How've you been? I missed you guys. Thanks for all the emails from my loyal invisible internet readers. Y'all are awesome.
Stepford blog is coming back up soon.
Right here. Same Bat time. Same Bat channel. As it should be.
Just gonna take a while to get the archived posts formatted & dates/times correct. Hopefully the photos will all come back over too, but I have no idea. And I'm a little busy over here in the real world, but it should be coming back up piece-meal as I can port it back over into Blogger.
Sorry for the drama - not mine, not my doing, or choosing.
It was you and me, and one hot summer Beading up with sweat all over each other Soaking wet We didn't have a lot of time So we didn't waste much Found in all the right places You wanted me to touch And all those memories Make it so hard to forget about me...
I bet you wish you had me back Another chance to gain it just like that The best you ever had
And do you close your eyes with her, And pretend I'm doing you again -Like only I can
I bet you wish you had me back
It was you and me, it seemed to last forever The way you taste, and I still remember The sounds we made. One day in June I stayed all night, And made love to you like The 4th of July. And all those memories, Make it so hard to forget about me...
I bet you wish you had me back Another chance to gain it just like that The best you ever had
And do you close your eyes with her, And pretend I'm doing you again - Like only I can I bet you wish you had me back
Every night, every time, You see me when you close your eyes...
I bet you wish you had me back Another chance to gain it just like that -Like only I can
Yeah, it's empty here in Stepford. All 242 blog posts since July 2006 have been deleted.
My apologies to all my loyal readers over the last five years. Y'all have been fantastic, and I cannot thank you enough for your support along the way.
I'll explain later.
In the meantime, new blog. Can't post the URL here, but if you email me and ask - and I can verify you are who you say - I'll redirect you
For the others: and the horse you rode in on, bitches
A candle burning for everything I've ever wanted A tattoo burned for everything I've ever wanted and lost I had a long list of names that I kept in my back pocket, But I've cut it down to one and your name's at the top
Won't you share a common disaster? Share with me a common disaster A common disaster
I found myself a friend, But he's crooked as a stick in water So now I'm writing fairy tales revenge He's got a plan to steal my little sister, But I'm not too concerned 'cause I will get him in the end
Won't you share a common disaster? Share with me a common disaster A common disaster
Going to find me someone to share A common disaster Run away with me from a life so cramped and dull Not worry too much about the happily-ever-after Just keep the Caddy moving 'til we're well beyond that hill
Won't you share a common disaster? Share with me a common disaster A common disaster
A dead end street is a good place to turn around ~Naomi Judd
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living -unknown
Thirteen months ago, The Husband found gainful employment two hours away. I got excited for a minute. "This is our second chance" he had said. We would go to counseling when we moved there, he claimed. Give it one more real try. With the stipulation that I would find some accountability there for checking in on how I was treating him. Until we all moved to Clean Slate as a family, everything was on hold. Put in a box, emotion-wise. To be continued. And we ran things on the surface, civil and family-friendly. Still no kisses or touches or real engagement of any sort.
We put our house on the market, and he left Monday through Friday. Back to Stepford on the weekends, when I would go to work. It was the best summer I can recall. I had picnics and pool days with my children. We made cards and crafts and fed the ducks and geese at the pond. We picked raspberries and blueberries multiple times. We made pies and cobblers and muffins. I read books like I used to years ago (for fun, not for crisis-save-my-marriage). I wore sundresses with no underwear. I discovered the weekly podcast of NPR's "This American Life" which I used to love to hear on NPR, but couldn't find on our radio for years. I played music with good beats and likely inappropriate lyrics for my children. But we sang and danced and ate dinners outside.
After several weeks into this, maybe a month, I recognized that on every Thursday night I would fold in on myself. Like the time-lapse photography of a blooming flower. In reverse. Because he would be coming home the next day. And Who I Am was nothing of interest to him. There was nothing between us but parenting and running the house communication. It was all very amicable mostly, but having some time to bloom alone I did not like having him around and wishing for a relationship that just wasn't. And I was discovering Me again. And that I liked who I was more than my husband did. I had forgotten myself in the maelstrom. And for years before, truth be told.
And then it was fall. House still not sold in this crap pre-election economy. So kids start school and we continue this weekly routine. Only I add the gym and running every morning after the kids are in school. More books. More podcasts like "The Moth". More candles in the house and sassy clothes purchased, not always worn. Just on hold. Less linear living. We take a stepladder to a huge apple tree in our subdivision once a week after school and fill a huge basket with them. We make cakes and pies and applesauce and share them. We 'Boo' friends houses in October with Halloween goodies, my children sneaking up to ring the doorbell and run. It was the best fall I can recall. Until each Thursday afternoon-ish, when I would shrivel back up inside. It was nothing he did when he was home; he's a basic good man and a wonderful father. It was just everything we were. And were not.
And then I f*cked up. Spectacularly. And everything imploded. So I guess in the end that's a good thing. -ish. I still haven't decided exactly in hindsight, because there was serious loss as well. Glad I am not trudging that same worn path of my hopeless marriage, but unsure if anything other than a bomb blast would have moved us on out of the building. Condemned. Been condemned. Why are you still in this building? Can you not see it's unsafe for occupancy?
A lot of my belief system is upside down in the months since, so what you read now may or may not sound like the same girl who wrote the last three years of sh!t on this blog. I cannot even go back and read all that bemoaning and angst, it's excruciating. I could trim this blog to about a third of its original ramblings and agree with those. The rest I would delete, I think. Or severely edit. But it was my torturous processing of it all, so there it sits.
Wow, has it really been over six months since you've heard from me? Really? Jesus. I can't even spend the hours it would take to update you. But oh, you know you'll get it in snippets and highlights.
Nutshell: Separated, getting Divorced. Officially since January 2nd. Truly? Years. If my sweet children (and faux poverty) were not involved, I would be doing cartwheels.
Brutal honesty. Why did I ever marry this man? And completely lose who I am as a crazyass-yet-okay individual? Being completely "the problem" in our marriage. We are so incompatible it is insane. Oh I became the Problem all right. In spades. But that's for another episode.
So if anyone still follows this once-popular, now-neglected-as-hell blog, thanks. I'm here. Will try to get you as up to speed as possible.
But what you used to read about me and my life is completely topsy-turvy and inverted now. We have transformed into Bizarro Stepford. Buckle up.
This Christmas Eve night we drove past a parking lot on our way to see Christmas lights with the kids.
It was a parking lot where, just three years prior this very month, I had hastily transferred my children, under cover of darkness, to a waiting vehicle to ferry them two hours away to my inlaws. Removing all loved ones from the Fourth Circle of Hell.
I then drove in the opposite direction for my own two hours to a waiting airplane. I flew cross-country to my husband to attempt to save my marriage, as I witnessed his affair unfold via email & Blackberry. And had no damned idea what the hell I was doing, what I would say, how I could single-handedly stop time.
So, a mere four nights ago, I once again looked out into that parking lot as it passed by on my right, and felt such compassion for the poor girl who was in a blind panic and was attempting to regain any semblance of control of her life.
I just wanted to pull into the past and climb out of my car and hug her. Tell her she couldn't get control of this. Tell her what not to do in the next three years. Tell her how to handle what was coming.
I cannot begin to explain how overcome I was in that moment; looking into the darkness and having a truly tender love for my three-year-ago self ... and the world she was about to walk through.
