the loss and pain overwhelms me still.  Other days when I see my daughter and I’s shining futures beckoning us ahead. 

We have sold the house we bought together, my daughter and I moving into a new place, a new start.  My husband has found a new beginning as well.  Life is settling down, little by little.  But there are still those days, the days that I can barely function.  I have a great therapist that helps tremendously and I have had the support of friends and family near and far.  But when the life you had planned is blown up in front of you, the rebuilding is a long and painful process.

I know now that I should have seen this coming, that when you don’t see your spouse except for little snatches of time, there will be problems.  When you don’t nurture your relationship, do the work necessary, it will die.  That isn’t all of the problems, but it is certainly some of them.  I was tired from being a mom to a very active child, working full time at a job that isn’t my passion, maintaining a house and had no time or energy left over.  I always thought that we would have time to fix it, that we were strong enough to withstand anything.  I was wrong.

My husband, even after all of this, is my best friend.  I think I am still his.  Ours is not a normal, by the book separation and impending divorce.  I guess I am lucky in that sense, especially after hearing about devastating and painful divorces.  We talk every day and see each other most days.  We even go out on family outings all three of us sometimes.  We get mad at each other, say painful and hurtful things, but we have so far managed to make up with each other.  My daughter is struggling, extremely clingy and having issues at school.  This has shaken her and we are trying to support her and get her through.  She needs both her parents and we can’t be at each other’s throats all the time. 

I have noticed that some people in the world, ones that are comfy in their “happy” marriages, seem to blame me, blame the wife in the relationship, that it must be my fault.  I drove him away, I was hard to live with, I drove him to it.  Living with anyone is hard and living with him wasn’t the easiest thing.  But it is easy to think that, to treat me as less than because I don’t have a husband any more.  To them I say, fuck you. I fought for my marriage, I fought for my family, but it takes two.  I failed at keeping my family together and it hurts every day.  But you don’t get to judge my effort or what I did or didn’t do to keep it together.

Others seem to think that divorce is a communicable disease, that you can catch it somehow and they stay away, fearful.  If you are that scared, then listen to yourself and fix what is broken.  But it isn’t anything you can catch.  Use my story as an impetus to strengthen it, to work damn hard at keeping it strong.  I wish I had, but I can’t go back and do anything over.  All I can do is just move forward.  I hope to someday take what I have learned and find love again, to have a partner again.  The thought of being with someone else, to date, makes me violently ill and I know I am not ready.  I may never be ready.  And that is okay.  My life will not be defined by whether I have a man in my life any more.  I have my daughter and I have me.  That is enough.

And I am moving forward, slowly, but surely.  Every day gets better, easier to deal with everything on my plate.  There are set backs and the day I sign my divorce papers, you will find me in a fetal position, sobbing my eyes out.  To those of you going through this or to those that are farther down the road than me, I see you.  I care about you.  The up and down rollercoaster feelings, practically from minute to minute, I have been there.  I felt schizophrenic some days, rapidly cycling through emotions.  The pain that feels like a rock in your gut, weighing you down?  I have been there and still am some days.  It does get better, even just a few months down the road.  Feel what you feel and do what you have to do to get through.  There is no wrong way to grieve, to hurt, to move on.  My therapist taught me that.  I am in control of my grieving process and how I live my life going forward.  If I can give any advice, it is to never apologize or shy away from what you feel because it makes other people upset or uncomfortable.  YOU are the one going through it and no matter how helpful people want to be, until they live it, they can’t know what it is like.  And my experience will be different from anyone else’s.  I can’t pretend to know your life and you can’t know mine.  But we share something unspoken that people who haven’t gone through this can’t know.

The last seven months have been the worst, most painful and gut wrenching of my life.  But I am determined that this will not define me, that this won’t break me.  I have a daughter to demonstrate strength and resilience to.  I get to plan out what our life looks like, our family of two.  I wish that I could have saved my family.  I still do and probably always will in some sense.  I see it as the biggest failure of my life.  But I have failed before and will again.  From the ashes of my former life, I am waiting to be reborn.

Ode to a Dog

Tomorrow marks one year since we had to say goodbye to our precious dog, Wicket.  In some ways, it seems like yesterday and in others, it seems like a lifetime ago.  The pain has faded somewhat, but it still strikes me almost on a weekly basis.  I look out our kitchen window at the elephant on his grave and am reminded anew of how much I miss him. 

I have been trying to write this post since he died and I have not been able to.  I figure I owe him a tribute on the first anniversary of his death.

First, to explain the elephant marker on his grave.  The only toy he came to us with was an elephant and we were told it was a favorite of his.  We replaced the elephant over the years, but they always remained his favorite.  We had two in the house when he died and we buried him with one and we kept one that Madeline has in her menagerie of stuffed animals on her bed.  We thought an elephant marking his final resting spot was appropriate and that he would have loved it.

We found Wicket through a Shih Tzu rescue organization in Chicago.  We actually had gone to their event to see another dog, but came to find out that that dog already had someone just waiting to take him home.  So we started looking around at the other dogs and found one scratching at his cage and making all sorts of noise with an underbite.  I loved him from the minute I saw him.  He was already seven years old and had endured some trauma in his life once he left the people who had had him since he was a puppy.  He was named Kokomo at that time and we knew we would have to change that.  We asked to spend time with him and he instantly sat in my lap and never left it for close to ten years. 

We had issues in the beginning as he chased our cats everywhere and had a hard time warming up to Brian.  But we got through it and he ended up being a wonderful dog.  We had many adventures together, including welcoming a new little being into our home when we had Madeline.  Wicket could be ornery with a lot of people, but he was rarely that way with me.  I seriously worried about how he would handle Madeline, but he loved her and showered her with kisses, just like he did to everyone.  For an older dog, he was extremely patient with Madeline and she loved him. 

His last year was hard.  He had been taking medicine for a heart problem for many years, but I think the years of hardship finally caught up to him.  He always loved his walks, but in that last year, he stopped his walks all together.  He just slept on the couch most days, instead of playing and running around the house.  Having a toddler made it hard to give him the attention he needed and deserved and I still beat myself up about that.  I just have to hope that he knows how much I loved him.  He was my first baby.  A few days before we put him down, he was barely able to breathe and I think he was mostly gone already.  He looked up at me, gave me one last lick and then basically left us.  He wasn't himself after that and I knew we had to let him go.  I knew that he had held on as long as he did for us and now we needed to let him go and stop his suffering.  We had someone come to the house so he was surrounded by all his things and was at peace as he had always hated the vet.  It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

I could fill pages with stories about Wicket.  He was a loving, cranky, licky, stubborn, joyous and playful dog.  I have so many wonderful memories of him and with him.  For those that have never had a dog, it is hard to explain what they mean to you as a family member.  Dogs just want to be with you, simply put.  They don't judge you, they don't expect you to act a certain way or look a certain way.  They just love you.  That was what Wicket was for me.  And it is hard to replace that once it is gone.  I will miss him for a very long time and I certainly won't forget him.  Until I see you again, Wicket...

Raindrops on Roses

I am currently working on a pretty difficult post to write and it is taking me time to work out what I want to say.  So I decided to do a list of some of my favorite artists, songs, books, TV shows, movies and products for a change of pace.  Here they are in no particular order or coherence.

1.  Songza - www.songza.com     How have I lived without this awesome free website my whole life?  As a huge maker of mix tapes as a youngster, this is the Holy Grail of music awesomeness.  I can listen to great mixtapes in a huge variety of genres or make my own.  Samples include Your Own John Hughes Movie, Cocktail Party Jazz and Ballroom Blitz - Essential Glam Rock.  You can search by genre or your mood and you can save your favorites in folders you name.  I am an addict and I couldn't be happier to be on this drug.

2.  Sandi Calistro - http://www.etsy.com/shop/SandiCalistroArt   This woman is so talented and I was so happy to receive a framed print of hers for Christmas.  She is also an amazing tattoo artist and I can't wait to see what she does on my husband's arm in a few months.  I am rocking her stickers on the bumper of my car and she now has iPhone cases.   Sandi also painted a beautiful mural on the side of my husband's workplace, City O' City,  in Denver.  If I was ever to get a tattoo, it would be from this wonderful artist.

3.  Chai Tea Lattes - I am truly addicted to these now.  The best one I have found so far is at the coffee shop in the Central Library in Denver, which is conveniently located across the street from my place of employment.  I even bought myself a milk frother so I can attempt these at home.  Heavenly.

4.  Ellie Goulding's Halcyon - My favorite is "Anything Can Happen", which reminds me of the best Kate Bush songs.  It just makes me happy to listen to this music.  It is majestic and it feels like a perfect soundtrack to my life right now.

5.  "Locked Out of Heaven" by Bruno Mars - OBSESSED with this song.  It is almost constantly going around and around in my head.  I am a fan of Bruno, but this song?  Oh, man.  Gets me dancing and singing along every time I hear it.

6.  Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl - This book is brilliant, but so are her other two books, Sharp Objects and Dark Places.  Dark subject matter in all three, but they are written so well, I flew through them.  I enjoyed her writing in Entertainment Weekly and, when I heard she had released her first book, I grabbed it.  I have loved every one since.  Gone Girl is about a marital relationship from hell.  It's so twisted and amazing and I loved every second of the ride.

7.  The Following - Kevin Bacon + serial killers + cool music + Edgar Allan Poe = must watch TV.  That simple.

8.  HTC One X phone - I just dumped my iPhone for this one and I am thrilled so far.  Everything is intuitive, the camera rocks, the screen is bigger, the graphics are better and I am a happy girl.  I should have done this a long time ago.  I am as giddy as a schoolgirl using this phone.  I know this is heresy, but iPhone's don't have nothing on my phone.

9.  Celeste and Jesse Forever - I just watched this movie as a rental on Amazon streaming video.  All I can say is wow.  Funny and irreverant and gut punching and thought provoking.  A meditation on marriage, what it means to be in love, the work involved in keeping it going and growing together or apart.  Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg are amazing as the titular couple.  Highly recommend.

10.  Widowspeak's Almanac - New music discovery.  Male/female duo that sound a little like Buckingham/Nicks combined with Mazzy Star.  It's just good music, folks.

So those are a few of my favorite things.  Maybe check them out and discover something new and awesome.  Or don't.  It's all up to you.  Expand those horizons, people. 

Bucket List

I have been thinking a lot about how I see myself and how I want to see myself.  That happens when you combine a looming 40th birthday and the year just beginning.  Welcome 2013!  I don't mean that to sound self centered or douchy.  It's just that you reach a point in life where what people wish you were and what you thought you wanted to force yourself to be just doesn't matter any more.  I've always wished to be a edgier, cooler version of myself.  Get a tattoo, make things, be creative, dress in vintage clothing, etc etc.  Now, some of that I truly do enjoy.  But I have realized as I get older, I am who I am.  Does that mean that I can't grow and learn and develop new interests?  Does that mean that I am stuck in a rut, finished with discovering things?  No, I don't believe it does.  But it also means being really truthful with myself.  To look at who I am, what I am and what I enjoy and what is drudgery to me.  In a way, growing older can be a quite freeing experience.  It allows you to have the luxury of looking back at the first half of your life and making plans for how you want to spend the last half.  It is such a cliche, but time speeds by so quickly.  You blink and five years have gone by.  The older you get, the more you realize that every hour of every day is precious, that it won't be seen again.  I want to spend the last half of my life doing things that I love, spending time with people that make me feel accepted and loved for who I am and going to far off places I have wanted to see for decades.  Will I be perfect at letting go of all the bull that we put ourselves through, all the comparisons with others and their lives?  No, I won't and I don't expect to be.  But the more aware I am of life passing, the more I can be truly free to live life on my terms and to make myself happy.

In order to try and do a better job of living a better life,  I have decided to do a yearly bucket list.  I just think that one for your whole life is just mindboggling and overwhelming.  If I break into a year by year, it may be easier to achieve.  Here, in no particular order, is my 2013 bucket list:

1.  Lose the last 46 pounds I have to reach my goal weight.

2.  Be more active, whether that be in a gym or out in nature.

3.  Take my daughter and husband to NYC for my 40th birthday/9th wedding anniversary.

4.  Take more weekend/long weekend jaunts to rejuvenate myself and show my daughter all the amazing things to see and do outside of our comfort zone.

5.  Tackle redecorating/renovating our house to make it more comfortable and more in tune with how we live our lives.

6.  Write more, whether it be this blog or something else.  The joy I get in spilling the thoughts chasing around in my head is unparalleled.

7.  Attend a roller derby bout.  Wanted to do this for years.

8.  Start saving for a trip to Paris, some place I have wanted to go since junior high.

9.  Get my daughter potty trained.  Yes, she is 3 and not potty trained.  This may be number one on my list for this year.  To be done with diapers? Oh, my God, yes please.

10.  Try new restaurants, activities and cuisines.  Be more adventurous.

11.  Watch my daughter go to her first day of preschool.

12.  Have more Madeline and Mama time and create special memories just the two of us.

13.  Make family time a priority, not a luxury.


I feel like I have a good shot of doing most if not all of these things this year.  There may be others added as the year goes on, but I feel like this helps me focus on what will make me happy in 2013.  40 is a huge milestone and reaching it will probably overwhelm me with conflicting emotions.  But it is also the start of a clean slate, the second half of my life.  How I fill it, what is important and who I choose to spend it with is up to me.  It is an amazing opportunity to reboot and start Melissa's Life, version 2.0.  I can't wait to see what happens next.

Losin' It

So my previous blog described my issues with food, stress and other assorted health issues.  Well, I have been true to my word and, in the spirit of still keeping myself accountable, I have lost 25 pounds in a little over 2 months.  I have a loooong way to go, but I am making progress.  It hasn't been nearly as hard as I imagined it.   I think something finally clicked in my head, made me be able to see this through.  I really am not on a diet per se, more a lifestyle change.  I slowly see myself becoming me again and it is a good feeling.  I truly think that if I had tried to do this even six months ago, I would have only made it a week or two.  I wish I could pinpoint what the difference is this time, why I am succeeding now where failure reigned before.  I am just grateful that I am feeling better and finally taking care of myself.

So, my title refers to losin' it.  Well, I addressed one type of losing, pounds, and now I will address something else I lose from time to time - my mind.  You see, I have a toddler now and, well, sometimes I feel like I am losing my mind.  Certain days, between working all day and coming home and being a mother, I end up empty at the end of the day.  When I read these soaring and beautiful stories of motherhood in all its glory, I feel like I am doing something wrong.  Why do I feel relief once I have two minutes to myself when she finally gets into bed and goes to sleep?  Why do I let her watch that extra cartoon so I can relax for five minutes before the going to sleep merry go round begins?  I feel like the crappiest mother alive.  I love my daughter more than anything in this world, but sometimes I just can't pull it all together, be that perfect wife and mother and professional.  The people that say you can have it all are full of shit.  Yeah, I said it.  It's a fairy tale we are supposed to buy hook, line and sinker.  And that is all it is - a made up story.  All these bloggers, advice givers and "authorities" don't have my life.  Advice that works for one kid, one family, won't work for another.  I am trying to go forward, keeping in mind my strengths as a mother and not beating myself up for my failures and weaknesses.  We are all just trying to do the best we can for the kid or kids we have. 

I have a tendency to give of myself until there is nothing left,  I am tapped clean out.  If I could give advice or a suggestion to other moms out there as well as to myself, it is to remember to fill ourselves up with some of the things we love to do, to take time for ourselves, to recharge our batteries.  I know this isn't new advice or an earth shattering idea, but it is something I am coming to realize that I need.  I need a night of just reading a crazy good book.  Or heading out to the botanic gardens and just walking around, gaining my peace of mind.  Enjoying a cup of coffee at my favorite coffeehouse.  I am slowly coming to realize that time for myself is not selfish, it is necessary to be the best mother and wife I can be.  Finding the time to do this will be difficult with a husband working nights, but I have to do it. 

I have these moments of panic, wondering if I am screwing my Madeline up for life by letting her have that second cookie or zone out in front of the TV so I can get some work done around the house.  And then I really look at her.  She is a funny, polite, spirited, empathetic, smart and wonderful little girl.  That is in no small part to her father that takes care of her during the day and loves her to pieces.  But there is some of me in there too.  I must be doing something right.

"You and me against the world,
Sometimes it seems like you and me against the world,
When all the others turn their backs and walked away,
You can count on me to stay."

You and Me Against the World - Helen Reddy

Ch Ch Changes

Well, nothing like getting the crap scared out of you to change your life.  I went for my annual checkup to the lady parts doctor and got an earful of warnings on high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other bad health things happening with me.  I get the thrill of a mammogram to check out a small lump, which is probably nothing but still needs to be checked out.  I decided then and there that enough was enough.  What caused all these issues you may ask?  Me and my relationship with food and my tendency to take care of everybody and everything else except for myself.  For too many years, I have let myself get worn down, stressed and exhausted to the point of making myself sick.  I average 5 hours of sleep a night and walk around like a zombie most of the time.  But that isn't the biggest problem.

My name is Melissa and I am a chronic overeater.  I have used food as my reward, my security blanket, my refuge and my escape.  I spent most of the first half of my life eating whatever whenever.  I was stick skinny and never really thought of food all that much.  When I went to college, something shifted.  I dealt with loneliness and sadness by eating a pizza here and an ice cream there.  For many years after that, I gained weight but not a huge amount due to activity and metabolism.  And then as the stresses built and life got more real, I started really amping it up.  Then pregnancy and loss of job and dealing with being a new parent, trying to run a new business, etc. etc.  There was always a reason to make myself feel better with food.  And then, reality, in the form of a kindly doctor telling me to look at what I am doing to myself.  Do I really want to continue this way?  Die of a heart attack at 42?  Leave my family behind?  All because I stuff bad things away with food?  An epiphany occurred.

So I have started this week to use an iPhone app called Lose It! to watch my calories and keep track of my food choices and make sure I start making good ones.  I am hoping to start at least walking a little more for exercise.  I am trying to make this work.  I am determined to get down to a healthy weight again.  I have to.  For my health and well being and as an example to my daughter.

Why am I writing this all out in a blog?  Because I am trying to make myself accountable, to force myself to stick with this.  I also know that a lot of women struggle with weight and food issues.  Maybe we can encourage each other to keep working at this.  Don't we as women have a lot more to do than waste time on worrying about our weight and whether we look a certain way?  I am doing this for my health and to feel better about myself.  It's not for my man or for society's sake.  Will I ever weigh what I did in high school?  Hell no.  But I can get back to being healthier, back to caring for myself, back to me.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stronger
Just me, myself and I
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller"

-Kelly Clarkson

F*cking Perfect

I was talking with a family member just the other day about mothers and how we judge each others’ decisions when it comes to working or staying home, breastfeeding versus not breastfeeding and pretty much every other decision that we as women make when it comes to our kids.  Why do we beat other women up for decisions they make about their own lives?  I was made to feel like a bad mother for not breastfeeding my child by many women I ran across in classes, the hospital and in everyday life.    Did they try and understand why my decision was what it was?  No, I was just failing as a mother.  Add to that that I have to work outside the home?  Double whammy.  

This is just an example of what we do to ourselves as women.  I have watched the video for Pink’s song “F*cking Perfect” several times and it makes me cry at the end every time.  This video really gets to me on a lot of levels – as a former teen girl still carrying some scars, as a grown woman and as a mother of a girl.  The pressure to look, act and be a certain way as a girl/woman in this society is stifling and it seems to be getting worse.  Girls are starving themselves, cutting themselves, basically torturing themselves just to “fit in” or make themselves feel better because they don’t measure up.  But what does that even mean any more?  The popular girls beat themselves up just as much as the "freaks" do, just for different reasons.  It seems no one is perfect enough.  Why do we do this?  Why do we put this pressure on girls to be something they may not be?  This is not to say boys don’t have pressure on them because they do.  But the abuse that girls heap on themselves physically and mentally seems to be more severe.

Growing up, I always felt less than, that everyone was better, prettier, more popular than me.  Why?  I couldn’t tell you exactly.  I was smart and I felt pretty confident in that – for a while.  But then I deliberately lost a spelling bee on a simple word just to make another, more popular girl happy.  Just so she wouldn’t ignore me and cut me out of her circle of friends.  I used to get teased in junior high by these 2 boys and I finally got so mad that I hit one of them back, fighting back.  I was yelled at by one of my favorite teachers, though she had to see the teasing I endured on a daily basis in her class.  I learned I would be punished for defending myself, for standing up for myself so I very rarely have since.  

This is pretty minor stuff compared to other girls, including my friends.  But it has shaped me as a woman.  One of the big reasons I went to therapy is because I never wanted to pass on these feelings to my daughter.  I know some of these things are a normal part of all our lives.  But I never want to pass down to sweet Madeline that she can’t do or be anything she wants.  Dye your hair in high school?  I can handle it.  Become a cheerleader?  I will be there to cheer you on.  I just want her to be true to herself, to fly as high as she can, achieve all she is capable of.  But do I expect her to be society’s view of perfect, whatever that entails?  No, because she is already f*cking perfect, just as she is, to me.  

Another year older

So last week I turned 37 years old.  I can hardly believe I am that old.  I still feel like I am 25, just trying to figure life and myself out.  This past year has had a lot of changes and I have had to reevaluate who I am and how I feel worthwhile without an outside job to go to.  And how I feel as a mother. Being home full time these last 6 months has been rewarding and wonderful on one hand and tedious and monotonous on the other.  I am not meant to be a permanent stay at home mom, at least not full time.  I don't have the patience for it.  I need to have somewhere to go that is just my own.  And, financially, I also have to find something.  I have been looking for months to no avail.  I am nearing the end of my state UI benefits and face trying to get Federal extended UI benefits to keep a roof over our heads.  I should be able to, but I really need a job as soon as possible.

I am slowly realizing what I need to make me happy and I am working toward that goal.  It is hard not to apologize for it or to put my needs last.  It has been my way almost all my life.  I feel like I have to apologize for who I am, what I want and what makes me happy.  I think that is part of being a woman.  We feel like who and what we are aren't ever good enough.  That, by making others happy, somehow we'll make ourselves happy.  What I am realizing, through therapy and just life experience, that that doesn't work.  I have to do what makes me happy and, if I am happy, I will have more to give to my family.

This is all well and good to say, but hard as hell to live on a daily basis.  Due to my extensive downtime lately, I seem to be addicted to Facebook.  Bad idea, I know.  By reading and seeing other people's seemingly perfect and fun-filled lives, I can't help but compare mine to others and find it lacking.  That is my Achilles heel - trying to measure up to the Joneses.  But what I keep reminding myself is that those people that live on Facebook, Twitter etc. and post all the spectacular things going on and pictures of the great places they have been are just as insecure as I am and maybe more so.  In trying to make themselves feel better about their lives, they share the 5% of their life that is happy, fun and wonderful.  The other 95% is hidden behind closed doors, never to be shared or seen.  I read another blog about this this last week and it was so good and right on.  http://www.rocknrollbride.com/2010/08/how-to-have-a-perfectly-imperfect-weddinglife/  Social networking sites aren't real life - they are soap operas and sitcoms of lives that show only those beautiful moments, not the tedious, the mundane, the painful, the embarassing.  Online, you can appear to be all the things you wish you were in your really real life.  I want to live my life off line and find happiness in just being me.  It's a work in progress...

The Greatest Love of All

Yes, the title does refer to the Whitney Houston classic.  It seemed appropriate given my topic.  And my love of 80's music.

I have been seeing a therapist for almost 4 months now and had lots of opportunity to talk about what is wrong with me.  I started seeing her due to job issues and general uncertainty about my work future.  Then, I was fired from that job for no good reason and I had to start doing some real soul searching.

What I discovered is that I have been struggling with certain things almost my whole life.  And that I was tired of these things controlling me and how I lived my life.

I have always put others before myself, almost always to my detriment.  The reason is is that I think everyone surrounding me is better than me, worth more than me.  I have always suffered from self esteem issues though I really couldn't tell you why.  I never felt right or comfortable in my own skin.  I have never really stood up for myself because I was afraid of repercussions or that people would have a bad opinion of me.  I always judged my self worth by what others thought of me and I still do.  Which is a pretty painful place to be.  To never feel cool enough or important enough to matter to anyone.  Social situations were and are terrifying to me.  So I avoid them as much as I can.  I assume that I am the most boring person there so I don't speak and the stress eats me alive.  I have a never ending soundtrack in my head, telling me that I am stupid, why did I say that, etc etc ad nauseum.

My therapist asked me to list some of the qualities I liked best about myself.  I couldn't think of one.  Silence filled the room as I struggled to think of anything.  I threw out a few trite things but couldn't believe that I couldn't think of one thing.

That's what I have struggled with since I started elementary school.  I have always had friends, boyfriends even.  But inside, this was eating me alive.  I met my husband and he treats me like a queen and thinks I am special and tells me so.  But I don't believe it.  This hurts him, thinking he isn't making me happy.  But it is me, all my negative thoughts rolling around in my head.

I had my daughter and I realized that I never want her to feel the way I have felt almost all my life.  Like I am less than.  I want her to believe she is the most precious and wonderful girl in the world, to feel she is worthwhile and can attain anything her heart desires.  So I knew I had to fix myself, to model the self confidence I want my Madeline to have.

I am 36 years old and finally trying to love myself, just as I am.  I am tired of letting people's opinions and treatment of me dictate how I feel about myself.  So the hard work has begun.  I feel like I am moving forward, slowly but surely.

As to why I have been so brutally honest about what I am going through and working on?  All of us have things that cripple us, don't allow us to live the life we could be living.  We only get one go around is my feeling and why not try to make it as wonderful as we can.  Some things happen in life that throw us for a loop, but there are plenty of things we have control over, things we can change in ourselves.  I should have worked on this years ago but I never did.  But I am doing it now.  We all have the power to make ourselves a little happier and I finally realized that I was tired of living half a life.

I know this was pretty self help booky and all, but it is something I wanted to get off my chest.  After carrying all this crap around for decades, I decided to dump it and live the rest of my life differently.  Whitney was right - learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

Silver Lining

It has been FOREVER since I have done a blog.  Many new things in my life, namely my baby girl, Madeline.  I also was terminated from my paralegal position earlier this month.  Besides the lack of money flowing in, that has been a total blessing in disguise.

After having Madeline and recovering from the ravages of pregnancy and a c section on my body,  I was pretty drained.  I also was a very awkward new mom.  Maybe some moms just take to it like a duck to water, but I didn't.  My husband was great, took care of M like a pro and was instantly in love with this little baby.  I, on the other hand, being the mom, felt like all eyes were on me, waiting to see how I would do.  The pressure was a little overwhelming, trying to be this mom that I didn't feel like at first.  People were judging my skills as a mother, which is about the worst thing you can do to a new mom already shaky on her parenting prowess.  Then, my maternity leave flew by and I had to go back to work.  The stress and drain of being back at a position I hated started affecting me and my relationship with my daughter.  The only time I saw her was to feed her at night and put her to bed.  And in my head, I was thinking, "Please go to sleep so I can have a few hours to myself before going to bed so I can return to my hated job."  And then feeling guilty about it.  I thought about approaching my employers with a flex schedule, but they are not family men themselves and didn't seem to see that this was a hard transition.  I got to the point where I was tired of being stressed, drained and put down so I sought out a counselor.  After one session, I felt better.  I started standing up for myself at work.  And then I was terminated after two sessions with my therapist.  The excuse I was given was they were going in a new direction.  What that really means is that I didn't kiss their butts and go to Christmas parties etc.  I was devastated about not holding up my part of the bargain, the making the money, keeping our family fed.  But I was also relieved too.  Relieved to get out of the rut I was in, the profession I hated.

Which brings me to the first part of my blessing.  I get to hang out, every day, with my daughter.  I have built a relationship with her, feeling confident in my ability to care for her.  I take her for walks, I read to her, we play outside.  My former employers have given me a most precious gift - they have given me the gift of time.  Time to enjoy my daughter, free of stress and worries about issues at work.

My second blessing is forcing me to find a new career path.  I could have stayed at a decent paying job that I hated indefinitely to keep a roof over our head and pay the bills.  Now, I have the chance to explore something else, something I might enjoy, something that will allow me to have precious time with my baby girl.  I am still seeing my therapist, trying to find my way.  Therapy has been a great help to me, improving my life and making me more content and excited about the future.

My last blessing has been reconnecting me to our store, Rock the Cradle.  We are planning a complete redesign and adding classes and starting a kids' dance party at a local bar.  I now have the time and energy to try and make our store more successful.

The saying is true:  when one door closes, another one opens.  I feel like I have been given a second chance, a chance to do things differently, to live the way I want to.  In being fired, I finally found myself.

Time Flies...

It has been many moons since I have updated my blog and so many changes to speak of.

The first and most important one is that I am pregnant with my first child, Madeline Lily. I am a little over halfway done with my pregnancy now (a little over 5 months along) and things seem to be proceeding nicely. We've gone through genetic testing due to my age and everything was A-OK with that. That's when we found out that we were expecting a girl, which, in our heart of hearts, we really wanted all along. I didn't have a ton of issues with morning sickness my first trimester and, besides no sleeping a full night in three months plus, have been pretty comfortable physically.

My issues are all mental. Everyone that I know that is or has been pregnant all seem to be deliriously happy, taking pictures of their cute belly bumps and oohing and aahing over all things baby. I feel like there is something wrong with me that these things don't occur to me. Don't get me wrong, Madeline has a ton of stuff I have gotten her already, with help from the grandparents, of course. I have been reading a ton to gear up for not only pregnancy but for being a parent. That is the part that scares me the most. Will I be a good mother? How will I balance work and seeing my daughter and being a part of her life? How will this affect my marriage? How will we cope with the store and trying to be good parents? Questions and more questions that go around and around in my mind on a never ending tape. Everyone says that you will just know what to do, instinct takes over. I guess as an older mom I question everything more. Will I resent her for changing my life that has gotten comfortable after so many years of answering to no one but myself? I am excited to be having a child, but I also feel very disconnected too, like it isn't real to me yet. I am sure it is a coping mechanism, to protect myself from being hurt if something is wrong with her or something happens with the pregnancy. I wish that I could be like every other mom out there. Or at least how they appear to be on the outside.

To add to my already overflowing stress level, we will be adding moving to it. We have been trying, in vain, to get a loan modification on our house. It has been a frustrating and stress inducing mess of a process and we have gotten nowhere for months. We desperately need to get our housing costs down, especially before Madeline is born. So, we met with a realtor this weekend and have listed our home. Open house this weekend - woo hoo! We eally don't want to leave and have tried every which way we can to stay here, but to no avail. Our hope is to sell quickly and get settled at a new place quickly. We have a lot of the stuff for the nursery and can't set it up due to not knowing where we will be living in the near future. So we have added selling our house and moving to the mix. Let's do it all at once! We may have a meltdown in the process. I know I will be the one to have the meltdown too.

If we could get through the whole house issue and feel a little bit settled, start decorating the nursery etc, I think that we both would feel better about everything. I want to take a babymoon to Vancouver B.C. and I am hopeful we can still do that. I think it would be really good for us to do before the baby is here. We plan to travel with the baby, but this would be a nice romantic trip just the two of us before our new family member arrives.

Brian is busy making blankets and a mobile for Madeline. He has all this talent to do this stuff that he just discovered fairly recently, since we started our store. It is amazing to me to see this whole other side to him that I never knew existed. Musically, he has always been creative, but the crocheting and everything else is all new. I love it.

He has been so supportive and excited during the pregnancy so far. He reads some of my books and tries to take care of me, even though I don't let him as much as I should. He's very excited to be a dad and I think he will be a great one. I do think he needs to get a bit more organized, especially when Madeline is here and time for him will be precious. He will be the primary caregiver to Madeline while I am at work so he will have his hands full.

So that's the big stuff going on here. I'll have to update more often. It helps getting my thoughts out...

2008 - a look back

I guess it is that time of year. To look back at the previous year and make plans for the next. Brian and I tend to live pretty boring lives, but this year was a little different. We started our store, Rock the Cradle, which involved lots of work as well as blood, sweat and tears. While we were getting that off the ground, I suffered a miscarriage. It was kind of a surprise because I thought I was incapable of getting pregnant. It was doomed from the start and ended in February, not even two months along. One of the most horrible things I've ever experienced and I never want to experience it again. I really wish Gerber and other companies, however, would quit mailing me stuff for my nonexistent child. It's really fun to get that coupon book for your four month old child that doesn't exist! :) We've moved on and continue to try and get pregnant but no such luck yet. We may have to look in the adoption direction soon, but right now, we're continuing on this path.

The store opened in April and we've been pretty successful given the economy and gotten some local press love as well as high ratings from customers on sites like Yelp. We wish the business was making more money, but we're pleased with the progress. I had to go back to work to pay our bills and get off COBRA, which was killing us. I'm hopeful that the store may be enough to support both of us sometime in the near future, but we're making due right now on my salary and keeping more in the business.

We got to travel a little bit this year. We were able to go to Las Vegas over Valentine's Day for a trade show and see the show, Love, which I highly recommend. We have always wanted to go to Austin, TX, which we did in February too. Went to Cali in September with my family and lots of trips to Phoenix to see my family, especially my nephew, Colin. Hopefully, we'll find a way to travel a little more this year. Now that I have a new nephew, Aidan, I'll be headed down to Phoenix as often as I can.

So this year has been a bit of a struggle and I'm not sorry to see it go. We've had some good things happen and some not so good things. I'm ready to go into 2009. I have a list of things I would like to do or accomplish this year. Here are a few:

1. Start our own line of children's clothing.
2. Pregnancy or headway on adoption.
3. Travel to a city we've never been before.
4. Try to enjoy life more and stress less. This will be nearly impossible, but I also don't want to have a heart attack before I'm 40 either.
5. Get our house sold and downgrade to a more reasonable mortgage now that only one of us is working.
6. Try new places, restaurants and events and really enjoy all Denver has to offer.

There are more, but I keep adding to it. I think that a list is more attainable than resolutions. A list is things you want to do and resolutions are things you want to change about yourself. I would rather experience and accomplish things than trying to make myself perfect. Because that will never happen...