It's strange to me how it was so much easier to be Thankful when I had nothing..... we lived pay check to pay check and I squeezed nickels out of pennies to makes sure we could do all the things we wanted to do for the kids and give them all the things we wanted them to have.
I had nothing, and yet: I had everything.
I was so grateful to have a wonderful, loving husband and two wonderful children. I was grateful to have a home we could live in and two running cars. Mostly I was just grateful for my life.
This past month I have had my Facebook feeds first fill up with a ton of polictal stuff... yawn. And then almost immediately, the newsfeeds started filling up with: Day One, I am thankful for...... INSERT HAPPY HUSBAND, WONDERFUL HUSBAND, PERFECT MARTHA STEWART LIFE HERE. I don't resent it - I'm happy for my friends that they have not know the kind of emotional turmoil that a divorce will wreak all over your life. Really, I'm happy for them.
At the same time, I'm a bit jealous, too. F*ck. Way jealous. Some of them are nicer than me, some of them aren't. Some are more patient than me, and some of them are self-absorbed women who barely see past their own personal needs to attend to that of heir families. I know that sounds harsh... but *all* have at least one of those friends.......
No matter, it's not about making comparisons.... but as it rolls up and down my feed day after day... it's get's hard to read after a while.
No one wants me to put: "I'm thankful that Yoga Girl had a clean snatch and I was spared the complication of an STD." Having said that, I'm *am* very grateful for that..... a silver lining for sure.
Of course I'm grateful for my kids.... though at my current emotional state I'm beginning to wonder just how grateful they are for me right now. The Bubbie has been handling them for the most part this week as I've checked out a bit emotionally. Writing the book is really dragging me through it and FAST.
Usually the pain and the betrayal of the past come and go like waives that wash over me - when I head a certain song or remember a certain moment in time. I can process it and move forward with the day - leaving the bitterness where it belongs: in the past.
Writing the book though, has me *living* in the past right now. Living in the joy and love of what I once had.... making it so tangible and real that I have to keep reminding myself that's gone. Then I'm left to feel the pain over and over and over again. I'm having a hard time concealing that pain from the people in my life - my faily, my friends, and yes..... mostly likely, the children.
Big fat Mommy fail.
The only reprieve I has is Twilight. Stupid and silly I know - but it's a story so engaging that I can check out, watch it for a few hours and then resume my own pain again. Silly Edward and his dreamy eyes. lolol
I don't know how many people will read my book... or even buy it. It certainly won't make me rich, but it's become *really* important to me to finish it. To tell the whole story - the good, the bad, the ugly - even if I look like a raging, insane, beotch part of the time: it has to be true. It has to be as hole and full and honest as I can make it.
Now... good? Well, that's a whole other debate and you'll all be the judge of that when it get's released in a few weeks.
Yes, a FEW WEEKS. How crazy is that?
So here I sit, blogging... I don't know how many blog posts I've written - probably close to 100 or so? I'd never blogged before starting this (as I'm sure you grammar Nazi's will attest too) - and I'm sure I could have done it better. Set it up better - I didn't know I was supposed to "tag" every entry so it'll register on Google. lolol Oh well.... but the numbers each *day* continue to climb and according to Google Analytics, I have people all over the world *reading* the blog - as far away as Israel, Iran, New Zealand and even Croatia.
Croatia - seriously? That's a bit mind blowing.
Yes, I am thankful. I am thankful for clients who have stuck by me through this trying time, and who have been incredibly patient with my turn around times this year. I am thankful for family who took us in and provided us safety and security. I am *VERY* thankful for my children. I am thankful for their continued smiles in the face of my tears. I am thankful for their hugs when I'm feeling alone. I am thankful for the decolletage vase The Boy made me for all my flowers he brings me. (Incidentally, I'm thankful that I figured out how to use the spell checker on Mozilla so that some a-hole won't email me later to tell me I'm stupid and can't spell decolletage.) I'm thankful for The Girl and her recent love of all things Peter Pan. I'm thankful for their occasional bed wetting, mud-tracking, sibling bickering and scrapes and falls that require Mommy kisses because then I know they still need me.
I'm thankful that in spite of my failures and all that has happened.... the children still love me. They still need me.
And, without sounding completely tripe and like I'm totally full of sh*t, I'm thankful for you.
I'm thankful for Alex, who sends me very well drafted and thought out emails and blog comments - she doesn't usually agree with me, and often she has hard advice, but I read every word, consider her view point and often take a lot of her advice. I'm thankful that she spends the time to write to me.
I'm thankful for Mr. XXXXX - otherwise known as Jason, who shared with me his own mistakes and whose answers/excuses for his own situation are sooooo similar to El Capitans, that I can't help but take him at his word when he tells me that what's happened has less to do with me than I realize. (El Capitan say's this too, but I have a hard time believing him.)
I'm grateful for Emma who almost stopped reading the blog but stuck around in the end providing me tons of emails and blog comments and has shown me a great kindness and generosity that I am truly grateful for.
I'm thankful for Mercy - who's own life experience she has shared with me and she gives me great hope for my children, that they will stumble through this with me and come out the other side. That has provided me more comfort than I could ever put into words.
I'm humbled by the amount of people who have written me and called me their "hero" and thanked me for sharing my journey.... I'm no one's hero, I can assure you. All the same, it's a nice thing for someone to say.
I'm thankful for all the magnet sales and donations that got us to Disneyland and I'm grateful for the time I had with the kids there - all the magic, all the fun, all the memories we made: just the three of us.
Mostly though, I'm thankful for the blog in general. I'm humbled by the very idea that (literally) thousands of people are coming here every week to read what I've posted. To share in this journey and, most importantly, that I can be *ME*.
Sometimes that's Bitter Me. Sometimes it's Happy Me. Sometimes it's Reflective Me that wants Bitter Me to sac up and move the f*ck on. Reflective Me usually turns into B*tch Me. Who then sometimes turns right back into Bitter and Scorned Me.
And.... you just let it happen. You let it unfold and *be* whatever it is. You allow me to be whoever I am and in doing that - I'm help to a higher standard. Or at least, I think I am. I write what I do *every* day - I write about how I feel, where I've failed, where he's failed, what my struggles are. But just like I wouldn't want to do something that would forever shame my children, I don't want to do something that I'm not going to be willing to share with the entire planet later that night.
It's a crazy thing - to be sitting here now. I've been on TV?!?!?! What the hell is that about? lolol I'm writing a book.... !?!?!?! It's all a little crazy... but crazy good. Crazy comforting by strangers who have provided me wise and kind words when I was in my darkest hours.
I'm thankful for the blog and for everyone who reads it - I don't make a single *dime* off it, but when I do get from it is worth more than any google ad would ever pay me. I'm grateful that people find my journey, or the story of my journey - or whatever it is that keeps them coming back every day - but they keep coming back and that's...... amazing.
Thank you for letting me be me.
Thank you for letting me vent and cry.
Thank you for letting me bitter and angry.
Thank you for celebrating my highs right along with me.
Thanks you.... for not leaving me during my lows.
Thank you for listening and writing and emailing and commenting.
I hope that whatever is going on in your life, you have people willing to listen to you as well.
I'm thankful for where I am.
However.... I would trade it all in to back in time and stop it all from happening. To go back to my little house, and my happy life where my kids lived..... in one home with two parents who loved them.
And then there's this:
"But no, the very first thing I said to my ex upon "discovery" (as tears streamed down my face) was, "I wanted to grow old with you and play with our grandchildren together". I still tear up thinking about it. I did want to grow old with him. I truly believed he was my life partner and soul mate. I met him when I was 15 and didn't really know life without him. My wise friend Laura looked at me (with tears in her eyes) as I was telling her this and said, "you know Tracy, maybe his purpose in your life was not to grow old with you. Maybe his purpose was to be with you up until this point, and to provide you with two beautiful healthy children. And now his purpose in your life is done. Perhaps the universe is making room for others to come into your life. People who you would never know if this had never happened" WOW! That stunned me. Let that sink in for a minute...it is still sinking in."
I'm thankful that this reader took the time to share her experience with me. Her words have rung in my ears since I read them..... what if El Capitan wasn't *the one*- he was just the one to get me *here*.
What if his purpose wasn't to get me to the end of the race... but rather, help me over the hurdles in the first half and then step off the track? It sure as sh*t sucks running the rest of this race alone.... but, I'm thankful I'm still here... still running.
I'm thankful for this blog, for all the wonderful (and even the not so wonderful few) - people who, by their willingness to share my journey, have helped shaped my perspective and attitude along the way. It's a wonderful blessing, one I'm not entirely sure I'm worth of.... but I'll gladly accept it.
Thank you.
I hope you have a wone
I had nothing, and yet: I had everything.
I was so grateful to have a wonderful, loving husband and two wonderful children. I was grateful to have a home we could live in and two running cars. Mostly I was just grateful for my life.
This past month I have had my Facebook feeds first fill up with a ton of polictal stuff... yawn. And then almost immediately, the newsfeeds started filling up with: Day One, I am thankful for...... INSERT HAPPY HUSBAND, WONDERFUL HUSBAND, PERFECT MARTHA STEWART LIFE HERE. I don't resent it - I'm happy for my friends that they have not know the kind of emotional turmoil that a divorce will wreak all over your life. Really, I'm happy for them.
At the same time, I'm a bit jealous, too. F*ck. Way jealous. Some of them are nicer than me, some of them aren't. Some are more patient than me, and some of them are self-absorbed women who barely see past their own personal needs to attend to that of heir families. I know that sounds harsh... but *all* have at least one of those friends.......
No matter, it's not about making comparisons.... but as it rolls up and down my feed day after day... it's get's hard to read after a while.
No one wants me to put: "I'm thankful that Yoga Girl had a clean snatch and I was spared the complication of an STD." Having said that, I'm *am* very grateful for that..... a silver lining for sure.
Of course I'm grateful for my kids.... though at my current emotional state I'm beginning to wonder just how grateful they are for me right now. The Bubbie has been handling them for the most part this week as I've checked out a bit emotionally. Writing the book is really dragging me through it and FAST.
Usually the pain and the betrayal of the past come and go like waives that wash over me - when I head a certain song or remember a certain moment in time. I can process it and move forward with the day - leaving the bitterness where it belongs: in the past.
Writing the book though, has me *living* in the past right now. Living in the joy and love of what I once had.... making it so tangible and real that I have to keep reminding myself that's gone. Then I'm left to feel the pain over and over and over again. I'm having a hard time concealing that pain from the people in my life - my faily, my friends, and yes..... mostly likely, the children.
Big fat Mommy fail.
The only reprieve I has is Twilight. Stupid and silly I know - but it's a story so engaging that I can check out, watch it for a few hours and then resume my own pain again. Silly Edward and his dreamy eyes. lolol
I don't know how many people will read my book... or even buy it. It certainly won't make me rich, but it's become *really* important to me to finish it. To tell the whole story - the good, the bad, the ugly - even if I look like a raging, insane, beotch part of the time: it has to be true. It has to be as hole and full and honest as I can make it.
Now... good? Well, that's a whole other debate and you'll all be the judge of that when it get's released in a few weeks.
Yes, a FEW WEEKS. How crazy is that?
So here I sit, blogging... I don't know how many blog posts I've written - probably close to 100 or so? I'd never blogged before starting this (as I'm sure you grammar Nazi's will attest too) - and I'm sure I could have done it better. Set it up better - I didn't know I was supposed to "tag" every entry so it'll register on Google. lolol Oh well.... but the numbers each *day* continue to climb and according to Google Analytics, I have people all over the world *reading* the blog - as far away as Israel, Iran, New Zealand and even Croatia.
Croatia - seriously? That's a bit mind blowing.
Yes, I am thankful. I am thankful for clients who have stuck by me through this trying time, and who have been incredibly patient with my turn around times this year. I am thankful for family who took us in and provided us safety and security. I am *VERY* thankful for my children. I am thankful for their continued smiles in the face of my tears. I am thankful for their hugs when I'm feeling alone. I am thankful for the decolletage vase The Boy made me for all my flowers he brings me. (Incidentally, I'm thankful that I figured out how to use the spell checker on Mozilla so that some a-hole won't email me later to tell me I'm stupid and can't spell decolletage.) I'm thankful for The Girl and her recent love of all things Peter Pan. I'm thankful for their occasional bed wetting, mud-tracking, sibling bickering and scrapes and falls that require Mommy kisses because then I know they still need me.
I'm thankful that in spite of my failures and all that has happened.... the children still love me. They still need me.
And, without sounding completely tripe and like I'm totally full of sh*t, I'm thankful for you.
I'm thankful for Alex, who sends me very well drafted and thought out emails and blog comments - she doesn't usually agree with me, and often she has hard advice, but I read every word, consider her view point and often take a lot of her advice. I'm thankful that she spends the time to write to me.
I'm thankful for Mr. XXXXX - otherwise known as Jason, who shared with me his own mistakes and whose answers/excuses for his own situation are sooooo similar to El Capitans, that I can't help but take him at his word when he tells me that what's happened has less to do with me than I realize. (El Capitan say's this too, but I have a hard time believing him.)
I'm grateful for Emma who almost stopped reading the blog but stuck around in the end providing me tons of emails and blog comments and has shown me a great kindness and generosity that I am truly grateful for.
I'm thankful for Mercy - who's own life experience she has shared with me and she gives me great hope for my children, that they will stumble through this with me and come out the other side. That has provided me more comfort than I could ever put into words.
I'm humbled by the amount of people who have written me and called me their "hero" and thanked me for sharing my journey.... I'm no one's hero, I can assure you. All the same, it's a nice thing for someone to say.
I'm thankful for all the magnet sales and donations that got us to Disneyland and I'm grateful for the time I had with the kids there - all the magic, all the fun, all the memories we made: just the three of us.
Mostly though, I'm thankful for the blog in general. I'm humbled by the very idea that (literally) thousands of people are coming here every week to read what I've posted. To share in this journey and, most importantly, that I can be *ME*.
Sometimes that's Bitter Me. Sometimes it's Happy Me. Sometimes it's Reflective Me that wants Bitter Me to sac up and move the f*ck on. Reflective Me usually turns into B*tch Me. Who then sometimes turns right back into Bitter and Scorned Me.
And.... you just let it happen. You let it unfold and *be* whatever it is. You allow me to be whoever I am and in doing that - I'm help to a higher standard. Or at least, I think I am. I write what I do *every* day - I write about how I feel, where I've failed, where he's failed, what my struggles are. But just like I wouldn't want to do something that would forever shame my children, I don't want to do something that I'm not going to be willing to share with the entire planet later that night.
It's a crazy thing - to be sitting here now. I've been on TV?!?!?! What the hell is that about? lolol I'm writing a book.... !?!?!?! It's all a little crazy... but crazy good. Crazy comforting by strangers who have provided me wise and kind words when I was in my darkest hours.
I'm thankful for the blog and for everyone who reads it - I don't make a single *dime* off it, but when I do get from it is worth more than any google ad would ever pay me. I'm grateful that people find my journey, or the story of my journey - or whatever it is that keeps them coming back every day - but they keep coming back and that's...... amazing.
Thank you for letting me be me.
Thank you for letting me vent and cry.
Thank you for letting me bitter and angry.
Thank you for celebrating my highs right along with me.
Thanks you.... for not leaving me during my lows.
Thank you for listening and writing and emailing and commenting.
I hope that whatever is going on in your life, you have people willing to listen to you as well.
I'm thankful for where I am.
However.... I would trade it all in to back in time and stop it all from happening. To go back to my little house, and my happy life where my kids lived..... in one home with two parents who loved them.
And then there's this:
"But no, the very first thing I said to my ex upon "discovery" (as tears streamed down my face) was, "I wanted to grow old with you and play with our grandchildren together". I still tear up thinking about it. I did want to grow old with him. I truly believed he was my life partner and soul mate. I met him when I was 15 and didn't really know life without him. My wise friend Laura looked at me (with tears in her eyes) as I was telling her this and said, "you know Tracy, maybe his purpose in your life was not to grow old with you. Maybe his purpose was to be with you up until this point, and to provide you with two beautiful healthy children. And now his purpose in your life is done. Perhaps the universe is making room for others to come into your life. People who you would never know if this had never happened" WOW! That stunned me. Let that sink in for a minute...it is still sinking in."
I'm thankful that this reader took the time to share her experience with me. Her words have rung in my ears since I read them..... what if El Capitan wasn't *the one*- he was just the one to get me *here*.
What if his purpose wasn't to get me to the end of the race... but rather, help me over the hurdles in the first half and then step off the track? It sure as sh*t sucks running the rest of this race alone.... but, I'm thankful I'm still here... still running.
I'm thankful for this blog, for all the wonderful (and even the not so wonderful few) - people who, by their willingness to share my journey, have helped shaped my perspective and attitude along the way. It's a wonderful blessing, one I'm not entirely sure I'm worth of.... but I'll gladly accept it.
Thank you.
I hope you have a wone
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