They say it takes 21 days to change a behavior – to let go of a habit.
I’m hoping “they” are right. I am on Day Five – BRUTAL Day Five – of having zero contact with the man I was having an affair with – yes, Infidelity. I know it’s bad
He was my fuck-buddy. The sex, oh man, the sex, the sex was the kind of sex I didn’t even know I craved until it smacked me in the face. Then it became like oxygen – or, at least, crack.
More than the amazing sex, this man was someone I could talk, really talk to about the things I have no other place to share. Things that I didn’t know I really wanted to dialogue about. Dirty things, yes – yummy, dirty things. But also spiritual, political, intellectual things.
My husband simply isn’t that person for me. I won’t give you all the details. It really doesn’t matter and it’s not much different from a million other stories. For me, though, it is. This is my story.
Leaving my lover is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do; it hurts. But I know that it’s necessary to say goodbye. Goodbye to the crazy drama. Goodbye to the possibility of wrecking my marriage. Goodbye to the fear that my children would hate me if it all came crumbling down.
And goodbye to filling that hole – the one that craves passion, excitement, and a really good fuck – in my life.
His brain stem is deteriorating, a side effect of the chromosome abnormality he has. Twenty-nine surgeries haven’t been enough to save him, though they have bought him more time with us.
We are told that he’s the only child in the world who has his conglomeration of medical conditions (the chromosome abnormality, spina bifida, a connective tissue disorder, chiari malformation, intracranial hypertension, and another half-dozen minor diagnoses).
The amount of pain medication he receives every day is a drug-addict’s dream, is administered around the clock to keep him from experiencing pain. It is so beyond awful that I don’t have words to express my feelings. Watching him decline is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life and that is saying something.
As if that isn’t enough, the two children my family adopted from Ukraine eighteen months ago have a lot more “going on” than we were told about.
My two-and-a-half-year old has Down syndrome, autism, and reactive attachment disorder. She functions at the level of a ten month old.
My four-and-a-half year old has Down syndrome, a heart defect that wasn’t repaired properly, systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, atlanto-axial instability, autism, tethered cord, syringomyelia, mild hearing loss, and is considered both medically complex and medically fragile.
We’ve been told repeatedly by numerous specialists, that she isn’t going to have a long life. She functions at the level of an eight month old.
Neither of the girls walks, talks, signs, eats (they’re g-tube dependent, just like my six-year old) or interacts well with people (they interact, but only on their terms).
When we adopted the girls, we knew they had Down syndrome and that the four-year old had a heart defect.
Everything else has been a big ‘ol surprise since we brought them home. Honestly, it feels like discovering new problems with our kids never ends.
We didn’t know our son had this chromosome abnormality and would die soon. If I’d known this, I wouldn’t have adopted him, or at least not when I did.
To top it all off, my marriage is falling apart. I know I should care, but I don’t have the emotional capacity to handle it. I just want him to leave me alone. I don’t want to have to deal with him on top of everything else.
I’m struggling.
I’m struggling in every sense of the word. I don’t know anyone that understand how this feels.
Yes, lots of people have a medically-fragile child.
Yes, lots of people have large families.
Yes, lots of people have multiple children with special needs.
But I don’t know any other people who have a large family with lots of kids with special needs, some who are medically fragile, with one who is terminally ill?
If there are, would someone please point me toward those people? I REALLY could use a friend, someone who’ll say, “This totally sucks!” along with me. I know people don’t know what to say to someone like me, but I still want them to say something – the silence is deafening.
Okay, that’s a total lie. I like many things more than a bargain, up to and including sleeping, heavy sarcasm, sitting on my ass, strawberry-frosted donuts, The Twitter, mocking the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, mocking myself, obsessing over cardigans, Vicodin-chip cookies, Hostess orange-flavored cupcakes, designing photon rings in my backyard, my roses, test-driving cars, napping, thinking about napping, and watching reruns of Law and Order.
But when I get a bargain, I get the rush that I’m pretty certain causes otherwise normal people to get up at midnight and stand out in the freezing cold to be the first in line to buy something abnormally cheap on Black Friday.
I just couldn’t bring myself to actually do it, rush or no.
I’ve thought about why I wouldn’t do it most of the week (still flat on my back in pain)and I think it boils down to not being a Team Player. I’m just not a Team Player. Shut your whore mouth.
Even if I could get my spot in line and guarantee that the item I wanted would be mine ALL MINE, I would be carted off to jail well before the doors opened.
How the hell do I know this without ever having stood in a single line? SIMPLE. I read your blogs. You guys DO stand in those lines. And between my Pranksters are peppered The Crazies. Aunt Becky don’t play with The Crazies. Especially the PUSHY crazies.
The very moment some asswad threw an elbow, tried to cut in line (HATE! THAT!) or made a comment about my happy pants (they have hearts on them!), I’d be all, “Nice teeth, Cleatus, why don’t you and your recessive genes kiss my white ass and crawl back under the rock that you crawled out from under.”
Then, his fifteen cousins would come over and beat my very small-wristed ass into a bloody pulp. Not before, of course, I got in a couple of squirrelly kicks. Then the cops would come and we’d all get hauled to jail and I wouldn’t end up with the electric back-hair groomer I’d so desperately wanted for 90% off.
What a mess.
So instead, I’ll sleep leisurely in and when I wake up, I’ll catch a few shitty sales online. None will give me the same sort of thrill that getting my nose-hair trimmer would, but I really need to let my surgical scar heal before I can go to jail. That way, I can avoid being someone’s bitch by beating the shit out of someone when I first get there.
It’s not the same, I know, so instead, I’ll live through you.
Tell me your stories. I’m sure someday I’ll go shop the Black Friday sales and bring a video camera to capture it all for maximum hilarity (for my blog, of course). Hopefully Cletus will avoid the lens when he beats me silly.
So tell me all about your experiences with the sales.
My delicate wrists are going to live vicariously through you this year.
Those tables, forever missing one, are each welcome to share their loved one with us so that we may never forget.
I’m asking you today to pass this post around to anyone who may need it, you can use it if you need it, and you don’t have to have been the parent to feel the loss.
The way I generally organize these precious names is pretty easy:
Name, Parent’s Name, Date of Birth, Date of Death, Cause of Death, a Picture or 3, and if you feel like it, a bit more about your child. Who they were, what they loved, what they hated. Anything you’d like.
You can either send the information to me, becky@bandbacktogether.com or you can use the online submit form. Or, you can lurk. All are acceptable and all are welcome.
