"People and Post-its"

22 days in! My "He-Tox" that is. It may not seem like much but it is huge to me. I also have to say it's already working. The pop-up memories are fewer and the obsessions are less. I highly recommend it. My dear friend has been a loyal supporter and emailed me EVERYDAY with support and words of encouragement to get me through - that's true friendship! She is really someone special , an angel, and I hope I can return the favor someday - not in the form of a He-tox - no way, she won't need one. Just to be as good a friend to her as she has been to me would be quite a feat!

No, today I'm disgusted with myself for other reasons. I have got absolutely nothing done. I should have just considered myself sick or something and I wouldn't have to feel guilty about it. I'm unsure of my new job and have taken on another that I thought was my dream and it's full of flaws as one would expect if they had their head on straight. I want to be a bird and fly far, far, away. This is the time when I start feeling bad about what the last year and a couple months have dealt me. My identity is gone, my sense of who I am, my place here on the planet, the sense of being someones favorite, all gone...and more. So what do I do? I go to Target. The happy place. It does nothing for me so I move on to Office depot, nothing like office supplies to making me happy and cheer me up. but again, nothing there does it for me. This is a serious case. The only thing to do at this point is to realize it's almost five o'clock and I can check off another day, call it quits, watch the house grow dark around me and hope for a better tomorrow. I'm sure it has to do with seeing other people too. I haven't seen another or spoke to another adult all day. Well, my daughter, but she has a guest and is busy. Isolation is a lonely place and all kinds of vile things happen there. If you know someone who might be isolating or you're wondering why they only come out to get the mail, I'll bet it would mean a lot to have a little chat. That's the only way I ended up having a Christmas Eve. My neighbors saw me getting out of my car (coming back from Target) and asked me what I was doing that night and invited me over. It was lovely. It's those "Angels Among Us" that can be lifesavers. That and a "He-Tox". Truly.

"The Sixty Day He-Tox"

Okay, I'm still struggling. But I've got a new plan I am trying from a book than sounds like a good one. "The Sixty Day He-Tox" is the name of the chapter I'm on. I wish I could figure out and explain why, oh why, I still can't recover and move on from a relationship where I was lied to, and cheated on repeatedly, and rejected for a short overweight woman, but I can't. I'm trying everything I can think of. But I keep having what I call "pop-up memories". Like the times I called the cabin and the phone rang and rang and now I know he just ignored my calls. And knowing he drove all the way to Wheatridge to pick her up and take her to Estes Park and then back to Wheatridge. That's a long way! That's motivation! It hurts knowing he was that motivated to see her. I've spent so much time and energy thinking about pop-ups that now I think I need to work on the rejection issue, I want to apologize for the last year plus this has become a personal column but I can't help it and maybe it should be retitled for a while. It has been over a year now and I still can't get it out of my mind or my heart and gut. I realized at the last book club meeting that I think I associate book club with the whole mess because that is when he went to the cabin with his little .. what to call her...? Friday nights and Saturday mornings. He would still call me on those Saturday mornings and tell me not to be nervous about book club because he knew I always was and then call after book club and ask how it went. All this with his girlfriend beside him. What a jerk. He always came home at the usual time. I found out after the whole blow up that his cheating started much earlier than I knew, it went on for well over a year, with many woman. Who wants that? AND he wasn't that special, AND he wasn't that fun. AND I had to tiptoe around him, so what gives? It's the rejection thing. It has to be. So begins the Sixty Day He-Tox. Sixty Days without talking or emailing. He does email me every week, sometimes more than once. He wants to have coffee or lunch. Asked if we could be friends. (What gives with that?) My theory is he wants to see that I'm doing okay so he doesn't have to feel guilty. Someone has told me the best revenge is living well and another said the best revenge is showing up confident and bright and happy as I can possibly express. This would earn me an Oscar but I could do it. Life goes on without him and let him know it. The book goes on to say there is something magical about sixty days. That to trust it - sixty days is the key. If you can stay away for sixty days you'll have him out of your head and heart. The boyfriend in third grade that smelled like egg salad you thought you couldn't live without, well, you're living without him aren't you? So just give it sixty days. That puts me at May 20th. I have made sixty post it notes numbered 1 through 60 and I get to take one down every day. Now, considering we have complicated medical insurance that he pays for (yes, he damn well does, and I get car maintenance perks, damn straight) , there may be contact, but that's it and it's through email and I will try to handle the lousy insurance on my own. But it's not like we own a chinchilla farm together or have six kids thank God! This will happen and I CAN FINALLY GET ON WITH MY LIFE! He will not take book club away from me! That is what it's felt like and I will not let it happen! In a small remark, a moment really, when something was revealed to me as it should have been, my life changed completely. It takes time to get it back in an upright position. Let's hope it's sixty days.. Well, over a year plus sixty days, and get that loser out of my head. Thinking about what he's doing on a Sunday, what they eat for dinner, does he still use the same kind of soap (I'm sure he does, the OCD Freak!) Quit living his life in my head and live in my own - that will mean I'll be free at last, free at last! Thank God almighty, I'll be free at last! Freedom is everything and it comes in many shapes and sizes, never forget it and always cherish it. If it can come in Sixty days it will be an absolute miracle!

"I've Still Got It, Really, I Do!"

I'm going to start this post with a familiar beginning---- I did it! I did it! I made it through Christmas! I had no major meltdown, no evil vengeance, maybe a tear or two and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach , but I got through Christmas with no crisis! For starters I was very busy in December. I had a few health issues to get in before the end of the year (insurance issues, drat!) and my beloved Open House to prepare for, then right after that I got my tonsils out - yes, what most eight year olds are doing, and that kicked my butt for awhile. But, like a Who in Whoville, I felt a warm feeling creeping over me and it was... I think it was... excitement for Christmas! Again I had my children working themselves to a faretheewell trying to make sure Mom was getting a good holiday ("pssst..she's had a bad year") and I let them go with that feeling because Dammit, I had! I can't say I didn't let a sick feeling pass over me now and then with thoughts of last year or years past or even the year I've just been through - who wouldn't -but I've sort of given myself a year to wallow in the mire of muck this has become. Although I know you can't put a time frame on these things, I'm going to rise like a Phoenix and get the hell out of living his life in my head! For crying out loud this is supposed to be a page about a Book Club. Well this Book Club Moderator hasn't been worth her salt and that must change and it will.

I was looking back on the books we've read in the past year and couldn't help but associate them with "I came to this meeting the same month Bob left?" "How did I manage to do that?" "And this meeting?", "How on earth did I get myself dressed and put on makeup and get myself to Borders for this one?" Well I was able to because although we are there to discuss books, I have made many friends and I have the support of them, having to be there was what has gotten me through the past year - I didn't make it to every meeting. The first two years of LBC I only missed one due to knee surgery. That goes to show you how this has wiped me out. I had that bomb fall on my life. The Red Cross has come in and helped me clean up the mess and things are looking up. I couldn't be more grateful for that and for all my LBC members.

"Wine with my whine, here's to the Holidays!"

I did it! I did it! They said she couldn't do it but indeed I did! I made it through the first holiday without you know who. I have my children to thank for it and a wonderful friend!
They kept me so busy I could even think that maybe someone was missing from the Thanksgiving table and ...there wasn't! It was the Norman Rockwell day I've always wanted and besides a great meal, boardgames were played well into the night . It was beyond my wildest dreams! I think this bodes well for a good Christmas. Things are looking up!

But the next big thing on the agenda is not Christmas, it's the Holiday Open House and what should have begun yesterday will begin today with the transforming of my place into a Christmas wonderland (Ha!). I do enjoy this and hope everyone else does. This one is especially important to me as this year it is MY HOUSE and there is a psychological component that it has about it. I can add a psychological component to anything. But for now I want to say a few things about want I've been thankful for since that seems to be the order of the season, thankful for this past year in spite of all the well...sadness it has also held for me.

1. The book club continues to do well and membership grows even though I've struggled, because all of you have taken up the slack. Thank you.

2. I redecorated the house and if I must say so myself I think I did a bang up job - I love it!


3. The outpouring of sympathy I rec'd when my beloved dog, Petal, died, it meant a lot to me.


4. The Longmont Florist delivery guy. He's always is a happy surprise - who doesn't love to see him at the door?

5. The "my husband dumped for another woman diet" has stuck! At least for the time being.

6. As I've said before, my kids. Even though my life has been a mess, they don't seem to hold it
against me or hold me responsible even though it's often inconvenienced them.

7. The fact that I got all the good art! He didn't dare to take it...when you walk away you're saying I don't want/need anything and in my book and that's the price he paid ...yippee for me!

8. I know my neighbors now! Mr. Antisocial was holding me back (who knew? He was a "pillar in the community" as he often told me). my neighbors on all sides...we speak to each other and even invite each other over! A new experience for me in the ten years I've lived here!

9. Guilt free dog ownership. I can have one if I want to! Or more cats! (Uh-oh cat lady?) I don't have to answer to anyone about that whole issue!

10. Last but not least and certainly there are many more...my Kindle. A Christmas gift last year from, yes, him. But I love it and I can down load books I want to read "someday" ...it holds 3,500 for crying out loud! I stroke it's smooth plastic and wrap it in gossamer before placing it on it's velvet pillow before bed. Truly a thing of beauty, a marvel to behold!

Bonus thought - My Book Club - without it I surely would have gone crazy this year and put a bullet through my brain, I'm thankful I didn't.

"and he's no George Clooney"

I'm still writing about my divorce. I keep saying I will stop it. As I was looking for creative inspiration a moment ago I saw the Halloween candy bought for the trick or treaters and thought of how this year I'll be answering the door by myself. BASTARD!! Please hang in there with me reader(s). I will get through this or really try to have a book club tie in. It's been ten months and if only all the Anniversary's would pass and his damn weekly emails. Now those are going to stop. I'm putting a stop to those. What's that all about? And coffee dates? Am I whoring myself out for thirty minutes at Starbucks so he can see that I'm doing sort of okay and he doesn't have to feel guilty? From next week on he will hear from me when I need new tires and my car serviced as it is stated in our agreement for the next three years, (pretty good deal I think!). Book Club tie in, thank goodness for the extra week this month! As I've said and should probably keep to myself, I haven't been able to focus and read the way I used to the last ten months, and I need this week to finish the book which I am liking. I find myself staring off into space rather than reading like I used to. Members are picking great books too. I've really enjoyed the first half of them and it is with shame and remorse that I'm not getting them finished. See, I can say this here as I don't think many of you read this - this can be a test case scenario. I always say I'll go back and finish them and I still want to. I even, like most of you, had a list of my own reading I used to get done in between meetings. Oh how I wish I could get back to that time. BASTARD!! See it keeps coming back. Almost all negative things happening to me or that exist in my life I can relate back to Lying Cheating Bastard. It's just a fact, not me being a bitch. But we move on....I do consider myself so fortunate. I'm not living in some basement apartment. I was able to pay my Vet bills and all other bills for that matter, and still live the way I was used to. Some of that may change soon as our arrangement changes the first of the year. BASTARD!! But I have my home which I do love, and my book club with all it's members that I do love, whether they think I'm a nut case or not. They seem to put up with me and I do try to maintain things with the appearance that I'm not overwhelmed with a divorce (really it's just a legal separation that he wants to keep that way forever - hey! what's with that?!) and keep an illusion alive that I'm getting along just fine. I only need a book club to keep me going, well really it does make all the difference in the world. Now if I would read that book and go to the meeting and hold my head high THAT would make a difference and be a step in living right. BASTARD!!

a Rose by any other name would be called Petal

As they say, if it's not one thing, it's another, and this past Wednesday, I had to put my dear little dog to sleep. When will it ever end. I'm about to hang it up and if it wasn't for the fact that I have a daughter that phones me and expects me to answer periodically and a couple of other kids that think I'm out here on the planet at their beck and call I might have just bagged it right along with Petal. I don't like being totally alone now. Her little clicks of her toenails along the wood floors are greatly missed and her scratching on the door even. Ex husband has already suggested getting another one - I believe to assuage his guilt over leaving me alone - he felt the dog was company enough I guess when he left in January. Well isn't that considerate. No dogs for awhile I think, I'm not ready to replace that sweet faced little thing. My fear at this point is that old adage of things happening in threes and I don't have a third thing to spare - I don't! So I hope it can come from something back a few moves like my computer crashing or losing my dining room set to the lying cheating bastard or something like that...does that qualify? I hope so. The other thing this has created that I didn't expect is a whole other loss of routine... I lost that when Bob left and here again with Petal gone. We got up and went outside and as much as I complained it was nice to greet the day and come in and make coffee. Now there is nothing to make me get up and start that routine. Bob, prior to Petal had a strict OCD routine that was much more involved, but at least it gave my day structure and now I drift. Today I was going to start my new life without dog and I haven't gotten off to a very good beginning. I will try again, with trying to do what I have wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, or go somewhere, but I hated leaving her. I always took her in the car with me and she had a little booster chair. Ahh Freedom! Soon it will feel good I imagine. No more boarding worries when I want to go somewhere. No more finicky eating. Right now I would spoon feed her with my son's silver baby spoon if she were here and it would help. I would drive her around in the car , going nowhere special if she liked it. That little dog was a part of my life that came to me when I really needed her and now maybe I will learn I don't need her and can be alone. Perhaps, I just liked that little dog around for that cute fuzzy face, and there wasn't a cuter face than hers, that loved me no matter what, yea, I think that was it. Goodbye Petal, I miss you so much. May 16, 2007 - October 6, 2010. I didn't get to keep you very long but you'll stay with me forever.

"Just gettin' by on gettin' by"

Sometimes if you wait for creativity and imagination to come before you do something you're waiting an awful long time. So you begin and hope that those things come as you go along. That is what I'm hoping for now. Since my last post there has been much to write about. Book Club musings, and my all time favorite- personal blather. Book Club is still and will always be my baby and something I hope very near to my heart. I hope every month it becomes (or stays) happy and healthy and I think for the most part it has. The biggest problem with it is me. As I have often stated - I have lost the ability to read since January. This activity has been replaced by absently staring off into space. I blame this - you guessed it - on the Lying Cheating Bastard. My mind just wanders and everything reminds me of how I got from there to here and how I will get from here to somewhere else. As one of you told me, "Life is a cinch by the inch but a trial by the mile" and while that may sound corny, it has gotten me through many a moment of grieving. I know I haven't been the same person and I apologize to those I've hurt and lost patience with, and I thank those who have shown me kindness and a handful of hope along the way. But enough philosophizing. It's been nine months now and I'm so grateful that much time has passed, but also can't believe it's been that long as I'm still in shock and amazed at the daily affect it has had on my life. Life goes on whether you want it to or not, there are bills to pay, Dr's appointments, and kids grow and change, and things around the house need repair, pets get sick and decisions have to made that I thought I wouldn't have to do alone. But what I've learned in the last nine months; I'm not alone. The Book Club will survive without me. LBC members are the best people in the world. If I reach out, there are many friends who are there for me if I have the courage to ask for help. I have the ability to know when I'm wrong, in fact, through all of this, it's much easier to admit the small stuff. Life is short. Who knows which way the wind is blowing? I'm still standing every first and third Saturday with an attendance list and reading guide in one hand and my small skinny vanilla latte with one equal in the other and no ones taking those things from me until they can pry them from my cold dead fingers. I hope that's okay..... is that okay? That is okay isn't it?

"Let's all lighten up a little, shall we?"

Here's a little something that alway's cheers me and has even given me goosebumps a time or two. When you're feeling down or just want a reason to smile and motivate yourself to do something big and loud and wonderful, watch this. Of course looking at my kids always cheers me up too..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

And have a great day!

"And the World Spins Madly On"

Whoa! What a lazy poster I've been. Overwhelmed with life I guess. Not that I'm sitting around in a fetal position, but not taking the time to try to be clever - that takes energy! Let's get up to date on a few things, shall we?

*I've redecorated my upstairs, downstairs is next. Enjoying this project immensely but I don't like watching the $$$ go so quickly, but I figure it's for a good cause - making the house mine - all mine. oh yes - no trace that anyone else ever lived here. I have heard negative comments through the LBC grapevine of disapproval about what I'm doing, but too bad - I'm doing what I want and a few comments from people that hardly know me are not going to sway my life course - egad! If I was that easily manipulated I'd really be a mess!

*Next up. Book Club back lash; As some of you know I was publicly eviscerated and I didn't take it well. Whether or not I decide to quit my post as moderator is still in the thought process - it may be time for me to step down. It's been a rough year for me and I haven't given it my very , down to the last cell in my body, all as I usually do and so It may be time for somebody else to do so. Although I still enjoy it, I don't need a lot of criticism right now, so to those of you that think the book club is not running in apple pie order - can you do a better job and would you like to apply for my position - let me know by email.

*Trying to have a life with friends and not be alone and lonely and looking at that empty chair is still a struggle but I'm working on it. I've only made about a dozen major life changes and I need to catch up to them so please bear with me.

I think that's enough for the time being. I'm not spending the day in my pajamas, I do get dressed and put on make-up every day. I even was going to the gym until "Tal" got so cranky I switched to water aerobics. Now the weirdness of the LCB (lying cheating bastard) wanting to meet with me for lunch weekly I can't quite file anywhere in my mind of "where did this go wrong and what the hell do you want from me" folder but I'll attempt to find an agenda at least for a while and then I think it's ixnay on the unchlay. Come on - we didn't lunch this much when you didn't have a girlfriend. You're messed up man! The cabin is someone elses and that is a sad thing for me - you traded it in for your groovy LoDo apartment (900 sq ft for $400,000.00 for you and girlfriend to trip with the hip). But you are 65 years old!!!! And you bear absolutely no resemblance to George Clooney! Let me tell the men out there - charm... charm takes you a long way. Charm and a nice shirt. A nice shirt is really good for cleaning up the cat hairballs in the basement too, he's beginning to wonder where they are - wants them before Summer is over. Well, Mick Jagger and I know you can't always get what you want.. but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.... he has plenty of shirts, and I needed some rags for cleaning up hairballs. Thank you for letting me catch up and getting it in writing helps me see what I'm doing and where I'm at. As I've always said LBC members are the best!

"kids, cabins and contracts"

As they say, the more things change the more they stay the same. For years I made the trip to Estes Park to see my boys. It was agony most of the time. There were all sorts of convoluted ways of getting the job done. Having dinner at my ex-house. Trying to take them to a restaurant (like trying to dynamite them off the sofa!). Even trying to share custody of my ex-house - boy was THAT a bad idea! Then at some point it was decided I should rent a cabin so I could spend more time there. This can be done very inexpensively in the off season in Estes Park, so I did. This worked well. Not exactly like I thought it would, but nothing is ever like you think it will be. The boys didn't come by after school for cookies and video games or spend the night or anything crazy like that. It was still me hauling massive amounts of groceries up there and preparing meals for them to eat and take with for later and them leaving and me feeling less guilty. After moving to a nicer rental cabin that we improved to a level of cuteness that I hated to leave behind, it was suggested we purchase our own place. This was terrifying as I had spent fifteen years in this town that weren't very happy, however, is buying real estate a bad idea? I went along with it and it was fun. Finding a cute place and fixing it up was about the only thing my then husband and I ever built together. It worked out great! It was picture perfect inside and out, a dollhouse. The boys came over two nights a week and I made massive amounts of food and they took home (to their "real" home) stacks of gladware leftovers and I was even less guilty than before. They were older now, and so was I. They finally spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with me. Three years in a row! These were almost normal and the best holidays in my memory. But then things changed. Most of you know what changed , but what else has changed is these boys have grown up. The oldest one is gone from May to November and the younger one has a full time Summer job and will go to school in the fall and the need to schlep massive amounts of groceries to the mountains every week no longer exists. All my years of complaining and dreading has finally come to an end and I can stop doing what I've been doing for ten years. Now , of course I'm sad about this. The other thing making absolutely sure this happens is the cabin has been sold. This breaks my heart. It was taken from me before I was ready and for that I'll never forgive him. I tried to buy it. I wanted a family cabin. It was not to be had. Probably better to cut loose and go forward. But damn it was cute! It was mine, mine, mine. Somehow it became his, his, his and I want vengeance! I then remember that the best vengeance is living well and I look at my three beautiful "children" who although they are grown, will always be mine and something that can never be tainted or corrupted, like the cabin was, by someone who is just simply stupid. I know I got the best end of this deal.

"Something awaits out yonder - maybe...."

What the heck shall I do next? I've "redone" my house and I'm having you all over the 19th of June after book club - that is if you want to - nobody is forced to come - to show you that I got the "Bob" out! I think I really did it. I still at times wonder who lives here...It doesn't quite feel completely like home yet but it will. I am really trying to get my LBC mojo back and I think I feel that coming on. Words out that I'm looking for a random fling with a random man so that's in the works. "Works" a form of the word "work". I think that is next up. I think I may need to actually work, as in lift a finger, get up on time, figure out what to wear.... oh my, it all sounds overwhelming - I must go get a glass of my daughters famous Sangria to steady the nerves that this whole idea is causing. I was hoping something delightful and creative would find me. Would that be too much to ask? A lot of people work the grapevine, that was my plan. So come on grapevine, grow this direction and give me some direction. I know I don't want to live out my days sitting around here with a cat on my lap, but a very nice cat she is, but work? GACK!!! It's enough to make me cough up a hairball. I know people who do this, work that is, someone the other day at book club mentioned she had worked someplace for 37 years! There is nothing in this world I've done for 37 years except maybe eat, sleep, and breath. How proud I would be to stay somewhere for a length of time. Now I did have an abrupt ending to something not work related that I thought would be a longer term thing, I'm not counting that although I had high hopes there. So this is the time to reinvent myself and make some changes and really get in touch with my inner employee. I think maybe if I live as frugally as possible maybe this work thing wouldn't even have to be an issue. Maybe it's time to call in all the favors - the loans to my kids. Except I told them long ago - I don't loan money. Once I give it to them I consider it gone and just pay it forward. It seems they have taken me seriously. You know, there isn't a big rush, I think I need the Summer to really get in touch with "who am I" and "knowing myself"....! Yes! That's it, what good is all this worry if I don't even know myself? I hope to meet me somewhere in the not too far away future.

"Surreality doesn't stop this Party Girl"

Oh happy day! Riveting reading from your greatest admirer. As you know I've had Randy painting and I've been purchasing and repurposing just about everything I have so everything around me feels new and different and hopefully reflects my personality. I really like what I have done. One little problem. It all feels so surreal. I feel like I'm living in a dream. I know I'll look back on 2010 and it will easily be classified as a dream/nightmare. But I will move on. What concerns me more today is "what is my personality and do I even have one anymore?" "Ye Gods!" That's a terrifying thought , I've so piggybacked myself onto someone else for so long I don't even know what my own personality is anymore. Right down to the music I'm listening to right now. I like it, I think. I've stifled myself that I can't even pick out a video without thinking, "is this what you-know-who would want to watch? When he isn't even here to watch it anyway! Julie! Get a life! One area that I always was in charge without interference was book club and especially book club parties! And we have one in May! 3rd Saturdays is having their 3rd anniversary and I hope to come up with something truly mind blowing and unforgettable. I better get busy, it takes months of prep and with all my own life makeover, I've let this take a back seat which is so wrong and I know it! So, if anyone has any ideas, please send them to me and they will be considered and as usual, only the best is good enough for us, the creme de la creme of the book club world of Longmont and the tricounty area. Don't forget - Party Time, May 15th, and a book discussion, yea, a book discussion too.