Category: family

I breathe…

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I’m working two jobs, these days. From full-time student to juggling two jobs of which I won’t see any fruit until long after bill due dates, and even then those dates will have looped back around. That’s ok. I actually really love both jobs, and my favorite part of them is connecting with people. A smile and a friendly interaction can really change the course of their day.

The really awkward part about starting to work at entry-level jobs is that the majority of my co-workers (and in one instance, bosses) are the age of my kids. I have loved getting to know them and the conversations that have blossomed, but there is this voice calling to me from deep inside that tells me I’m a loser, and I’m a failure because I’m there, scraping to survive with 24 year olds who are just growing up.

Am I 39 and just growing up?

I’ve been able to silence the voice, thus far, because honestly it really doesn’t bother me. A little maybe, but not for those reasons. For the reasons that I simply worked really hard and invested my everything into a life and a family which are just fine without me. I am very proud of committing and focussing to be the very best I could be, for them, for my life’s work and purpose. Things changed. I got sick, (depression) and consequentially this is my life now. It is, at times, so lonely I can’t even gasp for air… At other times, it’s the memories of my family that get me through and make me smile. The tears are always there, behind the eye lids. Sometimes they spill, sometimes they flood… But still, every waking morning I come closer and closer to accepting my fate. Am I behind other women my age, professionally? Significantly… But life is not about work. It isn’t about “success” in the world’s eyes… I have lived my life and loved so incredibly much, that maybe in some ways I’m ahead of them too… At least, for a large part of my life, my priority was where it should have been. And now, now my life is that of my twenty year old co-workers, only I could be their mother.

We do the best we can, and that’s simply it. I’m doing my best, succeed or fail, this is all I’ve gone.

All of my friends are either solid in their career, or still at home with their kids. They don’t get it, and that’s ok. I’m learning that I don’t need to be “gotten”. Again, I walked away from that too. A single mom friend said to me, “At least you don’t have kids. I am so jealous of your new start and second chance.” I guess we’re all there, comparing what we do or do not have to someone else. Believe me, this is no beautifully ideal new beginning. I’d rather have someone to hug, someone who needed me and whispered “I love you” as they fell asleep…

Last week someone asked me what my life feels like. I try not to think about it, but when I do (If I’m honest) my life feels exactly how I imagine hell to feel. Complete isolation from true personal intimacy and living within the very deep and fragrant realizations of my short comings, mistakes and failures… The only difference between what I can imagine to be hell and my reality is that I at least can move forward and try to build something new. I don’t want to, but that’s my choice. Either do, or succumb to bitterness. So I do. I wake up, I pray, I read, I go to work. I come home. I learn. I actively show love to the people I see, the best I can. I fight a painful night of sleep with the most horrifyingly vivid dreams, when sleep wins. I wake up and do it again. I try not to resent the laundry when I fold it and it is only my clothes. I avoid the kitchen (haven’t cooked since November) because it reminds me of what I don’t have. My life is the polar opposite of the life I both gave up willingly, and was stolen from me. I breathe. In every moment, that is my only consistent and sane decision…

I breathe.

Be grateful and glad in all things, and when all else fails… rant?

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

tvA long time ago I truly grasped the lesson & importance of being grateful and glad in all things… Then something got lost, along my journey. I sunk deep into a terrifying depression, which I couldn’t truly understand while drowning in it, but strangely and intricately do now. Within that depression, a great many things changed. I had lost, along the way, the importance of being grateful and glad in all things. Truthfully, I felt like I was barely surviving. My perspective of all things, from my parenting to my marriage, my education to my skills and talents, was all seen through a filter so far from reality. In the end of that chapter, I partook in a very time sensitive decision, going in a direction where I believed I would actually be needed, valued and wanted. The truth, outside of that sludgy despair however is that I was far too emotionally sick to really know what any of that looked like. Depression is a beast… Sometimes it can lay at bay, on the surface, and it feels like you’re out of the sea. That’s the best I can explain it.

I wonder what would have looked different if I’d been able to hold on to my sense of being grateful and glad in all things? In all things would mean in the sea of depression or other illnesses as well. In isolation from the very people you live with and love. In abandonment from relationships which fed your life. In the joy and celebration that comes with great blessings… In all things.

I lost this sense. My sense. And over the past many days I’ve been reminded and validated upon the path of reclaiming it. I am someone who needs relationship with people. This is not a character defect. This is not a deep, emotional flaw. This is how I am designed. I am crafted to thrive on connection with others. Our society promotes surface connections, declaring that true friendship is talks of sex, meeting for drinks and Facebook collections. None of these are friendship. Sure, friends CAN talk about sex, share a drink and be connected on social media, but when one, two or all three of these things make up the bulk of your “support system”, there is no support. We have a need to be entertained in all things, and have had this need for independence shoved down our throats. There is this weird parasite in our thoughts that we mustn’t allow ourselves to be too vulnerable, too needy, too dependent upon someone else. What is wrong with us? And we can go through a season in our lives when we form a real, true and deep connection with someone but that tapeworm of ridiculous garbage will live again and try to destroy it. While I suspect we all have the same need, but different life circumstances have left us scarred and unable to heal it, I at least know for sure that I do have this need. In the core of connecting with others, conversation and interactions I thrive. Without that, in any form of isolation, I wither. I can be grateful and glad in all things… In all times. In all seasons. That is my choice, and one I must make and work to retain. Whether it is times of togetherness or isolation. But the intentional connection thing is something I am going to have to be sure to do, as well. In all things… It is the cure to my depression, the cure to that childhood lie stitched upon my soul that I am unloveable. We were created for community, and within a community I must live…

I was already thinking these things, relearning and newly realizing these things, and at this very place in my journey when my pastor, Sunday, spoke on this very idea. I can’t take credit for it at all, as I am merely recycling other people’s wisdom with my own commentary. One thing he said Sunday which hasn’t left the forefront of my brain since then was that a study conducted in 1984 polled people to see how many close friends they had. The average number among the majority was 3. The same poll was taken within the last year or two and the majority answered 0. ZERO. NONE. The majority of people have no one whom they can trust, confide in, rely on… And the very best part of friendship is also being trusted by someone, listening to someone and knowing you are reliable. What has changed in those 22 years? The internet, the mass web of social media, the rise and growth of video games and our 700 television channels waiting for us. Beyond technology, not much has changed. This is sad to me. There was a time when lunch with friends, long distance phone calls and actually, truly knowing someone, were normal. Now, they are occasional treats. We say we are busy, but we aren’t. We are programmed to be “busy” with tv shows, video games and our cell phone obsessions. I remember paying steep long distance bills and buying phone cards to talk to friends for hours. Now? Now I could go a week without a single conversation and NO ONE PAYS LONG DISTANCE anymore!

This totally turned into a rant, which wasn’t my intention… Be grateful and glad in all things… I am grateful to realize this, and glad to know that this epidemic is easily solvable. It just takes altering our priorities and intentionally connecting with someone. Engage in a conversation, get together over a cup of coffee or dinner and talk. Listen. Love. It’s easier than we think. Maybe not as easy as turning on the tv or gazing at our iPhones, but it is so much more rewarding… We idolize our electronics, but the truth is that they don’t give a damn about is.

Forty Eve…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Last year my birthday had me turning 39…

I spent the day with my husband and youngest daughter, but I honestly do not recall what we did. I do remember my husband did one of his characteristically thoughtful little surprises. Those are the things I love to remember the most. It’s bittersweet…

The one thing I did FOR myself, on my birthday, was taking a time out to work on a list of forty things I wanted to do before my fortieth birthday.

Here is the list now…

  • My first 5K
  • get a job.
  • take classes or a course to make #2 easier.
  • go on a real vacation with my family.
  • get my passport.
  • get my concealed weapons license.
  • finish my memoir
  • Learn how to do four new things.
  • make a new friend.
  • get into essential oils.
  • have dinner with, and spend time with William. (My high school BFF)
  • see my son.
  • make it as natural as breathing to bless someone else’s day, anonymously, every day.
  • to go on a long weekend with my husband.
  • take up yoga regularly.
  • Go to Idaho to see friends.
  • See a new-to-me broadway show.
  • confront my fear and hold a snake.
  • Put my toes in the ocean.
  • Live intentionally, Savoring even the unsavory in some way.
  • write more letters and notes than emails and texts.
  • realize what is really important, and focus on those things/people.
  • Skydive
  • take Gen (my youngest) to the DIA.
  • Do something memorable and special, with my family, every month.
  • have a girlfriend getaway.
  • pick up my camera and become friends with it again.
  • get new wedding rings.
  • Ride horses again, it had been ages.
  • go up north in the fall.
  • create something beautiful.
  • Speak in a public speaking engagement.
  • dance with and date my husband intentionally.
  • make REAL plans with Kozzette, for Sundance.
  • be an intentional gift giver to those I love the most.
  • get a basket for my bike, to carry picnics and flowers in, all summer.
  • more non-tv nights than those with the tv on.
  • catalogue the things that make me laugh, for when I can’t.
  • Be a better version of who I was at 38.
  • plan an amazing celebration, for my next decade, with the people I love the most there.

When I pulled this gem of a list out, some 65 days before my birthday, I went through various stages of shock… Bold would be the things I actually have done/continue to do. I admit that I was a little devastated to read through these items.  It was like having to face a bullet-list reality of your very personal failures.

If I were to make a list of things I wanted to bucketlist for my fortieth year, it would be eerily similar. I guess that proves that I did NOT become a better version of me. In fact, when I look at the severe depression I plummeted into about a week or two after I wrote this list, and how much darker and scarier it got, well… I’d say it’s fair to say I became someone much worse. The things my depression put my family through are things I may take a very long time to forgive myself for… I italicized Idaho because moving here, at the end of my marriage was not what I’d had in mind.

In a raw and very real way I figured I’d make a list of the forty things, both good and bad, that I did do from 39-40…

  • Saw a few concerts I’d wanted to see for a long, long time.
  • helped my husband remodel the kitchen. Before my eyes it transformed into something more beautiful than I’d ever imagined. It will always be my favorite room ever.
  • I got drunk. twice.
  • I worked really hard, with Gen, to give my husband a beautiful Father’s Day. He really deserved it and it was so fun to have a conspirator.
  • I played a fair amount of table tennis.
  • I rode a roller coaster. Still get migraines from them and they aren’t my favorite, like they used to be, but I still did it.
  • I saw a fortune-teller, at an amusement park.
  • I began (And quit… twice) an Esthetics program.
  • I moved away from my husband and daughter, to a million miles and hours away.
  • I made an a few friends, one of whom is amazing and I adore and miss her!
  • I finally came to terms with the fact that my mother is not capable of loving anyone, even her only child.
  • I took part in breaking my daughter’s heart and forever altering her life.
  • I was introduced to the beauty that is Korean television, by two friends of mine. I shared this with Gen and I miss us in this way, very much.
  • I had a car accident.
  • I plummeted into a deep, terrifying depression and had no idea for most of it.
  • I took Gen to get her nose pierced. (I got the part of my ear I can never remember, pierced.)
  • I got an ironic tattoo, while severely depressed, as a milestone tattoo. SMH
  • I saw a lot of movies. Of course.
  • I fell in love with Korean Food, Korean music and the loveliness that is Korean culture.
  • My Kate Spade collection grew.
  • I made a lot of stupid, unclear decisions while I was depressed. (If you ever find yourself in that position- just don’t…)
  • I spent a ton of time obsessing over M & S’s Wilder Mind album.
  • I finally dove into a vinyl collection. The start of one anyway…
  • I realized I love a good cover song…
  • Bowled a few times. It’s my absolute favorite thing and I got to bowl about 5 times, which is really amazing.
  • I skipped Thanksgiving, and probably will make that same decision from now on.
  • I had the worst Christmas I’ve had since childhood.
  • I had an even worse New Years, but that’s a holiday we can’t ignore.
  • I learned I will do almost anything alone, without fear or complaint, but there is a small list of things that it’s just not in my capacity to manage.
  • I bought Broadway tickets, but didn’t get to use them. That had NEVER happened.
  • I changed every single ounce of my life. I went from being a wife and mother every day to being a pen pal.
  • I did a mom swap for several months and it was the one thing, during my 8 months of depression that I really loved. It kept me going and motivated me not to lose myself in it.
  • I tried Couch to 5K, and quit. I decided running, though my husband loved it, was not for me.
  • I got my first apartment based just on my credit.
  • I then lived off of credit cards after I worked incredibly damn hard to build my credit, because my money was all gone on things like moving, apartment deposit, helping a friend, etc… Thus ruining my hard-earned credit. Definite negative.
  • I realized I worked really hard to build a life that I’ll never get to live again, and that life had been my world.
  • Didn’t see my son, but there were still beautiful developments and I’ll hopefully see him soon.
  • I did learn how to give an AWESOME facial. And how to wax…
  • Totally lost sight of myself and then life changed so quickly, in that. I have no idea how to be, who to be, or how to fix things.
  • I got to spend a lot of time with my daughters, prior to Thanksgiving… I’m reminded constantly that it will never be the same. I’m living with that.

UFC…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

photo-1450849608880-6f787542c88aIf relationships had a UFC competition, I would win every time. The premise could make for a great reality show, except for the fact that after the first couple of episodes viewers would stop tuning in… why? Because I’d lose too and the same thing would happen every single week.

This is going to come across so much more pity party than it is. The fact is, I’ve had so much alone time lately to process through things, and this is all what I’ve realized as it continues to unfold in my actual life: I fight for the people I love. I pour love and effort into those relationships. I am easy to toss away. Roll credits…

My mom was quite possibly one of THE WORST mothers on the planet. She psychologically tortured me, sold me to a man sexually for money, successful made it so that as a small girl not only did she throw me away but she put such a wedge of distance between my family and I so that I lost everything… And even though, for the longest time I saw her true colors, I still loved her and wanted to be with her. When I was an adult and I had more power, I poured love and forgiveness and effort into my mother. I honestly believed if she would just open her eyes, her quality of life would change and we could both finally be happy. This of course never happened. The majority of our relationship was thousands of miles apart and up until near the end that made it easier… It reached a point though where her mission was to emotionally break me and turn everyone I loved against me.

My father left when my mom was pregnant. I grew up with his family telling me I was a bastard, deliberately making my childhood difficult and reminding me on a regular basis that he denied I was his because he was simply so disgusted to be my father. At nearly an adult I met my father and learned he has 4 other kids who he was an amazing father to, but if a relationship were to be maintained there all of the effort would have to be mine.

Two sets of people, after I was sent to live in a group home at twelve, “wanted me”. They asked my mom and my mother responded with “I don’t want her, but I don’t want anyone else to have her either.” And that was that, on they went with their lives.

In the middle of that there were a few deeply personal friendships, some more than others, that ended when they left and I was left scarred.

I married my husband younger than I should have and we were both pretty loaded down with personal baggage. After 5 years of marriage, 7 miscarriages, a grueling illness related to them, and one crushingly failed adoption- my husband had an affair with a woman who he delightfully pointed out “can have kids so I love her”, and then tried desperately (in a near psychotic episode of trying to “give me” to another man) to end our marriage. I forgave, I fought him to save our marriage but I was disposable to him.

A couple of years later, having gone through counseling and feeling the most emotionally healthy I’d ever been, I once again resumed the fight for our marriage and we reconciled, on his terms. Fourteen years, almost to the day, later, I was out. He was done and no longer wanted me, again. It didn’t matter if it hurt our family, it didn’t matter if I’d done nothing with my life but support him in his career and raise our family, often alone. None of that mattered because he was done. I’m sure you have noticed the theme there. And it’s not that he’s a bad guy. My husband is the best man I’ve ever known. I love redemption stories and he is my favorite of them.

I have never fought for anything like I fought for motherhood and my marriage. Having my family together is seriously the happiest times in my life and the only times I’ve ever felt like everything would be ok and it was worth it. And now, just with the snap of a finger, it’s done. I had been in therapy due to my mother and the end of her issues before I severed the relationship. Through that process I was encouraged to make an exit strategy, from my marriage. I was severely depressed and a heavy emphasis was put on my marriage because I was so depressed and my husband wasn’t really present or being supportive. It was constantly stressed that my environment was not healthy, which it wasn’t. It was an environment where I was responsible for everyone’s happiness and needs being met and I was left drained and dying, empty. My exit strategy was a long time away and I was such a mess emotionally, I believed my marriage would somehow work out but I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Life as it was then was one I would have died in. That entire way of life could have changed though, if he’d felt I was worth his time or physical effort. He didn’t and in the end, he decided me leaving was best for them.

Since I’ve been gone I have realized that several key relationships in my life rely on my effort in their lives or their need for me to do something for them. Without those things, there is virtually no relationship. I’ve distanced myself from those people, which is healthy and obviously they don’t care anyway. There is no consideration for me, no follow through and no effort for our relationship outside of mine. It’s a healthy distancing and considering how gapingly wounded I am from the loss of my life, (husband and family) they don’t really feel like much of anything.

My husband has stolen the motherhood I fought so hard to have, after such years of loss and agony. The relationship I went to hell and back for, with my 16-year-old is now that of a surface level pen-pal as I’m thousands of miles away and completely broke to try to fix it. He believes this is best for her, while he lives the life I designed and I’m completely alone with nothing I gave everything for. Aside from the fact that man has no idea what it means to sacrifice something or fight for anything if it isn’t career focussed, I am the great big loser…

My hindsight advice would be that if you are stuck in a dark depression, guard your heart and find someone to talk to who isn’t focussed on an agenda. When you are sick like that, and no one does anything for you while everyone depends on you- don’t make ANY major decisions until you feel better. Try and feel better. Take a break, get away for a while. No one is more impressionable than when they are desperate.

My advice to myself is that I am worth fighting for, even if no one else has ever thought so.

My heart screams and aches to fight to mend my beyond broken family and put it back together again, but it’s been made clear to me that I’m not worth the effort. And also IF he were interested in trying, which he isn’t, it would still be on HIS terms. History is a bitch, plain and simple. It repeats itself and cycles the hell out of you, until you just give up. I give up. I’m a pen-pal, not a mother. I’m soon to be an ex-wife, again. I am disposable to anyone and everyone and I’ll live with that. People love to say “you are so strong, stronger than you think.” I think it’s often said to bring them comfort, because I can honestly say it’s pretty hurtful for me to hear. Obviously those people don’t really pay attention to my life or live in my head. I am not. I am weak and the ironies are: that I fight for people I love and am not worth fighting for; and that I am the sort of person who grows stronger and more alive by my connections with people, but I don’t really get to have those. My loyalty is both a character strength and obviously larger weakness…

If my life became a reality show about someone fighting for people, it would be an example because no one has fought harder or sacrificed more for the people in their lives than I have. It would also tank with ratings because the episodes would always end with me in the ring and the other person looking me in the eye and saying “eh. I give up…” and walking away.

I’ll say it once…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

Sometimes we may wake up in the morning and painfully remember, (and realize again) all at once that this actually is your life and these things actually are happening right now. If you’re anything like me, this happens when waking up from an unpleasant night of roughly ninety minutes of collected sleep moments- For the eighth night in a row. It has also been that many days since you emotionally fell apart, into a blubbering puddle, upon the departure of your husband and daughter, while you were babysitting your friend’s kids…

As abundantly pathetic as the above image may seem, these days I am realizing that it is alright… I mean, it’s kind of not ok that I can’t sleep, or that I spent 4 days vomiting uncontrollably while simultaneously laying in bed in a deep, dark depression. It IS ok that I acknowledge where I am at and then authentically plant my ass there. Is it pretty? No. Does it hurt? Immeasurably. If I’m really there though, may as well be present and honest about it.

Towards the late middle of last year I found myself overwhelmed and dealing with family issues, as well as completely separate friend issues. Both involved tremendously deep-rooted pain, abandonment and other multi-layered junk that I’d successfully buried and ignored for twenty plus years. My therapist accompanied me on my tailspin, often saying such reassuring Gems as “wow, I’m speechless. This is too much for one person to sift through.” The moral of this confession is that for the better part of my life, I haven’t been present long enough to grieve, mourn or deal with anything at all necessary so that I didn’t have some volumes of pain festering deep inside of me. I inched closer and closer, during this dark and overwhelming time, to needing to run. I escaped for a weekend, but it was absolutely the opposite of cathartic. And then, the day after returning home I had my escape plan handed to me by the immediate needs of a friend and my husband- who’d been patiently waiting for an excuse to walk me to the door. Maybe it could go without saying, but I didn’t quite process any of that either, until about the time they left for the plane, here two thousand miles from where our life and marriage lived, just last week.

When we began hashing through the “what the hell happened” scenario I was shocked to find his portrayal of a flat-out evil version of me. I acknowledged as I packed my bag that I’d be the bad guy. I’d be the abandoner of my child, I would be the evil wife who left her husband to pick up the pieces of what was left. Was I emotionally prepared to accept such responsibility? No way. It was my gift anyway. My gift to him, my gift to the world and apparently my gift to me- someone to blame. We love someone to blame… And no one wants to blame him for giving up on me, out of the blue, nearly three years ago. No one wants to blame him for growing complacent despite my pleading and pleading and pleading for something. No one has the right to an opinion but he, myself and our amazing kids- yet the world is full of opinion. I’ve been called a cheating whore by people who don’t know the first thing about anything. I have been unfriended on Facebook. I have been messaged a reprimand and called a harlot. Was I a perfect wife? No. Newsflash: no one is. The truth? I was a great wife. I faithfully loved and supported my husband through all of his bits of life that shut me out, until the day I left. When he decided I was not worth loving, I stood by him, hoping he’d change his mind. When I grew weary of that, I still went through the motions of loving, supporting and lifting him up. I was never unfaithful to my husband, and honestly I cannot fathom ever being in a relationship with another man. When this known as kind man unleashed my shortcomings on me, I held my own. I shed a light on the truth, that I was not perfect but I was not the one who turned my back on my spouse. I may have gotten in my car on November 23rd, but that man left a long time before that.

I also had a really good reason for coming west… Not that it’s anyone’s business. When my kids understand and are beyond supportive, I have to consider that all of the haters are just consumed with their own selfish misconceptions and it has nothing to do with me. Hate on, if you must. Have fun with that, and take a second to notice you’re the only one who is miserable because every day I’m getting a bit better. I have a dream, I have a plan, I have a purpose. All three of these involve becoming someone my kids can be proud of. All three of these involve being someone who touches the lives of others and makes the world a better place. None of them involve a man, unless my husband wakes up one day and decides to fight for something that actually matters…

This is about as publicly personal as I’ll get. It’s a little raw, true, but it’s as personal as I’m going to get. If your opinion actually matters, you’re already in the know… I wrote it maybe because it’s late, I’m tired and I need somewhere to send the ridiculous naysayers when they start spewing ignorant nonsense.