Ok, so the year's going to end. I'm good with that. But I started thinking/reflecting this morning over all that has happened and I think it's a good idea to get it all down. Because hey, I really thought it'd been longer.
This time last year (05 going into 06), Figaro had been dead for 13 days. I remember that Mary sat on my lap at Mom's during Christmas and told me all about Molly. I love that girl. I don't care what anyone says, I hope she and Eric do get married. They're good for each other, they love each other, and (contrary to what my Mother told me) I don't think it matters at all if she ends up not being able to have kids.
God, I was REALLY DEPRESSED. Jazz had died in Sept. Exactly 1 year to the month since Suzie told me I had the job of my dreams and then made it impossible for me to keep it. In fact, it was Sept 02 when we bought this place, our first house, and I was absolutely terrified of the size of the house, the yard and the mortgage. We moved in in Oct. Fri-Sun the last week-end of the month and I took Christopher to the airport at 5:00am Mon morning and he didn't get home again until 5 days before Xmas and we were hosting both families over the course of 2-3 days. Oh right, in the middle of all that, Lori had Kalin. A child she said she never wanted, until I found out I couldn't have one. Then, she said to hubby Dan (my husband's boss and marriage #3 for her) "Gee, should we try to have one? I've never wanted kids but maybe we should talk about it?". Ok, so the timeline:
2001- Found out in Feb that I was not pregnant, I was in fact in full-blown menopause. Depression lasts just over a year. In the middle of it I get a bleeding ulcer and my crit drops to 19.
2002-Spring. In March Christopher announces he wants a house. I'm just barely conscious again. Has to have a garage. Has to be in Edmonds. I start house-hunting in one zip code, questionably functional and wondering how in the hell we'll be able to make a $2,000 a month mortgage which is what we're looking at with interest rates in June. By Aug, I've been through every house on the market in our area, more-or-less by myself. Lori comes with me once. She's worked in real estate for almost 20yrs but got pregnant in late winter and is showing/planning/preparing for the birth and isn't really including me in any of that so I'm pretty much on my own. Had to fire our R.E. agent (who'd been a personal friend for 15+ yrs) because he didn't even get an offer in on a house I FOUND that was the only one I'd seen in 4mo that I liked, fit all the criteria and that we could afford. Thank God interest rates have dropped! But hey, I found another house, hired new agents, Christopher flew in and gave his approval on it, flew out again, and the paperwork started. Then he flew back in for the signing, out afterwards, in to move (but not to pack -up the townhouse we'd called home for 10yrs) and right back out again after the move. So I packed, unpacked, decorated, learned to run the lawnmower and tend to the 40 rosebushes I knew absolutely nothing about all by my lonesome.
2003- Oh yeah, I remember; Christopher didn't get to come home for our first Thanksgiving 02, in the house. He was in one of the M states running an installation. I don't remember all the "where-to's and why-for's" but a cop ended up finding coke in a packet in their company rental van and when he asked whose it was, my husband said "that would be mine". So for our first xmas in the house.... we got an attourney on retainer. Then there were the character-reference letters and who can we ask that we can live with them knowing, and the D.A. wants to make an example of him so will we have to sell the house? And I'm sorry honey but I asked my very favorite of all your cousins to write a letter because I thought since she'd known you (close family, lots of shared events) her WHOLE LIFE and she's a cop could she see her way clear to....... only she's pissed and we haven't spoken since the day I asked her to do it even tho I took her a hand-written apology the day after she told me NO in no uncertain terms. So I don't remember much about winter 03. But Kailey was born in Sept 03 and that made so many things so very different. But Christopher was still on the road and we were starting to be in trouble.
2004- Job of my dreams in Sept just fell into my lap. Three 8th grade math classes 110min periods and they're Mine-All-Mine! The guy they'd hired for the position moved out to WA and then called to tell them he wasn't taking the job. Susan H. who had worked lots with me and really liked my style, called to say the job was mine if I wanted it. I asked her if she was sure because I didn't think I was at the top of the list of people Suzie B. (principal) would want. Susan told me that Suzie had said to her that she (Suzie) didn't think I wanted to work for her. I told Suzie I'd do it as a long-term sub until they could get someone else but she said "I don't want anyone else I want you." I thought it was a done deal.......... So I went in and opened the year, bonded with those kids and made an environment we could all be proud of and be successful in. Then Suzie said my score on my application was too low........ "Are you saying I flunked the application?!"............. I've never flunked anything in my life!!!! Turns out it's all done on a point value system. My score was great.......... just not for Suzie. Apparently principals can pick the exact number their applicants have to have. And they can check on the numbers of anyone in the pool as well. It would have been nothing for her to have found out what my number was, and raised hers above it. I got that information from human resources after I'd written my 4th "Thesis Paper" on my educational style, skills and philosophies in an attempt to "pass" my application! The truth was that Suzie screwed with me because she could. So, 7-8 weeks after I started I was done and she went in and told all my kids that I quit because I didn't want the job. I still see them. Many have told me they learned more from me in the beginning of the year than they did throughout the entire rest of it with the guy who replaced me. God that was awful.
I thought I was home. I cried every day for 3 weeks and then started gathering paperwork to go look for an attourney. I had a case. I didn't pursue it.
2005- I was a mess all through the Fall of 04. The marriage wasn't in much better shape. So I started planning a cruise for us. Something to bond over. Something to shop for so I could feel like I had a purpose after losing the job of my dreams. We flew to New Orleans the week Mardi-Gras started and boarded a ship for the Carribean. The following week we debarked and went off in search of Naw'lins minus all the hysteria and crowds. It was exactly what we both needed. Oh that's right, I'd taken a really bad fall in Dec and bruised my ribcage. I couldn't move or breath for 6 weeks. We were afraid I wouldn't be able to do the cruise. But it was ok except for some lingering pain. But I had pneumonia during one of the winters in the new house, I just don't seem to be sure of which one.....
Ok, so then Jazz died Sept 1st, 2005. Then there was the Steiner Family Thanksgiving (the whole clan gets together once every 5yrs.... 140+ people, rented hall, planning committee rotates each time and it was our turn) then Figaro died Dec 18th and then it was 2006.
2006- The bottom drops out of our lives. I went back into a depression which I came out of very slowly...... well maybe not so slow because I was functioning again by Sept. So, I guess you could say that 06 was ok. Molly mended me. So even tho I didn't leave the house for 5mo (Jan-May) except to pick up Kailey from daycare and I stopped taking care of the yard altogether...... by the end of the summer, during which I never saw Kailey because Andi had graduated from Ed school and didn't need me to watch her 3-4 days a week anymore..... and oh my God I thought May would die from the grief of losing Figaro and she damn near did....... and then when Mom and Dad Steiner came over for dinner on the 4th of July and I was at the grocery store and Christopher opened up the sliding glass door and she bolted right out of it. So I walked the streets looking for her until the fireworks were so loud I couldn't have heard her if she was right over me. Went to sleep about 1am (was hoping she'd call for me after fireworks stopped), woke up at 4:30 and by 6 we heard her calling and Christopher got a fix on where she was. So I walked over and sat under the tree she was in all day. I came home once to go potty and she flew off into another tree. So I located her again and went to sit under that tree until it was almost to dark to see. I cried and cried for her and told her she had to come down because I couldn't stay out there all night and just before the sun dropped completely below the horizon she launched out of the tree, circled me twice and then went back to the tree she'd been in. It was completely dark by the time I got home and maybe 9:30 or 10:00. I was back at that tree at dawn but I never saw her again. Christopher left for the airport at about 9-9:30. I put posters up, walked all the blocks she'd been on, calling her name for days and days. But she was gone. My Dad said maybe she left because she knew she was going to die soon (Figaro was 20 when he passed which is the outer edge of life expectancy for cockatiels) and didn't want me to have to find her like I did him. I think that in the end I must have failed her because why else wouldn't she have wanted to come back home to be with her mom until the end.......... Four weeks later, Christopher got a "promotion" which meant he would only travel 3-5mo out of the year instead of 9-11 and now he's on salary so our income just dropped 30-40,000 a year. And he's been pissed and hostile and demeaning for months because I'm just "dead weight" and haven't been doing anything but spending money for years and he has nothing to show for all the work he's done. In fact, he was on the road when Molly got hurt, came home for the 2 days she was in the hospital and then left again the day she got out. So I was working full time, with a sick baby, a broken car and then the storm moved in and all the power went out for 3 days. Six hours after it came back on, 5 hours after she'd seen the vet, she was gone. Two days later Christopher came home. God, I'm tired. And this is the most loving and attentive my husband has been toward me for a very long time. I'd trade it all away to have Molly back. We would have worked things out on our own. This was too high a price to pay. I've been so grateful for all of the wonderful gifts I've had in my life and when I look back on it.......... the truth is that I've worked very hard to be here in one piece. So maybe 07 is a little less "whatever you think is best God" and a little more "This is what I'm doing God!" Maybe, it was never your path I was supposed to be on. Maybe, it's my path you're supposed to be watching over.
Clearly, I don't have all the answers. Hell, I don't even know most of the questions anymore. But I look back on all that and I remember physical therapy for my back, two cracked ribs, kidney stones, bronchial infections, the ulcer, and the day that Liz told me if I didn't pull myself together I was going to die alone and friendless, all the while dealing with mood swings, night sweats, day sweats and hot flashes, migraines and the ever-present muscle tension and back-ache that comes with 36DDD breasts on a 5'4" frame weighing in at about 135-140lbs. In the middle of which my 25yr best friendship with Lori collapsed under the weight of her marrying my husband's immediate supervisor and never stopping to think if it would make anything even the least bit uncomfortable for me? It never occured to her to even ask. But then, she just knew I'd be thrilled that she was trying to conceive and hey....... she even told me that if it was twins, then the plan was to give one to me. I've been.....................................................
I've been doing the best I could under the circumstances I was in for as long as I could at any given time. What else is there? I get up in the morning and go out and do the best I can at the time. And I think maybe that's a plan for 07 that I can live with.
This time last year (05 going into 06), Figaro had been dead for 13 days. I remember that Mary sat on my lap at Mom's during Christmas and told me all about Molly. I love that girl. I don't care what anyone says, I hope she and Eric do get married. They're good for each other, they love each other, and (contrary to what my Mother told me) I don't think it matters at all if she ends up not being able to have kids.
God, I was REALLY DEPRESSED. Jazz had died in Sept. Exactly 1 year to the month since Suzie told me I had the job of my dreams and then made it impossible for me to keep it. In fact, it was Sept 02 when we bought this place, our first house, and I was absolutely terrified of the size of the house, the yard and the mortgage. We moved in in Oct. Fri-Sun the last week-end of the month and I took Christopher to the airport at 5:00am Mon morning and he didn't get home again until 5 days before Xmas and we were hosting both families over the course of 2-3 days. Oh right, in the middle of all that, Lori had Kalin. A child she said she never wanted, until I found out I couldn't have one. Then, she said to hubby Dan (my husband's boss and marriage #3 for her) "Gee, should we try to have one? I've never wanted kids but maybe we should talk about it?". Ok, so the timeline:
2001- Found out in Feb that I was not pregnant, I was in fact in full-blown menopause. Depression lasts just over a year. In the middle of it I get a bleeding ulcer and my crit drops to 19.
2002-Spring. In March Christopher announces he wants a house. I'm just barely conscious again. Has to have a garage. Has to be in Edmonds. I start house-hunting in one zip code, questionably functional and wondering how in the hell we'll be able to make a $2,000 a month mortgage which is what we're looking at with interest rates in June. By Aug, I've been through every house on the market in our area, more-or-less by myself. Lori comes with me once. She's worked in real estate for almost 20yrs but got pregnant in late winter and is showing/planning/preparing for the birth and isn't really including me in any of that so I'm pretty much on my own. Had to fire our R.E. agent (who'd been a personal friend for 15+ yrs) because he didn't even get an offer in on a house I FOUND that was the only one I'd seen in 4mo that I liked, fit all the criteria and that we could afford. Thank God interest rates have dropped! But hey, I found another house, hired new agents, Christopher flew in and gave his approval on it, flew out again, and the paperwork started. Then he flew back in for the signing, out afterwards, in to move (but not to pack -up the townhouse we'd called home for 10yrs) and right back out again after the move. So I packed, unpacked, decorated, learned to run the lawnmower and tend to the 40 rosebushes I knew absolutely nothing about all by my lonesome.
2003- Oh yeah, I remember; Christopher didn't get to come home for our first Thanksgiving 02, in the house. He was in one of the M states running an installation. I don't remember all the "where-to's and why-for's" but a cop ended up finding coke in a packet in their company rental van and when he asked whose it was, my husband said "that would be mine". So for our first xmas in the house.... we got an attourney on retainer. Then there were the character-reference letters and who can we ask that we can live with them knowing, and the D.A. wants to make an example of him so will we have to sell the house? And I'm sorry honey but I asked my very favorite of all your cousins to write a letter because I thought since she'd known you (close family, lots of shared events) her WHOLE LIFE and she's a cop could she see her way clear to....... only she's pissed and we haven't spoken since the day I asked her to do it even tho I took her a hand-written apology the day after she told me NO in no uncertain terms. So I don't remember much about winter 03. But Kailey was born in Sept 03 and that made so many things so very different. But Christopher was still on the road and we were starting to be in trouble.
2004- Job of my dreams in Sept just fell into my lap. Three 8th grade math classes 110min periods and they're Mine-All-Mine! The guy they'd hired for the position moved out to WA and then called to tell them he wasn't taking the job. Susan H. who had worked lots with me and really liked my style, called to say the job was mine if I wanted it. I asked her if she was sure because I didn't think I was at the top of the list of people Suzie B. (principal) would want. Susan told me that Suzie had said to her that she (Suzie) didn't think I wanted to work for her. I told Suzie I'd do it as a long-term sub until they could get someone else but she said "I don't want anyone else I want you." I thought it was a done deal.......... So I went in and opened the year, bonded with those kids and made an environment we could all be proud of and be successful in. Then Suzie said my score on my application was too low........ "Are you saying I flunked the application?!"............. I've never flunked anything in my life!!!! Turns out it's all done on a point value system. My score was great.......... just not for Suzie. Apparently principals can pick the exact number their applicants have to have. And they can check on the numbers of anyone in the pool as well. It would have been nothing for her to have found out what my number was, and raised hers above it. I got that information from human resources after I'd written my 4th "Thesis Paper" on my educational style, skills and philosophies in an attempt to "pass" my application! The truth was that Suzie screwed with me because she could. So, 7-8 weeks after I started I was done and she went in and told all my kids that I quit because I didn't want the job. I still see them. Many have told me they learned more from me in the beginning of the year than they did throughout the entire rest of it with the guy who replaced me. God that was awful.
I thought I was home. I cried every day for 3 weeks and then started gathering paperwork to go look for an attourney. I had a case. I didn't pursue it.
2005- I was a mess all through the Fall of 04. The marriage wasn't in much better shape. So I started planning a cruise for us. Something to bond over. Something to shop for so I could feel like I had a purpose after losing the job of my dreams. We flew to New Orleans the week Mardi-Gras started and boarded a ship for the Carribean. The following week we debarked and went off in search of Naw'lins minus all the hysteria and crowds. It was exactly what we both needed. Oh that's right, I'd taken a really bad fall in Dec and bruised my ribcage. I couldn't move or breath for 6 weeks. We were afraid I wouldn't be able to do the cruise. But it was ok except for some lingering pain. But I had pneumonia during one of the winters in the new house, I just don't seem to be sure of which one.....
Ok, so then Jazz died Sept 1st, 2005. Then there was the Steiner Family Thanksgiving (the whole clan gets together once every 5yrs.... 140+ people, rented hall, planning committee rotates each time and it was our turn) then Figaro died Dec 18th and then it was 2006.
2006- The bottom drops out of our lives. I went back into a depression which I came out of very slowly...... well maybe not so slow because I was functioning again by Sept. So, I guess you could say that 06 was ok. Molly mended me. So even tho I didn't leave the house for 5mo (Jan-May) except to pick up Kailey from daycare and I stopped taking care of the yard altogether...... by the end of the summer, during which I never saw Kailey because Andi had graduated from Ed school and didn't need me to watch her 3-4 days a week anymore..... and oh my God I thought May would die from the grief of losing Figaro and she damn near did....... and then when Mom and Dad Steiner came over for dinner on the 4th of July and I was at the grocery store and Christopher opened up the sliding glass door and she bolted right out of it. So I walked the streets looking for her until the fireworks were so loud I couldn't have heard her if she was right over me. Went to sleep about 1am (was hoping she'd call for me after fireworks stopped), woke up at 4:30 and by 6 we heard her calling and Christopher got a fix on where she was. So I walked over and sat under the tree she was in all day. I came home once to go potty and she flew off into another tree. So I located her again and went to sit under that tree until it was almost to dark to see. I cried and cried for her and told her she had to come down because I couldn't stay out there all night and just before the sun dropped completely below the horizon she launched out of the tree, circled me twice and then went back to the tree she'd been in. It was completely dark by the time I got home and maybe 9:30 or 10:00. I was back at that tree at dawn but I never saw her again. Christopher left for the airport at about 9-9:30. I put posters up, walked all the blocks she'd been on, calling her name for days and days. But she was gone. My Dad said maybe she left because she knew she was going to die soon (Figaro was 20 when he passed which is the outer edge of life expectancy for cockatiels) and didn't want me to have to find her like I did him. I think that in the end I must have failed her because why else wouldn't she have wanted to come back home to be with her mom until the end.......... Four weeks later, Christopher got a "promotion" which meant he would only travel 3-5mo out of the year instead of 9-11 and now he's on salary so our income just dropped 30-40,000 a year. And he's been pissed and hostile and demeaning for months because I'm just "dead weight" and haven't been doing anything but spending money for years and he has nothing to show for all the work he's done. In fact, he was on the road when Molly got hurt, came home for the 2 days she was in the hospital and then left again the day she got out. So I was working full time, with a sick baby, a broken car and then the storm moved in and all the power went out for 3 days. Six hours after it came back on, 5 hours after she'd seen the vet, she was gone. Two days later Christopher came home. God, I'm tired. And this is the most loving and attentive my husband has been toward me for a very long time. I'd trade it all away to have Molly back. We would have worked things out on our own. This was too high a price to pay. I've been so grateful for all of the wonderful gifts I've had in my life and when I look back on it.......... the truth is that I've worked very hard to be here in one piece. So maybe 07 is a little less "whatever you think is best God" and a little more "This is what I'm doing God!" Maybe, it was never your path I was supposed to be on. Maybe, it's my path you're supposed to be watching over.
Clearly, I don't have all the answers. Hell, I don't even know most of the questions anymore. But I look back on all that and I remember physical therapy for my back, two cracked ribs, kidney stones, bronchial infections, the ulcer, and the day that Liz told me if I didn't pull myself together I was going to die alone and friendless, all the while dealing with mood swings, night sweats, day sweats and hot flashes, migraines and the ever-present muscle tension and back-ache that comes with 36DDD breasts on a 5'4" frame weighing in at about 135-140lbs. In the middle of which my 25yr best friendship with Lori collapsed under the weight of her marrying my husband's immediate supervisor and never stopping to think if it would make anything even the least bit uncomfortable for me? It never occured to her to even ask. But then, she just knew I'd be thrilled that she was trying to conceive and hey....... she even told me that if it was twins, then the plan was to give one to me. I've been.....................................................
I've been doing the best I could under the circumstances I was in for as long as I could at any given time. What else is there? I get up in the morning and go out and do the best I can at the time. And I think maybe that's a plan for 07 that I can live with.
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