I was angry the day I said I wanted separate bank accounts

Really angry.

I was looking for him, and he was coy about his location. This, I thought, was odd; he often invited me to the bars where he was drinking with his friends, who I called "the drunk chicks", sometimes with the adjective "hot" when I was feeling friendly.

I've dropped "hot" in the past few months; it is one of those unnecessary words an editor should take out.

So I wandered around the downtown area, popping into his favourite bars to look for him. 

I found him by finding the car. It was outside a restaurant, one of the most expensive in town, and the one with the broadest wine selection as far as I can determine. Not that I spend much time determining such things. 

Anyway, I found him inside, having dinner with one of the drunk chicks. As my father says, Ex always orders the appetizer. 

I plunked myself down at their table and waved the server away. No, I didn't need dinner. Or a drink. Or dessert. 

It was an uncomfortable meal all around after I arrived. I have a way of ruining a party. At the end of the meal, he paid the entire bill. And I was furious. 

I felt that we had very little money, certainly not enough to spend the way he was spending it. I asked for and got separate bank accounts. I asked for and got a list of the household expenses. I set up autotransfers to pay my share. I didn't think about it much; my main concern was that MY money not be spent on premium gin. 

About a month later, I got a banking app for my phone. I immediately noticed two things: our lines of credit, which we'd paid off a year earlier, seemed to be showing up as awfully odd limits when I thought the limits were round numbers; and I somehow had $1500 in my account left over after the household bills were paid. 

And that was the first sign that something was wrong. 

I woke up and all was quiet

I do not recommend this for your first Christmas after getting separated. 

"I AM A PRIVATE PERSON!" (shouted, of course)

This has been my mantra in the last few weeks. I have been frustrated.

I am not sure why it is so easy to leap from "I don't know much about you" to "I will make negative assumptions about you". And for the life of me, I don't know why it is necessary to know all of the gory details of somone's life to be supportive of that person. 

Or not even supportive. Leave it at "not actively hostile" and I'd be content. When I don't know someone, I stay out of their business except to be as kind as I can be under the circumstances. I don't call them and say I'll never support them. And I don't demand to know why they don't tell me their secrets. 

Not that I am bitter.

Shouting about being a private person has helped, a bit. For years, my mother has gotten very upset from time to time and demanded to know why I was shutting her out. I wasn't shutting her out; I just wasn't telling her the same things I wasn't telling other people. I can't tell if those demands have stopped. I really just know that I can't handle any more requests for my personal information. 

I am an extrovert; I am very chatty. About the people I am talking to. And about things that don't really matter. Rarely about myself, and almost never about things that are very personal.

I suppose the exception is that I like codes. Plain sight is the only place to hide. 

Someone told me last night that the news took her by surprise because I am always so cheerful. I suppose the typical cliche is of a person who mopes around town sobbing openly in the presence of strangers, pouring her heart out to anyone who will listen. Wait. That's not the typical cliche at all. 

Not that I am bitter. 

I have thought many times about whether this process would have been easier if I had been more open in years past. I don't think it would have been. Sure, there would have been a measure of understanding this summer when I finally told my family I was leaving him, but before that happened I would have endured years of questions about how things were and why I was staying. It would have come up at every family gathering. It would have been discussed behind my back. People would have tried to counsel away problems that were unfixable. And when I finally told them it was over, I would have had to explain what was suddenly different, and no explanation would have been satisfactory. Especially not the truth. 

The word "apology" has a modern meaning, you know.

In 2007, I made up my mind to leave.

This was an agonising process filled with a lot of self-doubt. But through all of the doubt, I was pretty sure it was the right decision and that it would end well. 

He was not. But that is a story for a different post.

One day, I was talking to my mother on IM. This was far preferable to talking on the phone, which I always hated. But that day, I said something to her about how I was leaving him. And that she wouldn't really notice a difference: we didn't hate each other and would probably still travel together, etc., etc., etc.

The phone rang. 

I don't remember the details of the conversation; they were too terrible to retain in my memory. All I really know is that when I hung up the phone, I believed that leaving him was the worst thing I could do. Nobody would ever love me. Our son's life would be ruined. There would be no benefits, only misery for the rest of my life.

At the time I most needed her support, she played on my worst fears and greatest insecurities. And I did what she wanted me to do. I stayed. 

I've long since forgiven her.

Well, maybe "forgiven" is the wrong word. I've come to terms with what she did.

I stayed. I believed nobody would ever love me. 

Today I yelled at her. She was explaining that she did the right thing that day, that her role was to support my marriage and I'd hidden or lied about what was really happening. She has explained this several times in the last few months. I have yelled every time. This upsets her; she wants to be sure that I know she loves me and was only trying to do what she thought was best. She is desperate to discuss it. I see no real point and would like to move on. 

I can put up with a lot. I can put up with the knowledge that she convinced me to stay. But I can't put up with her pretending with the benefit of hindsight that she did the right thing. And I am infuriated that anyone in my family would think I would just cast my marriage casually aside.

This was a theme this summer from several of my family members: that I was making a huge mistake on a whim, that nobody would ever love me, that I would see the light and be unable to reverse my actions. And that nobody will drive me to the hospital when I die. 

I am spending Christmas without the family. I'm relieved. I can't deal with them.

I can forgive them for what they did in the past. But only if they stop making me re-live it and claiming that they'd do the same thing again if given the chance.

"I want to make this work!"

You do a lot of packing in the days and weeks before a move.

I was putting things into moving crates when I reached under the bed and pulled out some boxes I'd packed up years before.

One of them was a plastic box filled with beeswax candles. I love beeswax candles (as opposed to smelly candles, which light the deepest chambers of Hell) and used to burn them every night as I read alone in bed years ago.

But that was years ago. I stopped lighting them when I realised they were bad for Son's asthma.

I opened the box. The sweet smell of beeswax billowed out. It was a strong smell that had been trapped inside for years. Nestled among the candles, I found two scratch pads with notes in his handwriting.

I want to make this work! I LOVE you Let me know what I can do.

and

I love you and want to be with you. I want to grow old and grey with you. You mean the world to me I AM truly sorry for all the pain I have caused and the lies I have told you.

I stared at them for a while.

Had he put them there to stop me from moving? Why now, of all times?

But no. They were years old, from the last time I tried to leave. He had put them next to my candles for me to find one night, and I had boxed them up and put them away years before.

"I am sorry for all of my lies" is something he used to say years ago. He hasn't said that in a very long time.

You don't realise what your core values are until someone violates them. Honesty is a core value for me.

He lied to me again yesterday. The details don't matter.

I pondered why I was upset, because the details don't matter. I wouldn't have cared about the facts either way. But it was the casual nature of the lies that bothered me. It wasn't important, and he lied anyway.

Over the years, he lied and lied and lied, and I believed the lies, no matter how improbable. Thinking he was a liar was just too much to bear.

My friends would say I was naive, gullible, a sucker. This was all true.

But honesty is a core value for me. I had to believe he was being honest.

He hasn't apologised for his lies in a very long time. In some ways, that's more honest. Because he wasn't actually sorry.

I think I like this one. It reminds me of a snake wrapped around a thyrsus.

One week down.

It's been a week since I moved out. I went shopping for a ring today.

I stopped wearing my wedding ring in June. Since then, I have thought several times that I needed a ring for my left hand. Something to signal to the wolves and associated hound dogs: BACK OFF, I'M NOT AVAILABLE.

I'm not available, you see. And I am not at all comfortable with the "plenty o' fish" situation in town.

So I need a ring to ward off the unwanted attention.

This, I hasten to warn you, is not the sort of thing you should muse about in mixed company. There are too many ways that conversation can get out of control. (Whoops.)

No, there's no point in artificially increasing your own troubles when all you really need is a magic ring.

I really liked my old ring. It is not, technically, my wedding ring, which is far too big for my hand now that I've lost a lot of weight and which I haven't seen in a while. I had to buy a replacement a few years ago, and I found a tiny leafy ring that did not look like a wedding band but that suited me just fine. My mother chastised me for not getting it blessed, as is the custom for wedding bands. I just didn't bother.

The other day, I took it out of the drawer and stared at it for a while.

It's just a symbol. But symbols do mean something. It doesn't matter that I really like the ring. I can't wear it. I need a new one.

Facing freedom with a little fear

Well, I made it through the first week.

It's been an utter wreck of a week emotionally. I joked that I should give my salary back, because I have mostly been sitting and staring.

And taking long walks. Always taking long walks. FitBit tells me I did 16 miles yesterday. That explains why my legs hurt this morning.

I do not like to think of myself as the kind of person who just sits and stares at work. But then, it has been a very odd year. My life has completely flipped over; I need to steady it and carry on.

There was a Boy Sleepover at my house last night. It was a refreshing return to normal. Complaints about stomachs that hurt after eating too much candy. Giggling and shuffling late into the night.

Son is disappointed because our new housemate's cats do not love him as much as he loves them. No cat could, I'm afraid. But I'm sure they will warm up to him. It's only been a week.

When we told Son we were going to live in different houses (we didn't use the word "divorce") he immediately proposed a custody arrangement. We ended up modifying it slightly and then completely reversing the days so he would be with me and not Ex on Friday nights (*grumble*), but the principle is intact, and we'll try it out this week. He is with Ex Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, with me Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights, and Saturday nights rotate. The idea is that it is a 3/3/4/4 split and that the weekend changeover evening will be a "family night". Tonight is the first Family Night. We will see how it goes.

Whew.

I woke up this morning in my new house.

Things are still in boxes, but I am partly unpacked. Most of my clothes are in the closet or in the dresser I took from the other house. I need to go through the boxes the movers put in the basement to figure out what needs to be unpacked and what needs to be put in a box that can be taken to my next home, whatever that may be.

The new house is a temporary stopover. Son and I have moved in with a coworker who has also just gotten separated. She may sell and move in the spring; she's not sure. Which is perfect for me, because the one thing I know at this point is that I cannot make any decisions. I can't buy a place. I don't even want a yearly lease. I need to take a good, long break before I even think about what to do next. In the spring, I will have a better sense of what Son and I need. We will talk about it then and decide together. Right now we are both too raw and vulnerable.

I'm thumbing this on my phone. I ran away from the office and am hiding in a coffee shop with my back to the door. It is very unlike me.

Some people say there are no winners or losers in divorce.

They're right.

But they're also trying to talk you out of a problem that doesn't exist.

Nobody thinks there are winners or losers. They're not looking for a winner. Anyone who says there are no winners is just making noise, because nobody actually thinks otherwise.

People look for a good person and a bad person. They look with a sense of desperation, because the identification must be made before any support can be offered.

They are easy to identify. The bad person leaves.

It doesn't matter what happens up until the moment of leaving. The time that elapses is meaningless. The effort that is put in is inconsequential. One person will leave. That person is the bad one. The other is the good one, the one who needs your support.

This has been explained to me several times. The good person is the one who is trying to make the marriage work, the one who is doing the right thing. What the good person is doing or has done is irrelevant. He or she did not leave. In the end, that is all that matters.

My own family members have said as much.

It is in moments like this that I am glad I have a blog only a few people know about.

I can tell you that anyone who leaves has already tried and tried and tried to make the marriage work, and given up from exhaustion. He or she might even have tried far harder than the other, although I won't guarantee that that's true. What do I really know about someone else's relationship?

Nothing, that's what. And that's sort of the point.

The difference between the good person's trying and the bad person's trying is that you didn't see the trying the bad person did. It happened behind closed doors, or in a way you didn't really notice because you weren't paying attention.

You're not helping when you say the bad person should try. He or she has already tried. You're not sustaining a relationship, you're making your own neglect clear.

And when you ask who left, you can be sure that I know you never cared enough to notice until the day you decided you needed to identify the bad person.

I woke up, and all was quiet

There is no Katy Perry ringing in my ears. No Carly Rae Jepsen. No -- well, I honestly don't know who the "singers" are, but the point is that it is morning, and I do not have to listen to dance music. He has gone.

And when he comes back, I will be gone.

These are my things now. Well, most of them are my things.

I have been packing. I brought some old newspapers back from the office to cushion the glassware. It was pretty simple work. Tear newsprint. Stuff inside glass. Wrap glass. Place in box. Stare at inky fingers, tut-tut over the impermanence of even the physical representation of today's journalism. Consider a rant but think better of it, because there is work to be done and Son does not really care. Repeat.

Sherry glasses: packed.

Wine glasses: packed.

Rolling tumblers (for very drunk people): packed.

I stopped at a set of champagne flutes. They are pewter and glass, clearly decorative and clearly for a special occasion. I don't remember ever using them. But then, I don't normally drink champagne.

I think they are from our wedding. I think they were a gift from the woman who was my best friend at the time, who served as my maid of honour and loved pewter. We spent many a moment in the pewter shop in Halifax as she drooled over the things that were for sale.

I don't normally drink champagne.

I'm going to leave him the flutes.

The last day

He leaves for Florida today.

He has told Son he's going to a conference in Toronto. I suppose that'll do. At least he told him more than a couple of hours before the plane left, and he made it clear that he's coming back. Neither of those things happened the last time he ran off to Florida.

He has been melancholy, talking about the twenty years we've spent together.

I've been thinking about those years, too.

The twenty years are hanging on me. I feel like I've been waiting twenty years.

I have wasted my life.

I am surrounded by boxes. My clothes are packed up; I only have enough left to last through the weekend, and that's all I need. I have a stack of old newspapers to wrap up the ruby glasses I've bought at flea markets in Maine over the years.

I do love ruby glasses.

We have a calendar with "M" and "D" written on each date, the result of an emergency negotiation session earlier this week when he announced he didn't want Son with him on Friday nights as previously agreed.

It's OK. I think it's better for Son to be with me on Friday nights anyway. And I was expecting him to say he didn't want Fridays. It was only a question of when.

I tore the sheets off the bed this morning and hauled out the duvet we've never used. His mattress is full-sized, but I am leaving the queen-sized sheets behind. I can't take them with me. It is hard enough to take the bed.

He asked me to take him to the airport. I considered telling him I couldn't do it because I have a party to attend, which is what he told me when I asked him to take me to the airport for Grampy's funeral, but I decided that would just be rude. Besides, Son should be able to say goodbye, and Son should be able to go home with me afterwards.

Four days to go

I move in a week. Three guys are going to come in a truck to take all of my stuff from my house and move it to my new house. Deep breaths. I can do this.

I moved some boxes yesterday.

In July, I packed up most of my clothes and put them in a friend's basement. They've been there, gnawing at me, ever since. I felt bad about leaving them there. I'd put them there in a near panic, hoping to move immediately, but was told that was a bad idea.

So I stayed in my house. And my clothes stayed in my friend's basement. Until yesterday.

I unpacked some of them into my new closet yesterday afternoon. It was a glimpse into a panicked, get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here packing session. I didn't take clothes off their hangers. I didn't even take them one at a time. I grabbed entire armfuls off the rack and put them into boxes. They came out in groups of five or six, rumpled and still on their hangers.

I'd spirited some books away, too: the leather-bound prayer book my dad gave me twenty years ago, the copy of Mere Christianity I've been looking for for the past week, and the Myths book a loved one gave me for my birthday this year. My party dresses are still in the box I kept under my bed, ready to be put back in its place when the bed arrives. My hair clips are in a small plastic bag, ready to be unpacked into my jewelry box.

I slumped over. My new room is empty, for now. My sobs echoed off the walls.

I can do this.

I told my friends I didn't like sex.

They were confused. I wasn't.

My mother and grandmother had told me many times starting when I was a little girl: sex wasn't really that good and wasn't worth it. This was part of their ongoing campaign to keep me a virgin until marriage. I suspect they did not do the same with my brothers, but I've never asked.

They were right; it wasn't worth it. It was violating, almost. I never expected it to be any different.

And so I recoiled at being touched, and made bargains to avoid sex, and kept my bra on when I ran out of things to bargain with.

I never questioned this or thought it should be better. I just assumed that was the way it was. I made jokes when the topic came up among my girlfriends.

From time to time I would wonder if I was messed up in some way. When I bothered to think about it much, I would decide that my upbringing had something to do with it and that it was unfixable.

*I* was unfixable.

I was broken; I just didn't like it and that was the way it was.

It turns out that none of that was true. I just don't like it with someone I don't love. The day I realized this was horrifying in many ways, because I have never liked it. The implications were almost too much to bear. But that day was also freeing and encouraging.

I'm not broken; I'm exactly what I ought to be.

My dad said we were having problems.

I said we weren't.

Problems can be worked out, resolved, settled. You can overcome a problem and get back to normal. Maybe "normal" is a bit different after you deal with the problem, but that's okay.

And sometimes there is no way to resolve a situation. Sometimes there isn't a problem that can be overcome.

Sometimes the only problem is that you're married to each other.

So. This week was not the best.

Well, looky what we have here...

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I know; I'm making it more difficult than would otherwise be necessary for you to read my private thoughts. :) Just a bump in the road. I'll explain later. Subscribe to the feed and you'll get all of my posts.

You don't know what an RSS feed is? I won't be able to sell you on the benefits right now, because I'm getting ready to lock the blog down again (HAHAHAHAHAHA NOT REALLY) (okay, yes, really), but you can get my posts by e-mail by entering your address over there on the right.

Yes, a divorce is like a death.

My grandfather died a few months ago.

When he died, I was very sad. But I was also relieved.

We'd spent years knowing that his time was coming. The last year was especially difficult. There were good days and bad. The good days were worse, because they cruelly tricked me into thinking things would be okay.

In the last few months of his life, I felt like we lost him about half a dozen times. He would get very close, and everyone would get ready.

Some of us were in denial. But most of us knew. And then he would get better, and we would all breathe a sigh of relief.

And then he would fall again. He'd hit his head, and he'd pull out his catheter, and the paramedics would have to come and stitch him back up. And he was never quite as good as he was before. This went on for a long time. His partner, a lovely woman we all adore, was keeping him alive through sheer force of will. She meant well. But I felt it was cruel.

Funny, because I did the same thing in this metaphor I am torturing. I meant well.

You can't hang on when someone is dying. You're hanging on to an animated corpse, maybe just barely animated. I wouldn't have wanted him to stay alive. Perhaps I might have wanted him to be back the way he was years before, playing tennis and making dinner, but that was never an option. It was a relief when he went.

He died April 1. I knew for sure that my marriage was dying a few days earlier.

My father called to tell me Grampy had gone. The phone rang at three in the morning; I knew who it was because of his ringtone, and I knew what he was calling to say. I got the news I already knew. The only thing that surprised me was that when I hung up the phone, my first thought was not to tell the person sharing my bed.

Ugh

Resurfacing to say that I am going back underground for a bit. I am locking the blog down this afternoon and lying low. Don't worry; I'll unlock it in a while and I'll explain later. Stick me in your reader: I am thinking about unlocking the blog every time I make a post and locking it again after the RSS feed updates. Or moving my URL. Either one.

I am OK. If you have my old e-mail address, please don't use it; I need to change it. I think everyone who knows about this blog already has other ways to contact me.

Yes.

Louis C.K., "Hilarious", 2010:

No. Cut the shit. Don't even start with that noise like a puppy died. Let me tell you something. And this is important, because some day one of your friends is gonna get divorced. It's gonna happen. And they're gonna tell you. Don't go, "Oh, I'm sorry!" That's a stupid thing to say. It really is.

First of all, you're making them feel bad for being really happy, which isn't fair. And second, let me explain something to you: Divorce is always good news. I know that sounds weird, but it's true. Because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce. It's really that simple. That's never happened — that would be sad. If two people were married, and they were really happy, and they just had a great thing, and then they got divorced, that would be really sad. But that has happened zero times. Literally zero. Ray Charles has killed more Jews than happy marriages have ended in divorce.

So if your friend got divorced, it means things were bad and now they're—I mean, they're better. They're not good. Life is shit wall to wall. But they're better, so you should be happy.

Sorry; nothing happened.

We are a culture that likes stories.

Folklore, legends, sagas.

Jesus told parables. We tell kids bedtime stories. I still find great comfort in ancient myths. I have a degree in telling news stories, although we called it a "four-year BJ". (Yes, yes, everyone wants one.)

It's nice to have a story that makes internal sense and provides an explanation. A good story makes you remember the details and think about how it applies to your own situation.

And sometimes there is no story to tell. Not one that would be satisfying to a listener, anyway. Sometimes the world just carries on and you decide that life doesn't have to be the way it is.

Time makes you bolder

I named my first blog after myself.

Well, that's only half true. I named it after us.

About six months later, I decided it needed a new title. I chose the name carefully, because I always speak about important matters in code.

It had taken me years to decide I might have a theme song.

That was 2007.

Tips for the thoughtless

The cruellest phrase is not "I hate you".

The cruellest phrase is "We love you, but…".

A cookbook reduced me to tears the other day

I was organizing our bookshelf. His on the left. Mine on the right.

After twenty years, we do not have much that is ours. It was a simple, if time-consuming job. Textbooks on the left. Grammar guides on the right. I thought for a while before moving the Star Wars DVDs to the right. Not because there was any question that they might be his, but because they might reasonably be considered Son's as much as mine. (Let's face it: the collection includes The Phantom Menace.)

Then I opened the drawer with the cookbooks.

Cookbooks are mine, of course. I am the only one who cooks. I dutifully started to put them to the right. There were a few that seemed to be his, possibly from diabetes workshops, their spines unbroken, their pages clean. I put them to the left.

Then I put my hand into the drawer and pulled out the gluten-free-baking cookbooks.

I stared at them for a while.

I used those cookbooks every weekend for years. I prided myself on my gluten-free baking. I did research and sought out odd flours to experiment with. I talked about gluten-free baking with anyone who would listen. I made extras for people I knew had gluten intolerances. It took hours. It was worth it, because otherwise, they wouldn't ever get cookies or brownies.

And there I was, holding the cookbooks. The ones I'll never need. The ones he'll never use.

Those cookbooks have no value to us as individuals. They only had value to us as a couple.

I've been afraid of changing, 'cause I built my life around you.

I'm getting divorced. I feel like I'm graduating.

A graduation is a time of transition. A happy time. An exciting time. A time when you don't know what's ahead and anything could be in your future.

A graduation is a time of transition. A sad time. A scary time. A time when you don't know what's ahead and anything could be in your future.

Yes, I feel like I'm graduating.

I'm scared. I'm confused. I'm eager. I'm hopeful.

I'm packing up my bags and starting over. Not quite from scratch. But pretty close.

Going…going…

I am leaving town in a few days to go to my camp for a while.

I cannot wait.

I think I need to be away from real life for a while. I need to be with my brothers. I need to go kayaking. (And I need to come back home alone.)

Things here are slow, but not because my life is slow. My life is on speed. I am just not ready to write about it yet.

I'll keep up the grammar blogging Over There (the new Over There; the old one is officially dead) while I'm away.

I love parentheses. That's all.

Things you couldn't know

I want you to imagine a world where you have only eaten soup.

Soup is good. Delicious, even.

You have eaten soup for your entire life. You can talk to people about food, because you have eaten soup three times a day. In certain situations, you can even talk to people for quite a long time about soup. You can share it with others and make it for others. Dinner at your house isn't weird, because you can always make soup. You can read books about the wonders of soup, and you can agree with everything in those books.

Soup is tasty and filling. You could be happy eating it.

And in this imaginary world where you have only eaten soup, there is no way you could ever tell anyone that you would like chocolate ice cream. It has never occurred to you that food could be cold. You don't know sweetness exists. You could never tell anyone that you want your food to hold its shape or taste like chocolate.

No, you'd never know that until the day you had chocolate ice cream.

Don't worry; no, no, no, no

My life is changing. It is now a constant swirl of highs and lows. It is kind of disorienting. And the whole thing is rather mind-boggling.

For many years, things have been…well…steady. Not bad. But not what I would call good, either. At least not now that I can actually see what "good" might be.

I am finally in a place where I can see "good" in the distance. It is on the other shore, once I get through the highs and lows.

And once I get everyone else through the highs and lows. I have had several moments of thinking that others' lows might wash me away.

I am an extrovert; I love other people. Individuals, of course: there are people I love madly with varying types of madness. But I also love people in general. I never want anyone to be hurt. I never want anyone to be upset with me. I never want the rivers to stop running with chocolate. None of these things are possible. I still desperately hope I can make them all happen.

For many years, I have done the things I supposed would make others happy. I told myself that I was happy, too. And several times in the last week, I have broken down and sobbed at the stark contrast between "steady" and "good". Always at rather inconvenient times, of course. It is a good thing I am also loved madly with varying types of madness.

Carry that weight a long time

I get on the scale every morning. 

I started doing this when I switched to "maintenance" mode after losing a third of my body weight. I wanted to keep an eye on things so I would never step on the scale and be shocked to find I'd gained twenty pounds without realizing it. 

I decided that 130 was a good weight for me and that 2 pounds was a good daily fluctuation. 132 was OK; so was 128. 133, on the other hand, was a problem. I was fat when I weighed 133 pounds.

This was fine. 

One day, I stepped on the scale and I was 127 pounds. I told myself this was just as much of a problem as 133, and I dutifully ate a bit more to get myself back to 128. But secretly, I was pleased. 

A few months later, I stepped on the scale and noticed that I was 126 pounds. This, I decided, was fine. In fact, I should adjust my expectations: 130 was just a bit too high. 127 was a good weight for me and it would be easy to fluctuate between 125 and 130. I was fat when I weighed 131 pounds.

I kept getting on the scale. 

About a year later, I noticed I was 124 pounds. This, I told myself, was a problem. I wasn't well at 124; I was too thin. I needed to be 127 pounds. Time to eat more. But secretly, I was pleased. 

This went on for at least a year. But one day I decided that 124 might actually be a bit too heavy. I should weigh 123 pounds. Yes. That would make a lot of sense. 123 was a good weight for me and it would be easy to fluctuate between 120 and 125. 126 was a bit too high. I was fat when I weighed 126 pounds. 

I kept getting on the scale. 

I figured it would be a good idea to start tracking my weight a bit more formally. I'd always just looked at the number, noted that it was within my two-pound comfort zone, and gone on with my day. But clearly, I needed to have a chart or something. That would make it easier for me to reassure myself that the two-pound fluctuations were normal, part of a trend that I could anticipate. It wasn't healthy for me to think of my former "skinny" weight as my new "fat" weight. 

I kept getting on the scale.

In March, I weighed 122 pounds when I went on vacation. I got home a week later and discovered I was 116 pounds. This alarmed me: 116 pounds was too thin, and it had happened far too quickly. I needed to do something about that. But secretly, I was pleased.

And one day, I decided that it wasn't too thin. In fact, it would be easy to fluctuate between 115 and 120 pounds. 121 was a bit too high. I was fat when I weighed 121 pounds. 

The funny thing is that I never thought of myself as fat when I really was fat. And now that I'm not, I can never be thin enough. 

I know all of the right things to tell myself. But I clearly have a problem. 

World turning

I have a tendency to make quick decisions.

Well, from a certain point of view.

The reality is that I put a lot of energy into trying to deal with issues, problems, concerns -- whatever you want to call them. What feels sudden is the decision to act on what I always knew.

I remember the moment I decided to quit my last job. It was the third Thursday in April 2010. I'd spent years trying to overcome a problem; the details aren't important. I'd made adjustments that I thought would fix the issue. I'd made more adjustments. I continually pushed back the date I could expect to be happy. I convinced myself that the end was near; I just had to stick it out until, until, until.

Until that day in April.

I clearly remember getting angry.

I clearly remember thinking, "I thought this would be over when the fiscal year ended -- oh."

And with that, it was over.

I didn't leave my job until that November. But in my head, I was already gone. It was just a matter of setting a new plan.

Uggghhhhh.

If I want to vote in a primary, I have to specify a party. But still...

I knew this day would come

We lost my Grampy on a Moveable Feast, so we'll get two days each year to think about how important he is to our family. Seems appropriate. 

That's all for now. 

WTF, Facebook?

Suddenly, without warning...

Not dead. Just in hiding.

And for something happy...

…check out Son's blog: http://inthenet2001.blogspot.com/2012/02/oh-my-gosh-we-won-gold.html

Listen to the wind blow; watch the sun rise

The word "stabilized" has new meaning for me now.

Grampy's condition has stabilized. This is not the jump-for-joy, thank-the-heavens sort of situation I would have thought "stabilized" would herald. Stabilized! Oh, joy! Everything will be OK!

No, you can be stabilized at a very low condition and still carry on.

Life is a slow-tumbling house of cards. OH GOD IT'S FALLING CATCH IT -- oh, look, there are still four floors left! Everything will be oka -- AAAAAAHHHH STOP IT HOLY CRAP AAAAAAAHHHHHH -- oh, I guess three floors aren't so bad -- OH GOD MAKE IT STOP…

My mother has gone to Dexter to help out; she's the only one in the family without a job or kids at home, so she's the logical one to take over. She assures me that Grampy is in good spirits and really just needs to be rolled from side to side every few hours.

OH GOD IT'S FALLING.

I'm tired. And I miss my lake.

Nothing's changed but the surrounding bullshit; that has grown

So I have an apology from the latest person to become my ex-friend over a stupid job.

Sort of.

She's put herself in my shoes, which is not quite the same thing as trying to understand how I landed in my new job, but I suppose it is at least an effort.

It's hard to put yourself in another person's shoes without projecting your own motives onto that other person. And that's not really understanding at all.

The up side is that although she clearly doesn't know as much about me as I thought she did after all these years, I now have a better understanding of her motives. Even if they're kind of mean and climber-y.

And I'm guessing there is less hatred being spewed around the Internet on my behalf. That's a load off my mind. It's been a crappy couple of weeks.

And a black widow spider makes more sound than she

Oh, how tempting it is to believe that my friends were never my friends. It would be comforting, in a way. There would be no loss, right? You can't lose something you never had.

But if we were never friends, then what was that? What was the joy I felt at accomplishments that were not my own and the sadness I felt at losses that were not my own?

And how will I tell the difference the next time I think I'm friends with someone who isn't really my friend?

No, it's all too difficult. I think I'd rather be hurt and angry than believe that I can't tell the fakes from the real friends.

Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they.

Well, that's that.

I've got a new job, and I'm down a friend.

This is, as they say, Facebook official.

The new job is essentially a reassignment; I never asked for it and I was apprehensive about the move even though there were things that excited me about the possibility of making it. I loved my old job, but the new job needed to be done and there was nobody else who could realistically be called in.

So I'm down a friend again. If the reasons are not automatically clear to you, well, you and I have a lot in common.

My former friend wanted the job…well, maybe. That's actually not clear.

My other former friend (the one who hasn't spoken to me since the last time I got a new job) wanted the job, too…well, maybe. That's actually not clear, either.

Here's what is clear: I am an unspeakable insult (this is still a family blog, of course) who has received opportunities others have never been offered. I probably am a bit of an unspeakable insult at times, especially inside my head (I have the benefit of the full data set that is not available to the public), and I have indeed received opportunities others have never been offered. I'm not really clear on how either of these things differentiates me from my former friends who are so upset: they both seem like unspeakable insults right now, and I have never been offered the opportunities they have benefitted from, either. I know this because I remember rejoicing with them about those opportunities, sincerely happy and proud of what they had accomplished.

My boss is also an unspeakable insult, of course.

I dislike conflict; I want everyone to be friends, and I want the rivers to run with chocolate. The last week has been an exhausting brew of emotions: excitement (I've got a new job!), confusion (what do you mean, you hate me?), sadness (come back…I miss you...), and righteous indignation (YEAH, THIS IS SURE TO GET YOU AHEAD!).

It is all making me rather mean-spirited: I find myself thinking that if I am really angry, I should just be happy and satisfied as the best revenge. Then I think that being happy just to hurt someone else's feelings is probably the very definition of psychopathology. Then I think that I SHOULD BE BETTER THAN THEY ARE. Then I think that that's rather bitchy, and I should really just be happy and satisfied…well, this cycle's not going anywhere, is it?

I look pretty young, but I'm just back-dated

Grampy is nearing the end, which means everything and nothing.

We are all on standby, texting and calling each other for the latest updates, which are not really updates so much as glimpses into whatever is happening at that moment. ("He's in bed asleep." "He's watching football." "He's reading his mail." "He's having trouble breathing.")

There is no clock counting down. This could go on for a while. Or it could already be over.

I spent much of my time over Christmas with Grampy: mostly just sitting quietly for hours while he slept, but occasionally helping him with his tiny meals or attempts to stand. He couldn't move by himself; we would move him from room to room in his rolling walker, and Husband would help him put his pyjamas on.

One night, I was putting a glass of ice next to the bed when he said something he's never said before.

"I love you guys. You know that, right?"

I welled up, told him I loved him, too, and rushed out to tell Husband, who was unconvinced.

"He's just saying that because I helped him get ready for bed."

That's when I knew that Husband does not know Grampy very well. Grampy does not go around telling people he loves them just because they help him get ready for bed.

Families are complicated.

I spent much of my life hoping to measure up to Grampy's expectations. I lived with him and Grammy for a year in my early teens: he was a rather gruff, intimidating figure and I never wanted to disappoint him. He was an educator all his life, teaching high school, coaching football, and eventually serving as the superintendent of schools in our part of Maine. He and my grandmother ran summer camps for out-of-state kids while my dad and his brothers were growing up.

Grampy is well known in our small town; at last summer's Lakes Association meeting, people introduced themselves in relation to him, and he wasn't even there. ("I'm Joe, and I started coming here in 1962 to work at Don's camp.") It almost felt like people were trying to establish themselves as the ones with the closest connections to him. I grinned as I introduced myself as his granddaughter.

When my brother and I bought our camp, we carefully furnished the place and invited Grampy over for dinner. We tried to do everything right. We showed him around with pride and a bit of trepidation. He told us we'd done well. We joked later that it was all worth it because we'd gotten his approval. It was only half a joke.

The problem with the Greatest Generation is that they know they were the Greatest Generation. Some people don't measure up.

I am really hoping that everyone in the family finds peace before the end. That may be too much to hope for.

For now, I am holding back and not travelling. We had our time in December. I need to let others have the time they need.

Oh…MY GOD!!!

I have to dust off The Other Blog (TOB) for a moment. Something has happened, and it must be addressed. 

Here's a hint. 

Pictures came and broke your heart

So there's a new show, "Arctic Air", set and partially filmed here in our town.

It's your typical CBC fare: earnest, painfully obvious about its setting, with sex scenes that don't move the story along and are only there to reinforce that this is Not Just Another CBC Show. The crew was in town last fall with the partly famous star, and they attracted crowds of a size that had not been seen since the local drug store put a Justin Bieber cardboard cutout near the entrance.

I really wish that was a joke.

Anyway, everyone was excited. Many people worked on the crew, and many more worked as extras.

And so the first episode aired (ha!) two weeks ago to great fanfare. The local movie theatre had a red-carpet event for everyone who was involved in the production. I watched from home. It was OK, I guess.

But that was before I realized how terribly insulting the entire show is.

You might want to sit down for this part. It seems that the show has been PASSING OFF SOME PARTS OF TOWN AS OTHER PARTS OF TOWN. Yes. I was shocked, too. At other times, a character will point, and the camera will cut to A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PART OF TOWN THAT CANNOT EVEN BE SEEN FROM THE SPOT WHERE THEY WERE SHOOTING. Some scenes were not even shot in town, even though you might think otherwise from a casual viewing. Disgusting. Worst of all, the story appears to be totally made up just to be exciting. Any airline that operated the way Arctic Air does would immediately be shut down by Transport Canada.

This, of course, is horribly offensive and all anyone can talk about. It is a huge problem for tourism. People who watch the show will probably think it is a realistic portrayal of our local aviation community, and they will be too terrified to visit. SOMEONE NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.

I hate other people. They are making it impossible for me to dislike the show because of its clunky writing, one-dimensional characters, and contrived plots. They are also making me wonder just how stupid people in this town are. It is like they have never heard of fiction before.

In the Great Litany, we pray to be delivered from sudden death.

The folks who compiled the Litany couldn't have known about the inhumane treatments medical science would develop to make death slow.

My grandfather is dying. It has been going on for years: the slow, inexorable creep of death. He gets sick, or he hurts himself. And then he gets better -- but never as well as he was before. He's weaker. Sicker. More helpless. And then he hurts himself again. His life is a series of treatments and waves of near-constant pain. It is a final affront to the dignity of the man who built our family.

Treatments for the elderly are a succession of humiliations. He can barely move, so the kind nurses inserted a catheter so he wouldn't have to get up to go to the bathroom. Now he keeps a bag of urine strapped to his leg. When he falls, as he inevitably does, he pulls out the catheter. 

As you age, one system after another fails, and the drugs the kind doctors prescribe have side effects. The kind dentist pulls all of your teeth out. 

When you can't move, blood does not circulate through your body the way it would in a healthy person. You start getting blood clots that could dislodge and kill you at any moment. Your feet turn a horrible mottled purple. The doctor speaks ominously of amputation and watching the gangrenous spot. 

Oh, it is just too horrible. 

The day we got home for Christmas holidays, he fell on his head and spent hours in the hospital. We arrived at his house that night to find him finally back in his chair, looking like the Crips and the Bloods had joined forces to beat him up. He had a black eye, bruising all over his face and body, a gauze bandage around his head, and blood all over his clothes. The next day, his eye was swollen shut and most of his visible skin was black. The next day, he could not get out of bed.

Grampy cannot be left alone, so I spent a lot of time at his house during the holidays. Most of the time, he was too weak to talk or even move, so I spent the hours sitting quietly while he slept. His breathing was laboured, a death rattle that frightened me when it was there and frightened me when it wasn't there. During the quiet times, I checked for movement in his chest and wondered whether it was horrible of me to wish his pain was over. 

The kind doctors order tests to find out just how quickly his systems are failing. They mean well. The tests will give them numbers to put on his medical chart. 

His caregiver, a wonderful woman we love as a family member, has been keeping him alive through sheer force of will: making him "stand" for a few seconds each day, force-feeding him Ensure with protein powder when he won't eat, doing all of the tasks a loving family member would. She means well. 

At a certain point, "keeping him alive" starts to seem like a terrible goal. It feels profoundly selfish of me to want my grandfather to be alive when that life is filled with so much pain and suffering. 

Allan Hawco on how to speak like a Newfoundlander

I wrote a blog post.

And for once, I didn't stare at it and then delete it.

Instead, I stared at it, wondering which of my blogs I should post it to. It was a nice feeling.

I have set up a Tumblr about editing: http://fixedthatforya.tumblr.com/. You can also follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/fixedthatforya. I'm not hiding over there: I'm telling my friends that I've moved to Tumblr and letting other people just figure it out over time.

I often toyed with the idea of splitting my blog into several sites, because I posted so much Over There that didn't seem to belong side by side with so much other stuff. I think this will work.

I'm telling you for the last time...

Marilyn Monroe was not a size 12, or 14, or 16, or whatever. She just wasn't. Stop saying this. You aren't helping anyone.

Marilyn was 118 pounds and 5'5". You can do the math in your head and figure out that she was very small -- far thinner than I am -- although there's no question that she was gorgeous, curvy, and fuller-faced than most modern Hollywood actresses.

I hear this most often from women who are trying to say that "plus-sized" (ugghhh I hate that term) women are beautiful. They are. WE are: I'd be considered "plus sized" by the standards of today's fashion industry. But we're not beautiful because we can be compared with Marilyn Monroe.

I am gobsmacked that anyone could look at a photo of the lovely and curvaceous Ms. Monroe and pronounce her fat. If she was fat, there is no hope for the rest of us. She was tiny but far curvier than the Photoshopped women we see in today's magazines. Holding her up as an example of plus-sized beauty is ridiculous.

Marilyn's dramatic hourglass shape is just as unrealistic for most women as runway models' tiny shapes are. I'm pretty curvy but could never diet my way to her measurements. Even if I found a way, I'm sure I'd be miserable. I won't find happiness by calling another woman fat. I need to find happiness on my own.

Let's look to Marilyn as just one woman in a world full of women with different body types, all beautiful in their own ways. But please, let's not compare ourselves to her.

#grammar

I did a search for my favourite Tumblr topic and this popped up. I stared at it for a while. Is it a joke? Am I missing an ironic wink? 

I'm clearly not cool enough to be on the Internet. 

Happy birthday, son

Son is a Millennium Baby, born 01/01/01. I know this is the sort of thing OLD PEOPLE say, but I really cannot believe how much he has grown.

He loves soccer, hockey, and hanging out with the boys. For now, he is still cuddly when we are alone. He snuggles with me on the couch every morning and in bed most evenings. I cherish each of these moments, because I know they will soon become less and less common.