Forty Years Later

A New Week. A New Outlook!

Katy (on the right) and her two best friends partying

Nothing like a little time and fun to wash away the blues....or should I say the reds.  If anger were a color it would surely be red.  Oh, it's still lurking around but it's laying low and that's good. 

Not a thing in my life has changed this past week except my attitude.  Isn't it wonderful that we have the individual power to do that for ourselves? Everything we need for a happy life is right here in our little brains and hearts. And any of us can access those attitude altering tools but we've gotta believe that we have total access to them.  Luckily I found mine a few days ago.

I have to tell all of you that left me comments last week how much they meant to me.  You have no idea how those comments lift me up.  No. That's not true, of course you know because you feel the same way when you find that same good support on your own blogs.

You're right, Pam, the anger is just a part of the process and I'm pretty sure that it is a process of me establishing a new and better life.  Well, I'm not pretty sure, I'm positive I have a better life now, even with the occasional flare up of anger, and an infrequent taste of fear in the back of my throat.  

But life goes on.....

I had one of those big fat dates that I've enjoyed having once a month with Sam.  I went up to his town and stayed for three days.  We had a lot of fun doing not much of anything:  taking drives, assembling little antipasti dinners (there's a great grocery store there) and devouring them, watching the first season of Weeds, playing with his dog, and watching Nuggets basketball of all things.

I am the most anti-tv sports person in the world.  Or at least I have been up until meeting Sam.  He's not.  Sigh.  Do you remember a long time ago in a post I mentioned I'd made a list of the qualities in my perfect man?  I figured that according to the law of attraction if I wrote a very detailed list then tucked it away,  putting the clear intention out into the universe, this guy, this perfect guy would show up. Well one of the features of this perfect man was he doesn't watch sports on television.  Hmmm.  Clearly Sam isn't that perfect guy.  Not only does he watch sports on television but he convinced me to watch a basketball game with him.  I curled up in the corner of the couch with a pillow fully planning to snooze, but I'll be darned if it wasn't so exciting I was totally entranced...entrapped?...in it.  Didn't sleep a wink.  He was impressed.  I made a lot of points on that one.  He said for a rookie watcher I really got it. Ha.  That cracks me up. The strange thing is though, I did get it! First hockey, now basketball.  I'm worried there's a latent sports babe masquerading as me.

On Sunday I drove down to Denver to see Fleetwood Mac with my sister and her husband.  They had an extra ticket, and invited me along as their guest.  We took a taxi to and from the venue, and enjoyed the concert greatly with the help of several vodka martinis.  I love to see old rockers still rockin'. (I'm referring to both Fleetwood Mac and myself.) 

There's a lot going on here on my front and I'm feeling kind of slammed.  I wouldn't feel so anxious if I had even begun  packing Katy's things for the trip to her new home.  As it turns out Max is coming out to get her much earlier than we had originally talked about.  He's coming on the thirteenth of June! So soon! 

That wouldn't be a big deal, but two months ago I booked a little B&B in Hill City, South Dakota for a week for Katy and I.  We're leaving next week. I wanted us to have a trip together before she leaves. I would have loved to have gone to Oregon again, but that trip is expensive.  This one is a fraction of the cost, and there are so many cool things for families to do in this area:  Mount Rushmore, the Wild Mustang Rescue Ranch, Jewel Cave, Wind Cave, an old train right out of the cowboy days, the Crazy Horse memorial, Custer state park and all the wild animals that live there, a kangaroo rescue ranch (isn't that weird?), plus creeks and lakes for swimming.  

I've come around to the point that I'm just plain excited at the prospects that are awaiting me in a new ALONE life. My calendar is beginning to look very interesting for this summer.  I'm building in plenty of fun:  several concerts (I'm blessed that Max is in the music business and gets me free concert tickets); some visits from friends; a few little trips for myself, mostly to Sam's part of the country; and plenty of day trips that end with late dinners with my girlfriends.

But the first thing I'm going to do is to establish a new daily rhythm of waking up and going to bed....no more alarm clocks!  Living by my personal body rhythms rather than a clock is the thing I've missed most these three years that Katy has been here.  Once I do that, I'm going to get my house ready to sell, write, do more art, learn my photoshop elements program, teach myself to take better photos.  I think it's going to be a good new life.  

Still gotta figure out the money thing, but I'm up for that too now.  Resigned might be a better word, but it doesn't matter if I'm up or just resigned, I'm going to figure something out that works for me. I'm lucky I have no debt. Not a penny. That's important security.  I can always pay for propane and my property taxes and eat peanut butter.  Ha.  Just kidding.  (I hope!)

That photo at the top of the page is of Katy today at the pizza place.  She was eleven years old yesterday and we had a party in town today.  I brought four of the girls home for a sleepover and have been hauling food to the den ever since we got home. They eat so much yet they're so thin!

Tomorrow we'll all go to town for an early memorial day parade.  There are already flags all over town.  We're getting a fly over by some air force jets, and the weather is supposed to be wonderful.  There'll be live music in two different places, interesting exhibits, and I hope those Amish ladies will be on the street selling their world's best doughnuts (risen and fried...yum).  Folks will be driving up from the flat lands in cars and on Harleys, filling the town and spending money at last, and the ice cream shop reopens.  It's summer in the mountains.  Just the best time here.

Aspen at the back of the house...GREEN at last!

This week marks another event.  It is one year since FH left.  The divorce wasn't final until July of last year, but I start the clock on the day he left. Looking back I've got to say, it's been a good year for the most part.  Oh, there were some frustrations, some hurt, and that anger thing, but they didn't rule the year or even come close!  I'm pretty proud of myself.  I've managed to figure out a way to handle most of what has come up if not always with aplomb at least with some efficiency.  It feels good.  I feel strong. 

My friend Paula came over last night and we talked till one.  She said you've handled it all remarkably well, and she's right. I have.

Now I'm ready for the next year, my next incarnation.  

I love having something to look forward to.

That Anger Thing...Awful!

Sometimes having a blog is having pressure.  I began this blog with the intention of writing about how I, a seasoned woman, handles a divorce after a 40 year marriage.  I don't think any divorced women or women who are contemplating divorce read this blog, but I had the idea that my experiences would somehow help another who finds herself going through the same thing. And, like therapy, it gives me a mental cleansing to write about my feelings and experiences. It often actually seems to center me.  So when some things have come up that are especially unpleasant, and about which I feel reluctant to write, I have ignored my beloved blog.  

But I love my blog.  I love my readers (who might have skipped the country by now, I've been so negligent).

So, here's the deal:  I have been just eaten up with anger these last weeks.  I don't think there is anything else that erodes peace of mind and well being more than anger does. It has destabilized me. 

A couple of weeks ago I was told casually that FH and she (they) were moving here to Colorado to a bustling little mountain town to manage a group of radio stations for a man we did business with in the days when we had our company. I was swamped with anger upon hearing that news, and it has only grown more toxic as the days have passed.  I'm actively trying to get through it and banish it from my life because I'm a relentlessly positive person and I need to get this crippling anger off my back.

Do not get the idea that I'm sorry for myself. That isn't the emotion I feel. No it isn't. FH (former husband) left our life of 40 years. For me, an entire adult lifetime.  He took nothing but his guitars and his clothes. He simply left it all behind. Every thing.  And he moved to the southern town where his long term lover lived (my home town!), and acted like I was getting a great deal by getting all that he left. 

 But here I am with a very expensive house I can not sell (the realtors here are not even opening their doors right now), a house that requires a few thousand more dollars to be spent on it before it's actually ready to sell.  I have a half mile gravel driveway to maintain, pastures to be dragged and mowed, a $20,000 tractor that no one wants to buy, art treasures that aren't very marketable now, stocks that are at rock bottom, and the list goes on and on. I have immense baggage.  And I can't just walk away from it like he did. It's my money.  I have to have it.  And frankly, I don't have the same skills as he to go out and just walk into a new career.  I was the back bone.  The detail gal.  The Virgo of our company.  He was the spark.  The electricity.  The smoke in the mirror.  The Aquarian.

I'm angry that he just walked away from everything, a completely free man. Free to begin a new life, free to start a new career. Free. And I have no hope of that until I sell this house of mine.  And I have to figure out how to stay afloat for the years it will probably take to sell this house!  I must think of a way to make money when no one wants to spend money that doesn't actually require me to live in a town, because as you know I live in the fabulous but limiting middle of nowhere, seventeen miles from a tiny town of two thousand people where every third business has gone out of business, unable to make it through this past winter.

Like Scarlet O'Hara I've gotta pull down some velvet drapes and make myself a plan.

It's hard to write about money or rather the lack thereof.   Here's what I think: people who have had to struggle most of their lives or even a portion of their lives seem to have inner resources that those who did not have to struggle lack.  Their spunky, creative, resourcefulness and ability to make it in spite of the odds is a badge of honor really, that only they have a right to wear proudly.  But for those who never had much of a struggle, it is somehow embarrassing to admit they are now flapping in the wind of the economic downturn.  Their self worth is somehow ridiculously entwined with their "wealth". Now, you guys don't worry too much, I'm not going under anytime really soon, but without a plan it would happen.  I'm not going to go forward without a plan.

In many ways this stupid economic disaster that our government has carelessly plunged us all into has, in my case anyway, allowed some of us to wipe out that wayward line of reasoning.  Hell. We're all broke now.  Admit it.  Deal with it.  And, to tell you the truth, I think it's going to make me a better person all in all, with a more serene, a more conscious life once I get the hang of it.  I do. I've just gotta get the hang of it.

Yesterday I took my usual hike up the mountain behind the house.  Usually it clears my head, and in fact frequently fills me with a euphoric enthusiasm that makes me feel like I can take on anything.  Strangely, it's kind of like that misleading feeling I often get in bed in the dark just before falling asleep. I'm sure you know that feeling...

Every thing's possible! What's that all about? Why can't we maintain that spirited, confident, energy in the bright light of our active time?

But after two miles or so I realized that emotionally, I was going the other way. Before long, I was weeping.  I turned off my ipod and just stood there amongst the trees boo hooing big time.  And then I was screaming, cursing (and I'm a great curser, or cusser as we said in the south), and throwing rocks at the trees.  It was a magnificent tantrum!   FH's ears must have been burning like a dry forest fire. But I'll tell ya, the freedom to be able to do that, thanks to the isolation of the mountain, was just exquisite. After awhile I continued to stumble up the rocky trail, wiping tears away when they impeded my progress, stubbornly determined to reach the top. 

Once I did reach the top, and it was difficult...my legs had become so very heavy...I sought out a little stone bluff I love overlooking the box canyon below, and sat there a long while.  The tears finally dried up.  My heart stopped pounding.  My mind quietened.  And while I can't say my anger evaporated, it did greatly soften and I was able to put it into a little self enclosed room of my mind where it will burn itself out and not be able to harm me.  There's nothing like the release of an uninhibited tantrum and the calming hand of mother nature.

Eventually, with a deep sigh and the understanding at my core that I simply can not allow this anger or any other negative emotion or challenge to change my positive course (to where and what I have no idea) I found the road home and headed downhill.  

After a couple of miles I plugged the earphones into my ears, found John Mellencamp's  "Wild Nights" on the ipod, turned it up full blast and stepped up the pace down the hill feeling decidedly lighter on my feet.  

And I still feel better today so I'm pretty sure the worst is behind me.  I'm just looking ahead now.  I'm going to be just fine.