10 posts tagged “husband”
Don't let the door hit ya...
Numbness, then summer's light. My brother is growing up. A family's warm embrace. Finding a spiritual community, building authentic relationships, knowing abiding love. Present.
- More about the Mayfly project.
- Previous year's Mayflys: 2007, 2006.
What did you do in 2008 that you have never done before?
Also, in the process of understanding my role as a parent, I think i said "no" too much during the earlier part of this year. I thought about this whilst on vacation with my family and resolved to do better, to know that parenting isn't just protecting and restricting but also about teaching a child to question limits and go out and experience things. This seems to be doubly true and needed in the case of my brother, and I'm glad I had this epiphany and reformed.
Husband is in geek ecstasy using a seal-o-meal to prep all the food for our camping trip. Keeps bringing me little packages & bouncing.
@gapingvoid Were you an outdoorsy kid when you went? Previous interest or experience camping, hiking, kayaking? Just curious WRT my brother
Have returned from my adventure in the swamp. Was beautiful and grounding, inspiring and awesome. Oh, yeah, and filled with bloodsuckers.
My husband and I ended up in Florida because it's where my mother and brother were, and they needed our help. Mostly, we miss being up North (closer to his family, more connection to the cities and life there), but it's pretty damn hard to complain when it's the first days of April, you're cooking out on the grill in bare feet, a skirt, and a sleeveless shirt.Shrimp are in the marinade; going make skewers on the grill tonight. For a moment, living in Florida = bliss
"When times are good, make them DAMN good. Don't hold back, don't be
reserved, don't pretend, don't stifle the passion. Those times might
very well carry you through rough times ahead."
This is definitely one of the secrets to marriage I feel I've uncovered in the last year, particularly the "don't hold back." When Z and I are able to share some time together when we're not mourning my mother, stressing about work, trying to come to terms with living in Florida, parenting, having to clean the litter box, do the dishes, etc, etc, etc...when we're in that space where we both can be happy and enjoy each other, I've been doing the best I can to be entirely in that moment, every cell of my being and giving him as much of my attention and love as one man can possibly bear.
It's an intensity, but not a forced one. It's just unstifled; it's not letting the bills and the litter box and the kid stress take away from what brought us together in the first place. When I read the comment above this morning, I felt that philosophy, that tactic was encapsulated perfectly.
My husband just committed an act of civic duty for which, unfortunately, no medals are awarded, but I thought a news release should be issued just the same. He just smooshed a mosquito which, no lie, was the size of my pinky and quite possibly could have carried off my kitten in its beak. We did this after first trapping the offending bug and having a conversation about whether it could even be a mosquito at that size. My final verdict?
"Just in case, it's our duty to remove this sucker from the gene pool."
That's how I would describe this weekend: insanely productive.
Sometimes you feel the fog of depression lift and, suddenly, so much is possible. My brother spent the weekend visiting friends, so the husband and I ate spicy food, drank beerz, got to see "No Country for Old Men" in the theater. Which, on its own, would make the weekend swell. But we also reorganized and cleaned our living room, did a serious bleach job on both bathrooms, bought and set up a new outdoor kitty box, scrubbed clean the lanai around the pool, chemically treated the pool water, went grocery shopping, made some headway on our recycling piles, did a couple loads of laundry and made plans for what we want to accomplish next weekend.
I feel a tad exhausted but also so pleased with what was done around the house. Plus, getting all this done means my house will be in much better shape for February's dinner party. (I probably failed to blog about this in the past, but I decided last fall that I was almost thirty and had yet to throw what I would call a dinner party. So I declared a potluck dinner party with a Cuban theme and, lo and behold, people showed up to indulge me. Now we're trying to make it a monthly tradition.)
Anyway, more than what was even accomplished this weekend, what really has me buzzing is the new organizational system for my studio the husband and I devised this afternoon. It will likely only set us back a couple of weekend's work and fifty bucks, but it will solve so many problems and make my space both more usable and more unique. I call that a win.
So, productivity, adult time, dinner party plans, future plans, good feelings all around. I <3 this weekend.
When Z woke me up this morning, I was crying. Not quiet little sniffles, but actually outright bawling. In my sleep.
I was having a twisted variation on an old recurring dream. The basis of the original dream is that it is the end of the semester at college, and I'm supposed to be getting myself packed to go home. There are many distractions and obstacles, including a formal dance, an altercation with a girl--strangely, from high school--who thinks I got it on with her boyfriend (maybe I did?), and a staircase that is one part Tim Burton, one part MC Escher.
At one point, I am at the formal dance and one of my classmates points out a girl dancing with her not-from-these-parts boyfriend. This is significant because that man would later become my husband. In a strange meta moment, the person pointing Z out to me says, "You don't remember me doing this, do you?"
Put off by the person breaking my dream's third wall, I attempt to return to packing up my belongings. Instead, another friend drags me off to this metaphysical shop where there are all sorts of elaborate wands and boxes. She wants to buy a box to share with me, and we look at several before falling in love with a multicolored, inky set of boxes. At some point, I am concerned about having offended the shopkeeper, so I offer to tally up her receipts at the end of the day. While I am sitting at a table, her myriad of papers and receipts in front of me, and trying to concentrate on the maths to do the job, many people come up and say goodbye to me. Z is eventually there, too, and I address him not as a stranger (as he was earlier in the dream), but as my husband. I tell him that I never imagined going home to my mother's house without her there and start to tear up, but he shushes me. Eventually, one of the administrators from my college shows up and hurries me along; apparently, he's to take me to the airport so I can get home. I quickly gather up my stuff, leaving the shopkeeper's receipts half done, and chase after him, with a strong sense that I don't have everything I need.
When we're leaving the main hall of my college dorm, I see my mother and try to say goodbye to her, but she brushes me off. She's not callous when she does so; it's more as if she knows it's going to be emotional and doesn't want to endure that.
Somehow, and the transition here is unclear, I end up in a car with my mother, and she is dropping me off so someone else (the college admin from earlier?) can take me to the airport so I can go home. At this point, I am aware in the dream that my mother is dead and I do not want to leave the care, I do not want to say goodbye. She tells me that this is what I must do and gives me a quick hug, fighting back her own tears, but trying to be firm with me. I get myself out of the car, but try to climb back in -- but she shuts the door and starts to put the car in reverse. Some unknown Rod Stewart song is playing, and I start to waver. My knees give, I fall to the pavement, clutching my bags and breaking down in tears. The car pauses in its slide away, as I wake up to my husband wrapping his arms around me, gently shaking me, trying to rouse me through my sobbing.
Even writing this now, I get a little shaky and a goosebump-like sensation goes over my skin.
From one of my best friends in a recent e-mail:
It would be nice to know mundane minutiae like this about my best friend--if she could maybe convince herself to send an email in response...
My response:
Hey, sweetie. I certainly did fall off the radar there for a bit, didn't I? I guess I've been coming to terms, trying to understand what "normal" is in my new life. Thus far, it looks like this:
Morning
Z goes to work around 7:30 every morning, and I get up around then (or press the snooze for 15 minutes...). I wake up my brother and feed kibble to every creature in the house (Iams for the cats, Beneful for the terrier, Honey Nut Cheerios for the kid), then get myself washed and ready for the day. I get M to PLACE anywhere from 8-9 and usually do some running around after he's dropped off (oil change, grocery shopping, wandering the craft store).
Afternoon
I get home by 11, have some sort of brunch-type snack, then sit down at my craft desk. For the last two weeks, I've been making cigar box purses, artist trading cards, and decorating store-bought journals. I usually do that until 3:45, when I walk out the door with Yoda and walk 4-5 blocks to meet M on his way home from school. That's usually the highlight of my day...walking with Yoda and chatting with M. When we walk in the door, M sits down right away to do his homework and, if it takes him less than 30 minutes, we whittle away some time on his upcoming invention convention project (he's making an update to the Trapper Keeper for today's techno kids). After schoolwork is done, we either play a game together or he buggers off to go skateboarding or play online games. If so, I hit the craft desk for some more time.
Evening
Around six o'clock, I start making dinner, and Z walks in the door any time from 6:15-6:40. This can make meals just a tad chaotic, but I've become a pro at getting M to set the table early and, if Z's late, just sticking stuff in the oven on "warm." We eat dinner together and share stuff about our days. M is becoming a much improved conversationalist, though we have to work more on him listening to others. At least twice a week, he says something that just cracks us up. This week, we were trying to explain to him what a non sequitur was, and he was having a hard time pronouncing the word. We explained that it was a pretty strange word, not originally English, and hard to spell. Much to our surprise, he got the spelling right on his second try! What a smart kid. After dinner, Z and M clean up, then we either play together or go our separate ways until 9pm, when M goes to bed. It's funny, I've gone to two parenting workshops in the last month, and many parents complain about problems relating to bedtime and getting homework done. But M is such a regimented child that we almost never have issues in this area. Sometimes he gets mad at the homework problems, but I never have to nag him to sit down and do it. Anyway, some nights Z and I watch TV together or play video games; if he's really tired, he just goes to bed, and I stay up late crafting.
Obviously, the amount of time I spend at the craft desk makes this pretty ideal (I've made three purses, two journals and countless ATCs), but there are a million setbacks every minute it feels like. I still have to meet with my mum's attorney, still have to open the box from the cremation society, still have to sit down with Z and write our wills out and determine who takes care of M if anything happens to us. Those are the big things, but there are little things too...Yoda staring at Mum's bed and whining, grabbing four napkins instead of three for dinner. One day last week, I just came home and cried on the couch for a couple of hours, eventually exhausting myself into sleep.
It's odd, last weekend was really nice. Z came home early on Friday. We cried together, made love, then went out for a drink and an appetizer before getting back home to pick up M. It was true quality time together, and I really felt his love and support. Friday night, Z stayed home with M while I went to a craft class and then out for drinks with R. R and I also needed some quality time, as he has been taking really good care of me during the week (stopping by for coffee in the morning, going to the grocery store with me, or even just dropping off blueberry muffins when I need to be alone), and I'm not always as grateful as I should be. Saturday, we hung out with M and did some shopping; M spent the night at a friend's house, and we went into Largo to celebrate L's birthday (strangely, by riding a mechanical bull). Sunday was a day of productivity, Z cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, while I did laundry. That afternoon, cuddled up on the couch, I said I'd had a good weekend--that I often felt silly or happy or friendly first, and sad second or third. It made me realize that's not true for most days...I am sad first and foremost, then all my other emotions come in a muddle afterwards. While it felt warm and good and honest to say then, now I just feel bad for feeling so bad most of the time!
This weekend, Mum's friend MC will be in town. We'll go out to dinner with her tonight, and then join her and her husband for brunch Sunday. I'm really looking forward to that. Saturday, Z and I have doctor's appointments in the morning, and I may take M up to a local festival that afternoon. Z and I also have to spend some time cleaning out the garage, as he's been buying cabinets from work to remodel our kitchen, and we need to better organize the space to store them. I'm not looking forward to that, as it will involve moving some of Mum's stuff around, and I'm not ready to make choices about those things (even things I know I won't be keeping, like her hats and wigs, I'm not ready to do anything with). Speaking of which, when I do feel ready to do something like that, it may be a great time to have you or E down. That would definitely require some handholding.
Next week, I'm going to apply for a great job I heard of through E's mother and make an appointment to get Ripley fixed. She's in heat right now and a great source of amusement for the household. I also meet with a grief counselor from Hospice and am struggling somewhat with what I want to get out of that session.
How's that for a nutshell of life? I'm sorry I've been distant. I don't know why I'm putting up this facade of enormous strength, but I guess it's what gets me through the days. It's been a month and four days, but I see her everywhere around me and yet somehow manage to be in denial, unable to understand that she's not here to share thing swith me: to laugh at the animals' antics, to feel pride in M, to talk about the next season of Project Runway, to enjoy the things I'm making, to see her new kitchen cabinets, to share a cup of coffee with outside by the pool. It tears me up. MC said this morning she once heard someone describe grieving as similar to learning to breathe underwater, and that rings so true for me right now. It's like doing this impossible thing, and all your instincts struggle against it. You need to do it, but every cell screams NO NO NO NO I CAN'T.
With love and appreciation for your polite "nudge,"
artgeek
Moms’ cancer. Chemotherapy, radiation. Hair loss and humor. Airports. Tears. Ripley. 938 miles. Walking my brother home from school. Love stronger than I imagined.
What are you thankful for?
I don't have a short, upbeat answer for this one. Instead, by way of explanation, I give you a timeline of Thanksgiving memories:
- 1995-earlier
I don't have very strong memories of the holiday growing up, except for one holiday spent in Ohio where my very-briefly-step-grandparents took their turkey apart and fried it. That I was horrified by this makes me believe my family had some holiday traditions for me to hold dear, but they were pretty generic ones at that: oven-roasted turkeys, green bean casserole, cranberries, potatoes. - 1996-1999
While in college, Thanksgiving became a stressful time of exams and being incorporated into generous friends' traditions. I never had enough money to fly home for the short holiday, so I was always bumming rides and finding seats at a wide selection of Thanksgiving feasts. These years taught me that some people profane sweet potatoes with marshmallows, introduced me to pumpkin bread and gave me the decadent Indian feast during my year abroad in the UK. - 2000-2004
The first time I went home with the man who would eventually be my husband, it probably started out feeling like a rehash of my college years: another family, another table, another set of Thanksgiving traditions to learn. Very quickly, however, I was incorporated into those traditions and began to think of them as my own. It wasn't about the food; it was about the stories and memories we shared about the food. Unlike Christmas, it wasn't the frenzy of gifts and associated anxieties; it was just about being a family and having the blessing of being together. - 2005
Last year, my husband and I opted to forgo the log-cabin Thanksgiving described above and visit my mother and brother in Florida. At this point, it had been ten years since I'd shared a Thanksgiving meal with her, and we wanted to do something different. She was all a-twitter, procured a free-range organic turkey for her crazy daughter and replaced her disfunctional stove for her culinary son-in-law. We had a wonderful time together and a great meal. I remember my mother dropping us off at the airport after the weekend and tears rolling down my cheeks as I expressed my appreciation to my husband for making that holiday happen. At the time, this seemed melodramatic, and I didn't understand why I was so emotional. Two weeks later, my mother would be given a terminal cancer diagnosis and our lives would be changed unimagineably. Of course, I couldn't have known that while I was making an emotional scene in the airport, but looking back it makes that moment much more poignant. - 2006
My husband and I now live in Florida with my mother and brother, and she finished her second course of chemotherapy the day before Thanksgiving. It's not that I'm ungrateful this year, it's just that everything I can think of to be grateful for has a bittersweet edge to it. I am grateful for this time to be here with my mother and brother, but I know my husband is very homesick this holiday season. I am terribly grateful that my mother-in-law seems to have won her battle against breast cancer (she was diagnosed in the spring of this year), but I also know I will never share that victory with my mother. I am grateful for my own health and that of my husband, but I know that as caregivers we're putting ourselves second, third and sometimes fourth and letting things slide that deserve attention. Again and again, I'm learning that you can be grateful and heartbroken at the same time.
