More Hurdles Behind Me

In anticipation of the reunion of the chamber singing group I toured with in college, I thought of any potentially unpleasant 'encounters'. I knew my ex-husband and a former lover were co-hosts of this bash. As I reviewed the emailed invite responses online, I noticed my ex's sister was going to attend. This was quite a surprise because in the mid 70's she had moved to New York City and launched a successful singing career there. She and her first husband had been on our big European tour in 1972. They had later divorced after he decided he preferred a gay lifestyle. After that, the sister saw no reason to stay in California. At that time few opera companies were here and even they did all their hiring out of New York. She somewhat blazed a trail for her brother and me to follow her when we moved there in 1978. But shortly after we arrived in the city, she got an artist in residence assignment (there were only 8 in the entire country) in New Hampshire. Once there on her multi-month assignment, she met a man and gave it all up to marry him, move into the converted one-room schoolhouse he called home, and spend her life keeping house and working in her garden. And this had been a woman who never left the house without an extra hairpiece and full makeup. She had rarely worn pants and often wore a merry widow under her dresses. She was in love. Her new husband and I shared a birthday and for our birthdays one year she gave us copies of Richard Brautigan's "June 30, June 30". I remembered her as strikingly beautiful, enormously talented, intellectually brilliant, and someone who had not liked me at all until after I started dating her brother. In fact, she had really, really disliked me when I first started singing in Opera Workshop scenes with her. We eventually became close, but was that because I married her brother, or did she really come to like me? I knew that the evening would answer that question. I didn't recognize her at first. She no longer wears 'extra' hair, she seems more casual, and her marriage broke up ten years ago. She is still beautiful. When she noticed I had figured out who she was, she laughed and threw her arms around me. We chatted a little with a couple of other women from the group. Later in the evening, when I was briefly alone, she came over to me smiling and said, "Talk to me." She didn't hold anything against me for what had happened between me and her brother. She seemed very open, accepting and encouraging. Time and life experiences have relaxed her. Her move to New Hampshire put her life on a very different course. She went into graphic design, opened an ad agency with her second husband, got divorced and closed the agency, then wrote, sold and designed ads for radio stations. She said that for three years after he marriage ended, she cut herself off from the world. Then, when online dating was fairly new, she met a man she calls 'Wonderful Wes', lives with him and has no desire to make another commitment. She wears a promise ring and seems very happy. Wes makes it possible for her to live the life of a comfortably retired person and she volunteers as a graphic artist for those who cannot afford to hire people to design their logos, flyers, brochures, etc. The question seemed to be answered: she did grow to like me. The other hurdles I set behind me were interacting with the ex and not feeling awkward about it. I found out that he retired from teaching the same week I did. And I think he was there at the party with another one of the women from the group. She seemed slightly uncomfortable but I was very complimentary and friendly to her. I always liked her, and if she wants to date my ex, I am very happy for her. The last hurdle was the former lover. I remembered that he was not only a player but seemed to be a guy who was missing an 'emotional chip'. Many years later the time finally came when he was ready to settle down. He is still married. He teaches at Ann Arbor while his wife lives in Orlando. Do I think he's faithful to his wife? Not for a second. I looked around the party and remembered that several of us had had affairs with Bob. In fact, it occurred to me that we all had dated him right after we arrived at the university. That was Bob, a guy who had flings with all the girls when they were new. I was no different. Bob was one of my 'mistakes'. Live and learn, and move on. That's what I did. This evening was good for me. I felt whole, healthy, and pleased with what I have done with my life. I am moving on.

Apparently I Got Assertive

As I was cleaning out my dresser drawer the other day I found another letter. This time, from me to Bill via email. From the date on it I know it was in January of the toughest year I ever had in the classroom. I had the most unruly, rude and dysfunctional class of my career. Even today as I think about this group, I shudder. Bill, who was used to a wife who came home with a big smile on her face, was shocked to see the change in my behavior. What used to be a rhetorical question, "How was your day?" became something he hesitated to ask. He was used to hearing, "Great!" That year the answer was usually, "Awful!" or 'Horrible!" or something more detailed but always unpleasant. He would visibly flinch when I answered. It continued to surprise him no matter how many days we were into the school year. It was a year to be forgotten. After the group left me, I watched them torment teachers for the next five years. And that was after my two worst students moved away! From the letter I can tell that there was a day in January when Bill had a hissy fit about something, or committed some financial treachery of which I disapproved, and ran off to passive-aggressively punish me by gambling. I wrote, printed out and saved the following email. What surprises me about it is the date. It wasn't until June of that year I discovered that he had been gambling so much that he had taken $80,000 from a joint account we had set up for remodeling the house, and he had only put $59,000 in it. But here is the message from January 28: Dear Bill, You seriously blew it this afternoon. How quickly you have forgotten that this year is NOT about you; it is about me. I am doing all I can to unload my horrible class and until I have some satisfaction in that area, you are to support me. There is no negotiating here. I will not be speaking to you until I have a note from you, in writing, saying that you will put your ego behind you and help me out. There will be no more temper tantrums, no more running off to gamble because you are pissed, no more ignoring your phone. You need to be supportive of me in ways you have not done before. I will not be backing down on this. You are losing the best friend you have ever had and if I were you, I would seriously consider what you just did. I will not deal with this babyish bullshit. I have now contacted lawyers. Cindy> I don't remember contacting lawyers at that time in our marriage. But I wouldn't have lied about having done it. Did I get an apology in writing? I must have because he didn't like the silent treatment. Not one bit. I can't remember what he did but it must have been horrible for me to have written a message THIS assertive.

Cleaning Out Drawers

This weekend Laura and Kyle (and the baby) moved out. In some maternal quest to make things easier for them, I agreed to let Laura have my dresser because it matches the one Kyle took out of my extra bedroom. In doing so, I had to take everything out of my dresser and move it to the one in my bedroom. It had been basically empty since Bill left. As I was going through my top drawer, the one where I keep scarves, gloves and a million 'treasures', I found two letters. Keeping key letters is a habit of mine. That is, I keep letters that are important, that document milestones in my life---or crises. I found a letter Bill had written to me in 1999. At face value it looks sincere and full of love and regret. It sounds like it was written by a man who feels true remorse for things he has done. This is what it said: February 14, 1999 Dearest Cindy: This letter is being written on Valentines Day to profess my love for you. Also, to ask forgiveness for gambling behind your back. I love you and do not want you to agonize over my behavior any more. I give our marriage the highest priority. I know that I damage it when I am not honest with you (lying about gambling) and I put our finances at risk. Gambling has cost us money. It has also caused me to lose time from work. That is, I could have used the time to work or look for work. I know it is hard for you to understand that I endanger our marriage when I value it so much. However, my powerlessness over gambling is a sickness that has been very hard for me to control. This last episode of gambling has humbled me to an extent that I have not had an awareness of before. As I told you, I wanted to make money playing poker. Again, I was made aware that my compulsive behavior hooked with a stupidity that comes with a depressed emotional state makes me a terrible poker player. I learned this lesson. I cannot expect to make money playing poker even with an emotional state that is devoid of the highs and lows that have been there in the past. My goal for the near future is to get our family clear of debts. If everything goes well it could happen in two to three years. I promise you that poker will not interfere with this goal. Beyond the near future I need to keep in mind retirement and what my contribution will be. We should talk about this some more. Sometimes I wonder why you put up with me. I believe that you want a strong marriage and you are willing to do what is necessary to adjust and work with me through some bad times. You have a strength that has developed from when I first met you. I admire your strength and can only hope that you stay strong and that I grow with you. This setback that I caused is very humbling for me and I am ashamed that I chose to lie to you. My actions have affected Laura which I deeply regret. She does not need to grow up with the emotional problems caused by my actions. Happy Valentines Day. I love you and cherish the family that we have. Bill

Real Men Don't Take Spousal Support

I try hard not to reveal to people, especially strangers or those I don't know well, that I have to give spousal support to my ex-husband. I avoid the issue. I leave it out of conversations. If people ask why I am going to work after retirement, I say something semi-true, like I am trying to save for trips or that I'm paying down the credit cards I ran up paying my attorney during the divorce. I really like to leave out the part where I have to pay my former spouse a potful of money every month. To a person, with one exception, everyone has said no REAL man would accept spousal support from a woman. Hmmmmmmmm....I was communicating with someone I hadn't really spoken with since about eighth grade. He commended me for retiring at a time of my own choosing and shared how he had been 'outsourced' from a job he had invested 13 years of his life doing, how he had been told he was slowing down, and that his job was being shipped overseas. How common that is in this world. How many people have I seen have this happen. How many people have I seen traveling to other countries to 'train' new people only to later discover those 'trainees' had been given that person's job! It's like handing someone a shovel and telling them their job is to dig, only to discover that what they dug was their own grave. Anyway, the conversation moved to finances and I mentioned that I had to pay spousal support. I mentioned it gently. Here is his answer: What is this with you paying an Ex (former) spousal support? It was offered to me after my second marriage ended. I laughed so hard and told Kris that I would rather perish than have her support me. We are still the best of friends... it just didn't work... move on! Was this guy really worth it? Was this guy really worth it? good question. I keep asking myself that question. That and a few others. Was this guy really worth it? And why didn't I get a 'man' who laughed at the thought of being supported? Was he really worth it? Not really. And then again, yes, he kind of was. I had the biggest thrills of my life with him, he was smart, had a huge variety of skills and interests, he was bold, he was great in bed. There is no question I paid a high price for that marriage. But out of it I got Laura, and out of Laura we now have KJ. When I focus on that, the marriage was worth it. And the one exception to the comment that no REAL man would ask for spousal support? My first husband. Lord, sour grapes after 28 years.

Tuna Casserole

I often wonder if I will ever be able to remember where it was in my marriage that I first started making incremental compromises and at what point the scales tipped and the incremental compromises turned into a pile of fully-fueled resentment. Where was that tipping point where the weight shifted from loving tolerance to 'I can't any more of this $H%#'? It reminded me of something I heard forty years ago. I had an instructor in college in, of all things, a speech class. He said he had a friend who loved his wife but hated tuna casserole, a dish she insisted on serving at regular intervals despite her husband's insistence that he hated it. And as the years went by, the man grew to tolerate tuna casserole a little more but love his wife a little less. In fact, he tells it as the amount of increased tolerance he gained for tuna casserole was equal to the decrease in his affection for his wife. What does this illustrate? I think my teacher was trying to convey a story of validating, affirming and ultimately showing respect for your loved one's likes and dislikes by honoring (or not honoring) their requests. By not discontinuing the tuna casserole, this woman didn't show her husband she understood the importance of his distaste for the dish or any willingness on her part to totally eliminate it from the family menu plan. I don't know if tuna casserole and incremental compromise are the same thing. I think they could both represent different elements of a marriage, elements that seem so small as to be innocuous but grow to be deal breakers. Little things like tuna casserole, sweaters on the dining table, shaving hairs in the sink, all take their toll in some form. These in themselves cannot ruin a relationship but add them to a 'biggie' like gambling or unwillingness to get a job out of their 'field' to help support the family, and they can bring the whole relationship crashing down. I found this to be true in both my marriages. The answer? The way to avoid this? Better communication. Don't let things slide. That, I think, was a big mistake for me. I should not have taken this page from my mother's playbook. I should have spoken up and continued speaking up instead of waiting for a pile of resentments too large to handle. Maybe then I could have stemmed the tide of unacceptable behaviors and avoided divorce times two.

LL

From time to time there have been children who, for various reasons, have stolen my heart. LL is one of them. He is a big kid and comes by it honestly. Both his mom and dad are very large people. I had his mom as a student over twenty years ago. I had his aunt as a student too. Their family's three girls so close in age I, until about six months ago, had always thought the two oldest ones were twins. Instead, they were about nine months and fifteen minutes apart, so close in age that these two older girls were in the same grade. Their mom was a very large woman from Mexico and their dad was a wiry little Cuban with a nasty drinking habit. They had those girls rapid-fire style and then mom shut down the fun zone. The marriage wasn't happy. The two older girls were very quiet. LL's mom, Rosie, was bold. God must have given her the guts that were supposed to be shared by all three of them. Fast forward over twenty years and in comes LL. He is a tank, a giant of a kindergartener, and almost the youngest in the class. He is a pusher and a shover and yet capable of some of the best hugs you'd ever want to have. Sweet side, stubborn side, helpful side, silly side. LL has them. If he were standing in the middle of the room and I asked him to sit down and he didn't want to, he would just look at me and shake his head. Don't bother trying to budge him. That would involve earth-moving equipment. I would have to charm him into doing what I wanted. He has a younger sister and brother. The home was slightly unstructured (that's a nice word for 'chaotic with no rules'). Our onsite counseling service was working with the family. Rosie and her husband weren't getting along. They didn't have much money despite Dad working three jobs. Rosie was at home with the three little ones and she wasn't feeling 'in love' with her husband anymore. She was unhappy; he was confused. She was looking to end it; he couldn't understand what had gone wrong in his marriage. There was lack of discipline, lack of structure, lack of finances. Neither parent had finished high school. The psychologist made home visits, the two younger children were in our onsite preschool. A few months later the psych told me the two were going to the local therapeutic preschool. They were having emotional problems and they must have been big ones because few children get placed in that particular therapeutic preschool. By then Rosie had left her husband and there had been some custody issues as well as a visit to the apartment from the police. LL also had some health issues. He had chronic tonsil and adenoid problems and was slated for surgery to remove them. They just needed to get the go-ahead from MediCal (which is famous for postponing surgeries). As he would sit on the rug with the other children, you could hear his breathing. He was a mouth-breather and it sounded like I was teaching Darth Vader. He emitted loud, raspy, sometimes sibilant breaths. He had a speech impediment too, a lateral lisp, sort of like a mild version of Daffy Duck. He dropped sounds and even syllables when he spoke. Everyone chalked that up to being an English Language Learner. I had my doubts. The family had been around too long. I knew the language at home was non-standard English and probably some Spanish since the Cuban grandfather was living with them. But LL was a bit of a puzzle. We waited for the surgery. It eventually happened. LL was pissed the doctor made him stay home from school for over a week. After the swelling had subsided, LL was able to get an appointment with an audiologist. He had a significant hearing loss. I KNEW it wasn't because he was technically an English Language Learner! By the end of the school year, we had him all lined up to start receiving all kinds of services when returns to school for first grade. LL had a habit of spiriting things away. From the very first days of school, I would ask him where a piece of his work was and he would shrug and say he didn't know. His work kept disappearing. I later found some of it in his backpack. We were making alphabet projects every day during the first few weeks of school and one set of projects was to be put in a book (when we got to Z). He was having no part of that. He wanted to take his' Aa is alphabet pasta' and 'Bb is buttons' home. Nevermind that there was another different project to go home for the letter every day. He wanted them both. But there is one other thing that sticks in my mind about LL. It was the mint-green negligee. My classroom playhouse is full of dress-up clothes I have collected over the years. This year we really hit a bonanza because one of the little girls' grandmothers had been a seamstress. She could make clothes quickly and without a pattern. Since her granddaughter, like many five-year-old girls, was going through a Disney-princess phase, she made a Snow White outfit, a Belle dress, a Rapunzel dress and a spectacular Cinderella gown for our class play house. But LL wasn't interested in those. He had eyes for one thing only: the mint-green negligee. Every Friday after lunch when it was time for free choice in the classroom, LL always chose to go to the play house. Once in the playhouse he would don the negligee and spend the rest of the afternoon wearing that and playing with the girls. I kept hoping this would be a passing thing. I kept hoping he would tire of the mint-green, go for a karate gee or abandon the house area altogether for something different, maybe the marbleworks or the Legos, perhaps the block area or the train table. Nope. LL and the negligee were a constant on Friday afternoons until the end of the school year. It struck me as odd that such a feisty little big guy, one who could beat the living daylights out of anyone in the grade level if he felt like it, was so bonded to a chiffon piece of lingerie, mint green no less. And mint green isn't a great color on him..... I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried about him.

One Step

Tonight I took a step. This is probably quite commonly done by other people but is something I have never done before. Until tonight. Tonight I went to the movies alone. In the dark recesses of my mind, those deep places where thoughts and beliefs live but rarely bubble up to the surface, there must dwell an idea that a sign of independence and comfort in one's own skin is signified by a trip to the movies alone. I know this concept has existed in my mind for decades because I remember a time when Bill and I were on the 'outs' and I was going to go to the movies alone and it felt like I needed courage to do it. Bill and I were still living together but were split up and I was soon to be moving out. As I set off to the movies, Bill asked me where I was going. When I told him, he said, "You're going to the movies by yourself? That's very impressive. Good for you. In fact I'm so impressed by that, I'll go with you." And so it was that we went to "Top Gun", and I never really did go to the movies by myself. Until tonight. I saw "Brave" with 3D glasses, no less, and even paid full price. I discovered that if I took the glasses off, everything was blurry but I enjoyed the experience and the movie was pretty good. I recycled my glasses after the show was over, got in the car, came home, and felt very, very comfortable with the whole thing. I will do it again. I might not pay full price like I did. In fact, I don't plan on paying full price at the movies ever again. But I took the step, know I can do it, and will do it again.

Reemergence

I didn't sleep around when I was single. I was very picky about intimacy. That was unusual considering the times I attended college and the uber-liberal (and sexually-liberated) college I attended. I dated literally everybody I wanted to date. I was quite sought after. Part of it was the fascination people had with the San Francisco area back in the 60's and 70's. Everyone knew I was from that area. I dressed the part, too. I didn't have any dull evenings in the dorm. That said, I will repeat that I didn't sleep around. I couldn't imagine exchanging body fluids with someone I didn't know well and have a deep connection with. Being intimate with someone was something I did if I believed we had a strong relationship with some kind of future. So, I am going to be honest here, just spit it out, put it down on paper. I have slept with six men in my life. Yep. That's it. Six. And of those six, I look back and see that there's a split right down the middle. Of those six, three turned out to be meaningful relationships and three didn't. I have thought of the three that didn't as 'mistakes'. Obviously, two ended in marriage. As I have moved through this divorce, there have now been the reappearance of five of those six men. Why? Why now? Is there some significance to this? There is only one who is MIA and I know that he's the dean of a law school somewhere in the south. And I don't want to see that one again, anyway. He was one of the mistakes. The fifth one emerged the other evening. The last time I heard anything about him was five years ago. He moved out of the area many years ago and came to town occasionally on talent hunts for the opera company he managed in a large city in Florida. Now he lives in Michigan, is a professor at some university there, and I think he's divorced. He likes to arrange reunions of our chamber singers group to celebrate the anniversaries of the European tour we all took in the summer of '72. This summer will be the fortieth anniversary of that tour. Once again there will be a reunion. He is co-organizing this reunion for the end of this month. Oh, lucky me! One of his other co-organizers is my first ex-husband. But the good thing about this guy is that after our time together ended, we went about our lives as if nothing had ever happened. That made the European tour quite comfortable. We took two other tours with that group and there wasn't a moment of any feeling between the two of us ever again. The difficulty at this upcoming reunion is more likely to be with my first ex-husband with whom I spent twelve years and with whom I had a very bitter and OJ-like divorce. So, although I anticipate no connections, no memories, no conversations with this other man about what happened between us, I am puzzled by the timing of his reappearance, especially in light of the developments in my life over the past two years. Does this help me to better process who I am/was as a companion/lover? Is it part of a reconciliation I must do with my past? Does this force me to flash back to the pre-Bill me and figure out how I should move forward in relationships? Erase the marriages that dominated thirty eight years of your life and snap right back to the college girl? Is that what this means? Somebody help me make sense of this!

Say.....

As soon as some dust settles in my life, something else comes along and stirs it all up again but that metaphor would cover a lot of these blog entries, I think. The dust has settled on my life with Bill. I don't think about what his presence was like or think about whether or not I miss him. More importantly, I am not focused on how glad I am that he is no longer here. I am not basking in the sense of relief at not having to deal with his demands, his 'surprises' or his unpredictable behavior that existed on so many levels. I do, however, have moments when I wish I were part of a couple, times when I need that special person who knows my comings and my goings, who has to go through crises with me, problem solve with me, cheer me up when I've had something bad happen to me or just talk to me. I miss that. It's these times, I know, that make me vulnerable. I have to be careful that in such a moment, I don't make a poor choice. Bill had a way, a knack, a great talent actually, for getting back into my good graces after a fiasco. This divorce more than qualifies as a fiasco. It would be, for my life, the Big Kahuna of fiascos. The restraining order insulates me against Bill worming his way back into my life. But Bill is a crafty one. Bill used to start a lot of his sentences with, "Say...." The word was frequently followed by a request for money or a purchase suggestion, such as "Say, could you write me a check for $1,000 for all the money I've spent around here." Sounds like a reasonable request, doesn't it? That got so tweaked that I had to start asking for receipts. Then he would sometimes submit a receipt to me twice so I had to start making big checkmarks on the receipts when I reimbursed them. Or, sometimes the 'say' sentence would be more like, "Say, let's buy a camper." Or "Say, we don't have any good knives around here. Let's go buy some kitchen knives." Then there was, "Say, I saw a Lexus RX300 and I'd like to see you in one of those. Yes, I think you'd look really good in one of those. I want to get you one." Three days ago Laura received a text from Bill. It said: "Say, I've been meaning to have you to tell your mother she needs to put synthetic oil in her car. It should only have synthetic oil. If she doesn't use only synthetic oil, it could cost her about $4,000." REALLY???? After two years, he cares about the OIL in my car? Is he on CRACK? Laura was at her cheer coaching job when she got this concerned missive. Her coach had this to say: "After two years? Does he think your mother hasn't changed her oil in two years? Tell him 'Gee, thanks so much, we didn't know. We've been pouring chocolate syrup down there. We'll go out and get some of that synthetic stuff right away."

Provision

I made a deal with Bill. I had come up with a dollar amount at our mediation. I had to act on faith that 1) Bill would accept my offer and 2) it would materialize. When I sat down afterward to do my calculations, after transferring my tax-sheltered annuity to Bill and giving him my other savings, I was going to have to find $28,000. Credit cards had stopped being an option a long time ago. I didn't know where I was going to get the money. I was preparing myself to ask friends for loans. The thought was unpleasant and humiliating. Mary retired from teaching at my school last year. She was very concerned that I retire with full knowledge of the retirement system, my accounts, and my options. One day at lunch (she also does some subbing), she asked me what I was going to do with the money from the 'extra' account. What 'extra' account? The supplemental account that was established for everyone who taught between 2001 and 2010. Hmmmmm...I'd forgotten about that account. I wondered how much was available. I went home and looked it up. Then I called the retirement office. I had $35,513. They would take out 20% for federal taxes. That would leave me with $28,000. My attorney had had to do more work for me after our last court date. I thought maybe he had bills for close to $1000. I still had a credit from the last sum of money I had given him. I thought maybe I was $1000 over that. He told me he was going to be sending me a bill. I cringed. The next week the bill came. It was $2835. I was shocked. That was a sum of money for which I was not prepared. It was enough to throw my finances into a tailspin. I had no idea where I was going to get $2835. I logged onto my retirement account again. I was supposed to get my first retirement check on August 1 for the month of July. In the retirement world, you get paid AFTER the month. They want to make sure you lived through it, I guess. Social Security does the same. The account said I was getting a check for $2905 on July 1. My contract with my district didn't end until June 30 and I had got a call from Human Resources telling me that I couldn't collect retirement until July 1. I called the retirement office. I asked the agent what the $2905 was for. She said it was for June 19 - 30. I said I was sorry but they'd have to keep it because my contract with my district went through June 30. The agent said, no, my contract with my district might go through June 30 but I stopped teaching on June 18 and, as far as the retirement system was concerned, I was retired the day after school got out. The Christians say there are no coincidences. They say God provides. Have faith. God provides. He gives you just what you need. Anyone who knows this journey I've been on for the past two years, knows about the provision I've received. To me it is undeniable.

Moving

On Tuesday evening Laura and Kyle didn't come home. I had an idea where they were and it turned out to be right. But, in the meantime, my email account had been inaccessible and I had called customer service. In India. They got me on TeamViewer and discovered what they led me to believe was a hacker in my computer. The agent kept scrolling down the screen that showed access times notated with accompanying red triangles and exclamation points saying, "Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!" Being that both my dad and I have very large balances in our checking accounts right now, I panicked, thinking that someone had gotten my banking passwords and was about to relieve me of a large five-figure amount of money. I wanted to find out how to fix the computer and get rid of this hacking. They were more than willing to transfer my call to some business that could take care of my problem for $299.99. I felt desperate and went ahead. Kyle said I wasn't hacked. He said that what the agent and I had seen was that I don't have a secure network and I have been letting my neighbor use the network. She was probably the one who looked like a hacker. That still didn't answer why I was unable to reply to, delete, forward, move or save anything on my email. I may have been taken advantage of. My banking concerns may have caused me to think a little too hastily. I may have wasted $299.99. The next morning was the 4th of July. Laura and I were in the kitchen talking and she said she had something to tell me and didn't know if it would upset me. She said they had been offered a manager's spot in an apartment complex owned by their work. (They work at a property management company. The company manages over 350 buildings.) I knew they had been offered other buildings in the past but had not liked either the buildings or their locations. In the past they had been unwilling to give up their dogs. Something had changed for them and they were now going to give the dogs away. In fact, they had already done that. I had sensed that they were looking for an apartment on Tuesday evening, especially after the way Kyle had acted during our conversation the previous evening. He had alluded to something he had suggested to Laura and that he wanted to talk about it more. I knew they were teetering on the edge of being ready to leave my home to set up their own. I told Laura I thought they were doing the right thing, that I knew they were too cramped in my garage and that they didn't like my dad and that more than that, they needed to be their own family. They had stopped having dinner with us, and I could feel the tension and dislike they have for eating with Dad. In addition to that they constantly grapple with not having enough space for their things. They had lived in a three-bedroom house when they moved in with me. They have been paying for a storage unit and that bothered them. They were having trouble keeping their dogs in order and were too tired to exercise the dogs after their long days at work and the demands of having a baby. One of their dogs has a bad habit of eating wood like my fence, the side of my house, windowsills, and has a loud piercing bark. This move is their next necessary step. They will get a one-bedroom apartment and a greatly reduced rent. They will be able to get their company to make some upgrades to the unit so it will be more modern. The company is willing to replace the linoleum floor in the kitchen and install hardware floors in the living area. This move was inevitable and I am very ready for them to make it. Two years ago they had moved in here to help and support me. They have done that. Without them the long divorce process would have been overwhelming. I am feeling whole and strong now. I know where to go when I need things and have a deep and practical understanding of my head-of-household abilities and limitations. We will find someone to rent the back. A strong possibility is one of Kyle's brothers who does jujitsu. He can throw down mats and practice or teach private students (once there is enough liability insurance to protect me from liability in the event of jujitsu injuries). He won't need a kitchen and there is a full bathroom for tending to any bodily functions. I will need to rent it to have money to make my bills. I had been getting some rent from Laura, a couple hundred the past two months-----but nothing from Kyle since before the baby was born. I really need to get more for that place. I just might be able to keep my head above water and not have to rely on substitute teaching sixteen days a month. I can survive on less than twelve subbing days. I will still take KJ on Mondays. That will be my Grandma Time and will hopefully give Laura one day a week when she doesn't have to work around him. My only regrets are that I will miss having them around at times and it will be difficult for me to not have any Grandma Time with KJ on a daily basis. The thing that makes me sad is that Kyle is angry with me and that may just go on but I'm not going to apologize to him because I don't think I have done anything wrong. He is giving me the silent treatment and, when he has to say something to me, he is as terse as possible. My neighbor says he's a punk. Sadly, he's also my daughter's husband who has issues with anger management. I now rescind my offer to let them take care of me in my old age. I don't think he has the maturity to understand what happens to people as they age. And the last thing I want is to be an elderly person living in a home with someone who might not take good care of them. Once I make my 'old lady' move, I won't be able to move again. I wouldn't want to be trapped. And I wouldn't want to be abused.

Back in the Saddle

I was retired for three days. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Today I set up my classroom for summer school. This summer school program, although run by the local PTA Council, is not part of the public schools. It is a tuition-based program the Council set up back in 1987 as a replacement for the summer school programs that had previously been available to all students but had been eliminated due to budgetary cutbacks. This was an enrichment program by design. That first year my partner teacher and I started developing a sea life program. It has been an integral part of this summer school since that first year. I love teaching it. We have continually refined it, trying various projects, throwing out the ones that were less factual and engaging, and replacing them with more fun, targeted and streamlined ones. There have been times we taught six rooms of students, and times we have taught one. We have leveled out at three classes. It is 100% sea life. Or, as we say, 'all sea life, all the time'. It used to be my treat to myself after a busy school year of curriculum pacing, standards-based instruction, benchmarks, assessments, paperwork and shoving little square pegs into round holes. It's not really work, but it's not really retirement either. It will end two weeks from Friday. Then I'll be retired again.

Communication

Assertiveness is not something that has come easily to me. I find it difficult to draw boundaries. That is further complicated by keeping the boundaries, a task I find even more difficult. I come by it honestly, as they say. My mother was unable to be assertive. And she was almost completely incapable of the boundary thing. How I wish it hadn't been that way. Assertiveness, clarity, misunderstandings, boundaries, follow-through, saying what's on your mind when it's tough to do, sticking up for yourself, separating out misunderstandings and plain old lies. They all weave together. Separating out one part from another baffles me. I find it challenging and, most significantly, unnatural. Time after time my life gets ensnared in some assertiveness dilemma. Sometimes I am able to be assertive and make my point; sometimes I'm not. Tonight I was not. Problem: I had wanted to talk to Laura and Kyle about tidiness. I had hoped we would be able to have a calm discussion at some time during our road trip up north. The right setting didn't happen. When we got home the problem got compounded. Katy had come to take care of the dogs but she had been unable to get over to talk to Laura about it before we left town. She came late and the dogs had relieved themselves in their cages. She thought Laura and Kyle always left poop in their dogs' cages. She was upset. Laura and Kyle always have fans on in the room. Before we left, we had closed off the bathroom to the garage because we didn't want Katy to know there was a bathroom there. This meant the bathroom was closed and the fans were off. The air in the room became stagnant. Katy thought the room was always stuffy and full of dog poop. She wanted to call the ASPCA. She did the one thing I didn't ever, ever, ever want her to do: she brought her dad over. Now the one person I didn't want in my home---and particularly in the garage apartment-----the one person next to Bill who would take immense pleasure in causing me pain, has been in it. Katy's dad gets perverse joy out of calling agencies out on people. He called the city on a woman's fence a block away from me, and two blocks away from him, and she spent months going to hearings over her fence which she ended up having to tear down, thanks to David. With a touch of the keypad, David could turn my life into pure misery. I am screwed. So, last night, Laura and Kyle came home to dog filth and were up past 12:30 washing dog beds. Katy feels they are raising their child in unsanitary conditions. She and I spoke today when we were at her mother's house. She was very upset, her voice quavered as she expressed her concerns to me. That many dogs brings in too much bacteria. Much of it can be transmitted through the air. There's too much dog poop in the back yard. There are too many things on the carpet and, with KJ crawling soon, he will have a multitude of things to put in his mouth. Laura had left soiled diapers out instead of in a sealed container. There were a lot of used alcohol containers. She has some valid concerns; she also has some misunderstandings. She and Laura will speak tomorrow. Next Problem: I had to broach the now compounded topic of tidiness with Katy's concerns about substandard sanitation. I asked the kids to meet with me when I got home. They were on the defense and Kyle just went gangsta on me. He lashed out at me. He didn't face me as we spoke; he sat sideways, playing with a basketball (but not bouncing it, thankfully). He said it was my problem too. As we sometimes say, he threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. He tried to derail the conversation. I expressed concern about how having four dogs in 400 square feet was not good for KJ. Laura ended up being the peacemaker. Kyle probably wants to move out now. I'd rather not have him in my life if he can't work with me to solve problems. He wanted to give Katy a piece of his mind. Laura said she knew how he was feeling but Katy had been a friend of hers all of her life and she needed to do some problem-solving in her own way with Katy. Laura was stuck in the middle and I felt sad for her. She's under so much pressure and having to be the level-headed one puts her under more pressure. Things didn't end well with us. They really didn't. It is so tense around here, and I have an overwhelming sense of sadness and loneliness. I understand their lives are hard. Laura and Kyle are both working, they have a baby, they have staggering debts, and four dogs. This is so tough. I thought we could figure something out. I had already expressed my concern that the items on their floor would soon be hazardous to KJ since he's so near to crawling. Their reactions, no, Kyle's reactions, sent my hopes crashing down around me. It might be time for them to seriously consider moving out.