Tag Archives: divorce

Tiny Reminders

August 16, 2010

MIsunriseMoving on is simple, it’s what you leave behind that makes it so difficult.
~Anonymous

Sunrise on the Mackinaw Bridge… one of the few things on the 19-hour road trip that I enjoy. Others include cherry coffee, 4am boat counts, and of course, the two dead hookers. But I digress.

The sunrise made me sad this time. I almost drove off the bridge staring at it. I nudged a snoring hippie, “Look, it’s beautiful!” watched his blank stare scan the horizon and then one half-open eye turned toward me and I smile-sighed, “Yes, you may go back to sleep now.” He wasn’t awake. But even if he had been, I’m not sure he would have understood completely. Not completely.

When my childhood sweetheart and I broke up, I lost a friend. When my ex and I divorced, I lost the big screen TV. When Wisconsin and I broke up, I lost the entire chain of Great Lakes. I lost my water.

Breaking up hurts. Even after the hurt is healed, the memory can sting. Seeing the water at sunrise, the reflections, the tiny white caps and the boats gliding across it, made me yearn to dip my feet. I wanted to pick rocks and find shells. I wanted to dig my toes in the sand at the edge of the surf and wait for them to be engulfed in a wet mire of tiny crystals. I get giddy when I see the water. I’ve stopped before and taken a twenty minute break from the drive-from-hell to run along her shores, kids and hippie in tow. But I couldn’t stop this time. There was a family wedding to get to and we were late. I swallowed back a tear and kept driving, window down so I could smell the water and relive a thousand memories.

Even though breaking up hurts, it’s those little things you hold on to that make the occasional twinge of pain easier to bear—the good memories you fall back on, the ones that drown out the bad. Yes I miss my water, but there’s water here. It’s just different water. And I have memories, lots and lots and lots of them—from childhood through teenage years and on into adulthood. Lots.

And I have physical reminders.

Because when you break up, you always take something with you. You hold onto some little physical reminder. When my childhood sweetheart and I broke up, I wrapped the love letters in ribbon and tucked them into my babybox. I still have them, and the half-heart necklace is in a jewelry box. When my ex and I broke up, I put away specific jewelry to be handed down someday. And when Wisconsin and I broke up, I took her rocks. I have stones around the house and several pebbles I keep in my purse. They’ve lost their smell (yes, rocks have a smell) but just the sight of them is enough to allow me to let go of the hurt of the break up. To remember the good times.

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Breaking Bad

June 1, 2010

supernail_bite_no_moreWhen I was a rough and tumble tomboy of a teenager, I chewed my nails. They were trashed. They were nibbled and picked and often painfully bloody. It was a habit. One that I broke without really trying in my late teens, when my mind settled enough, and I aged enough, for my system to understand how to better handle stress. Now they look great with no effort at all [because no, I'm not "doing my nails" on a regular basis without a gun to my head] and I often get accused of wearing fakes.

I promised myself that I would quit smoking at 35. I missed the mark. I tried again at 38, with the help of Chantex. It was working rather well until the medical fubar from hell that stopped it dead in its tracks. Once healthy, I tried again. And I failed again. I’ve since decided “screw it”, I only have one bad habit and I’m keeping it*.

But do I?

Sure, I don’t drink much. I don’t chew my nails. I don’t do drugs. I don’t twirl my hair. But what is a habit? A habit is something we do without thinking about it. A habit is something you do repeatedly, until it becomes second nature. Something learned from repetition. For instance, I do interrupt people when they talk—and wish I could break that one!—which I totally blame on growing up in a house where everyone talks at once. You want to be heard? Jump in when they take a breath…

But are all habits bad? And more importantly, if they’re learned, can you unlearn… or unteach one?

My ex-husband had a strange habit. When things were going well, he would start a fight. I don’t know why for sure, but I always claimed it was because “happy” made him uncomfortable. You grow up and become what you grew up witnessing, often whether you want to or not. As much as I adore his mother, his parents did argue, bicker and nitpick—a lot. It was what he knew. What he was comfortable with. What he called normal and patterned his life after. It was a learned habit. After the divorce, I noticed my son getting pissy when everyone was happy and having fun. While he’s getting better as time goes by, it seems he’s picked up an environmental habit.

One I wish I could break.

But can you break someone else’s habit?

Bob & I have a talked at length about reactions that are habit due to previous relationships. We’re not breaking the other one’s habits, just gently reminding each other when they pop out, “I’m not him/her.” We have to break them ourselves. We have to relearn reactions and responses. It comes with the territory of being old and having lived, and failing at marriage, or any long term relationship. Awareness is necessary. But you also have to want to break a habit for it to work. And you have to catch it when it starts. Stop it, stop the reaction, stop the words, and tell yourself not to fall into that habit.

I’ve talked to the boy child, gently, and put the idea in his head that it could be a learned response. I’ve tried to counteract Pavlov’s training through both words and actions. But it’s not my habit, it’s his. It’s learned by what he lived, and I can only hope what he’s living now will adjust it. That he’s not too set in his ways already, at thirteen, to prevent him from unlearning and allowing happy to just be happy.

He’s 100% better than he was a year ago, but it’s still there on occasion. It still makes me sad that he falls into that habit… I wish he chewed his nails. There’s a polish to curb that.

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@kristen

May 19, 2010

Crunch-n-Munch-Blow-Up1…we are SO done!!

Welcome to Wednesday, hereafter known as Snark Day. For those that don’t understand the beginning of this, or the title for that matter, let me tell you a story. Actually, this blog, much like the new and improved Crunch ‘n Munch, is going to have popcorn, peanuts and caramel.

Popcorn: Last year at Necon, while waiting in line to get our Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, Alethea and I were scanning the tabloids and saw that the stars of Twilight had broken up. No, we didn’t care, but it became great fodder for a conversation where the teenagers should break up via Twitter. Thus the in-joke of “@kristen: we are so done” was born. Of course, the kernels of popcorn on the bottom of the container should include that we then fell in love with our coffee barista and her name was Kristen and we had a little guilt because she might have heard us saying that loudly. But just a little. And then we found out @kristen is a real person and seems kinda sweet and we had a little guilt again. But just a little. So yes, we still use this!

Now why do I bring that up? Because it’s a great story and because it’s how I felt about my bank yesterday when I found out they had twitter. Welcome to the peanut gallery, er, peanut section of our Crunch ‘n Munch.

Soooo… my bank, we’ll call it Em&Fee and protect my butt like my lawyer suggested I do, is NOT full of the awesome. It is full of the stupid. I paid my bills (because I’m good like that) and saw that one marked for another date decided to come through. Now this particular week was tight, but I paid everything knowing that I would have just enough to do it and have a safety net in the account that I use for the online bill paying. I saw the odd bill go through online before the bank was even open, RAN to the bank and stalked their locked doorway, and then burst through and put extra money in so that everything would be covered and beautiful. I asked the teller and she said the account was fine and that I did the right thing and all was good. I went to work and life was back where it was supposed to be.

And then TWO DAYS LATER they charged me $190 in bounced check fees for checks they not only paid, but paid from a balance that existed! Excuse me?

So I called Wonder Woman, the lovely bank manager that hasn’t had sex in 17 years and doesn’t even remember how to spell orgasm, and asked her “what the hell they thought they were doing?” She tried to calmly tell me the cable bill caused a bounce. I told her that the money was there and that I had a screen shot of said bill coming through and that there was a balance after everything cleared (and I did, it was open on my laptop and ready to be printed and shoved down her throat). I then asked her, with my out-of-practice-but-still-effective Wench voice, to explain to me “exactly why they thought they should charge people for bouncing when nothing bounced.” She tried to tell me that things bounced because of the bounce charge.

I waited for her to realize what she had said.

She didn’t catch it. Apparently, if you go for too long without an orgasm your brain just shuts off and they give you a management position. Long story short, I threatened to call the D.A. for unlawful charges, the BBB, ruin her job, destroy her marriage and I may have accidentally threatened her children. But she still claimed they would not return the charges. “Fine, I’m calling the D.A.” Seems if you say something enough times, it gets through the vaginal cobwebs of her brain and she decided to “look into it and call me back”. Whatever.

Meanwhile, I went to the credit union I’ve been meaning to switch to and opened a new account. I’m done with that bank. @Em&Fee: we are so done! I met Connie, giggled, laughed, got both a background check and a terrorist-list check (which we also giggled about, because really? Terrorists use their real information to open accounts? Yes, Connie said, amazingly, they do). I got a shiny new debit card ordered and $10 just for being pretty. And as I was leaving Awesome Union, where they offer you not one pen but a box of pens, Em&Fee called me back.

Wonder Women declared that it was indeed a bank error and they would be refunding the money. (Damn skippy, you are!!) And when I said “Fine. Thank you. I’m closing the account as soon as my direct deposits are confirmed at my new bank, because you’re full of the stupid” she began to tell me about exciting new offers that were coming up…

Welcome to the caramel portion of the box. The sticky residue that won’t go away. The boyfriend you dumped that just doesn’t get it. “We’re done, honey. Done. We broke up. You need to get your toothbrush and coffee cup and get the hell out of my house.”

And she told me about a new option for “our customers” that would be coming in the mail and that I needed to return it by August so that they would know which way I wanted my debit card to be charged from now on.

Helllooooo… McFly?!! I split the spice cabinet, I went through the photos, I took that necklace your mother gave me, and I filed the papers. I get full custody, you’re paying alimony, and we have a court date next Tuesday for Christ’s sake. We’re done!

She didn’t get it. I’m pretty sure she still doesn’t get it. Because as I’m writing this, I got an email from Em&Fee telling me that I can now do mobile text banking. I think I’ll sign their Twitter account up for midget porn…

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Midget Goats & Apocalyptic Nightscapes

May 18, 2010

ParkeHarrison-LucidDreamE-1Nightmares are simply outside influences indulging our subconscious, right? The evening news. The fight with your family member. That pizza you ate at midnight…

Or are they?

I’ve never been a lucid dreamer, am jealous of those that are, and almost want to deny the possibility. But I’ve been thinking [I know, I know...I'm sorry].

Any time someone has mentioned this amazing ability to change their dreams, its been a bad or weird dream—a nightmare. People don’t change the good ones, they let them run their courses, uninterrupted. Perhaps that means we’re supposed to change the bad outside of dreams—the influence that caused it. Stop eating pizza at bedtime and the faceless man will stop chasing me. Stop letting the Ex rile me up and the brakes won’t fail on that curve. Except, like us, the dreams change. Usually daily. So how do you match reality to its Freudian nightmare?

You don’t. You can’t. It’s almost, if not downright, impossible. So if you can’t stop the non-productive nightmares about midget goats and apocalyptic nightscapes (because, let’s face it, some nightmares are good and become muse food, others are just a bad waste of time) and you don’t have the wonderfully magic and almost fable-like ability to change them in progress, what’s left?

Lucid living. Change what you can regarding what you allow to bother you. What worries you. What eats at your intestines or chews away at your esophagus. Eat a little better. Sleep a little longer. And smile, nay laugh, daily. Because shadows and monsters have always been terrified of that which they cannot understand… and happiness confuses the hell out of them.

Lucid living to control the irrational imagination and nighttime wanderings of our subconscious. Sounds like a plan… let the experiment begin =)

*image stolen borrowed from J.L. Schnabel’s Blood Milk.

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Attack-Pick

May 6, 2010

ouch-voodoo-toothpick-1Bane of my existence.

Yes, that’s a harsh phrase. One I’ve used in jest over the years regarding this annoyance of the moment or that. One that was used to describe me by an ex-boyfriend for a while (*waves at Brian L*)—which I personally thought was a bit harsh. But I get it. I get the term. I get the usage.

And I have found the true bane of my existence.

See, the Ex used to always have toothpicks. It was a strange little habit he picked up from his father that I never really thought about or blinked at. Often, he would set them on the table near the ashtray with the intention of throwing them away later… and a cat or two would decide it was a new toy. Then I blinked and cared, because suddenly we were finding them everywhere. This was a humorous foible of the house and we made many a joke about it.

Until the day I stepped on one.

Now mind you, I didn’t just step on a flat toothpick. Oh no. Nor did I step on a broken one and poke myself with a jump and a start and an ironic swear word followed by giggling. Oh, hell no! I stepped on a broken one that had fallen into the carpet at just the right angle that it buried itself in the arch of my foot. You know, that tender spot that Legos, stegosauruses and other toys tend to find in the middle of the night. Yeah, that spot. And it required pulling out, with force, to remove. It was deep enough that it bled. And it sucked more than wet socks… which is a whole different blog regarding pet peeves for the feeble minded!

After that, they became my bane. If I saw one I floor I would point and scream, fearful of my arches and making a big deal out of it in jest with the family and threatening to stab the cats with one of the evil wooden spears.

Then I got divorced and the toothpicks went away. It was actually kind of funny the day I saw one and realized I hadn’t for a while.

galentoothpickAnd now they’re back. See that picture? That’s my keyboard at work. That’s Papasan’s idea of funny. Because when I told my boss’s father (who refuses to retire and keeps coming to work and probably always will) about the toothpicks when I saw him with one, he turned it into a game. A game I didn’t think was funny at first, considering I run around the office barefoot every day, even in the winter.

But when I realized I never found one on the floor—only behind his ear, in his mouth, or strategically placed on my desk (such as in the keyboard)—I began to play back. We now have toothpicks jabbed into corkboards, holding up calendars and my personal favorite, all Papasan’s messages are stuck to a toothpick on his wall like an order in a restaurant on that little silver skewer they keep on their counters.

It’s funny now. It’s a game now. But you know what they say… it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye steps on a toothpick!

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