Sad but true.

Divorce

The Dance

I can't sleep. Today, March 1st, 2016, is my 30th wedding anniversary. Does the clock keep ticking on that even though we are separated? 2 years, 2 months, and 17 days. That's how long we have been separated. I have been actively trying to divorce him now for 8 months. He has not been cooperative, and accuses me of trying to hold him hostage for the rest of his life via alimony payments. It sucks when consequences catch up to you. This is why some men just kill their wives and avoid the unpleasantness altogether. 

Small blessings.

I have many times wished I had ended the marriage after our second child was born. That would leave me with both my precious girls and hopefully a lot less pain for all of us. Hind sight, as they say. But what else would I, We, have missed?

There is a song that popped into my head unexpectedly a few days ago as I awoke, and has stuck around to torture me ever since. Even my old standby cure of singing Ice, Ice Baby (by Vanilla Ice) hasn't worked to erase it from my mind.

Last week, it was my parents' 50th anniversary. 

I won't ever have one of those. 

I made it through a week of going through 50+ years of old photographs and memories to put together a collage and share moments at the family dinner I organized for them. 

 It was the first time I had braved the photo chest since the separation. My lifetime of photos had sat forbodingly in the brown wooden chest that protects them, daring me to expose my raw feelings and sort through our life. I had unashamedly refused to dive in. But now I had no choice. You can't have a 50th wedding anniversary celebration without a visual trip down memory lane.

Along the way, among all of the photos that I found of happier times and my husband before he turned to the dark side, were of course my own wedding photos,  

and our first dance.

You might think it is THAT song, (You're my) Inspiration, by Chicago, 

from our first dance that won't leave me. 

But that isn't it. 

For a while this past week, the song that wouldn't leave me was Garth Brook's The Dance. It had me reflecting on all of the moments that I am grateful to have had and wouldn't change for the world. Especially our daughters and happy family times together. Difficult to get past that in one piece, but I did. I even enjoyed revisiting those times, and reminded my girls about them as well. Lest they think it was always terrible. I have photographic evidence that we were all one big fucking happy family at one time. 

But I digress.

The song, which I had completely forgotten about, was one that was popular at the time we got engaged on March 1st, 1985. It was playing on the radio as we sat in his car in an underground parking lot getting ready to leave from...I don’t remember. Perhaps he picked me up after work or we had gone to a movie. 

Anyway, this song came on the radio, by Anne Murray, a beloved Canadian singer. (I still have the cassette tape of her childrens' songs that my mom and dad gave to me as a kid.)  

She was singing Could I Have This Dance.

A song about spending the rest of your life with someone. So it was playing on the radio, and I started singing along, directing it at my then boyfriend. It turned into a proposal of sorts, and he, and I, said yes. A few weeks later, he surprised me at work with an engagement ring, and officially proposed to me at work. 

The rest was history.

So now out of the blue, this song won't leave me. 

And, thank heavens, neither will the moments and memories that I remain grateful for. 

Yes, I could have missed the pain, but I would have had to have missed all the moments along the way that I would have died for.

I wouldn't have missed this dance for the world.

My Dad and I

Thanks for the Memories (with apologies to Mr. Bob Hope)

Well, it's done.  I have packed up the family home and the For Sale sign is affixed firmly in the front lawn. I am torn about this.  Part of me is happy to have achieved this step, while most of me is screaming inside. Really loud heaving sobs of heartbreak.

For some, maybe most, moving out of a house is probably not a big deal.  For me, having been raised by chronically transient parents, having been homeless as a child and then marrying into the military, this home was everything to me. It represented settling and security for the first time in my life. We move into it in July of 2004, when my husband "retired" from the military for the first time.  We were supposed to live as a normal, civilian family and enjoy our kids, grow old together and live out our sunset years there. That was the plan.

Any military family knows that the plan never survives first contact.  I should have known that. I naively thought we could handle anything. Surely after a military career including 5 overseas tours (eventually 6), civilian life would be easy.  Not so fast. It seems the one thing military people cannot handle, is civilians. Without a gun and a battle plan, anyway.

This day has been coming, well technically it had been coming for 11 years now, but the timeline I have actively been a part of has been since July.  At that point I decided to sell the house instead of holding on to it, and its memories. Having come to that decision, I found us a home and my girls and I moved out in mid-September.  I have been gradually moving out ever since.  I know I dragged my feet. Holding on to what I knew was pointless, but I was so reluctant to say good-bye forever.  It may have been just a house, but to me it was my dream. My future. An embodiment of such promise that would never be.

Every Fall and Christmas season, it is hard to fight back. To fight against the sadness and depression that come with the despair that accompanies the memories of those times. It is a time and process that I have yet to conquer.  So this holiday season, I found a new tool: Gratitude.

When I am overcome by sadness brought on by memories of better times, even of bitter times, I have been changing my perspective, and shifting my frequency, to that of gratitude. Gratitude for having had that experience. Even if the rest was not to be, I have had all of those blessed experiences.  And I am so grateful for them all.  Really and truly.  I often think of the Garth Brooks song, The Dance.  I could have missed the pain, but I would have had to miss the love, the blessings and the lessons along the way.  It is better to have loved and lost, etc, etc, etc...  This is not an easy shift to make, it is actually physically difficult.  I believe it to be the route to healing my heart, though.  And allowing my soul to grow from this.  I have opened my heart to gratitude, and I am grateful for the knowledge to be able to do so.

Bob Hope was a comedian and performer famous for ending his routines with a song...Thanks for the Memories.  I borrowed the title for this blog post from that idea.  One day I'll tell you how I ended up going to see a Bob Hope show with a paedophile. But that is a story for another time.

Happy New Year!  May 2016 bring you hope, love, faith, prosperity and joy. And may you remember to be grateful for it all.

Remember Who You Are!

It is the 29th Anniversary of the 1st day of my marriage. I'm doing much better today than last year on this date. There has been sadness, yes. I've been able to watch it come and go, though. Choosing the light instead of darkness.

I can't ignore the significance of the day, but I can assign it a different job. I choose to make it a restart day. My sister-in-law was very sweet and treated me to a massage at an amazing spa.  It left me relaxed and rejuvenated. A lovely way to while away the afternoon! I am forever grateful for her thoughtfullness.

I have seeds and soil ready to start the seedlings for my garden, my new passion. It is part of my renewal, rebirth.

I need to get back to who I am. The fearless and courageous me that ploghed on full of love and determination no matter what. There were pit stops for pain along the way, but I never lingered long.

I jave lingered here too long, in this place of grief and disbelief. I need to move forward.  Baby steps forward. What shall I do first?

My Own Company

Tonight is not unlike any Saturday nights over the past 30 years. Spent with my own company because Mike was away. Away with his military career, or once he became a civilian, away for work with his civilian job. I had looked forward to spending these nights with him when things settled down. With our children grown we would have lots of time to spend together. With his dream job on track he would have the time to be home. So I waited. For 30 freaking years, I waited. Fortunately I like my own company . And so I am comfortable spending the evening with myself. It is not however what I envisioned for the later years of my life. So tonight with both our grown daughters out living their own lives as they should, I I'm spending the evening in my own company. Having seen my ex earlier today for a band performance that our daughter was in, I was making polite small talk and asked him what he was doing tonight. Going out to a bar with his best friend. That's fine, great! I know how much it means to Mike to have friends to socialize with. He never felt like he had friends. Never fit in. The gracious part of me is happy for him. There is a small part of me that is a little resentful. And so he knew that I would be spending the evening alone as per our conversation. So he texts me just now, and asks me if I would like his company.

 Now it's a little late for him to start caring about my feelings. Though I do appreciate it. It's just... A little late. It is handy for the separated relationship that we now have for it to be amicable and conducted in a civil and even friendly way. However I was quite insulted, I guess, and indignant that tonight would have been, could have been, only one of many nights when I may have enjoyed his company. If he had not been otherwise occupied  spending time with more important things in his life like his career his job and his mistress.

No, it's much too late for us to enjoy each others company. Even just as friends. At least not now. Maybe in the future. But tonight, tonight it just pissed me off. Like really? Now you're going to decide that maybe I would like to share your company? Well hallelujah amen! Anyway. I'm taking a deep breath and I'm going to go finish my evening of Dr. Phil and the movie of the week. Better alone than in the wrong company. Who knew that my own company was better all along?

Danger, Life Ahead!

Did I tell you I decided to join a recreational volleyball league? I desperately need something to do in the evenings besides sit on the couch watching television. Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  It can just become incredibly boring, and slightly frightening.  As in, is this really what the rest of my life is going to be like?  My kids gone with their own lives, and me watching TV with the cats every night? Oh how depressing and terrifying! Let's not do that, shall we?  I am more than that.  I may have lost myself somewhere along the way, but I'm not far. I can feel it.

So...volleyball. It was the only sport I enjoyed playing in high school, and I have thought on occasion about doing it again, but was always too busy.  Now I am less busy :).  On the night I met Mike at that birthday party (see blog post of July 19, 2014 titled The Beginning), I had just come from a church youth group event (not kidding) at which we had played some casual volleyball.  It feels like that is what I was doing last, before I was interupted by 30 years of a doomed marriage.  It feels like picking up where I left off.  As if this story of my marriage was a book I was reading, and now I've finished it and have continued on with my life. Is this what a mid-life crisis is?  I hope not.  God, how cliché.

So driving down Crowchild Trail one day over the summer, I saw one of those overpass banners advertising the Calgary Sport and Social Club. I thought that was probably just what I wanted, so I looked them up online, and sure enough, they were just the thing.  Not only do they have a variety of recreational sports to choose from, but they have local pub and restaurant sponsors where teams are encouraged to patronise and return the favour. They also have annual parties and social events. Just what I need to prevent ending up as some kind of sad and lonely old lady with memories petrified like driftwood washed up on the shore of someone else's life.

Speaking of petrified, having decided on this, I became paralysed by panic. Fear of meeting new people, stepping wayyy outside my comfort zone, playing a sport for the first time in (30!) years.  My kids were shocked when I brought it up.  This is not the mom they have come to know and love.  They actually did double-takes and asked me to repeat myself.  I'm sure the poor darlings thought I had lost what was left of my mind.  The divorce finally pushing me over that thin edge into the delirium of mid-life crisis. So remarkable was this turn of events, that my sisters-in-law asked me if I had been drinking when I made this decision. My mom suggested that I was going to need extra acupuncture sessions to deal with the pain that playing a sport at my age would surely result in. Thanks mom.

My anxiety about this brilliant plan persisted. Thinking about it literally made me feel like I was going to start hyperventilating.  So I stopped thinking about it.  Leaving my decision about registration to the last possible moment.  I told myself that if I registered, it didn't mean I actually had to show up. And if I did happen to show up, I didn't have to actually enter the building. Or I could just hide and watch the first day. And if I really went through with it and did it, I didn't have to go again if I didn't enjoy it. So having practically put myself into an alternate universe in which volleyball was only a dream that someone had once and was so outside of the laws of physics as to be impossible to exist, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and registered. I was sure I would be too late anyway, and registration would be full. It wasn't, damn it!

My whole family told me how very proud they were of me.  My daughters were, as always, entirely supportive once they ascertained I was not a pod person.  My sisters-in-law threatened to come over and drive me to volleyball themselves if I considered not going.  Nothing like family to make you accountable for every questionable and crazy decision you make in the delirium of mid-life crisis.

I received an email from my team captain with the team roster and contact information.  Now I knew my teammates names.  Now they were real people. I was part of a team.  Kind of cool!  Our team name, however, is so not cool. I'm not even going to tell you what it is. I don't know how it was decided on, I certainly don't remember the option to vote on name choices, so I don't know what happened there.  That may well have been the most fun part of the whole adventure, and I was somehow left out of it! It's possible this could've had something to do with my last minute registration. Lesson learned there.

I combed the club website, dutifully filling out my waiver and trying in vain to fill my brain with enough rules and regulations minutia that this wouldn't feel so completely unknown. They don't post the game schedule until 48 hours before the game, so it wasn't until then that I discovered my first match would be at my old high school, in the same gym where I last officially played volleyball!  I took that as a sign from the Universe, and it bolstered my resolve quite a bit.  Then I made myself so busy on that first game day that I didn't have time to think about it until I was on my way, borderline late, having devoted the last 30 minutes before I left to raptly watching various YouTubers explain in detail how exactly to play volleyball. It was completely silly! Really, of all the things I have been through in my life, especially recently, I was afraid of volleyball!  Ridiculous.

Anyway, the first night went well.  My teammates are friendly and some as shy as I. And I'm not the oldest on my team!  That was a nice surprise.  I don't play any more lamely than some others there, and I actually did much better than I expected to. Some members on my team are absolutely fierce, and I look to them as my role models. My team got our asses kicked, but we will get better. I'm looking forward to next week. It has even brought out a competitive edge in me that I didn't know I had!  I've already looked up YouTube advice on how to improve my volleyball skills.  I'm going to kick ass.  Or at least shins. 

It was really bizarre being back in my old high school. It is such a large and imposing building in a beautiful old neighbourhood (Crescent Heights) that I didn't expect that typical phenomenon of childhood places looking smaller, but it actually did!  I got lost in the hallways leaving (surprise!), and stumbled on my old class picture. At first I was a little confused as to why I couldn't find my photo in the array of vaguely familiar fresh-faces. Then I realized I had to look under my maiden name...duh! I have been someone else for so long that I forgot who I was. Who I am.  

Seeing my little grad photo was startling. It was taken shortly after I met my ex, and I had forgotten that it is the same as the one he used to carry around in his wallet. Through all his military career, in every theatre of operation and training.  Last time I saw it, it had gun tape on the edges, from where he used to tape it up in his tent or sleeping space where he could see it. I wish I could go back and tell that young woman a couple of things. In fact, I wish future-me would come visit and tell ME a couple of things now, thank you very much. I have some questions.

Next time I have a game there, at my old school, I'm going to take some more time to look around at my leisure. Visit my old haunts and see if there is still a giant mural of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in the arts hallway and of KISS in the lunchroom, LOL!

Crescent Heights High School

The Enchanted Hotel

A funny thing happened on my way out of Waterton.  I was loathe to leave and made the process as slow as possible. On my way out, I stopped at a picnic bench by the lake and did some writing in my life journals for my daughters Megan & Erin. It was a beautiful place to be reflective and give a hug to some old memories.

Reluctantly packing it in, knowing I should get on the road soon, I left the lake and drove slowly toward the park exit.  Then I remembered I wanted to stop at the Prince of Wales hotel on my way out of the park. I had never been inside before, and wanted to see what it looked like.  I parked, telling myself I would just pop in and look around.  Maybe take a few pictures.

Then I discovered that it was tea time!  They serve a traditional British tea complete with little sandwiches, pastries, cookies and a variety of teas with all the trimming.  You get to enjoy all this while sitting with the perfect view of the lake.  How could I pass that up?  I stayed for tea.  I got strange looks, being there by myself for tea. They were no doubt wishing they were as brave as I. Or feeling pity, sympathy and curiosity.  One of those, I'm sure.  But I am comfortable in my own company, and blissfully ignored them. Grinning like a fool at my own delight in this perfect moment.

The longer I sat in that beautiful, historic hotel, the more I knew that I could not leave yet.  I was enchanted, and had to stay at least one night in this charming place. I texted the girls. They were complete enablers and encouraged me to do it.  I even texted my ex-husband. He also encouraged me to do it. Not that he could have stopped me.  So, deciding that another several hundred dollars didn't matter in the great scheme of things since I technically could not really afford this trip anyway, I made up my mind to splurge once more and stay the night.

I asked at the front desk if they happened to have any rooms available.  I didn't have a reservation, and this was their second busiest week of the year (wildflower festival...no kidding).  As luck would have it, they had two rooms left.  Both on the tippy-top 6th floor.  I was delighted, and whipped out my much abused credit card.

It was then that I discovered that the elevator, an old two person manual lift that required an operator, only went to the 4th floor.  After that, you took a series of ever narrowing and steepening staircases up to the 6th floor. The bellboy and I hauled all my luggage up.  I hadn't packed for just an overnight, so needed it all!

Anyway, once ensconced in my room, I had a little giggle.  I was paying slightly less than I had for my deluxe previous room with the full size jacuzzi bath and air conditioning, with a kitchenette. This room barely had room for the bed and a small antique desk with a narrow space for me to walk between them, and a bathroom, complete with slanting walls, that had the shortest shower I have ever seen!  The plumbing was of course old, but serviceable.  I had a large box fan in case I got hot, one window in the bathroom, and one at the end of my bed (which would later become a source of surprise). The bed and pillows were more comfortable than the one at the newer hotel. There was of course no television or internet, or air conditioning.  I was delighted!  

I excitedly read up on the history of the hotel, which was complicated and a fairy tale of its own.  I was both disappointed and relieved to note that there were no mention of any ghosts, hauntings, or other supernatural occurrences of any kind.

One of the things I was dying to do was to dress up and go sit in the enormous lobby and read my book, watching the guests go by and pretending that I was independently wealthy and never had to leave.  I did this, and was extremely satisfied.  It felt like I thought it would. like a dream come to life, or maybe a pop-up storybook memory that I had stepped into.  It was great!  Then I wandered around the gift shop, picking up little things that suited my fancy.  Always on the lookout for raccoon themed items for Erin, I was disappointed that I didn't find any here, but did buy some nice tea to give away at Christmas time.  Or keep for myself.  I haven't decided yet.  I didn't feel like having a full dinner in the dining room, which was quite expensive, so I opted for a cup of coffee and some gift-store snacks to nibble the night away.  I planned on reading my book and relaxing in my room for the night. 

I took my coffee outside to enjoy the view and take some photos before retiring to my room.  To my delight, I discovered a family of 5 foxes had their den in the green space in front of the hotel.  There was a sign nearby asking guests to respect their space and not approach the den.  These foxes, the mom, dad, and 3 kits, frolicked like they didn't have a care in the world. 

They were not disturbed in the least by all of the people standing and being entertained by their antics.  It was a real treat to have such an intimate peek into their private, carefree world.  I felt just like them.  On my way back inside, I had to stop and let a deer walk by me, lest our paths literally intersect.  I felt like Snow White walking through the forest!  Every minute of my stay was more and more healing, as the serenity of this magical, natural oasis calmed my soul.  A reluctant and truly life changing realization would come to me later.