I need a drink...pronto...

Today is my birthday. And I'm not quite sure of when birthdays became not so fun. Was it 35? I remember being excited to turn 30! I was hugely pregnant at the time and ready to start a new phase of my life. Lily was born that year, shortly after my 30th birthday. This birthday is just weird. It's the first birthday that I am going to dinner without my girls. It's the first birthday in almost 12 years that I haven't gotten flowers or a trip to the spa. None of that matters, of course...I'm just saying it's weird.

The only consistent things in my life in the last few months are the fact that Lily has diabetes, and I have two kids. I even got a new car! I decided being single in a minivan was NOT the best idea so I got something smaller and cuter...more single. And I love it. It's more me.

My friend Carolyn is taking me to my favorite restaurant tonight for dinner and I can't wait! It's so nice to have some grown up time....frequently. My ex bought me my favorite bottle of white wine for my birthday so I think I'll crack that open soon and just enjoy turning 25, for the 12th time. Maybe 40 will be more fun? More eventful? Who knows. This one is just blahhhhhhhhhh. BUT...then again, when Carolyn is involved, something rather exciting usually happens so we'll see what's in store for me later! 

Just Random Thoughts Today...

I've been in a happy place. In fact, I spend the majority of my time in this happy place...because I choose to. As I have made it publicly aware, I have spent some time in the bad place of late as well. I hate the bad place. The bad place does not suit me well. The bad place gets me in trouble with myself and anyone around me. So, I choose to be happy, most of the time.

Things with Lily could NOT be better. She is back to her usual self. She is a happy little girl, running and playing and drawing and laughing. She is full of hugs and kisses and wise cracks....which I just love. She was in the back seat today and was commenting on how she hasn't seen her best friend in a while and she'd really like a play date. Then, she says "only I can't remember her name." I almost died. She is a hilarious child when she wants to be. And a dramatic child, and intense, and loving, and hurtful all in one. And this makes her Lily. And my GOD do I love her.

Abby is just as lovable. The second she opens her big, brown eyes and looks at you...it's all over. Her red hair, freckles, squeaky little voice...she can really work it. The boys had better watch out for this one.

I am feeling better each day in my new life. I feel more comfortable. I feel more secure. I feel more confident. I feel more like ME. The real me. The me that grew up on an air force base listening to Willie Nelson Christmas albums.  The ME that was happiest in a tank top, beat up jeans, flip flops and drinking a beer.

I am even loving being back at work. I feel important again! Not to say that I never felt important being a mommy to my babies...but once they got older and went to school, I was getting bored. I wouldn't admit that because like many things in my life at that time, I wasn't really aware of it.

I remember an ex-friend, casualty of the divorce, saying to me as she ended our friendship, " I don't know who you were trying to fool on Facebook with all of the comments about loving your husband and being so happy..." Hmmm. Well, obviously I was fooling myself, now wasn't I? How hard is that to understand? Life is never as easy as it seems. We all know that. We try our best to not fail...and to not give up. I would think that relationships fall in that category as well. And relationships are really scary. It's hard to put yourself out there, open yourself up, become vulnerable...knowing that you might get hurt.

But as I said before. I choose to be happy. I choose to wake up each day and be thankful for what I have, who I am, what I have accomplished in this life...and the fact that I am a good person. When it's all said and done, that's all that really matters.

Today...

I spent the majority of today watching Lily...and thanking God for every second that I have with her. Every precious second that she blinks, or laughs, or cries, or takes a tiny breath. Sometimes this is all too much. It doesn't seem like too much to the average eye. And it shouldn't. It is not their responsibility. It's not their flesh, their blood, their sole reason for being alive. I don't want sympathy for my daughter or for myself. Anyone can die. At any time. And every parent does their absolute best to protect their children. Life is not always as we plan for it. I learned that with our diagnosis. But we take on what is given to us and we give it the very best fight we've got inside of us. And we teach our children to fight and love and be thankful and live every day to the fullest. We teach them that they cannot live in fear of the unknown. If you do...life will pass you by very quickly. It's out of our hands...our fate. I am not a religious person and never have been, but I do know that we cannot control all that happens. Life happens and there are too many factors. My heart feels like a weight today that I have been dragging around...sometimes stopping and trying my hardest to get it off the ground. And sometimes just stopping to rest to take a breath and realize how heavy I feel. I have not stopped thinking about the family that lost their daughter for one second. I have been dealing with my life...living my life...checking my daughter...doing every day things...and not one second has this family left my mind. And they never will leave my mind. We are all a family. And thank God for that.

My thoughts and prayers and love and heartache go out to you all.

The Need

Twelve years. That's how long I was with my ex. Twelve years. We grew up together....well, in the years that you actually DO grow up. We met in our early twenties. I am four years older. We met walking our dogs. His 5 week old puppy attacked my 6 month old puppy. A few years after we met, he told me that he used to see me sitting on my balcony and wanted to meet me so he started walking his puppy in my courtyard. I thought that was so romantic.

I'm not really sure when things went wrong. I knew that things were never 100 percent right. We both did. We both had a lot of realizations after we split. And things just started falling into place right away...for us both. His job picked up, he started really working out again, started smiling again and having fun with his life. I started to get passionate about working, having more patience with my girls, not making my whole focus in life be diabetes...and for a while, I started really smiling again.

We have both moved on. And it's good. And we support each other. And we support our kids. And we are still a team as the parents of these beautiful little girls. But I haven't noticed until recently, the last few days, that I have absolutely no idea how to be single. I am so used to being with someone for twelve years. I am used to the way I communicate with him, the way I exist with him, the way I felt with him...so I need to learn to be SINGLE.

I have been seeing someone. Someone who is special. Someone that I care about. Someone that I have done nothing but push away. I have pushed him away because I have forgotten how to be desired. All I know at this stage in my life is how to be a couple. That's it. So, I am learning. And it's not easy. But I feel good today. I feel good because I woke up this weekend. I realized that I AM single. I am free to do whatever I want. I am free to feel however I want. I am free to see whoever I want. I realized that I am vulnerable. I am so open to hurt and to be mislead, but I don't need to be a couple. I don't need to be needy. My ex would laugh at that statement because he told me just a couple of weeks ago that I seemed a bit needy and I LOST it. I mean, full on, wrath of evil, lost it. That is the WORST thing someone could call me. BUT OH MY GOD IT'S TRUE! I have been the one thing that I hate more than anything else in the world...needy. Ugh...I feel like I need a detox, or a shower. I need to shed myself from this need to be needed. It's horrible. It's pathetic. It makes me irrational. It makes me...NEEDY. Like I have said before, it takes me a while to find my way but I do find it. And I stumble terribly while I am following the path to where I'm supposed to be but damn it I get there every time...in one piece, with a solid mind, and my feet planted firmly on the ground. Hopefully, nothing knocks me over again.

Your worth...

What a night! Dinner with friends, kids running and playing, decorating pumpkins and goblets, and lots of good wine and conversation. That breath...you know the one...the one I have been holding in for six days now...it came out. It was long and arduous and bitter,  but out. I breathed. I breathed for a long time and it was relaxing and fun and just what I needed.

I didn't realize how much I had lost in this divorce. This is not a diabetes entry tonight by the way...just so you know...afterall, it's not the ONLY thing we are. I used to have what I thought was a very strong and loving circle of friends. That is, until I decided to divorce. I was so proud of these women, felt like I had finally met some really strong, confident, nonjudgmental people. Ha! The joke was on me. I quickly realized that my "perfect married life" was directly linked to my "perfect" circle of friends. The majority of them are still around and I can call them if I want to, talk to them if I want to, but it isn't the same. I was part of a couple apparently and not an individual to this group. That has been made clear. Divorce somehow scares people and makes them take a closer look at their lives so I can only assume, this is why these friendships became nonexistent in a matter of days. One friend, the one I have known the longest, actually ended our friendship...she told me that we have not been close for years, that she did not agree with my decisions, basically that I was a bad mother, etc. I was devastated for about five minutes, until my sanity kicked in. Who needs a friend like that anyway. Who not only kicks someone, but absolutely crushes and paralyzes them when they are already down? And with many things in my life, a switch was turned off and once a switch is off...it can no longer be turned on. As much as I may want to flip that switch again..it will never happen. I am a very strong person. It may take a while to get myself where I need to be, but I am protective, I am loyal, I am honest and I am open. I do not waste my energy on hate or regret, but I do know how to move on without looking back. This is what has happened in this case.

So, this brings me to tonight. I have been having quite the pity party for a couple of weeks now. I mean...I have divorced, starting working again full time again after seven years, and attempted dating all in a short amount of time. I have lost friends and I have made friends. Tonight, I was with new friends. Friends that have been through what I am going through. Friends that have been single a while. Friends that understand that I am not the norm right now. But most of all...I was just around FRIENDS. Women who were not afraid to smack me around a bit and wake me up. Women that reminded me of what I am worth. Women that do not look at me and see mistakes or faults but see someone who is brave and courageous. I am not a pity party person...life has dealt me a lot and I have always taken it with a vengeance. So, what's the difference now? There isn't one. I am worth honesty, integrity, loyalty, forgiveness, understanding, and unconditional love. I will accept nothing less....from anyone. Ever again. I got my groove back...finally.

The Celebration

I have always taken pride in the fact that neither of my children have EVER seen me shed a tear. This is not because I think crying is wrong, or weak, it's because I don't want to scare them. I don't want them to think their world is collapsing. Afterall, they look to me to see how they should react.

I was thinking about this on the way  home from work yesterday. I was thinking about the negative place my mind has been living the last few days. I wear these thoughts in every expression I have. I have never been a good liar nor have I ever been able to cover up what is going on in my thoughts. If I am angry...you will know. If I am upset...you will know. If I am happy and excited...you will definitely know. What you see is what you get because there really isn't much of a filter there. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but at least people always know where they stand with me. So, I was thinking about the girls, and diabetes especially. I was thinking about when Lily was first diagnosed, how it was my mission in life for her to not think this was a death sentence...or even something bad. So, we celebrated...a lot. We had a HUGE party when she started her pump and invited all of her friends to come bounce and eat cupcakes. This is what I meant when I said in another post that my focus is gone. I have been dwelling. I have been having a pity party and going through the motions of hating diabetes. I have made it sound awful when in reality...my child is ALIVE. She is HEALTHY. She runs, she plays, she screams, she laughs, she reads, she draws and she grows...just like every other kid out there. And yes, she checks her blood sugar and wears a pump and counts carbs. And that sucks for her. BUT...my attitude needs to shift back to the celebration if I want hers to.

Lily's 3 year Diaversary was October 7th. We forgot it. It was just another day that went by in our busy lives. I couldn't believe we forgot. How could we forgot a day that changed everything we knew? The day that literally changed the course of our lives. So, it brought me back to celebrating. I picked up Lily from school and told her that we just had her diabetes birthday and we needed to make diabetes a cake or something. She wants Lego Cupcakes. She is excited! We have friends coming over tonight and we are celebrating...we are not celebrating the fact that she has a disease but the fact that this disease has not claimed her. So, when she asked me what the party was for, I said, "We are celebrating your life."

The Blanket of Fear...

I feel like I have been wearing a huge, heavy, layered blanket for quite some time. It makes it difficult to walk, it makes it difficult to dance, it makes it difficult to breathe at times. Yet, I lug it around day after day because it's been there for so long...I quit noticing it. This blanket has kept me from doing many things that I have wanted to do. It seems like lately, I have been shedding a few layers here and there. I wake up each day feeling just a bit lighter than I did the day before. Sometimes this makes me overjoyed and other times, it makes me really scared and lonely...and feeling half dressed. It makes me want to grab on to my blanket and make sure it stays securely wrapped around me...so I can stay in control of what gets under it. The key word there is CONTROL.


After our little pinning down episode yesterday, and talking to Lily's doctor...I realized that controlling anything is not a good thing. The fear of losing control, and being vulnerable to something, is almost too much for my type A personality to bear. So, if I feel something slipping...taking on a life of it's own...I dig in deeper and deeper trying to get it back where I wanted it to begin with. This has gotten me absolutely nowhere in my life, yet I still do it. It is second nature at this point. So...my goal for as long as it takes, is to release this control and let go of my blanket...if I do not, I fear I will break my daughter's spirit, I will turn my girls into the people that I want them to be and not who they are MEANT to be, and I will lose people I love....that's the most fearful part of all.