Haunted

I'm being haunted.

It's a good thing, though.

Things are reappearing.

We got married eight years ago.  A good friend of ours, who happens to be a documentary film maker, was our videographer.  He made a pretty darn awesome wedding video - one that didn't put our friends to sleep when we showed it, like so many wedding videos.  We loved it.  We loved it so much, we brought it with us all over the country, to show our family and friends.  Somewhere along the way, it was misplaced.  We tore our house apart searching for it.  We ransacked my in-laws' house searching for it.  We dug through my mother's house searching for it.  It was nowhere to be found.  Vanished in thin air -- for over five years.

In June of last year, my husband started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet in an attempt to help out his autoimmune disease.  He lost a lot of weight.  So much weight, that his wedding band fell off his hand on more than one occasion.  One such occasion happened to be while he was walking in a parking lot.  He heard a tinkling sound and noticed something shiny bouncing ahead of him.  It was his ring.  Good thing it was sunny that day.

So, six months ago, he couldn't find his ring.  He thought he may have left it on the windowsill of the kitchen, where he keeps it when he cooks.  Nope.  Then he thought maybe it was on the windowsill of the bathroom, where he keeps it when he takes a shower.  Not there, either.  He checked next to the bed, and the windowsill in the bedroom (because he seems to like to put his ring on windowsills), and he had no luck.  He figured he took it off at work and left it on his desk.  He couldn't find it there, either.  The only other explanation was that it fell off his finger, and this time he didn't hear it tinkling, or see it shimmering

He bought a new one.  In eight years, the price of our particular wedding ring has tripled.  I told him to make an insurance claim.  He never did, because he figured he was an imbecile and it was all his fault.

Last month, my car was broken into.  The glove box was opened, and the broken GPS was taken, along with the broken GPS's power cord.  When I realized that what the thieves took was a crappy piece of electronics that was simply taking up space in my glove box, I laughed.  And then I remembered that E had an MP3 player in the back seat.  I looked in her cupholder.  Gone.  I found her headphones and sighed.  I pulled on the cord with hope.  It was light, and as I came to the end, my fear was realized.  Lizzie's MP3 was gone.  Stolen by middle school thugs who have nothing to do on a Saturday night except wander through a condominium parking lot trying the doors of every car until one opens, and taking the one thing a five year old girl looks forward to during a long car ride.  Fuckheads.  Bastards.  Cum Wads!

It's no secret that 2013 was a terrible year for me.  2014 wasn't looking very rosey, either.

And then one day in the middle of February, I decided to go shopping at Natural Grocers.  They are a little grocery nearby that has organic hippie food.  They also don't put your food into bags, so if you don't bring your own, you have to carry your food out in a cardboard box.  Not wanting to deal with the box of shame, I opened the back of the car, and emptied out the one bag that we had, containing an assortment of tools, twine and rope.  I heard a tinkling.  I saw something sparkly bounce in front of me.  It was a wedding band.  I thought it was mine.  I looked at my finger.  My ring was there.  I looked at the ring in the back of my car.  Could it be?  No...  how could it have gotten here?  I picked it up, and sure enough, it was the missing wedding band.  No. Fucking. Way.

The next week, as I was putting L into his car seat for the five hundred and four millionth time, I noticed there was something black stuck between his car seat and the seat back.  He is still rear-facing, because I'm one of those parents (I should wear a t-shirt that says "Talk to me about extended breastfeeding, babywearing, cloth diapering and rear-facing car seats!"), so noticing some strange object between the car seat and the seat back shouldn't be that difficult.  This strange object just happened to be in the exact spot where I put my hand to loosen the car seat strap. I loosen the car seat strap every time I get him out of his car seat.  How did I not notice this strange black object before?  I picked it up, and was surprised to realize it was the stolen MP3 player!  For a nanosecond, I actually thought that the thieves felt remorse for what they had done, broke into my car a second time, and stuck the MP3 player in that spot so it would seem like it was just misplaced.

And then, last week, the most insane of all things to ever happen in this house happened.  P had spent half the week in Seattle at a conference.  He was in the bedroom, putting away his suitcase in the closet.  As he was moving an old bag that we haven't used in years, in order to make room for his bag, he heard a strange sound coming from one of the pockets.  He pulled down the bag and opened the pocket.  Inside was a giant ziplock bag.  Inside the giant ziplock bag were four DVD's.  Two were documentaries about the PCT that our friend and videographer made.  One was a video slideshow of photos compiled from a bunch of people who hiked the PCT in 2003.  The last DVD was the one and only copy of Camp Belchigator shenanigans.  It was truly unbelievable.

He didn't tell me right away.  He kept it a secret.  In fact, this was the day we had the big fight.

That night, as I was about to play another episode of Weeds, he said "No, let's watch a movie instead."

"OK.  What movie?" I asked.

"I have one," was his reply as he sauntered toward the bedroom.  He popped it into the computer before I could see what it was.

I thought he'd gotten Squatch to make another copy, since we had just seen him.  Either way, it was so nice to relive those happy moments, especially after our fight.  I only cried once, during the father/daughter dance.

I try not to get ethereal on my blog, or think about other worldly things in general.  I can't explain them, and while I've considered my own mortality and that of my mother, siblings and children fairly regularly since Labor Day, I still can't fathom what happens in the end.  I can only hope.  For the past month, as items that I thought were gone for good find their way back to me, my hope grows -- hope that there is something beyond this life; that my dad, grandmother, grandfather, former pets, teachers, friends, and others who have touched my life have found peace, are happy, and are never very far away.

What once was lost now is found.

The Hardest Word

My husband and I got into a fight today.  It’s not unusual.  We’ve been together for over 10 years, and married for over 8.  It’s bound to happen.  It happens every time I’m PMS-ing (which is now), and every time one of us comes back from a trip (also now).

I honestly can’t remember the exact reason we were fighting, and it really doesn’t matter.  It simply matters that we were fighting – yelling and screaming at each other, saying hurtful things, swearing; and we did this in front of our children.  I know E was very upset over this, and asked us to stop.  L simply cried while clinging to my leg.  I remember peeling him off before I dramatically stomped into the bedroom and carefully closed the door so I wouldn’t smush any tiny fingers.  P yelled one more hurtful thing at the closed door before walking away.  I thought 15 hurtful things in my head and cried for a while.  

But while we think and say hurtful things to each other, we really don’t mean it.  We love each other and would go to the ends of the earth for each other.  The trouble is, how do you reassure your children of this, when they have born witness to the slaughter of your feelings?

I’ve heard people say you should never fight in front of the children, and I remember having friends in high school who were blindsided by their parents’ divorce because they never saw it coming.  By the same token, I’ve also heard friends wonder why their parents weren’t divorced, since all they did was fight.  When we got engaged, P told me that we would end up hating each other, but that it would all work out in the end, because that’s what happened to his parents.

My parents divorced when I was one, so I have no idea how parents are supposed to handle stress and disagreement in front of their children.  I knew my parents didn’t like each other from the moment I remember, and the divorce papers were proof.  They did eventually allow time and physical distance move that water under the bridge, and a couple years before my dad passed away, they were cordial with each other (they became Facebook friends, and may have even sent each other letters.  In the mail).

I certainly don’t want my children to think that we hate each other.  At the same time, I don’t want them to think that everything is coming up roses when a family of moles has moved in.  So we fight, scream, yell, say hurtful things in front of our children.  The children do the same thing to each other in front of us.  They probably have some empathy in that regard.  We live in a 950 square foot condo.  There really isn’t much room to escape, especially when the Pacific Northwest Winter is bearing down and your road has become the new off-shoot of the local creek.  

One thing we do, however, that I think is hard to do in front of other people, is that we make up in front of our children.  It could be the fact that we live in a shoebox, so they are subjected to the good, bad and ugly in our marriage.  It could be the fact that we don’t want them to think that we actually hate each other, because we don’t.  We all have bad days.  We all lose it, and we all say things we don’t mean.  We’re human.   Our children should be witness to that.  They should know that everyone, even parents make mistakes.  And what’s more, they should be witness to the make-ups, not just to be reassured that their world will not be falling apart any time soon, but to learn that crucial part of making relationships last:  Saying “I’m Sorry.”

Whole30

I'm not big into diets, especially fad diets.  I scoff at Paleo every single day, as I eat bread sticks in front of my friends and their paltry slab of meat and boring broccoli.  When coworkers dramatically exclaim "Oh, I CAN'T eat that!" whenever there is a delicious treat in the staff room, I happily eat two servings... just for fun.

But the thing is, my belly aches, and I'm addicted to something.  I'm guessing it's sugar, because that's what it breaks down to, but I don't eat a lot of sugary things.  I love bread.  I love it so much that I think about it all the time.  I love it warm, toasted, and slathered in garlic-y, buttered goodness.  So buttery that you fingers shine after you finish eating, and you still need a napkin after licking them.  And when I finish that delicious piece of bread, I want another.  Even before I've finished that piece, I'm already thinking about the next one.... and the next... and then the loaf is gone. 

On Monday, when I was fortunate to have another snow day, and the children's school was open, my husband and I sat down together to a delicious lunch, free of distractions.  He's been practicing the SCD lifestyle since last spring, to cope with an autoimmune disorder, so the lunch he made was amazing: salmon with fresh squeezed meyer lemons from my grandmother's back yard, with a side of cucumber.  It was delicious and filling.  I was completely satisfied.  I was not hungry anymore.

Yet, I wanted something more.  I needed something more.  I desired it so much, that when my husband left for a couple hours, before he was even down the driveway - Hell, before he was in his car - I was pulling down the bag of tortilla chips to shove some in my mouth.  As I type this and think about tortilla chips, I want some.  I just might get up and get a handful right now.

Well, it's not that bad, at least not today, because I have a plan.  I've wanted to do a cleanse for a while.  The last time I did one was over six years ago, before I got pregnant with E.  It's nice to rid your body of toxins and eat cleaner every now and then.  I would do a cleanse about every 6 months or so, and it would take a little while before I was back to eating like crap and needing to re-start my eating.  But it's been over 6 years.  I need to do more than a quick 7 day cleanse.  That's not going to clear out 6 years of gunk in the system.  I need something more.

I considered SCD, since that's what hubby is doing, but just picking up the plan and eating the accepted foods for an indeterminate amount of time isn't going to work for me.  How long would I do it?  Would I cook all my veggies first, or just avoid all the "no" food on the list?  And what if I don't like it?  It would be easy to say "I've done this for 10 days, I can quit now..." because I wouldn't have a plan.

And then I researched the Whole30, which is an extremely clean eating plan that lasts for 30 days.  I'd heard about it, but figured it was another one of those fad paleo diets that I wasn't about to fall for.  There are a lot of no's (no sugar, no grains, no legumes, no dairy, no processed foods), but it's more about what you eat than what you don't.  I's about eating whole foods with nutritional value, and making the conscious decision to leave the fake, processed foods with all nutritional value erased back on the laboratory floor where they deserve to be.  I took the bait and paid $9.99 for the ebook.  After chapter 2, I'm hooked.  This is totally me.  I am addicted to sugar (or carbs, or processed nastiness, whatever you want to call it), and I'm going to take this step.  I'm making a commitment to myself and my family that I'm going to eat cleaner and break this addiction.  I might have to pull out my dad's 12 Step book when I start to feel weak. 

I start this new venture tomorrow.  Today, I ate like crap, like it was a final farewell to junk and nastiness - a last day of binging before checking in at the Betty Ford clinic for food.  I pigged out on crackers, and sugary sweets (OK, they were SCD legal lemon bars, but they had honey, and honey is persona non grata in the Whole30 arena).  My tummy aches, and all I want to do is eat those last two slices of bread from the Tula Bakery, smothered in garlic butter.  But I won't.  At least, not right now.

To prepare for tomorrow, I baked myself some chicken wings, and picked out my veggies and fats for lunch and snacks.  I'm on the fence about allowing myself fruit the first week, because I am afraid it may start me on the slippery slope of sweetness -- like an alcoholic drinking Fre wine.  But I'm afraid I won't have enough food, that I'll still be hungry and have nothing left to eat, and those stale Triscuits in the staff room will be just too tempting.

And then I stepped back and looked at the food I had prepared.  It was a lot.  Normally, I eat about 4 chicken wings in a meal.  I'll have about 1/4 cup of veggies, and then fill the rest of my belly with bread.  Without the bread, I found myself filling containers with food, in a desperate attempt to make sure I will not starve to death.  I cooked myself 12 chicken wings.  I'm pretty sure I'll return home with six.

That's a lot of food!