Wilsonworld

Two sides to every story.

Don't get excited.

This may not be the post you were looking for.

My last post was supposed to be the one where i started fresh all over again. That was my intention.

Funny things, intentions, they almost always start out well. But quite often they get blown all to hell.

Kinda like what happened with the idea that I had a fresh outlook and was going to get back in the groove. It all went to hell.

Two days before I wrote that last post, The Husband had a nervous breakdown. A bone fide on the floor full hysterics breakdown. We thought it was an isolated incident.

Boy was I wrong.

For those who also read The Husband's blog, you are aware that he has been diagnosed as Bipolar. For those who don't...surprise!

For the last three months it has been a whirlwind of  doctors and therapists and more doctors and tests and let's not forget about the medicine.

Holy-mother-of-pearl-you-can't-forget-about-the-medication-as-our-world-is-now-ruled-by-it.

Here's the thing about Bipolar.

It sucks.

There is not one single medication that can help. It is a dangerous cocktail of medication that must be adjusted, and apparently adjusted often, in order to find the right cocktail for your particular form of disease.

This is hard on a body.

It is hard on those who have to watch said body.

I know that it is hell on The Husband, but this is not about that.

This is about the rest of us who live with this disease every-waking-minute-of-the-day.

This is about having to watch the man you have known for 22 years turn into someone you have never seen before.

In the past three months I have once again become too efficient at dishing out meds, watching side effects and charting behaviour. Hmmmmm seems like I have done this before.

For The Husband, it involves Panic Attacks, so severe I have had to leave work to come home to find him curled up in our room, frightened, like a child who has had a night terror. It involves Anxiety attacks, which have no rhyme or reason. It involves depression so bad that last week it was 430 in the afternoon before he got out of bed, and brilliant ideas like selling everything we own to move to Scotland to raise cows.

It involves tremors so bad he has been mistaken for having Parkinsons. Thankfully this problem seems to have been solved.(When typing that sentence, i knocked wood, spun three times, snapped my fingers and spit on the floor. i am done tempting any and all Deities.)

It involves energy. Lots and lots of kinetic energy that needs a place to go.

It involves anger.

Anger on his part as too why he can't feel better.

Anger on my part as to why the hell he can't just snap out of it.

Yes, I just said i wanted him to snap out of it.

I would really like him back.

He has a great Psychotherapist who helps him with meditation. At home I walk him through the meditation exercises, but what i want to do in my heart is grab him by the head and say ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH!

 

Then of course I feel guilty for feeling that way.

He has no control over this. It has control of him.

He is off work. Which means he spends his time at home while i work....when I am not speaking to psychiatrists and doctors and therapists and pharmacists and comforting the children who understand that Dad is sick but not in a you can see it kind of way.

So if you came back to the blog to see how things are going, i will not blame you if you turned and walked away. Hell sometimes that is appealing to me as well.

But I can't.

I can however learn what hat to wear and when. i can learn to not try and be logical when speaking to someone who is illogical. TO know that sometimes just hold a hand is comfort enough, and sometimes it really isn't.

I miss my husband. The one I knew. The one I know is in there somewhere. I just have to be patient and know that at some point he will emerge again.

I hope.

At least that is the intention.

 

 

Expect more of this for the next little while. 

 

 

 

It's a new dawn, it's a new day..and I'm feeeeling gooood!

Yep.

I am still here.

I am still around.

But I am new

I am improved.

I have embraced the fact that like a good wine or great cheese, I am only getting better with age.

I took some time off from writing, as I was not sure where I was going or what I was doing.

I realize now that part of that was because I was beginning to censor what I put up here. This had always been my place to say what was on my mind, explore, expound and sometimes just plain bitch.

It had not been like that for sometime.

I like to write. I used to think I was half decent at it.

But i stopped.

Then the new year hit.

Changes.

Lots of changes.

New position at work, different hours, new family dynamics.

Changes in all of the family as we grow and figure out who we are.

SO I took time off.

Sorry there wasn't any real notice, although there was as posting had been sporadic at best.

I am back.

I need to get back to why i started this blog 8 yrs ago.  (WOW?!)

I need to be me.

Things you need to know that have happened since we last talked.

 

I quit smoking.

Keith and I both did.

I smoked for 32 yrs, and decided i had had enough.

Feb 1 was it.

The following week I started going to the pool. 

I don't swim, but i can do a full water workout with weights and aerobic exercises.

I now do that 5 days a week..every morning.

Two times a week I do deep end aqua aerobics for the core muscles.

Three times a week i do shallow end. 

Different muscles, different areas...same goal.

I am going to be healthy.

I am going to sit on my porch with my husband and grow old.

I am going to watch my grandchildren play (when the time comes of course)

I am doing things for me.

I am doing things for others, becase that is also being me. 

It makes me feel good.

 

So if you are still around, thanks for waiting.

I am sorry that it took me so long to find my way back.

But I am here with you....

again

lets

begin......

 

Blink

You are aging before my eyes

 

blink

 

you were there

small

pink

ruler of our hearts before you even knew how

 

blink

 

sassy

independent

headstrong

little

 

blink

 

exploring the world

you were walking

when some were still learning to crawl

and you never looked back

 

blink

 

sometimes i would watch you while you sleep

this little child of mine

wishing I could hold you in that moment

but you would awake

(always early, a day person, like your Daddy)

and be off

carried away by the words on a page

a colour on a brush

a thought

a shiny thing

 

blink

 

now you are here

no longer a baby

no longer a little girl

 

blink

10 years

10 years of I love you Mommy

more than a mouse loves cheese

10 years of laughter

10 years of joy

 

blink

 

where has my little girl gone?

 

She is right here

In the smile

and twinkling eyes

of the young woman you have become.

 

Happy 10th Birthday Riley

 

No more silence.

This week, we heard the horrific story about 18year old Tyler Clementi, who thought that there was no other way to continue, and took his own life. This young man was bullied by a hateful person. One who thought it would be fun to broadcast via a webcam, his private and personal time spent with a friend.

My heart breaks for this young man.

My heart breaks for the other teens this month who at the hands of hateful people also had their hearts and dreams taken away.

I do not understand how ANYONE could think that this is not becoming a problem. Whether it is about your sexual orientation, your race, religion, or size..

BULLYING is not OK.

EVER.

I cannot understand why we allow this to continue?

I have talked to people, questioning,  wondering where the adults were for these kids.

I have heard it said…. "well they ARE teens. They don't like to talk."

That is a load of crap.

I cannot understand why we are failing our children.

I am the mother of a teenage son, and a pre-teen daughter. I talk to my children about ALL subjects, nothing is taboo. Thy know that they can come to me about anything, and have no judgment. Is it harder to talk to my son than it was a few years ago? Absolutely. But we still talk. You just have to know what to say. And what not to say. And you have to let your kids know that even if they feel that they cannot talk to you, there is ALWAYS going to be someone to listen. A teacher, a sibling, a cousin, a family friend. They are NEVER alone.

I have been blessed in my life to have family and friends that are gay, transgendered and straight.  We have varying opinions on many topics, but the things we have in common? We are all human. We all have hopes and dreams, we feel love, we cry and we laugh. None of us are better than the rest. We are who we are, and we love each other for that.

We all have stories of bullying. We have all felt hatred in one way or another.

I was assaulted 19 years ago. I lived in fear, questioning in my mind that perhaps I deserved it. Perhaps something in my makeup made it ok for a man to break into my home and force himself on me.That man was a bully. That man had no right.  I no longer allow him to make me question my worth.

No one has the right to do that.

Not to me, not to strangers, not to ANYONE.

Talk to your kids.

Let them know that there is always someone to listen.

If they won't talk to you, then get them to someone they will talk to.

We have the chance to make it better.

We have the chance to save a life.

We need to speak out, to let those bullies know that it is NOT OK to push us around.

We need the gov't to have better standards, write better laws, and fully punish those who continue to believe that it is ok to be hateful to someone who is different than they are. 

We need our children to know that we will protect them.

We need the bullies to know that we are tired of turning our heads and tired of being silent.

We see you.

We will stop you.

You can't hurt us anymore.

Cat blogging Friday will answer all your questions.

Gone from my head

words

thoughts

and so gone from the page they were too.

Two months of silence

two months of

strays

who became mommas

and children who grew

and life

which always seems to get in the way

of things

that 

I would rather be doing.

but

I am doing them now.

slowly.

Baby steps

careful steps

tentative steps.

As one never knows 

what may be under foot.

It could be Atticus

or Magellan

or Angelus

Don't let 

the innocent faces

fool you.

These kittens mean business!

And now you know why I have had

no words.

But I can meow 

REALLY WELL. 

Memories....from older eyes.

April 23. 1994, originally uploaded by rileymom.

This morning, my husband woke me up with a cup of hot coffee and a dozen white roses. He had taken a vacation day, so that we could share this day together, the same way we did 16 years ago on a beautiful sunny, unseasonably warm April day. See, on this day, 16 years ago, we did what neither of us thought we would ever do. We stood before God, our family and friends and became man and wife. I had grown up not believing in marriage, and from a very early age had made it VERY clear that I was not going to be one of those woman who gave herself over to a man to lose her identity. I didn't play house, pretending to be a Mommy or wife. I was a doctor, a business woman, always single, always on the go.
But something happened.
I met someone who changed my ideas of how a couple should be, and for the first time in my life I was thinking of the "when we are old and grey sitting on the porch" scenario, and wondering what our children would look like. This was no easy task. My own parents marriage was in tatters, torn apart by circumstance. There were several times during our engagement where I gave the ring back, scared that we would become what I had watched my parents evolve into. Each time, Keith was patient, caring, and shared his vision of what he thought we were, and what we could become.

He was wrong.


Keith, in his blog post this morning, wrote about the morning of our wedding day. He wrote about how he was scared, and had gone for a walk, not telling anyone which of course lead to many misunderstandings on the wedding party's part. He had just wanted to have a few moments alone.

My morning on that day was very different than his. I had my parents, who had been separated for three years at that point, staying with my at my apartment. Keith had stayed at his parents house, so it was just me and them. Them. Those who had not been in the same room in three years. Those who were at a point where kind words were not an option. They were both still hurting from watching their own marriage come to an end, pain coming for different reasons for both of them. Neither of them were to blame separately, it takes two to start a marriage, and two to end it.
But while Keith spent his morning in quiet contemplation, I spent mine listening and watching a "how not to have a good marriage" video play out live right in front of me. The tension was thick. We had a tiny apartment, and there was no way for them to NOT have to deal with each other. My father had the video camera running that morning and you can hear the disdain in their voices when they are forced to interact with each other.

This is not about them, I can remember thinking that morning, as we rushed out to do the things that brides do on the big day. Off to the salon for hair and nails and ..gulp MAKEUP...as an aside, I told the girl I did not wear makeup and had no intentions of wearing it that day either. When she was done, I cried because I thought I looked like a clown. I made her do it again, and the only reason I had any make-up on at all is because I knew that in the pictures I was already going to look pale...I still was not happy with the end result that day, it was out of my comfort zone... To the hall to finish decorating, and then I got the phone call that Keith was missing. To say that I was upset would be an understatement. In a flash of an instant, I played out in my head that he had left, run off, left me for someone else, been kidnapped, drowned, and a host of other things. We were going to be just like my own parents. Apart, hateful. But then, in the next flash, I became calm. I told my future mother-in-law that he would be fine, and to call me when he showed up. I knew in my heart that he was where he was supposed to be, and that he would be there that afternoon when we took that long walk down the Church aisle. For the first time since we had become a couple, four years earlier, I knew, without a doubt that we would be fine.

And I was wrong too.

We have not always been fine.
We have, like all couples, had our ups and downs.
We have argued.
We have laughed.
We have thrown pie, compliments and insults.
We have cried.
We have watched the sun rise and set together and apart.
We have been at our best
and worst.

We are not like my parents.
We are not like Keith's parents
We are who we are.
We are us.

We are growing old together, in a money pit of a house, watching our children grow. We sit on the porch. We discuss things, and yes we argue.

But at the end of the day..
we like each other.
we respect each other
we love each other.

Differently than we did 16 years ago.
Better than we did 16 years ago.

I am so glad we were both wrong.

Happy Anniversary Keith.