Category: escape

Time is fickle

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

This year has been a great deal harder than I anticipated and not because of the plaque and the world trying to navigate its way back into the swing of things, but because heartache, failure, illness, and grief are just so fucking difficult.

I have been lucky in that the company I am blessed to work for has allowed us to maintain a work-from-home liberal hybrid environment. This year has proven that allowance is critical in my life. Just a few posts ago I wrote about my 20th anniversary and how lucky we both were. Every marriage and every relationship undoubtedly has issues, big and small, to contend with and work through, but I daresay our marriage has seen more than its fair share.

In January this year, my husband sent an email to me asking for a separation. Sure, we had our differences, and we had our ups and downs, but nothing could have prepared me for that. After many, many years of supporting his various job changes and career changes, financially supporting him during times he needed to take off work due to the strain from being a Paramedic takes on oneself, and even raising our three kids (alone for a year so he could better his career 200+ miles away from our home). It was a slap in the face, the wind was knocked out of me and my life turned on its head in a single email – not a face-to-face conversation but a fucking email! I wasn’t what he wanted any longer, I wasn’t who he needed. I was devasted beyond words.

A month later he was offered or applied to, I’m not sure which because he began making decisions without including me, a traveling Medic job that would take him to California for 2-3 months. He accepted, without hesitation, and off he went. We really never discussed us or where we were heading, not entirely. We spoke each night or morning, depending on his schedule and I pretended all was well. He came back at the time our youngest was heading off to basic training so we put on fake smiles and tried our best. We went up to Chicago to watch him graduate from basic training and my Medic decided it was time to finally find a job locally as the travel jobs seemed to be drying up.

While home, he developed a cough and it kept getting worse. I persuaded him to go to the doctor. Fast forward a month of testing and waiting, we found an 8.5×11 mass on his left lung. A blow even I couldn’t have prepared for and fast forward a few more weeks we had an appointment for a bronchoscopy biopsy scheduled. That 45-minute biopsy that turned into 2.5 hours was failed, botched (the doctor stated “the mass oozed and the bleeding had to be controlled”), and ultimately led him to become septic, develop post-operation pneumonia, caused the eventual collapse of his left lung, kidney failure, and respiratory failure all within a week of the biopsy. He spent the next month in the hospital fighting for his life all the while we had no diagnosis of the mass in his lung. I spent each night dutifully in the hospital recording every note that came from a nurse or doctor (of which there were dozens) while working remotely from the hospital. During week four after he was stabilized, but not before he had to have a chest tube to drain the sepsis from his lung, we finally had a diagnosis. High-grade b-cell non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in his left lung.

He’s completed half of his R-CHOP chemotherapy treatments and had a mid-treatment PET scan done which we learned yesterday that the original 8.5×11.1 mass had shrunk to 4.3×2.8 – GREAT NEWS!!! However, during all this commotion, his older brother moved in with us after being released from a 4-year stint in prison. This brother has turned our lives even more upside down if that’s even possible. You see, during his diagnosis, I researched everything related to this treatment, this cancer, and all the foods I could prepare to help him through this journey. After all, I’m no doctor, but I can cook and cook well. I learned about nutrient-dense foods that were critical to his getting over the initial treatments that he undertakes every 21 days. This is not a sob story for me and what I’ve been through, though I admit it’s the hardest thing I’ve dealt with to date. I recognize my hardship pales in comparison to what my husband has undergone. However, this is a vent to the zero people who read me that I am absolutely infuriated that my brother-in-law believes me to be a controlling bitch who refuses to allow my husband to eat fried chicken, pork chops, steak, and drink shots at every chance he gets. Worse, even, he’s convinced my husband of the same thing. For the last 4 weekends, I’ve spent that time in my room trying to escape the negativity that follows this man and who he is turning my husband into.

Time is fickle. Just 10 months ago my husband asked for a separation and it appears he will soon be asking me for that again. Only time will tell, but call it a woman’s hunch. We both walked away with a new perspective on life after he got sick, the problem is I think our perspectives are polar opposites.

Likely in January, one year after the first time, his perspective will reveal he wanted a permanent separation after all. I say January because that will be the time when his treatments are over and my services will no longer be needed. As he has given me every reason to believe this, it’s just a matter of time.

That’s the thing about time. You exert your energy giving your time to others and they either use it, waste it, or destroy it. Time doesn’t come back though, so tread carefully how and when you give it.

Time, y’all. Time is an interesting, horrible bitch, much like Karma.

Enough

~ Linda ~ 2 Comments

When is enough, enough?  Is there ever a time, as a wife and a mother, that I can throw my hands up in the air and (not wave them like I just don’t care…) say – to hell with this, I’ve had enough!  Theoretically, I did just that the other day.  I went on “strike” *insert hysterical laughter here*.  What was I thinking?  That all of a sudden the kids and husband would hear the archangels singing and try to fix everything that I’ve been bitching about?  Pfft.  Yeah, right.

I have teens.  I don’t have really young kids.  In less than 6 months I will have an 18-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 13-year-old.  Oh, and a 38-year-old…*ahem*.  Yet, at some point these four individuals must have fallen and smacked their precious heads on some sort of hard surface and have completely and utterly forgotten how to use their senses.  Particularly the sense that tells them there are chores to be done – your bathroom looks like it’s growing something in the sink, the dogs have no water, you might have worn that a time or two since the last wash cycle, there’s a smell coming from your bathroom that is going to disturb the neighbors, and OMG you must be sleeping with a zombie because that’s what your room smells like!

So, I lost my shit.  Again.  I explained how absolutely tired I was of being the maid.  Because that’s how I feel…blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda (like Charlie Brown’s teacher only more life-like).  Most days it’s not worth the fight and I just handle it all myself – working, cooking, cleaning the bathrooms, sweeping and mopping, doing the leftover dishes that must have been wearing an invisibility cloak the night before, cleaning the house, and doing every stitch of laundry Mr. EMT and I own because otherwise he will attempt to ‘do’ laundry and we’ll forever be throwing shit in the dryer on wrinkle-free.

The strike lasted a day and a half.  The day I lost my shit, Mr. EMT was home from work and school, a rarity these days.  Thus, I sent him a message and explained what I saw that morning and that I was on strike until I saw the rest of the family learn to pick up after themselves and do their chores.  He had them clean, and clean well – for exactly one day.  It lasted for one day.  Because the dishes wore an invisibility cloak yet again last night, I refused to cook.  Make yourself something to eat, I said.  Heat up leftovers, I said.  AND DO THE MOTHERFUCKING DISHES, I said.  Well, not so drastically, but that’s how I wanted to say it.

I woke up in a little better mood today and I decided I would rather be pissed off and bitchy than to live in a crappily maintained home.  I was going to buck up and do all the stuff I didn’t do since Tuesday when I got home today.  However, insert a call from The Little’s school and I’m right back to wanting to scream ‘Enough is Enough’!  He got into trouble….again….albeit the first time in 3 weeks.  He’s a work in progress, but that’s for another post in the future about dealing with middle school kids with two parents who don’t often agree on parenting style.

With all that being said, I realize I cannot actually give up.  I have to remain married to Mr. EMT even though I wanted to punch him in the throat this week; I have to remain a mother to three unappreciative adolescents and try to remember that one day they will thank me for this shit; and I have to remember to buy another bottle of wine before I get home….because enough may very well be enough, but that does not count for wine.

Oh Alice, how I love thee

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

March 12

Bedtime stories

What was your favorite book as a child or adolescent? Did it influence the person you are now?

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll has long been one of my most favorite and influential books to date.  Though in truth there are so many that helped shape who I have become.  Each time I read Alice I take something new from the book.  It’s the only book that I can say has grown with me when reading it during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.  In my opinion, it makes this particular story timeless.

The loss of childhood innocence, learning quickly that the world will think you too small or too tall, never really being the right fit for what is needed.  As an adolescent, this struck me to my core.  In fact, I held on to it for far too long.  During puberty and into early adulthood I had the horrible feeling of not being enough.  It took me a long time to grow out of that – to figure out that I’m good with me and I don’t need approval to be me.  Through this story, I, like Alice, learned that I am the right size, after all.  I learned not to let the opinions of others dictate who I was to become.

The Cheshire Cat, with his broad grin and fearless behavior, can be thought of in so many translations. As a child, I thought him to be the secret, imaginary friend that tried to get you in trouble by leading you down a path you didn’t know and then disappearing.  As an adolescent, I thought him to be cunning and too knowledgeable.  The best line, for me, was when she asked which way to go and after she answered she didn’t know where when he asked, he simply said it doesn’t matter she will end up somewhere.  How true is that?  We never really know which path to take, but no matter which one it is, it leads us somewhere.  There is hardly a right or wrong.

The Caterpillar is another example of changing each time I read this story.  A simple three-word question and with it says everything.  “Who are you?” She has such a difficult time answering him, you can only assume she doesn’t know who she is anymore.  She’s changed.  Don’t we all?  She insults the cantankerous caterpillar by explaining it is dreadful being only 3 inches tall after all the caterpillar is only 3 inches tall.  Alice who struggles with her own image judges harshly the caterpillar’s size though it’s the same as hers at the time.  We often run into cantankerous, confusing people, but it doesn’t do well to insult them.

This story mostly taught me about adversities in life.  How the world constantly changes and confuses.  It taught me to expect the unexpected and learn that sometimes there is no logical answer to it and that’s ok, we’ll get through that maze one way or the other.  In this way, the story taught me to be more open-minded, not to follow simply to follow and to go with my gut in all journeys through life.  Life is a mess of puzzles, problems, oddities, and no two people are the same or think the same; we have to learn to accept it and move on.

 

Other people’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality
Les Brown

 

March 6

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

March 6

Ode to a playground

A place from your past or childhood, one that you’re fond of, is destroyed. Write it a memorial.

 

You were a breath of fresh air on a hard day.  At the first sight of you and my spirits lifted with ease, anxious for you to envelop me with all the familiar scents and sounds that calmed me.  It was you I would run to when I was afraid, when I was tired, when I was hurt, and when I just needed a break.  You loved my friends like your own and they, in turn, loved you.  Holidays and birthdays were such big events with you, we made sure to include you in almost every single one.

I can still feel your embrace at night, how safe you made me feel.  It’s as if no time has passed at all.  There were many times I took you for granted, to be sure, but I hope you know that looking back I could never love another quite as much as I have loved you.

As an adult, I’ve grown more appreciative of the times I had during my youth.  I look back with such fondness of you.  You will always have a place in my hear and the memories of you will live inside me for many, many years to come.

I bid you farewell, my lovely childhood home, I will surely miss you.

1996

~ Linda ~ Leave a comment

March 5

Buffalo nickel

Dig through your couch cushions, your purse, or the floor of your car and look at the year printed on the first coin you find. What were you doing that year?

1996

I rummaged through the crap mess in the console of my truck and not only realized I desperately need to clean it but found a dime and on it was stamped 1996.

It was 1996, the year I graduated high school.  It should have been a time in my life of festivities and prepping for senior prom and senior skip day with my best friends while making memories of a lifetime; instead, I saw it as utterly painful.  I didn’t realize then that I was still making memories of a lifetime and that I would make a new friend to carry with me the rest of my life.  I lived in Ohio at the time because my father was transferred there during my senior year.  I met one of my very best friends there.  Both of us were dealt the horrible fate of spending our senior year away from our original high school and all our friends.  I moved from Atlanta and she from New Jersey (though originally from Alabama).  We formed an instant friendship.

We both had to leave high school boyfriends behind, obviously and neither of us was too pleased and we bonded over that quickly.  We became a quick cliché of Misery Likes Company and we kept to ourselves for the most part.  To make sure everyone knew just how miserable we were, we dressed in head to toe black on Valentine’s Day because, well, why not.  It was still the grunge era so we had a lot of black hanging around.

I graduated in May and by that time my father had been transferred again, this time to Florida though I was convinced I would be stopping and staying in Georgia.  I was eager to get back to Mr. EMT and could see no reason why I couldn’t stay on with a family member and attend college there.  1996, coincidentally was also the year the Olympics were in Atlanta so my parents rationalized that it wouldn’t be a good time for me to move back, and I should just wait a little while longer.  I didn’t realize at first that it was a ploy to try to keep me in Florida where they knew my future would probably be brighter since I would be in college.  They were smart, my parents, they knew me far better than I knew myself.

Fast forward to the end of 1996, after a few new friendships and entirely too much partying, I decided it was time to go back to Georgia.  I secretly bought a bus ticket, gave my 2-week notice at my job, and was prepared to leave my parents in almost a haste.  I knew they wouldn’t approve.  I knew they would be desperately disappointed, but I missed Mr. EMT so much that I felt I would lose him completely if I didn’t return.

My mother, being the brilliantly smart woman she is, somehow found out that I was leaving and she drove me there.  In almost complete silence.  It was one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life.  I could feel her anxiety, I could feel her fear, and I could feel her love.  She was going to let me go, but it was going to break her heart.  She knew the struggles I would face, but I was 18 and I wouldn’t hear anything about it.

1996 was a monumental year for me, almost as much as 1997 when Mr. EMT and I welcomed The Eldest long before we were prepared to be parents and started going through the struggles my mom knew were coming.

With every season

~ Linda ~ 11 Comments

Sitting on my back deck, hiding from the kids whose water balloons I narrowly escape while coming into the house, I take a deep breath.  I smell neighbors grilling some delicious loveliness and my stomach growls to remind me I have to cook, but not just yet.  I take another deep breath.  It’s refreshing, even calming, the smell of rain that skipped our little neighborhood.  I can see the clouds through the tops of the trees and hear a slight rumble, and I’m thankful to see it from a distance.  I can smell the delightful tea olive trees that are just behind our fence, such a sweet fragrance that reminds me of my grandmother.

I close my eyes and I listen.  I hear neighbors talking, but I’m not paying attention to their words.  I hear dogs playing and conversing in their own right, but they aren’t too loud.  I hear giggles and squeals, and I chuckle and the sounds of water balloons breaking against the concrete.  I listen to the little carpenter bee trying to bore a hole into my porch and think I should take care of him, but I don’t and leave him at his work instead.

I lean my head back against the iron chair and open my eyes.  The blue just overhead is so rich and welcoming.  The white that I see reminds me of cotton balls and childhood.  The trees are so green, so vibrant and alive as they slightly sway in the warm breeze.  I catch sight of two birds dancing overhead, dipping and swirling to their own music.  As I scan the backyard I watch butterflies rushing and flittering through the bushes next to the vivid orange tiger lilies.  I’ve watched the lilies grow and now they finally bloom.  It’s at that point, when I’m so in love with their bloom, I realize they are a reminder that it’s closer to the time when summer will end taking with it the beautiful outdoor familiarity only experienced during its season.

 

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