kvetching up

"All the time wasted in high school and college on classes we will never use. Imagine if there was one on red flags and manipulation.That should have been a required class. We're just not taught any of this." "It is absolutely crucial for survivors to find kinder ways to talk to yourselves, it is an essential part of healing. And no, you didn't allow this to happen. Allowing something to happen implies you gave it permission. At no point did you actually consent and sign up for somebody to do this much harm to you."   -D r. Ramani I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't even understand there was anything wrong. I never asked Jenny to be mercurial. I never asked her to be overly-sensitive to the point that one had to walk on egg shells when she was about. I never asked for her simmering anger toward me. All true. But, knowing all of this, I did choose to have children with her. They also didn't choose any of the above. My choices were selfish and stup...

The year of firsts is over. It was, less and more than I expected. Given that most of my friends who read this are women, more than1/2 of you, if coupled, will go through the year of firsts as well. I can't offer any advice, can't even identify what to do or what to avoid.  I am still lost. I still can't properly grieve, I don't know if I ever will. The rollercoaster that is loss had hidden twists and turns, unexpected hills and valleys. For me, I rode it all the way through illuminated by the fires of anger. The anger wasn't the Kubler-Ross anger over death, I made peace with Jenny's cancer when she was dying. For me, the fuel that stokes my rage keeps growing, and has everything to do with her behavior towards them and nothing to do with the affair (except for the ceaseless lying, gaslighting and the fact that she abandoned the children for el pinchè at EVERY opportunity).  Everytime I see my girls, I realize Jenny burned it all down, the world we built for th...

I am busy at work dealing with contract negotiations in Malaysia. It will keep me up tonight until 3 a.m. While I am too old for this shit, I am loving it. Very few people have had the opportunity to participate in overseas collective bargaining, so I am lucky. If you follow my Facebook, you know Abby's car was stolen from school on Monday and that, unbeknownst to us, the car had LoJack on it, and thus the cops found it and found the thieves. The thieves took the state patrol on a high speed chase ending on Beacon Hill where the car was ditched after the front axle was damaged and the transmission ruined. The loss of the car has proven challenging, given that Abby goes to school downtown and I am working so many hours in a day. Today, I will drive her to the Armory and work from there while she attends 1 class. Yesterday was a nightmare, trying to get her from school to home. I had meetings from 2-7. Mind, she could have taken the monorail to the train, the train to the SeaTac stop...

A year ago, on the first Thursday of March, Leiney, my sister Jane and I were lying in the bed that abutted Jenny's hospital bed set up in the master bedroom. Jenny hadn't been conscious in days. In fact, she had very much been in the active stages of dying. We were facing her and chit chatting. As you sit next someone in the throes of death, someone taking days to die and who is unconscious, and suffering, fear dissipates. Compassion and love fill your heart. I remember the day before, I sat alone with her and sang every song I could remember that meant so much to the two of us, that she loved so much, that we loved so much.  On that Thursday, none of the three of us could leave Jenny's side. Some days ago, before she lost her faculties, she had seen her dead mother and father standing in the room, a common happening as you near death. Fish breathing, which had been going on a few days before and is another feature of impending death, had passed, and now, she was taking a ...

Today in my Gmail arrived a new academic article on pancreatic adenocarcinoma. It announced there is, as I already knew (but hate to think about), no effective screening to detect the disease early. I worry so much for my girls and hate they have this fearsome disease to be afraid of for their whole lives and the lives of their kids. Jenny used to curse my genes for the depression (which, quelled surprise we later learned she had too) I carry and have gifted to my kids. She loved these girls so very much I know she would have done (had to change it to the past tense, I hate this) anything to prevent them from carrying the gene.