What do I miss?

Interesting.  My marriage lasted 13 years.  The relationship was 15 years.  And do you know what I miss?  I miss LOVING someone!  I miss holding his hand every chance I got, massaging his shoulders at night, sending him sweet "I love you" messages.  I miss the everyday, mundane ACT of loving someone with all of my heart and soul.

I throw myself into love, whether it be family, friend, or romantic love.  I am consumed by it.  Without it, I feel empty.

Just another day?

Today is a Monday, a day that everyone dreads.  It is also the 28th day of October.  Nothing particularly bad about that, except for me it is a day of mourning.  Seventeen years ago on this date, I awoke to some terrible (but not very surprising) news.  A dear person had taken his life in the night hours between 27 and 28 October 1996.  This was his third attempt, and he made doubly sure that there would be no interruptions this time.

Christopher Charles Vale.  A regal, proper British name.  A Staff Sergeant in the Royal British Army, and extremely proud of that fact.  Wife, two beautiful children and numerous friends and family who loved him.  None of that, however, could sustain him at the end.  He chose to leave the world that caused him too much pain to endure.  And now, for the past 17 years I have approached this day with dread, knowing that the pain would hit me again - knocking the breath out of me all over.  I knew that he was suicidal, of course.  When a military member attempts suicide, the Services don't just sweep it under the carpet.  No, Chris went into a "hospital" for a few weeks after the first attempt.  I remember that he was horribly offended that "they" took the belt from his robe, and any other potentially harmful items.

I tried to convince Chris that life was worth living.  His wife tried -- all of his friends who were involved at the time tried.  But no one really understood a simple fact:  you CANNOT "convince" someone who is suicidal that there is a reason to live.  Only within the person himself (or herself) can that be found.  And so, every 28th of October, I mourn the loss of a wonderful man, an elegant (although bawdy!) soul, a fantastic cook and loving friend.  I also celebrate his life every 8th of June (his birthday) and every year around mid-February (when I met him).

I often wonder -- will there ever come a day that I stop marking the passage of time "FROM" the events of my past?

Internet Dating????

Oh, Lord help me!  I have dipped my toe into the world of online dating and now I feel all slimy.  I went to a website called "okcupid" and signed myself up, after MUCH tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth... and that was just to figure out my screen name... :)

Let me just say that it is an interesting experiment in human interaction through a completely dehumanized setup.  You pick your user name (and some of them are some real doozies... "adessotoccame" - which means "touch me now" in Italian, is just one of the more note-worthy...) fill out your profile, and maybe post a few pics if you want.  I chose to mis-spell the Italian words for "green eyes" (occhi verdi in Italian, but I wrote occiverde, which is mispelled AND mixing Spanish in there...) as my user name and chose a rather blurry photo of me in St. Peters.  I didn't pick that one to be tricky or anything -- I actually like the photo!  

Then, I added a photo of me in front of the Colliseum and started answering some of the questions that fill out your personality profile.  WOW!  Who in the WORLD comes up with these questions?  (Perhaps I would have been better going with a more white-bread site like match.com or eharmony, but I knew those sites are based in the US, and I won't be there for two more years. )  Some of the questions are deeply personal and quite kinky.  Others are inane and quite frankly bored me.  How this is supposed to match me up with that "special someone", I haven't a clue!

Sooo, I went final with my profile, and started surfing the site (trolling).  Within a day, I had several emails from other members and was responding to some of them.  (Many times, I get emails completely in Italian.  Since my profile is written completely in English, and I state clearly that I speak Italian "poorly" I don't usually respond to those...)  One fellow in particular seemed pretty nice, and our profiles seemed to match up rather well.  We exchanged a few emails back and forth, and then he pops out with, "So, how often in the week are you available for sex?"  Well, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I immediately blocked and deleted him.  I had to give him points for his honestly, but REALLY???  Who SAYS that??

Unfortunately, I'm very much a chicken when it comes to this online dating thing.  I do not like the idea of picking someone from a lineup (essentially) and then meeting them for drinks / dinner / what-have-you.  Who KNOWS what kind of person you might meet?  The trouble is that my loneliness is kicking my cowardice in the buttinsky these days.  

Of course, that leads to a completely different set of complications.  As a single mom, I often find myself struggling to fit everything into my day / week for myself and my son.  How do I find the time to squeeze someone else into that equation?  Sigh...

Today I'm Just Mad!

Today, I just want to be mad.  I think I have been a SAINT long enough, and today I'm just going to STEAM.  You see, it just occurred to me that this year "would have" made 15 years of marriage with my ex-husband.  We divorced three years ago, however.  Now, I have to say the words "my first ex-husband" or my "second ex-husband" to differentiate between him and my very short-lived first husband.  (When we were married, if I had to refer to my first husband, it was simply as "my ex"... now things aren't so simple.)  That means no 15-year celebration, and then no 20, 25, etc.  Let's face it, I am not getting any younger.  At 41 years old, the chances of me meeting and marrying someone to whom I will stay married for 20+ years are about as great as the chances of my winning the lottery (here's a hint... I don't even buy the tickets!)...

I am angry, and ashamed that my life has come to this.  My "second ex-husband" and I have a child together, which puts him squarely IN my life, which is where I DON'T want him.  As the "saint", I allow him to spend his vacation time from his overseas job in my home, so that he can maximize time with our son and not have to waste money on a hotel.  I also lend him my car during this time so that he won't have to rent one.  What makes me angry about this situation (and I know it's petty, but I can't help it... when I get mad, the 'things that piss me off' keep building!) is that I KNOW that if the tables were turned (if it were my fault that we were divorced, and he had filed instead of me), there is NO WAY IN HELL he would be this accommodating.

This morning, our conversation revolved around the dirty "C" word... Custody.  He wants to take our son and live near his family, on the opposite side of the country from where my family lives.  I say we should take more things into consideration than just proximity to family, and he should consider a cheaper cost of living and etc., etc., etc.  In reality, I truly just want him to decide on his own to live near where "I" want to live, because I don't want to go through a custody fight OR put our son through cross-country trips for visitation.  

Do you ever just want to rant and rave and scream and yell and NOT have anyone say anything or do anything to try to calm you down???  That's me today!

Things my son has said...

Everyone has them... "Mommy moments" when your child says something so profound, or so cute, or just so darn funny that you feel you HAVE to write it down. I had one of those moments, and it made me realize that there have been a few others that I didn't write down at the time. So, I thought I would start a list. Pretty much, if you aren't a grandparent or just terminally bored, there's probably no reason to keep reading, but I must say my boy is pretty entertaining at times! ;o) GB's first word was duck... not kitty (even though we had one) or dog, or baba, any of those words you 'usually' hear as the first word. Recently, I was speaking to my son via Skype, and as I did our usual blowing kisses, he was making motions that looked to me like he was eating the kisses. I asked him why he was eating my kisses. His answer? Simple, in his mind! He said, "I'm not eating them, mommy, I'm putting them in my heart." How sweet is that? GB spent a morning in the ER this week, with tummy pains that his father was certain were the result of appendicitis or something equally horrible. In the ER, as we all know, the staff places a wrist-band on every patient for identification. The attending asked GB to spell his name out (I am very proud, because he is four, and he's beeen able to do this for well over a year now!) and he wrote on the band and placed it on his arm. GB, being the logical - and outspoken - child that he is, checked the band out and loudly informed the attending that he had left off the last "t" from his name! All the staff within earshot got a good chuckle from that one!

My Eyes Are Open, but They Do Not Always See

I read a friend's blog post today that was entitled "Finally seeing what has always been there". It was not at all what I was expecting; I believe she was speaking about 'seeing' through the lens of her camera, as she just got a new one. The phrase resonated deeply with me, however, on so many levels. When I was very young, and engaged for the first time, I "saw" my fiance as he was, a young, hot-headed, immature man who was a very dear friend and loved me with a ferocity that was at times very frightening, but endearing. I probably knew from the very beginning that he would never really "grow up" and that our relationship was doomed from the start, but I plunged forward anyway. On my wedding day, I was a ball of nerves, and my dear mother handed me a valium and what SHOULD have been a wake-up call: "You DON'T have to do this, you know? We can walk right back out of this church right now and call the whole thing off!" Oh, if only I had listened! Fast-forward a few years to my second doomed engagement, to a man who was (or, rather, IS) the absolute opposite of my first husband. I knew the day I married him that he had already cheated on me once, that he was a habitual liar, had no faith in God and had a darkness in him that I had not even plumbed the depths of. Did I heed my own doubts? Nope. Plunging ahead as always, I married him, made a life and a baby with him, and in the end divorced him, leaving me disappointed and more broken than I could ever have imagined. If only I had the ability to see that which is THERE all along! And not just SEE, but HEED!!! I'm not entirely sure who I would have become without the pain and heartache of the life I created by my own misguided choices, but, oh! How I would love to have a glimpse of her!

How much do I have to drink to be an alcoholic?

Really. I have a glass of wine a night (or a beer, if I'm in the mood). VERY rarely do I have more than one glass or one beer. I read somewhere that more than 7 drinks per week is unhealthy, but I'm not sure where I read that. I come from a long line of alcoholics and addictive personalities, so I always try to be careful with addictive substances, but it's not always easy to see, because addiction sneaks up on you and bites you on the bum. Perhaps the mere fact that I am WORRIED about it is a good sign I should 'fast' for a while .. ?

Been gone too long...

Just realized I've neglected this for about THREE YEARS!! Wow... talk about attention span problems... Just last summer, I relocated for my last Army tour. That is a scary thought. When I complete this tour, I will have spent 25 years of my life (well over half) in the Army. I have still not decided what I want to be "when I grow up"! (haha) I basically plan to do what I always do... put off making any kind of meaningful decisions and see what pops up!