GOMI: so bad it's good.

Everybody visit Get Off My Internets. It's the antidote to my personal love/hate relationship with blogs. I've always disliked the idea of blogs, and then I began writing one, but this works for me because I have a love/hate relationship with myself. In fact as soon as I hit the 'publish' button for a new post, I'm already composing snarky comments in my head. It's very post modern.

Let's discuss mommy blogs for a minute. If you really want to get at the truth beneath the perfect lives, you must read the comments, the replies to comments and the blogger's twitter feeds. That's where the sociological learning is happening. GOMI is the Cliff's Notes to this hypocrisy.

For instance, GOMI's latest post was about the comments to a post by Caitlin, of Healthy Tipping Point. Apparently, Caitlin's whole philosophy is promoting self esteem and she even wrote a book and a separate blog called 'Operation Beautiful' where she encourages women to stick post-its with positive messages in random places like this:

And this:

On her regular blog she posted this:

And then lost her shit when a commenter asked her if she was pregnant. She called the commenter 'crappy.' And then her loyal readers defended her and said the commenter was jealous. And then it got into another us vs. them situation, the haves vs. the have nots and it was fascinating. I loved it because I felt slightly superior in that shitty, gleeful way that feeling superior gives. So I read more GOMI. After an hour in GOMI land, I began to feel sad for humanity, myself included, that it's come to this.

On second thought, don't go to GOMI. In fact, don't read blogs about other people's lives. Just go outside and live your own.

Hello, little blog.

I'm so glad this thing is like a cat. I can ignore it for weeks then come back and see that nothing's changed. Lots has changed out in the real world, however. Big Gun's dad died in January. He was 98.5 plus three days. I love Jewish funerals. There is so much symbolism. The rabbi pinned a short piece of ribbon onto the immediate family members then tore it to signify their broken hearts. After the service, we all went to the cemetery and helped bury Louis. Every guest shovels three spades of earth, the first with the spade inverted as a sign of reluctance. Then, of course, we eat.

How are things in divorce land? Almost finished. I will be happy when I never have to write a breathtakingly large check to a divorce attorney every again. It's like paying a contractor but without getting a new bathroom or brick walkway in return. When all is said and done I will have nothing to show for it.

How is Clooney? Getting along with Baby Kitten. Look, here they are napping together. 

This is as much of the bed that Baby Kitten will allow Clooney.

My big son got his college applications done. One school had a deadline of midnight and his went through at 11:55p.m. The rest of them went similarly. In fact, the whole process has been like this. For instance, last Friday he informed me at 3p.m. that I needed to fill out some thirty-page income/tax document before the end of day. He is hard to live with: ungrateful, unorganized, entitled, and selfish...and I have just described an alcoholic. Teenagers are like alcoholics. He's sullen and morose one afternoon, then chatty and euphoric the next. Either way, I will jump through hoops for him. If he acts like an unpredictable drunk, I'm like a crazy fan. Ex says I should set a boundary and then let him fail. As if. I find that eating a lot of candy helps.

Yet another thing to feel anxious about.

I have many recurring nightmares: teeth falling out, swimming with sharks, being stuck in precarious high places, but yesterday I had a nightmare I've never had before and it was so bad I couldn't get back to sleep. This is what I dreamed: my oldest son didn't get into and couldn't afford any of the colleges he applied to and as a last resort was filling out an application to Stanilaus State, Turkey Tech. He wailed at me, "Why am I doing this? I don't even want to go to this school."

I sat up in bed. Why? Because your parents failed you and can't afford tuition. Because we separated, in effect doubling our expenses without doubling our incomes. I grabbed my phone and pulled up the calculator, punching in numbers and dividing by 18 years to see how much we should have been saving for college all these years: $925 a month x 2 (As cute as my other son, Mario, is, he also will need a degree)= $1851.19! That was our mortgage payment. I'm the queen of "should haves" but this number was so outrageously un-doable that I felt a little better.

The bad news is feeling better didn't solve my problem, but my sick little person (that worry gnome who lives in my brain) thinks that worrying might. I will fret and lose sleep and feel anxious about this until the Universe steps in and everything works itself out, just like always. I have proof of this.

I finished my second round of novel edits last week and sent them off. I had two days of freedom before I started worrying about how I was going to fill my days and pay for the new shoes I just bought. I said aloud "I guess I need some freelance." The next day I get an email asking me if I am available for the next three weeks. I reply "yes" and marvel at the power of intention. The next day I get an email saying the project has been cancelled. Do I freak out? I do not because I'm starting to believe that everything happens for a reason. I say as much to a friend. Actually, this is what I say: "I guess it wasn't meant to be. Maybe something better is coming?" She faints. The day after that I get another email saying the job is back on. If I'm being tested, I passed that one with flying colors.

The post where I get labelled a Hater.

I have mentioned the blog, His Giant Mistake. This woman's husband cheated on her and she's kicking his sorry ass to the curb and moving on in spectacular ways, which include climbing mountains and swimming in the bay and dating lots of men. I can't decide if I hate her or I want to be her. Where are the worries about money? Health care insurance? Jobs? The future?

(RANT ALERT. Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you don't want to stain your soul. I fucking hate this woman's self-righteousness, as if her high and mighty judgmental attitudes had nothing to do with the demise of her marriage, as if she did nothing wrong. She signs off every post with "love yourself," which isn't a bad thing. I agree that we should all love ourselves, but can we do it too much?)

I guess she's too busy hiking, swimming, meeting men, and loving herself to worry about such things. I wish she'd struggle more. She makes divorce look easy.

I was rummaging around my bookshelf yesterday looking for a blank journal to write in. I found one that was mostly blank, I'd filled the first three pages way back in 1991, right after I got engaged. Eerily, in the last entry I was questioning what love was/is and if I loved Ex and whether we were right for each other or if I was just marrying him because we were so alike: self conscious and introverted. Then nothingness. I suppose I got wrapped up in the whole wedding pageantry. Not that I have anything against weddings. I went to a lovely, heartfelt ceremony on Friday. The room was divided: the bride's family was sober and the groom's were normies. Were the drinkers the ones cutting it up on the dance floor, wildly gyrating and sweating and shouting joy? No, that would be the sober guests. The drinkers were standing on one side, holding beers and watching the action. I used to be on that side of the room. I'm so glad I crossed over and joined the dancing fools.

Acceptable dating material

I recently went on a date during which the guy admitted he was married. I actually considered seeing him again. My therapist says that when I learn to love myself, I won't mind  being alone. I don't mind being alone, I just like having someone I can call and ask if I'm crazy.

I'm pushing 50. I know women my age become invisible to men. When I hear stories about dirty-dog men who cheated, quit their jobs to avoid paying spousal support, or gained so much weight they stopped having sex, I don't think that woman is lucky to be rid of him; I think ooh, that means he's single.

However, my list of criteria for what's acceptable dating material has expanded beyond he must have a job and his own car to include he must not be married. This is progress.

Side note: my friend C says when she first got back into the dating after getting sober, her criteria was the guy must have all his teeth.

Coping.

I was reading my friend, Therese's blog. (I don't know her; she just feels like a friend.) This part struck me:

Coping your way through life is not a way to live ... I had incorrectly assumed that coping is what everyone did. No one actually wants to be alive, I had always believed (and still do when I get depressed). They just pretend they like they are having a good time on this excruciating planet because no one likes to hang out with a downer. “La la la la la … Sing a happy song …”

I consider it more of a slog, but I assumed everybody thought living was a chore. My joke in high school--and I was a teenage girl at the time so everything was dramatic--was that I'd like to speed things up and get this life over with. That was sooo long ago. And I'm still here.

Coffee with Ex on Sunday. It's good because the more I see of him, the more I realize that we shouldn't be together. Apart, I can spin these fantasies that maybe we could still work things out and never have to pay another lawyer $400 to read an email. A little face time with him clears that up. On the money issue, he says there isn't enough. He has to dip into his savings to take vacations. Doesn't everybody?

Cheaters never prosper.

They get divorced.

I did something to fuck up my marriage and I paid the price. I haven't been open about it because I was ashamed and thought people wouldn't like me. (Not remarkably, these are the same fears I had when I first joined AA and guess what? Everybody who knew me was aware I had a drinking problem.) My guess is that everybody also knew I was a lying, cheating spouse but was too polite to say anything-- except for my friend S who vehemently told me I was an idiot and fucking up, that if I wanted to end my marriage this was no way to do it.

I've been reading this blog and feeling awful because it's written from the view of the cheated on, which in my case would be Ex. (I hope this means I have some a speck of empathy left in my shriveled soul, which is even more shriveled after writing some recruiting ads for a pawn shop company.)

I hate the person (me) who felt entitled to make herself feel better at the expense of Ex who held his vows, even though things were crappy before I cheated. For a long time, I justified my actions and felt entitled to my bad behavior. Here's a news flash:

THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR BAD BEHAVIOR

I must have been sick the day they taught that in preschool, although I went to preschool on the Naval base in Mare Island where it's possible that particular life lesson was ignored in the interest of national security.

The only thing good about the whole affair is that I now know that I never want to do something like that again--to me or anybody else. I took a new vow, not unlike my now-broken marriage vow, to be true to and honor myself.

If you're thinking about cheating, stop what you're doing and call a marriage counselor. You are too far gone. The time to think about cheating is way before you begin fantasizing about people who aren't your spouse. In fact, the best time to think about cheating is before you get married. And this won't make any difference because I had the opportunity to counsel a close friend who was married and attracted to another married man. She had watched my entire Lifetime drama unfold and had listened to hours of my bullshit. Did this stop her from stepping out on her marriage? No. Unbelievably. People will do what they are going to do. Her marriage survived by the grace of a few white lies and lots of work.

Staying true to myself is an ongoing struggle because I am an addict and when I feel an emotion (and not just an uncomfortable emotion--even happiness will do) I want to yell Halt! and drown it in alcohol or drugs or new shoes or men. You know where all these roads lead to? Guilt and shame. Fuck. My hair-shirt-wearing self feels guilty about feeling entitled to feel hurt about the divorce. You feel me? Like I deserve all the pain so suck it up, lying sister. And so I'll take this moment to apologize for this entire blog.