Thursday evening you say you have come to a decision. We are getting a divorce and you are filing papers on Monday. You will be moving to the desert. You say you've always wanted to live in the desert. (Wait a minute! Aren't you the guy who breaks into a lather when the temperature hits 80?) You say you don't like the way I treat you???? I don't appreciate ALL you have done for me? I can't forgive you for ????? For what, the gambling? Not contributing to our family when you got your inheritance? Taking tens of thousands of dollars from our investment account behind my back? Losing over $200K on poker? And on that count, you're right. You have continued to engage in behaviors I cannot forgive. Try as I might, I can't. And I've tried. I thought the triple bypass and my help in nurturing you back to health had caused you to have an epiphany. I was wrong; it was only temporary. Leopards don't change their spots.
On Friday morning I called an attorney I had interviewed right before your triple bypass. I signed the papers and put his retainer on a credit card. Cut my losses. Cancer, triple bypasses, diabetes, bipolar disorder. Those alone are more than enough. I'm not signing on for gambling again. The fax machine at work wouldn't put the papers through. I didn't want anyone in the office to find out what I was faxing. What kind of woman divorces a man with pancreatic cancer? I missed the deadline for filing on Friday. Over the weekend I got our home fax to put the sheets through. Papers were filed on Monday. You ask me if I would accept service of divorce papers. I tell you not to worry; I'd already filed. Would you accept service? You thank me for saving you $350.
Tuesday morning you create some bogus spreadsheet of our assets and how much you would get in monthly spousal support. You come up with a total of $7333 a month. You must be out of your mind. You have me on the sheet as making both retirement and a salary at the same time. That's quite a trick! Did anyone ever tell you that you don't get retirement from a job before you quit working it? How can you get more money a month than I bring home? You lead a rich fantasy life. You want a spousal support agreement by June 1. Hold on there! June 1 is Tuesday. That won't be happening. And I am sooooo glad I have hired an attorney.
My life has become dark. I live under a big, thick, heavy, gray cloud. It weighs down on me, exhausting me. My eyes feel heavy. I want to go to sleep. Everything is such an effort. I go to work but the joy is gone. And I have the tantrumers. Only one is there but the homeless child sees the gap and wants to step in. Now he is acting up, being difficult, trying to capture my attention. I get it little guy. Your mom abandoned the family. Your dad is taking care of you and your two younger brothers. You were living in a van and now you live in a shelter. You hate women but you love them. You don't want to work but you want my attention. I have a husband like that. I know your story. But please give me a break. My life just crumbled. Please don't ask me to be the paragon of patience I have been. I don't want to be, but I will if you insist.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Rip it out of my chest and throw it in the street
After two days of no communication, you tell me you won't gamble until we've had a conversation about your gambling. I hope you are thinking, thinking about how you are finally going to protect me and provide something for me. Throw me a bone, will ya?
Kyle's grandmother gets rooms comped at a big casino where she loses big money on a regular basis. We had made plans to go there for Mother's Day weekend (while you are still thinking about how you can protect me). You ask me if I will go. I say let's take a pass on it; casinos put bile in my mouth. You promise that if I go, you won't gamble. Despite your impeccable history as an inveterate liar, I somehow sense that this time you are telling the truth. I was right, you were. We went, we stayed, you didn't gamble. The room was beautiful. Laura did my hair: highlights, lowlights and a cut. We dined. We swam. I played slots and you catered to my every whim. You, Laura and Kyle treated my like a queen. It was truly a weekend centered on me. I had a terrific time. And you even paid for everything.
Ah, but we didn't have the 'conversation' yet. Who is supposed to initiate this type of conversation? You? Me? I ask you what you have come up with as a plan to protect me. You say the only thing you can think of is that we get a divorce, split everything down the middle, and then keep living together. I say 'no can do'.
Finally, after almost three weeks, I suggest you and I get a divorce, you sign over all the assets to me, and we continue living together as husband and wife, through thick and thin, I will be there for you till the very end. You say that won't do. After all, there are so many things you aren't happy with.......
Kyle's grandmother gets rooms comped at a big casino where she loses big money on a regular basis. We had made plans to go there for Mother's Day weekend (while you are still thinking about how you can protect me). You ask me if I will go. I say let's take a pass on it; casinos put bile in my mouth. You promise that if I go, you won't gamble. Despite your impeccable history as an inveterate liar, I somehow sense that this time you are telling the truth. I was right, you were. We went, we stayed, you didn't gamble. The room was beautiful. Laura did my hair: highlights, lowlights and a cut. We dined. We swam. I played slots and you catered to my every whim. You, Laura and Kyle treated my like a queen. It was truly a weekend centered on me. I had a terrific time. And you even paid for everything.
Ah, but we didn't have the 'conversation' yet. Who is supposed to initiate this type of conversation? You? Me? I ask you what you have come up with as a plan to protect me. You say the only thing you can think of is that we get a divorce, split everything down the middle, and then keep living together. I say 'no can do'.
Finally, after almost three weeks, I suggest you and I get a divorce, you sign over all the assets to me, and we continue living together as husband and wife, through thick and thin, I will be there for you till the very end. You say that won't do. After all, there are so many things you aren't happy with.......
Break My Heart
How strange life can be. Some people say, "You plan. God laughs." And that certainly would be the case here. I didn't even plan; I guessed at what would happen. You got diagnosed with cancer, and I thought there would be a descent into cancer hell. The only variable, I thought, would be the rate at which we took the dive. I wondered what it would be like, how long it would last, what medical elements would come into play, how you would handle it, and what my life would look like as well. Really, God, I wasn't making plans; I was planning to cope. Maybe that in itself was a 'plan'.
But then at a point in our journey, cancer took a back seat. On April 28, two days before our 22nd wedding anniversary, you called me at work. You didn't want to lie anymore. You didn't want to put Laura in the middle. You wanted to come clean. Knowing that I would be seeing my therapist in 45 minutes, you wanted to let me know that you were playing poker again. In fact, you always had been playing poker, you always would, and 'that is just the way it is'. Nuclear bomb falls on kindergarten teacher in Southern California. All is destroyed, devastated. Building demolished, vegetation obliterated. Will there be any survivors? The mushroom cloud rises up into the atmosphere tall dark and ominous. Can't you see it? The fallout flattens everything in its path. All is dark, gray, ruined, there is no going back. Life as we have known it will never be the same again. You hand me a broom. Go clean it up. Deal with it.
I tell you that I am stunned, crushed, hurt. I see I have enabled you to gamble. I pay the bills. I go to work. You gamble. I scrounge for summer funds. I take extra jobs. You gamble. I tell you that from now on you will pay your medical coverage and there will be big changes around here. After all, we've just suffered a nuclear holocaust. I ask you to be thinking of how you are going to protect me from any damages that might arise from your gambling. What if you are thinking, "What the heck, I'm going to die, one last hurrah, I'm going to play in this high-stakes game"? Or, you just decide that throwing money on a table is the way you want to spend your final days? You would need to think of a way to protect me and provide for me. There's no life insurance. There's no retirement plan with my name on it for widow's benefits. For once, protect me and provide something for me.
I let our anniversary slip by unnoticed. I have no desire to celebrate.
I tell you that I am stunned, crushed, hurt. I see I have enabled you to gamble. I pay the bills. I go to work. You gamble. I scrounge for summer funds. I take extra jobs. You gamble. I tell you that from now on you will pay your medical coverage and there will be big changes around here. After all, we've just suffered a nuclear holocaust. I ask you to be thinking of how you are going to protect me from any damages that might arise from your gambling. What if you are thinking, "What the heck, I'm going to die, one last hurrah, I'm going to play in this high-stakes game"? Or, you just decide that throwing money on a table is the way you want to spend your final days? You would need to think of a way to protect me and provide for me. There's no life insurance. There's no retirement plan with my name on it for widow's benefits. For once, protect me and provide something for me.
I let our anniversary slip by unnoticed. I have no desire to celebrate.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Well, THAT'S Good News
Mother's Day weekend was like a beautiful dream for me. You took me to Agua Caliente out in Palm Desert where Kyle's grandmother gets rooms comped every month. Ours was luxurious with one of the few balconies in the hotel. We were on the seventh floor overlooking the swimming pool. When the sun rose in the morning (on the other side of the hotel, thankfully), we had a breathtaking view of the snow-capped mountains to the west. I tried to take photos of them but they looked hazy. You explained that even though the mountains looked clear and majestic to us, the wind was kicking up a lot of sand and debris in the distance which caused our photos to look fuzzy. You, Kyle and Laura catered to my every whim. It was so unusual that there were times when I felt indecisive. (You're asking me what I want to do? I get to decide?) I truly enjoyed myself. You even humored me while I played nickel slots.
School on the other hand has been a living nightmare. Were it not for seasoned, competent and resourceful administrators, I don't know what I would have done. What I do know is that I wouldn't have been able to survive these past few weeks if my former administrator had been in charge (God rest her soul, no disrespect intended, but I went through it with her once four years ago and she didn't help me at all yet continued to pat herself on the back every time I met with her, telling me how much support she had given me...) This year I have two students who returned from Spring Break having had some sort of trauma. We know the source of one child's trauma, but I think the other child's mother is holding out on telling us the whole story about her son, lying by omission. They are both tantruming and learning from one another. Now they are both throwing furniture and books and destroying property as well as running from the classroom. On Wednesday, B ran out the back gates of the school, down through the neighborhood streets while being chased by five adults. At one point he stopped in a yard and started pulling out the plants, the rain gutters from the house, and the pickets from the fence. The adults wouldn't touch him, the homeowner called the police, the office manager finally picked B up and removed him. The police arrived at school and called the PET. B hasn't been back since then. His mom has summoned her mother from Arizona to come and shadow him for the remainder of the school year. Neither one of these boys wants to be at school. They both want to be at home with their mothers. Neither mother can have that. It's sad. I am sad for them. I set up a behavior system with K but he still has trouble with anger. He brings me an orange domino when he needs to 'cool down' and a red domino when the work I have given him is too hard. We set up a 'cooldown corner' for him in the classroom. When he brings me the orange domino, he is to go to the 'cooldown corner'; when he brings me a red domino, I will go to where he is working and modify the assignment for him. I hope the system works. On Friday I think he unplugged all the computers in the school computer lab. The tech guy came in my room afterward, and the look on his face was heartbreaking; I didn't know what to say or do. I thought my aide and I were watching the kids. Could K have slipped away under the table for a second to unplug everything? I met with the second grade teacher whose class has lab after mine. She helped me think of a way to find out. I will try it tomorrow. We have study team meetings on both these boys next week. I think B needs a special school. I don't know what the PET recommended but I do know that once the police call in PET, it's out of our hands. Flying furniture, ripped-down bulletin boards, angry children, they make me sad. I know it's not about me; they want their mothers, I can never replace their mothers. But I am still sad, and I am frustrated I am not able to help them stop.
On the health front, things are happening. You had a CT scan on Monday. On Wednesday your oncologist told you the tumor is shrinking. The chemo is working. Well THAT's good news! In time you will be able to have the SMA bypass operation to help circulate blood to your intestinal tract. But Saturday you told me the doctor also found a goiter and lesions on your lungs. He said he wasn't worried about either. This doctor doesn't fib. So I guess we should believe him.
School on the other hand has been a living nightmare. Were it not for seasoned, competent and resourceful administrators, I don't know what I would have done. What I do know is that I wouldn't have been able to survive these past few weeks if my former administrator had been in charge (God rest her soul, no disrespect intended, but I went through it with her once four years ago and she didn't help me at all yet continued to pat herself on the back every time I met with her, telling me how much support she had given me...) This year I have two students who returned from Spring Break having had some sort of trauma. We know the source of one child's trauma, but I think the other child's mother is holding out on telling us the whole story about her son, lying by omission. They are both tantruming and learning from one another. Now they are both throwing furniture and books and destroying property as well as running from the classroom. On Wednesday, B ran out the back gates of the school, down through the neighborhood streets while being chased by five adults. At one point he stopped in a yard and started pulling out the plants, the rain gutters from the house, and the pickets from the fence. The adults wouldn't touch him, the homeowner called the police, the office manager finally picked B up and removed him. The police arrived at school and called the PET. B hasn't been back since then. His mom has summoned her mother from Arizona to come and shadow him for the remainder of the school year. Neither one of these boys wants to be at school. They both want to be at home with their mothers. Neither mother can have that. It's sad. I am sad for them. I set up a behavior system with K but he still has trouble with anger. He brings me an orange domino when he needs to 'cool down' and a red domino when the work I have given him is too hard. We set up a 'cooldown corner' for him in the classroom. When he brings me the orange domino, he is to go to the 'cooldown corner'; when he brings me a red domino, I will go to where he is working and modify the assignment for him. I hope the system works. On Friday I think he unplugged all the computers in the school computer lab. The tech guy came in my room afterward, and the look on his face was heartbreaking; I didn't know what to say or do. I thought my aide and I were watching the kids. Could K have slipped away under the table for a second to unplug everything? I met with the second grade teacher whose class has lab after mine. She helped me think of a way to find out. I will try it tomorrow. We have study team meetings on both these boys next week. I think B needs a special school. I don't know what the PET recommended but I do know that once the police call in PET, it's out of our hands. Flying furniture, ripped-down bulletin boards, angry children, they make me sad. I know it's not about me; they want their mothers, I can never replace their mothers. But I am still sad, and I am frustrated I am not able to help them stop.
On the health front, things are happening. You had a CT scan on Monday. On Wednesday your oncologist told you the tumor is shrinking. The chemo is working. Well THAT's good news! In time you will be able to have the SMA bypass operation to help circulate blood to your intestinal tract. But Saturday you told me the doctor also found a goiter and lesions on your lungs. He said he wasn't worried about either. This doctor doesn't fib. So I guess we should believe him.
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