phatDonna

If I were an Oprah devotee, I think this would be called my “Aha!” moment.

On Wednesday, a dear friend of mine had a double lung transplant. He has been ill for a while now, and this surgery is life saving. All of his family and friends have been overcome with emotion over the past few days. I’m certainly not alone in this. But today I was able to get to Dallas so I could help the family out and see my friends. After dropping Betsy with my parents, I headed down to the hospital. As I sat in traffic on this beautiful fall day, listening to good music, I was thinking about everything that has happened in the past three day, and I was overcome again.

One year ago today (ok, a year minus a day, but it was a Friday October 30) my sweet friend came to my house and picked me up off the kitchen floor after the EX told me he didn’t want to continue in our marriage. Today I held her hand in an ICU waiting room, and then helped care for her son so she could stay and see her husband for a couple more 15-minute increments today.

And for the first time in literally a year, I had the feeling that the future actually isn’t going to be shitty. I mean it when I say that today was the first time. Today, I know that good things can and will happen both for me and for those I love. I believe that not everyone will let me down. I know that my heart will heal. I have my faith in humanity restored.

I fucking love today.

If you are one of those people who can’t stand to see Christmas items in stores before Halloween, do not, I repeat DO NOT go into a Hobby Lobby store. Just don’t do it.

I, on the other hand, love to get started early. So today when I went in for a Halloween item, I was delighted to find all of the things I need to decorate my tiny house for Christmas, on sale for 40 or 50% off. So I’m done with that. And when Betsy is with her dad over Thanksgiving, I will decorate the house in a small way. I wasn’t going to put up a tree at home this year since we’ll be at my parents’ house on Christmas, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that wasn’t fair to Betsy. The anticipation is the best part of Christmas, and I don’t feel right taking that away from her because I’m lazy. I found a wee artificial tree that will stand on a table top, and some shatter proof ornaments and I’m good to go.

I’m determined that this year, Christmas will be better than it was last year.

Why is it that Betsy is the one that is sick, yet she is bouncing off the walls, while I am lying prostrate on the couch wishing for death?

I have an appointment to take her in to the pediatrician today because she has icky colored snot and had a fever of 102 last night, and I already know that when we get there she’ll show no symptoms, will be overly energetic like she is right now, and they’ll give me that look like “Oh you silly woman, it’s just a virus that will run its course.”

But jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, someone has to make this kid better because I CANNOT be alone in the house all day with this kid one more day. Her ass has got to go back to school tomorrow.

I know, I am the picture of loving, compassionate motherhood.

This time last year, I was still operating under the mistaken assumption that the EX and I would find a way to come back together. But it’s coming up on the anniversary of the day my world collapsed. I can only guess that that is the reason behind my recent…. I don’t even know what the right word is. Just sadness.

For the past few weeks I’ve just felt really sad all the time. I’ve been crying a lot too, which hasn’t happened in a while. I keep having dreams that I find out that the EX is getting married again. I wake from those dreams with a huge lump in my throat and pit in my stomach and it takes me hours to shake them. I fear every day that it’s going to happen and he’s going to tell me that.

I just feel hopeless that life is ever going to get any better. I mean, it’s fine now, this current pity party notwithstanding. I have no real complaints, except that I want what I had before. It’s just that I’m treading water. Nothing about my life is different. I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. I still don’t know what I’m going to do to support myself when Betsy starts school full time. I haven’t done anything with my life and I don’t know what I want my life to be, other than the one thing I can’t have – what it used to be.

I still have this hole, and I’m not really filling it with anything, except food and shopping. Neither of those things is healthy or practical. And I don’t know the answer. I’ve been trying to have patience with myself, and not force myself into making decisions I’m not ready to make yet, but I am starting to worry that I’ll just sit here and stagnate even more if something doesn’t change to light a fire under me.

Who’s got some matches?

I’ve been MIA, I know. My lovely cousin Carla came all the way from Cleveland to visit me and B. It was hard for me to believe that some of my Cleveland family still haven’t met her. Hopefully that will all be remedied next summer at a very Griswold-y family trip to Cleveland.

Anyway, Carla got in town Friday morning, and that’s when the eating began. When I offered up barbecue as an option, her whole face lit up. So we went and ate barbecue. That night we ordered some yummy pizza. Saturday was Chipotle for lunch, and then a fancy-ish restaurant for dinner (while B stayed with a teen-aged babysitter for the first time). Sunday we went to Sea World. More pizza, and of course cotton candy, were consumed there. Yesterday (a school holiday) we took B to Chick-fil-A for lunch and playing, and then we had Mexican food for dinner last night. Today was Greek food for lunch. I refuse to step on the scale. Let’s just say that I know a trip to the gym needs to be in my very near future.

Carla just left and I am exhausted. Not because of her – she’s a spectacular house guest. It was all B. She has been in overdrive for the past four days showing off for Carla.  Today she woke up very early, and because she has been sleeping in my bed, she was able to sneak downstairs, where apparently she ate some candy she scavenged from the counter, and spent the rest of the morning bouncing off the walls. Saturday night after the babysitter put her to bed, she got into my bathroom and took a mascara tube and my contact lens case and painted it black. Sunday at Sea World she was mostly good until right at the end, when she turned into demon girl. Luckily we were about to head out anyway and didn’t miss anything due to her melt down.

Now we are about to have the world’s fastest bath, then a quick story and I’m locking that child in her room so she can finally wind down and rest. And I need a drink, pronto!

Are any of you afraid to fly? If so, can you explain why? I ask because I’m pretty sure that the fear of flying is all about the lack of control. Statistics prove that you are waaaaay more likely to be in a car accident than any sort of airplane crash. In fact, I’ll bet most of you have been in some sort of a car accident, even if it was very minor, and none of you have been in an airplane crash. And yet not many people are afraid to drive. Why is that? Because when you are driving a car, you have the illusion of control. When you are on a plane, you have absolutely no control and that’s an uncomfortable feeling for many people.

I used to have control issues. It makes sense that I did because I was hiding a big secret inside me, and I felt like I had to be in control at all times. But I just noticed while I was away that my control issues seem to be… missing.

I also used to be nervous about flying. Not really phobic, and not enough that I would ever take something to relax, or that I would ever consider not going somewhere I wanted to go because I was scared. But I would be nervous at take off and if there was any kind of turbulence. It dawned on me last week that I haven’t been nervous on a plane in a really long time. I can only guess this is because I no longer feel the need to be in control of everything.

I was traveling with my friend Alicia and her family. They had done extensive research about the trip and worked out an itinerary for us. Going into the trip, I was beyond thrilled to have to make no decisions. I was tagging along, and it felt great to not have any stress over getting here or there on time, or any stress at all if plans got shuffled around. That sort of thing used to drive me insane. If I had a plan in my head about how things were supposed to go, and then they didn’t go that way, my blood pressure would go up and I would get really anxious and even angry at whomever I felt was the cause of the derailment.

It would be ridiculous to say that I am completely comfortable with being out of control over everything now. Everyone needs to feel they have some semblance of control over their own life. But I just don’t feel the need to control everything, even the things that don’t matter one bit in the grand scheme of my life or the world.

It feels good to have let go and to just enjoy the ride a little bit.

Wow, am I exhausted. I’ve been debating how to blog about my trip. I kept a written journal while I was away so I wouldn’t forget anything I wanted to say about it, but I just feel like that would be ridiculously boring for you. I think I’ll just give you some highlights.

1. I am so proud of myself for navigating myself from the Venice airport to our hotel all by myself. I think this was the thing I was the most nervous about – getting around in a country where I don’t speak the language, and in a city that is so unlike anything I am used to – with canals instead of streets. But I did it, and relatively easily.
2. Venice is amazing. I would definitely love to go back someday. It’s very romantic. And if you’ve ever heard that Venice is stinky, don’t believe it. Well, maybe it is in the heat of summer. But to me, it was just dank at times, mainly along the smaller canals. Like really old water.

   

   

3. I was assaulted on the train from Venice to Trieste (also in Italy) by a very rude train conductor for having my feet on the seat across from me. At first, I thought the hard whack on the arm I got was supposed to be a joke, but then he started yelling at me in angry Italian and pointing at my feet. I was in shock at the time but every time I think about it now, I get angrier and angrier. I mean, seriously? In what industry is it ok to hit your customers? I would complain but I really doubt anyone would care.
4. My friend Alicia was almost assaulted on the same day by a bathroom attendant in Pula, Croatia in the bus station. We had just gotten to Pula and Alicia really had to go to the bathroom. She rushed in, and I rushed after her, then I noticed the tiny old woman sitting outside with a cup and I realized that you had to pay to pee here. All I had was a 100 Kuna bill so I ran to the little store in the bus station to buy something to break the bill. But I was not fast enough and when I returned, Alicia was getting yelled at in Croatian by the tiny elderly bathroom attendant, and in broken English by another younger employee in the bus station who thought Alicia was trying to stiff them, when really all Alicia was trying to do was get to one of us who had changed money and actually had some Kuna. I still didn’t have a coin small enough so the two women escorted me to the currency exchange so I could get even more change. I think the funniest part was the visual because Alicia is tall and these two women were tiny and yelling up at her.
5. Pula was beautiful and the weather was gorgeous. Our rooms had a sea view and we took advantage of it all we could.
   
   Pula is on a little inlet or cove off the Adriatic. The funny thing is that the sea is very calm. There are no waves crashing and it doesn’t smell salty like you would expect. But it’s spectacular. Here are some other lovely pictures we took in Pula

   

   

   

   

   The one thing I wish I had in Pula was a way to bring back the smell. It’s like pine and jasmine and sunshine. Even the rain smelled good.

6. After we left Pula we headed for Umag in the northern part of the country but we drove through some smaller towns on the interior of the country. We stopped to look for a cave and a waterfall that we never found in Pazin, then on to Livade for truffle hunting. We ate a wonderful truffle-infused lunch at the Zigante restaurant and made arrangements to come back the next day to go with a master truffle hunter and his dogs to hunt for truffles. Sadly, our van died on us about 5km from our hotel in Umag that evening. Suffice it to say that renting a car in Croatia is not the experience you would be familiar with in the US or other countries. We had no car the next day so we couldn’t go back for truffle hunting or to visit the wineries. Instead, we headed back to Venice a day early.
7. The last two nights in Venice were spent in the mainland part of the city, which I wasn’t even aware existed before this trip. It’s very different from touristy island Venice. Our hotel was perfectly fine, and the staff was very friendly but the room we were in was hysterically tiny. Alicia’s parents’ room was a bit more normal sized, but her brother’s room, which was a room just for one, could have been a broom closet.

From start to finish the trip was great. Great food, great friends and lots of fun things to do and see.  I didn’t see any TV for nine days and I loved it. I read three books while I was away, and may have even broken my Twitter and Facebook addiction. I missed Betsy like mad, though. I picked her up at school today and haven’t stopped hugging and kissing her since. Nine days away was very good for my mental health, no doubt about it.