I Don't Want to Have to Write This Post

I don't want to have to write this post . . . but it needs to be said.

I did the most terrible, awful thing to Mama Pea on Sunday night.

You think I'm joking?  Ohhhhhhhh, I WISH I were!

People often ask me if I garden.  I laugh and say, "With Mama Pea's garden close at hand?  Are you kidding?!"  Sure, I dabble when time allows, but I don't "Garden".  Not the active, it's a priority, you need to give something to it every day verb form of gardening.  And, let me tell you, it will be a WHILE before I do anything in Mama Pea's garden again.  (Are you cringing yet?  You should be.)


Here in northern Minnesota, it's getting to be the time to put the gardens to sleep.  Pull the old stuff, think about digging the tubers.  A week or so ago, Mama Pea told me that she had a lot of greens that I could have for my poultry.  Then, last week, I noticed that her comfrey was super tall.  SUPER.  Like, possibly over 6' feet tall.  BIG stalks, too.  Here's a picture of it*, taken in July when it was only 4' or so:

Because it was SO tall and the stems SO woody, I called Mama Pea on Sunday morning . . . wondering if I should bring the truck in instead of the little car.  Rather than cutting it down into sizes that would fit into bags, I could just lop 'em off at the base and throw them, whole, into the pickup.

So, Sunday evening and armed with a big set of loppers, I set off into Mama Pea's garden to do just that.  As I cut, I noticed the almost-sunflower-like tops of the stalks.  I pulled one down to look.  "Hey, I didn't know comfrey bloomed like that!  Cool!"  

The process was easier than I'd expected, and I soon had every single thick, woody stalk, some the width of two fingers, chopped down.  As I began stacking them into a pile ready to drag up to the front yard, I glimpsed another bed of comfrey.  Except, that foliage looked way different that the stuff I'd just cut.  And, uh, it was a lot shorter.  By about 4 feet.

Suddenly, I started feeling nauseous.  My stomach tightened and my heart tripped faster.  Oh . . . no.  Please tell me I didn't just REALLY screw up.  I dropped the loppers and slowly walked into the house.  Mom was at the stove, getting dinner ready.

I felt like I was 11 years old again.  Or 40 years old and REALLY stupid - which is WAY worse, incidentally.  "Umm, Mom?  I think I . . . ummm, I'm scared I might have cut down . . . the wrong . . . the wrong bed."  The look Mom gave me was one of combined blankness and disbelief.  I think she thought, WANTED to BELIEVE, that I was joking.  That she could see a glimmer of teasing in my eyes.  But my eyes were big and round and my hand was at my mouth.

We went outside to the garden.

I wanted to run.  To undo what I knew I'd just done.

Mom looked.  Then, she quietly said, "Oh.  You cut down all the Jerusalem Artichokes."  (*Yeah, you noticed?  The picture is NOT of comfrey.)

Oh.  My.  God.

I was quietly babbling, "Oh, sh*t, Mom, I'm so sorry!  I'm SO sorry, Mom!  I . . . oh, sh*t . . . I'm SO sorry!"

She went back inside, and I slowly gathered all the dead foliage and loaded it into the car.  I wanted to erase "the scene of the crime".  I felt like I'd just killed a pet.  When I went back inside to gather some bags for the greens I was SUPPOSED to take, I was scared that I'd find her eyes red-rimmed and wet.  It had been a tough couple of days for her & Dad, and I was worried this was the final straw.

No tears.  I offered to take off instead of staying to have dinner.  I suggested we postpone Family Book Night (scheduled for that evening after dinner).  Truth be told, I kinda wanted to get OUT of there!  No, no, the evening would go on as scheduled.

I then asked Mom to come out to the garden to point out each thing I could take.  My confidence was SHOT, and I was scared that I'd pull . . . I don't know, SOMETHING . . . instead of the old, flowered heads of lettuce.  

When I was all done with the carnage - I mean, free greens for my poultry - I went inside for dinner.  Mom looked at me and gave me a warm little smile that could only come from the heart of a mother for her idiot child and said, "I'm better now.  It was just a shock."

I said again, "I'm SO sorry!"

Mom's mouth crooked up a little, and she said "Welllllll, you're not a gardener."

Nope, that . . . I am not.

A Realization

I'm realizing . . . I don't know how to "do" Anger.  That's Anger with a capital 'A'.  I'm beginning to realize that I have a lot of Anger right now, but I don't know what to DO with it, how to healthfully express it.  'Cause, I think I need to get it out.  No, I know I do.

I was raised in a home with no anger.  I was taught that there was no sense to it.  Discussion and Conversation:  that's how problems were resolved.  And, don't get me wrong:  I think that's a very healthy way to teach children.  Express your feelings through words, not actions.  And so, I've never been an angry person.  I'm not familiar with the emotion.  I don't know what to DO with it.  But now, I know there's something in here, inside me, causing the anxiety, and I'm finally realizing (mostly thanks to friends - and I mean that honestly, not sarcastically) that I am ANGRY.

When I was in therapy for the year following the final infertility prognosis, my counselor taught me to get my emotions out by writing.  Whenever I felt the "stuff" building up inside me, looking for a crack to ooze out, I was instructed to find a quiet spot where there would be no interruptions.  Settle my body completely comfortably and then do the deep breathing exercises.  Then, with pen or pencil and paper (no keyboarding / no typing), I was to write (or draw or make angry marks on the paper) for precisely 20 minutes.  If the timer rang while I was mid-sentence, I was to stop there.

Then, in therapy, I could either chose to explore what I'd written . . . or leave it and move on.

That was a successful coping mechanism for me, and I think I need to do that again.  Unburdening myself here, to you, helps, too.

In the past, there have been times when I've been writing around the proverbial pink elephant in the room.  Eventually, though, his size grows enough that I have to address it.  Such was the case when I finally wrote that the ex had moved out, and such is the case now.  Again.

I am in the throes of dealing with the third blow in my marriage.  First, he moved out.  I dealt with that and moved on.  Then, we got divorced.  I dealt with that and moved on.  I didn't think anything could be worse than those two blows.  And, truth be told, there was such a release of stress and pressure from them both, that they turned out to be, oddly enough, "good things".  This one, though?  This one, I don't know how to deal with.  Because I don't know how to deal with anger.

About three weeks ago, I learned that the ex had been having an affair with one of our friends since July of 2008.

There, I've said it.

I am SO hard-wired to "do him no harm" that it takes all I can to not delete that.  He reads this blog, and he'll read that.  And be incredibly hurt that I shared this with you.  But, oh my god, has he hurt me.

I thought I'd built myself a safety net in our marriage.  Time and time again, I told him, "If you EVER even THINK of having an affair, just tell me!  If you're EVER attracted to someone else, TELL ME!  We'll work through it, together!"

Ha.

I know now that there IS no such thing as a safety net:  not unless you both share the same morals and values.  The same commitment.  And, of course, you never know that you DON'T share these things until it's too late.

Why, oh, why couldn't he have been honest with me during the course of our divorce?  Because he knew I wouldn't have been so fair and split everything down the middle, financially?  Probably.  Am I resentful of that?  You bet.

Am I angry that, when there was nothing left to lose (the divorce was finalized), he STILL couldn't tell me about his infidelity (ies????).  Um, yeah.  Just a tad.

Am I angry that I was made a fool of?  That I sent out Christmas letters telling everyone that our marriage hadn't worked because "he's a good man, just not a good husband"?  Yeah.  

Am I angry that I was there for him, every step of the way through Explorer Guy's Alaska adventure, assuming that he was doing it "alone" . . . with no support system?  Yes.  What a fool I was.  I didn't learn until later than he'd already started seeing one woman (if not both that I came to know about) before he left.  That THEY were supporting him the whole while?  That in no way was he "doing it alone"?

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

And, I have been fooled HOW many times now?

Am I angry at the outright SKILL and trickery that he and this mutual fried exhibited by carrying on this affair RIGHT UNDERNEATH my nose and the noses of our friends?  Dinner parties, events all together, etc., etc., etc.?  Holy shit, yes!

All the times I would call him on his cell phone after a day of nannying so we could meet up in town for dinner and he said that he was at HER house, "just having a glass of wine"?  And, how convenient:  she was a mutual friend.  No one would question seeing them together.

All the times I QUESTIONED him about his relationship with her and was constantly assured that my false safety net was still securely in place:  he "would never do that" to me.

Wow.

I thought I knew him better than he knew himself.  Apparently not.

For the first five years that we lived up here, the ex still worked in the Twin Cities and spent about 5-7 days each 2 or 3 weeks down there.  Were all his lonely nights in a motel room really all that lonely or did he have company?

When he was working in the far west end of the county here and staying down there during the week because the drive was so long, was he really at the motel or was he at HER house . . . or someone else's?  Cellphones, after all, ring where YOU are, not in the PLACE you are, like the "good ol' days".

It's all just SO mind-boggling.  I put e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g into him and my marriage.

It was so much easier when I was under the (false) impression that it simply "hadn't worked out".

And, up 'til now, I've been experiencing so much aggravation over wondering just WHAT the "whole truth" is!  But, my oldest, dearest friend gave me some sage advice the other day:

The truth is, we often don't get to find a comfortable place with this stuff.  Even if you get 100% of the story, you still won't be comfortable.  I understand wanting to know, believe me, I do.  However, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable might be part of what has to happen, as well.  Not easy or fun, but you've gotten through worse, that is for sure.

My bold and underlining is where I think she's made her point.  And that will be the hardest thing for me to do:  although perhaps it's a step in the right direction now that I've IDENTIFIED that.

I've always been one to say, "I don't care WHAT the situation is, just give me the facts.  Even if it's 'you have cancer' (or, I suppose, 'you can't have children'), just give me the whole truth and I'll deal with it."  So, not (ever) knowing the whole truth will be my hurdle to leap.  Or, as the case may be, slowly walk up to / trip over a few times / and then, one leg at a time, step over.

Yep, re-reading what I've written, I know that's it, 'cause I just felt like I was going to throw up.

Clarification to my Previous Post

When I finally got into town yesterday after the gas truck had come and put $2,536.20 worth of LP in the tank (but, really, who's counting their pennies?  certainly not ME!  a-hem) and the technician and I had gone through all the system checks (I'd been down to 1% left in the tank!), Mama Pea pointed out that the way I'd written yesterday's post suggested that the propane problem was the thing that had made my day so miserable!  Really?  I re-read the post with an outsider's eye, and, yep, she was right!

So, to clarify:  the issues I found here at Swamp River Ridge were just the rotten icing on a triple-layer sh*t filled cake.  THAT was the reason for my plea to the almighty:  I've had THIS kind of day and now you throw MORE at me from the sanctuary of Swamp River Ridge?!


I've debated just how I should address all this stuff I've been going through these past few weeks (and hitting the low point - I HOPE - on Thursday) without falling into the Airing Your Dirty Laundry In Public trap.  But also without continuing to protecting the ex, as I seem to be have been (past tense) hard-wired to do.  And, while hopefully still retaining some grace, I am d-o-n-e doing that.


So, let me put it this way:  my marriage was not what I thought it was.  My ex-husband is not the man I thought he was.  I think (?) I have finally been told the whole truth, and, in a way, it was a release of sorts.


Previous to these last couple of weeks, I'd been struggling with the How To of an amicable divorce.  How much do you still do / share / visit with this person who was your daily life for the past 14 or so years?  But a person who also left you, left the commitments of your marriage vows?  Well, with the revelations that came this past week, I finally felt the apron strings break.  A bit of an Oedipal comparison, you say?  No, sadly, an accurate choosing of descriptive tags.  Our marriage had turned into more of a parent / child relationship than a healthy, romantic pairing between two healthy adults.  It's a relief now, to know that those (unhealthy) ties as well as the marital links have been severed . . . and were severed long ago . . . I just didn't know it.


I appreciate those who told the truth:  better late than never.  But, that doesn't change the fact that irreparable trusts, relationships have been rent in two.

It's all been handled in a very "adult" manner - no throwing of crystal vases nor destruction of priceless pieces of objets d'art.  Although, believe me, there have been times when I so desperately wish I WERE that kind of person!  I've only made one public spectacle of myself:  collapsing into the arms of a dear, dear friend at her place of work on Thursday.

My sobs were the loud, ugly, gut-wrenching kind.  In a tiny corner of my brain, I heard feet running and doors slamming as her fellow employees scattered from the building to give us privacy.  It struck me as funny at the time, and I made a tiny mental note to giggle about it later.  But, now that I relive it, I realize what an incredibly selfless, KIND gesture that was of those folks!  This is a tiny town:  they could have quietly remained at their desks all the while collecting quite an earful.  But, no, generosity and empathy prevailed.

I remember a large form (the husband of another dear friend) kneeling down next to me and taking me into his arms, whispering, "I'm just going to put my arms around you and hug you."  It was a transfer of safe place to safe place as my confidant (also sobbing now) ran to gather her car keys and purse.  Leaving my car where I'd parked it, complete with key in the ignition and purse and cellphone on the passenger's seat (another advantage of a small town:  I knew it would be watched over - although, quite frankly, at that moment I didn't really care), she hustled me into her car and sped home where we spent the afternoon crying, drinking tea, warming ourselves from the outside in before the crackling woodstove, and playing with her new puppy.  What better therapy is there than an oh-so-soft floppy, wet-nosed puppy?

So, yeah, to those of you who tend to "read between the lines", there have been an inordinate amount of lows lately.  Lots o' shoulda, coulda, wouldas.  But, those times / opportunities are in the past.  Now I just need to put one foot in front of the other (remember those baby steps!) and move forward.  Do I have my health?  Yes.  Do I have Swamp River Ridge?  For today, yes.  Do I have money?  No.  But do I have possibilities plus friends and family that will get me through?  Yes.

Peace out.  :)

Ain't Life Strange

Four years ago today, Tom and I closed on our little Hastings-on-the-Lake and moved into our very unfinished Swamp River Ridge house.

Was that the beginning of the end for us?  Some say yes.

Others, like myself, see the real beginning of the end as being Tom's March of 2009 trip to Arizona to "find himself" . . . and his subsequent accident & five-day hospital stay out there.  Looking at that time in retrospect, I think that he desperately wanted to tell me that he "wanted out" during the conversations we were having while he was recovering . . . but couldn't.

Anyway, now, on September 15th these 4 years later, I am going over the next-to-final copy of our divorce J & D (Judgment and Decree).  Hmph.  Ain't life strange?

Spring Forward . . . Fall __________

We all know, of course, how the saying goes:  "Spring Forward, Fall Behind".  But, for whatever reason, I felt like writing "Spring Forward, Fall On Your Ass".  Must be my mood today.  

But, really, I can't complain.  It could be worse.  My oldest girlfriend had the window in her car smashed and her purse taken in the 10 minutes she was inside to pick her son up from daycare.  At 5:00 PM with tons of other parents around.  And, she had their complete 2009 tax return in her bag.  Social security numbers, signatures, the works.  And the midwife called to say that she was "very worried" regarding test results for Baby #2, in utero.  (More in-depth testing revealed that Baby is F-I-N-E, thank goodness.)  And then Baby #1 was rushed to the ER in an ambulance after the daycare providers had to jab an epi-pen into his 1-year old body to prevent potential damage from a severe allergic reaction.

So, see?  It could be worse.  Really.

That said, I found out last night from a dear, dear friend, that people "around town" are under the impression that the reason Tom and I are divorcing is because he asked me to choose between him and Swamp River Ridge . . . and that I chose Swamp River Ridge.  Great.

Perhaps I need some coaching.  Divorce 101.  I think I'm being too nice.  Trying to keep private business private.  No, that's not it.  I think the problem - MY problem - is that I've shielded Tom for so long . . . thought I was helping him by hiding his weaknesses from everyone else (read e-n-a-b-l-i-n-g!) . . . that I still find it hard to say anything about him that others may find harsh or negative.  Even if it's the truth.  But, nor do I want to be a sniping, shrewish divorcee always disparaging her ex.  So, see?  I need the 'Etiquette During Divorce' book. 

I just don't want people to get the wrong impression.  And, yeah, people "will talk", so maybe it doesn't even matter what the REAL truth is (to them).  But I, I guess, am reaching a point where I want the truth "out there".  

So, how do I do that?  I guess all I can do is tell people the truth when they ask.  In an effort to be clear and concise (I tend to babble when I speak to people in real-life), let me practice on you, dear reader.

Me:  "Tom and I are getting a divorce."

Unsuspecting Local:  "Oh, no!  What happened?"  

Me:  "He left me.  He said, at first, that the problem was Swamp River Ridge and the lifestyle we'd built for ourselves there.  But then, when I offered to give that up and move into a little house in town . . . or even move to a new state to start over . . . he just shook his head 'no'."


Even that, though, is too long.  The flat-out truth is that he no longer wants / wanted to be married to me.  Why?  I have no idea.  And, why didn't he want to work on it?  That part disappoints me the most, because he knows I would have done ANYTHING to keep our marriage alive and make it healthy again.  But, it takes two to tango, doesn't it?

I feel a note to all our friends, family, and acquaintances coming on.  I never do well when the cards aren't on the proverbial table.  I'll bet I'll feel better after that. 

Anyway, my apologies:  too much introspection in the blogosphere tonight.  Blame it on Daylight Savings Time.

The Pink Elephant in the Room

Have you noticed lately?  There's been a big, pink elephant that I've been trying to avoid in the room.  I've been avoiding it by posting infrequently or, when I do, trying to waltz around the thing disrupting the normal flow of life at Swamp River Ridge.  

But now, in an effort to make Valentine's Day a GOOD day for me, I am ready to rid myself of the weight that's been lurking 'between the lines' of my writing.  

Tom moved out on January 17th.

Tom's been struggling to make Swamp River Ridge and the LIFESTYLE that such a place requires the right choice for him.  When we began this project, he thought it was what he wanted.  Now he knows that it's not.  It's a big, fat disappointment, but how can a person know that something WILL be right until s/he actually tries it?

In retrospect, I think Tom's been struggling ever since the spring of 2008 when he quit his IT position on the Rez and set out to be his own boss as a handyman.  Then, there was his attempt to 'find himself' last March when he headed out to Sedona.  And, we all know that his time of personal reflection wasn't in the cards when he crashed & burned on his 2nd day there.  Maybe 'crashed & broke' would be more accurate to explain his 5 day stay in an Arizona hospital recovering from the collapsed lung, badly broken clavicle, and 6 shattered ribs.

We've both been in counseling, individually & as a couple, on and off for over a year.  At first blush, the 'problem' seemed to be "just" Swamp River Ridge.  Now, the reality seems to be that there is more at the heart of things . . . and a pervasive unhappiness that Tom's struggling with that encompasses our marriage, too.  Being philosophical, I believe that Tom's always allowed himself to be swept up (by the woman in his life) in activities, plans, moves, changes that he thinks are what he truly wants.  But then, when he gets there, figuratively, he realizes that it's not what he wants.  And, unfortunately, I don't think he's ever learned how to listen to his inner self to find just what it is that he DOES want.  As a result of that, relationships, jobs, new lifestyles have fallen along the wayside.

My chest, my heart physically aches as I sit here trying to decide what to write, but I know I'll be able to continue with my writing on this blog now that the truth is out.  (And I 'reclaimed' it as my own, if you will, with the new name . . . as you might have noticed.  I'm not sure the sunflower image will be permanent, but the name will stay.)

I certainly hope I haven't sounded disparaging against Tom.  We didn't know it at the time, but we took a huge personal risk in creating such a unique lifestyle for ourselves.  And, unfortunately, that risk didn't pay off.  Would these internal struggles of Tom's come to the surface if we had stayed living in Minneapolis . . . or in our cozy little house down by the lake?  Who knows?  But probably.  It wasn't Swamp River Ridge that created his demons, but it did play a big part in forcing them to the surface.  

On the up side, the difficulties in our relationship have forced me to realize how much this physical place, Swamp River Ridge, and this home that we designed & built mean to me.  I've often said that I won't leave until I'm carried out in a pine box.  I thought I'd have to retract that statement when Tom left, believing that he'd ask me to choose between Swamp River Ridge and him . . . but he hasn't.  Maybe he still will . . . ask me to live with him, wherever that is.  But, for now, I am here.

Now my biggest hurdle (aside from the emotions & what will become of our marriage) is figuring out how I can keep Swamp River Ridge, financially.  For the last 12 1/2 years, Tom has supported me, 99.5%, financially.  That was our "deal" when we moved in together in the fall of 1997:  I would be a homemaker and keep all things running smoothly, and he would be the bread-winner.  However, the time has very obviously come when I need to rejoin the working stiffs . . . that is to say, work OUTSIDE the home for the first time in a very long time.  Am I nervous?  Of course.  Am I disappointed?  Duh.  Will Swamp River Ridge suffer when I'm out working 40 hours a week?  Yup.  Am I willing to make those sacrifices in an attempt to keep 'what is mine', so very deeply, in my soul?  You bet.  It's gonna suck rotten eggs, but I'll know that every moment spent away from home will be going towards the (fairly huge) mortgage . . . towards preserving this life that means so very much to me.

So, with that, I'll hit 'post' and hope that I haven't hurt Tom by being honest.