Today I Cry

I woke this morning with a blinding painful headache and my husband was there to help make sure it wasn’t my blood pressure.  He brought me more medicine to help elevate the pain. It’s Wednesday, but I’ve already been difficult to love this week. I had a pretty manic meltdown Monday night and the devil was attacking my royally yesterday morning, but my husband has been amazing.  So when I woke up at 3 am this morning in horrible pain I thought, “not today, today I need to be strong, today is the day we (or at least I) cry.” 

When I met Matt and we began dating I had no clue how much I would personally morn over the loss of his first wife.  My therapist has said countless times that I should not use “crazy” to describe my actions, but I think that it’s seriously crazy that I cry more eight years after Nicole’s passing then my husband does - not that he does not still morn - he just doesn’t cry. And, well, I am good at crying. 

I am telling you never in a millions years did I think I would morn Nicole like she was my dearest friend, but my goodness I mourn her.  I fight the guilt that I am here because someone is not.  In some ways I morn as I do for James in that I am saddened by the “what could have been”.  There have been many events over this last year that have made the “what could have been” sadness stronger. 

Our the first year of being married after Nicole’s passing I was blindsided by what grief looked like from my husband. Honestly, I was angry and jealous, being newlyweds I was frustrated that he was not more present with our family.  I was shocked at how badly he disconnected.  Since that first year, I always prepare myself for what is to come the week after Thanksgiving.  I have been known to ask for prayer for my husband stating, “because I lose him from now until after Christmas.”  Matt’s grief has ebbed and flowed as the years have passed - some years seem harder than others, but it’s not his sadness that makes me cry. Well, it’s not always his sadness.  

If you know me and we have discussed Nicole, at all, you know that I seriously cannot talk about her without crying.  This past year I spent hours in conversation - good raw conversation - with another woman. I shared my story and talked through fears I faced without shedding a tear. And it was until we ended our conversation that my mother-in-law said, “You know Deb’s husband is the pastor of Nicole’s parent’s church.”  I ugly cried all over that poor woman because I knew that she had a glimpse into Nicole and her family.  She actually knew about me before we had met, she knew all about my littles and about Matt.  I never imagined feeling the love that we receive from Nicole’s parents.  My sadness is for them as well. 

As I am writing this I feel like I need to gain the attitude that I have with thoughts of James’ passing: celebrate the time I had with him, the memories of his life in a positive way.  Live in thanksgiving for the blessing of his life on mine. 

Nicole gave Matt specific directions when knowing of her passing. I am telling you the woman was organized - I woman after my own heart with lists of things he needed to do, gifts he needed to pass to her friends and family and letters she wrote to her dear husband (y’all know I am balling right now).  She told Matt that he was to take care of the schnauzers (Gus & Moby) which he did until their passing, lose weight (he was a little fluffier then) and get remarried.  

From those directions I feel like I can honor her by loving my husband well especially during this time of year, not taking for granted an ounce of time together and living our life fully.  At this moment in my headache induced loopiness that seems a bit of a big ask, but it’s the least I can do to honor Nicole. 

So today I cry (I might cry tomorrow, or next Tuesday, too), my therapist would approve.  She would probably say, “crying is normal, you are normal”. Today I cry because sometimes life just sucks.  It just does and we really have no real explanation why we are to walk through these hard things in life, we just have to trust God’s plan…even when it sucks. 

You must forgive me I just love this card by Emily McDowell and it’s so perfect for this.  

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and this one too. 

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Last year I wrote this post for Matt: http://www.danaraeblog.com/2016/11/my-dear-husband.html

Have to say, though, a good cry has made my headache go away! Yes, a positive spot on the day!!!!

Two Years

Today JAG and celebrate out two year anniversary. We have crammed a lot in these past two years and it has been awesome! I am so blessed.

Divorce

Let me pretense the blog by saying a few things. One all things happen for a reason. God knows my beginning and my end and I know that where I am right now is where I was meant to me. I love my JAG with all my heart and we are not divorcing. Also, if I had to go back I would not remarry my xhusband, gweedo and if you read my blog you will know all the reasons why.

With that being said, though, I stumbled upon a blog last week about a woman who left her husband. They are looking divorce straight in the face. She was so transparent with her feelings that I was almost in tears. I wanted so badly to reach out and give her a big hug. If had the opportunity I would and then I would sit her down for a long talk – that I am about to give you.

Oh I would never want to be called an expert at divorce – that is just ugly or even an expert at interpersonal skills – I am just me sharing with you my feelings.

I really can’t say if something happened that I could go back that I would or would not do things the same way, but I have come through the past three years with a new outlook on marriage and divorce.

First and foremost I would say do not give up. We may have – I know at the end I gave up on my marriage. I got to the point of complete hopelessness where I said it would be easier to leave then to stay and fight more. I had no fight left in me. Little did I know that leaving wasn’t a piece of cake either – not for me and definitely not for my daughter.

Even though things have gotten tons better with Shelby she still struggles. She went the first year thinking that her parents would get back together and was completely crushed when her father remarried. She had to work through – with help – tons of anger. She was angry at me because I left the house that she had always known. Then that anger turned toward her father and new stepmother after they got married. Everything has leveled out and she loves her step-parents, but she still struggles with leaving me every other weekend. In her mind, if she had it her way, all four of us (me, JAG, Gweedo & his wife) would all be with her all the time – could you picture it?

Secondly, when you are facing this cross roads no matter how easy it seems to get advice and counsel from family do not make that your primary source. Lets face it as parents we love our children and do not want them to hurt. In many cases we can only see our child’s side and then we react out of emotions only. My mother bounced back and forth I think. At first she was dead set against me getting a divorce – this changed with actions from Gweedo. Once she saw exactly what I went through she understood – but we got divorced remember. I think – I am not sure- that if we tried to reconcile after our separation that there would be issues between my family and him. I definitely know there would be between his family and me. Do you see what I am saying? You need a neutral third party – someone without biases – someone who may not know either of you. At the same time that person needs to open enough to say “both of you have things you need to change.”

Lastly -since I feel like I am just rambling and not providing you with anything decent- remember no one said this would be easy. I am not talking about Divorce – I am talking about Marriage. Six weeks ago JAGdad did not stand in front of me and say “Do you take JAG for happiness 100% time with birds always chirping and never any arguments?” Nope…didn’t happen. You see the honeymoon ends and you are back to bills, groceries and a dog that pees in the middle of the living room floor. It’s not easy – it takes work. You go through your ups and downs. He changes which leads you to change. Your change changes him some more.

There is one thing that I have in this marriage that I did not have with Gweedo – wait two things. First, the commitment that God comes first – always has with our relationship and always will. Let me say, though, there are strong Christians whose marriages end in divorce I am not blind to that, but that is one thing that Gweedo and I did not work on. As someone told me before we got married – we were not equally yoked. I thought I was yoked enough for the both of us – Wrong! Now JAG and I we are equally yoked – may not see eye to eye on political things, but we know where God stands in our life and marriage. If it is not God that you believe in then are your beliefs in-line with your husband’s? It’s extremely difficult to be successful if everyone isn’t playing for the same goal in mind.

Also, if you had not heard, JAG and I pretty much can tell each other anything. We are both gifted with the skills of conversation. We were like this from day one – no practice – no book, we just opened our mouths and out it came. It has helped tremendously.  I know that for some it takes some work, but again no one said it would be easy, so work at it. Hell, what harm could it do when you are faced with divorce – how much worse could it get if you really got out your feelings – non-harming feelings – saying “You are so stupid” is harmful. A counselor can help you with this – trust me your marriage is worth the money.

Oh, this has gotten so long and I am not sure if I have helped anyone. I guess what I am trying to say is Divorce as many know is not the first answer to the problem. At least please don’t let it be. Try everything, everything to find the love that you once had because it’s in there somewhere. I can say that and not feel like a hypocrite because I did give up too soon. I did not attempt to find that love and now it is gone with Gweedo – don’t worry I don’t bat an eye about it. My love for him is like my love for any other child of God, but you know as I said before God knows I would be here today, so he had to have known that I was not meant to love Gweedo anymore than that.

What I Want in 2011.

Can you believe it is only 26 days away?

My Word for 2011 is ORGANIZED! There is a place for everything and everything has its place.

No more of this:

Nope, this isn’t from Hoarders. It is a picture taken last month with my phone to warn JAG about what he would see when he opened the garage door. Now let’s double that load on the left and build it up a little higher on the right to create what is in there today. This is all me…my life, my house, crammed into JAG’s our garage. Wait Darth Vadar on the sewing machinge case to the left proves it's not all me. 

I want this all gone by New Years! I originally said by Thanksgiving – haha.  Everything put where it should go so I don’t have to go dig for a pan or a hair brush.

Besides being able to park in the garage I want weekly menu planning. I want to make one trip to the grocery store per week or even per every two weeks. I want everything planned so we know what we are eating when. I want to cook – not just heat my food again. I said cook…not charbroil…I am working on it.

I want homework time for miss thing! I want her to do it and do it correctly…the first time.

I want Family Devotionals or even family night or even family game night. I don’t want the TV on and I don’t want JAG and I sitting on the sofa each with a laptop doing our own things.

I want an active family – not 50 million places to go, but walks and parks and stuff like that.

Ummm…what else?

Me personally…I want to read, read and bake, and sleep. I love to sleep. So much for being active.

What do you want your 2011 to look like?

Letter to JAG

Dear JAG –

Happy Two Week-Aversary!

What have we learned these first two weeks?

We Learned 

~To tell the vet not to feed Duke dog food with chicken. Nasty!

          ~That you know how to kick doors open – I am still positive you did it

            NCIS style.

          ~we should have listened to my mother when she said “better start

  moving soon…time with creep up on you.”

          ~I cry about stupid things.

          ~I say I am “sorry” way too much for no reason at all.

          ~I shouldn’t move furniture alone.

          ~You still are the most patient person ever.

          ~ to not make plans because Shelby will always have a way changing

            them.

          ~Shelby has motion sickness too.

          ~that Shelby and I probably do have too many clothes, but you have us

            beat with the number of books you own. I feel like I need a library card

            to go into the office.

          ~ that for some reason I kind of suck at cooking lately.

          ~that I also suck at folding clothes.

          ~and putting them away

          ~and picking them up off of the bathroom floor.

          ~that June Cleaver may never show up.

So here is to two weeks my love and thousands more to come!

I Cry – I Don’t Think There is a Normal.

Yesterday was All Saints Day. I am sorry to say that I do not know all the details of this day and the meaning in the Lutheran Church, but I am learning. I didn’t even know it was a day/service until JAG quickly told me as we walked into church. He had forgotten that the pastor made sure to tell him – you will see why. All I have to say is Pastor if you are reading this we really need to get boxes of Kleenexes in the sanctuary next year. Especially in the back left (my left, your right) you know where I am every Sunday.

When JAG pulled me aside and told me I didn’t think too much of it – I was sure I could handle it – it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Let me stop because I know there are a few of you that are just completely lost right now. Since I introduced you to JAG I have kept a story to myself mainly because it was not my story to tell, but the realization is that it is has now become a part of my story. I am just going to type and see what the Lord gives me to share with you today.

I am JAG’s second wife. I have dealt with dating (and even marrying) a divorced man. In many ways divorce is so much easier then what JAG had for me. His first wife, his first love, the one he would have never divorced passed away from cancer.

I think I knew more about her then I did him when I decide to meet JAG in person (we met online incase you hadn’t heard).  I swear I have typed and deleted about a dozen sentences so far in the paragraph. Lets just say I was a very cautious girl and did my homework which lead me to meet JAG’s first wife via obituaries and blog posts by JAGdad before I met JAG. This helped me, it helped me to have a face. Looking back, I think it help me with the bond I feel to her.

Even though looking back on our time together so far things have never gotten bad enough for me to run, it hasn’t always been easy. Since the beginning I believed we were put together at this exact time for a reason. When we met my father was just diagnosed with cancer and I was about to face the 1 year anniversary of James’ death. We understood each other. We both faced cancer with a loved one and we both lost someone who was close to us too soon.

To be honest with you – it has been hard. Harder then I could ever imagine, but at the same thing I would not change a thing. I struggle with loving someone so much who was in love me, but still so in love with her. That is understandable – I read articles on it in the beginning. I was very careful not to rush him I just sat back and let him lead. Her death was not sudden and if there is one thing that she did well was prepare. She prepared ever detail – she knew who would get what piece of jewelry, she knew the scriptures she wanted during her memorial service – she made lists galore. She also had a long talk with her husband – wait that is their story. I want to be very careful when giving this to you that I do not try to tell a story that does not belong to me.

Besides knowing that he loved someone still so much my other struggle is the knowing that all this awesomeness I am in now would not be if is wasn’t for her death. I think that gets me more than anything. It’s not guilt, it’s sadness. You know how I feel about grief. I am also a healer so if it were up to me she would be here right now and there would be no pain in her family or in his. Again, I have to think – things happen for a reason. Urgh…I am rambling aren’t I?

Let’s just say there are books about there, but they do not do any good because I don’t believe there is a right way – or a wrong way – to date, fall in love and marry a widower. I am kind of making it up as I go.

With that said I didn’t think that All Saints Sunday would affect me, but man I was so wrong! I opened up that bulletin and saw her name. I realized then that this would not be just a brief mention – I started bighting the inside of my mouth trying to fight back the tears, but it didn’t help. I felt it in my throat – the starting of my balling – full out balling. New purse equals no Klennexs. I looked around the pew – nothing. I jumped up and walked as fast as I could to the nearest bathroom. I pulled at least half of the box out – sorry I will bring a new box on Sunday – and proceeded to have a little out loud sobbing before going back in. My hope was it would be over by the time I got back. Of course that didn’t happen – someone upstairs thought I needed to face this. I am sure all you could hear during the moment of silence was my crying and Shelby asking “why is she crying?” over and over again. I regained composer after a few minutes, then turned to JAG and said “I am glad it is get a shot of wine Sunday. I so need it.” – I hope that doesn’t offend anything we really needed some comic relief at that moment. I think I cried enough for the both of us because JAG sat there as manly as ever – you could tell he cried on the inside, but you never saw a tear.

After service a younger woman that have I started to get to know came over. She had good intentions, but her statements are what led me to type this blog. She asked why I was crying and if I lost someone recently. I just looked at JAG because this was JAG’s church since he was a child – you have to have been sleeping through every service if you didn’t know the loss that JAG went through. She knew, but she just couldn’t grasp how it would affect me. She reassured me again and again how I was part of the church family now. Urgh how to do I say this with out sounding tacky – she had the best of intentions and I feel blessed that someone was concerned for my crying, but I think most people around me knew why I was crying. This is where I make it up as I go – I am not sure if it normal or not, but I cry about JAG’s first wife. I mourn for her. I feel like I have grown so close to her as well so when Pastor said her name it didn’t feel like he was saying my now husband’s first wife’s name, but that he was saying the name of one of my dearest friends. Many pictures of her still sit through out our home and she will remain there. If God gives us children, then they will know. Those are JAG’s memories and I will preserve them as long as he wants me to.

Again, it hasn’t been easy, I wish things were different, but I am so blessed to be the one going through this with him.

Sorry that I did not include a name. I mean you don’t even get JAG’s name, so I definitely wasn’t going to include her name. She is in this blog – there is a blog with a picture of her – I snuck it in.

I want to leave you with something pretty. While typing this I listened to Mindy Gledhill. This is one of my favorites for you.

Might be Crazy, but not a Cleaver.

I stood in my kitchen last night and I told myself – You Are Not June Cleaver!!! I repeated it over and over again.

Can someone please tell me how five days in I can be to this state already? Last night I had an internal mini melt down. Dinner was ok, but not wonderful. My new dishes don’t fit into the cabinet as I would like. I have not figured out how to wash dishes without getting water all over the counter and floor. I felt like I had to be the one in the kitchen, I had to cook, do laundry, deal with dogs and Shelby all at once. What is wrong with me?

I have to remember that just because I have a wedding band on my finger it doesn’t mean that June Cleaver has taken over my body. I will not be a perfecto wife and mother that easy.  

There are so many things that I want to do and do differently this upcoming year and I think that has caused me to throw things in fast forward even when I don’t need to.

Am I alone – or did others fly into crazy gotta be June Cleaver mode the first week after marriage?

If you haven’t been able to tell – the picture has nothing to do with this post. Thank you to my new Aunt Debbie for taking this picture! This was our first dance – we did the Evolution of Dance – look it up on YouTube.

FYI: JAG was so trying to help me, but I kept kicking him out of the kitchen.

The Happiness Project: It’s Official!

What else would you think I would post about this morning?

The wedding is now over and we are all back to our normal everyday lives except now we have the task of merging two homes – fun fun.

Incase you were not there the wedding went off with out a hitch – is that the correct wording? Sounds odd seeing as how we did get hitched. Anyway, the weather was perfect, my dress was actually a little big and JAG looked oh so handsome!

I have some great memories to keep and tell my family in the future. Starting with I spent some really good quality time with Shelby the morning of the wedding. I think we really needed our girl’s only breakfast and then small shopping spree at Target. Then once we got to the location we had lunch alone and just hung out until it was time to get ready. I love that girl so much!

She was nervous or “nerbus” about the ceremony, but she did great. Here she is trying to figure out why I was crying so hard.

Yes, it’s true. I lost it during the vows. I actually lost it before then, but was holding it in. JAG kept saying “don’t cry” – at least that is what he says he said. I heard “stop bighting your lip.” So when I stopped the balling started. At one point I even had to say “I am sorry” and wave my eyes for the tears to stop. I was so not expecting that and was unprepared with no Kleenex in sight. I spent the rest of the ceremony sniffing.

Oh and just an FYI - JAG will remain "JAG" here. We all know he is more then Just a Guy, but I am not ready for an official name change - hope that is ok with you!

Wanna see more happiness? Go visit Leigh~