Marriage

Up north, part 5

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Well this is it. Summer is unofficially over tonight. The deceptively warm weather this past week and weekend tricked my mind into believing that it was just beginning as we took out the dock and shut the cabin down for the season. But the leaves are changing color ever so slightly like the season of my life that I am entering now. Cooler temps will enter the scene tomorrow as if Mother Nature did get the memo after all. Saying good bye to summer is like losing a best friend which incidentally happened this summer as well. 

Since we last spoke, my husband came back from his week long sailing trip. Then guess what we did on Saturday? That’s right, I had him take me sailing to a beach that we haven’t been to all summer. There were lots of boats littering the beach, but ours was the only sailboat. This always attracts attention. Three bikini clad women just had to take a tour. Paul helped the ladies on board telling them that they could grab ahold of anything they needed for support. I was thinking, not everything ladies, not everything. But it didn’t come down to that. Lol. We came back as the sun was setting, eating sushi. Man, sometimes a sailor can make a woman feel so classy. Then we got home and I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. Scratch that comment I made earlier about runners being up for anything on a Saturday night. Ah, maybe next weekend…

Then there was the matter of a slight domestic dispute between my teenagers on the way to church. And I thought things were going well when my son was ready to leave for church early. Almost made me proud until my daughter got into the shower 10 minutes before it was time to leave disrupting the natural ebb and flow of the morning tide. This resulted in a big fight of hurricane force that had me pulled over to the side of the road barricading myself from hair brushes and 4 letter words. My daughter screaming at my son for taking the first shower when he knows that she has long hair that needs time to dry. In a thundering crescendo, she pulled my son’s short hair. The waves of emotion growing higher threatened destruction. He grabbed her hairbrush, broke it in half, and flung it at her hitting her in the mouth. She’s crying, splattering large tears, saying that he broke her tooth. Just a slight bloody lip inflicted from the roaring wind of her tempest mouth. We live close to the church so we had to hurry up and put on our happy family forced summer sunshine all kitties and puppies smile. Nice how are you’s answered with a seething angry happy good everything is fine plastic fake smile. 

It was then that I thought for that brief moment that my mother-in-law was right. The previous weekend she dropped off my son after spending the weekend there and told me that my kids were brats and he was not welcome at her house ever again. She locked him at her house without Internet and friends, more than I ever get. I got the biggest hug and I love you mom after that. Wonderful. Then my mother-in-law proceeded in telling me that her best friend’s grandchildren were perfect, not like my bratty kids. I said, “Well how nice for her”. I would be upset with my son, but this happens almost every time we see her so I just shrugged it off. Then she criticized what I was making for supper and got in a fight with her husband. I kept telling myself that she could have aborted her unwanted child, my husband. It is in these moments that I remember that if my husband had an easy childhood, I probably wouldn’t appreciate how far he has come as a husband and father without having a father himself. Or how hard he has worked starting a business and getting a Master’s degree when his only parent dropped out of high school. We can all have a better life beyond the limitations of childhood. 

Oh life, someday I’ll laugh over all of this. 

A sailor’s return to health and hearth

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Today is the day that my husband comes home. A week ago he went off sailing into the sunset with a bunch of other sailors. I am glad that he sailed away. Since we work together and are practically inseparable, it was good to appreciate him in his absence. With the stresses of running a business and raising teenagers, we both do our part in keeping the antacid pharmaceutical companies afloat. Some time putting stress on the back burner helps keep the burning acid fires at bay. 

I am sure that the men were happy to get away from their wives nagging them about how much they eat, drink, or smoke. I do my fair share of nagging, I know. Paul is 6 years older than me, women live longer than men, plus longevity is on my side not necessarily his. So I figure that statistically speaking I should outlive him by 13 to 20+ years. We have been together 20 years this month, almost half my life. And I almost lost him once about 10 years ago. 

Ten years ago… I was staying at home taking care of our 3 little kids while Paul was building his own business. It was a one man show back then. Paul started having a lot of back pain. Our dr gave him cortisone shots and muscle relaxers, but the pain didn’t go away. After further testing, a cyst was discovered in his kidney area. No problem the dr said and plans were made to have an ultrasound to aid in the removal of the cyst. When we got to the appointment something was wrong. The dr didn’t like what he saw. He feared that the cyst was cancerous and trying to remove it by a simple procedure would tear it open and spread the cancer all over his body. Special tools needed ordering and surgery would be required. 

This all happened right before thanksgiving. Life went on. We had the whole family over for thanksgiving as planned. Paul got up early and cooked the meal in a tremendous amount of pain. We prayed and we worried. Cancer, the thought of forever losing my husband. The procedure required a major surgery that involved removal of a couple ribs, a week in the hospital, and a long recooperation time. Plus it was going to be expensive. Like most small business owners, we had a very high deductible and only went to the dr for catastrophic events. 

I remember the day of surgery quite well. It happened in the afternoon. The pastor and another church member prayed for my husband. Then I was left sitting in the waiting area for hours alone. I brought a book with me that I must have read the same sentence over and over. I looked down at the lonely desolate streets and watched the street lamps come on. I thought of facing life alone as I watched the wind blow the remainders of the late fall leaves swirling away. The dr finally came out and said that everything was ok. Paul had a cyst the size of a football on his adrenal gland, but it was most likely not cancerous. After I saw that he was safe in his room, I headed home. The weather took a turn for the worst. There was black ice everywhere. A car slid off the overpass and lay overturned in the ditch. There were many accidents on the way home that night. But we lived through that day!

Paul lost a lot of weight. He was thin and sickly which says a lot since he was always a big man. He needed help. I had to take him to work. He needed help getting up and down the stairs to his office. One step at a time. This was before Internet allowed him to work remotely. So much for recovery time. It was before I knew how to do the work myself. But he dragged his sore, heavily medicated body in. It was painful to watch. At the time, he was also taking a 4 credit master’s degree accounting class. He spent the weekends, when he should have been resting, working on his accounting spreadsheets and then finals. This is why I love this man, he preserveres. I admire his strength. 

Go ahead, take a week off. 

Marathon training, less than 26.2 hours to go

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My bags are packed and I am almost ready to go. I don’t know if I will be able to sleep tonight. It has been a couple of weeks since I got a good nights sleep. I am rather exhausted. I’m sure that you have all heard that having a newborn, infant, or toddler will give you chronic sleep deprivation. Maybe you have experienced that yourself. Waking up in the middle of the night, up at the crack of dawn. Then your children hit the middle childhood years and you can finally sleep again. The perfect ages, between 5 and 10. They still want to be with you and you don’t have to lug around the stupid diaper bag. Then your kids enter their teen years and you are sleep deprived again. This time you are up late at night waiting for kids to come home or you can’t sleep because they are loud. Car seat toddlers become car drivers overnight. Then your crazy middle aged female hormones give you insomnia and you wake up at the crack of dawn. That is where I am now. I was the first one in bed last night at 10. I can’t tell you how many times I woke up. Plus my teenage son usually goes to bed right around the time I get up in the morning. He isn’t the quietest. It doesn’t help that I can hear a pin drop while sleeping. I tried, believe me. 

I didn’t tell you this earlier in the week. One of my daughter’s friends got in a car wreck this week. Her friend let some guy that she liked grab her car keys and race off in her car with her and a group of friends, but not before stashing his hash pipe under the seat. He drove quite recklessly and ended up totaling her car leaving everyone a few inches from death’s door. And this is the reason, my friends, that parents of teens don’t sleep well at night. I am happy that my driving daughter is more responsible than that, but she is not the only driver on the road. Yikes!

The weather conditions look perfect for the marathon tomorrow. I was excited to see that my hotel has a full breakfast until I called and found out it starts the same time as the marathon. Hmmmm… So I am packing some bananas, avocados, and string cheese for the morning. I am hoping that is adequate. My acid reflux has been nasty this week, so I hope that I can keep it under control. The last 10k I ran left me in a moderate level of pain the whole race. I don’t want this. I want to eat enough to keep up my endurance without having any stomach issues. I also want to drink enough to stay hydrated without having to pee at every mile. That will be a thin line. 

I spent the week wearing every running shirt I own to give me courage. This morning I plucked my eyebrows, shaved, and put a couple of blue streaks in my hair. Not near my eyes, because I worried that sweat would drip blue into my eyes and make me look like a Smurf. I cut my toenails, hopefully not for the last time. I washed and packed my outrunning my demons shirt. Compression socks? Packed. Extra running songs? Downloaded. Running watch charged? Check. Extra ear buds? Check. I am ready to go. The conditions are ideal to have a good time. And a good time is what I’ll have because I love the sport. 

I also want to thank everyone for your support. It means a lot. Also a special thanks to my husband. Thank you for supporting me taking extra time off of work to run. You always told me I needed a hobby. Thanks for the push into running and thanks for supporting my blogging. Both have been very therapeutic and have taken up gobs of my time. Until tomorrow, my friends….this is my last pre-marathon blog. Oh my! 

My mother, my heroine

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My mother’s life has been anything but ordinary. She was born prematurely in a foreign country. Despite my grandmother taking medication to prevent premature labor, my mother arrived early at a hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, after my grandma flew several hours to see her husband who was stationed there in the Navy. She weighed 4 lbs and stayed in an incubator for a month. This was in the 1940’s and she wasn’t expected to live. 

My mom grew up in a rural community and met my dad in a one room schoolhouse. Her family was poor and she spent most of her summers picking cucumbers for a local factory to help support her family. She didn’t have a lot of time to play and had one doll. As a teenager, her mother died after delivering her eighth child. My mom was in college at the time and spent her weekends helping take care of her 6 younger siblings. My dad went off to Vietnam. He came back a different person. College finals were cancelled due to war protests and bomb threats. 

My parents eloped. My dad went to work on their wedding night, my mom cooked for their sponsors. The night ended with freezing rain. My mom wondered if she made a mistake. My dad started drinking a lot. He was depressed and sat around with a gun in his lap staring off into space. He was going through PTSD after Vietnam. He drove a tank in the war and one day all of his buddies died in that tank. He was the only one that walked away unscathed. He became abusive and mean. My mom wondered if she made a mistake. My mom got pregnant with me. When I was a month old, a tornado was headed towards the trailer park we lived in. Sirens blared, it was time to take shelter. My dad just sat in his chair and stared. My mom decided it was time to pack up and head back home, they were hours away from family. 

My parents lived with my dad’s parents for 2 years while they built a house and started a new life. My dad stopped drinking. My mom got pregnant again. They moved into their new house and planned on having 2 kids. Their plan for 2 kids ended up turning into 4 kids within 5 years. Their second child was violently autistic. My parents fought constantly. My mother wondered if she made a mistake. My mom was very beautiful with plenty of opportunities to leave my dad. A best friend’s husband wanted to plan a hook up with her up north. No one needed to know. Another friend’s husband kissed her. I just found out about this and he was a great guy. Guess who I ran into right after she told me? Other men pursued her, but she ran away from them instead of running away with them. That was one of my mom’s greatest strengths, staying committed to a marriage she was miserable in. This is such a rare quality nowadays.  It is hard to live up to parents who have a wonderful marriage. It is even harder to live up to a parent sticking with it when given ample opportunity to leave. 

My mother was the family breadwinner. She is still working full-time at 67. She was emotionally strong when faced with many difficult life situations. She was there for us when my dad couldn’t take it. She has patience when others have none. She is a hard worker. She handles difficulties with ease. She has been an anchor through all of life’s storms. I am proud and honored to have her as my mother. What a blessing her life has been to me and many others. She has been a lifelong advocate for the disabled and their parents. She has helped many with her empathy and compassion. She has been very generous with the gifts she has been given. She is one strong woman. 

Happy birthday, mom! I love you. 

Trying to sail through life’s storms

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We made it back home safe about 2 hours ago. I thought I would let everyone know since I left everyone hanging yesterday with some hard decisions to make about whether to weather the storms. After we last spoke, things did get a little dicey.  The first round of thunderstorms came through after blogging. We holed up on the sailboat. After the storm went through, we headed to the pool. We didn’t want to spend our whole anniversary huddled over our iPads scouring weather reports. We decided at that point to possibly wait until the next storm went past to head home. It was going to take some schedule juggling to stay another day. 

At the pool, we received reports of the big storm that was to come. Strong thunderstorms, 50 to 60 mph winds, large hail, possible tornadoes. It was one big blob of reds and purples over the whole Midwest. We met a man at the pool with his daughter, son-in-law, and two young granddaughters. They made a point of teaching the children how to be respectful of adults in the pool which was greatly appreciated. They had a small motorboat and were determined to beat the storm because plans couldn’t be changed. 

The large cold front came in. The clouds rolled, the sky eerie, lightening flashed, and thunder boomed. The man left with his family about 5 minutes before the torrential downpours with a bit of trepidation. I ran into the boat to grab some clothes while Paul closed things up for the storm. I ran bikini clad through the strange silence of electrically charged air into the shelter of the bar. Inside, Paul saw an old college roommate. Always nice to meet a group of people for the first time in a bikini when others are fully clothed. Priceless. The lights flicker. The winds blow, it starts to hail. An elderly couple at the gambling machines momentarily express worry because windows were left open at home but head right back to the machines. The band is set up to play next to the window. They abandon equipment to play their instruments closer to the bar. The music is quiet while the thunder cracks loud.  When the storm finally ends, it is late afternoon. Now we face the prospect of sailing through small bands of storms in the dark. We decide to stay. 

When we get back to the boat we find that the wind blew our hatch open. All of the clothes, pillows, and my sleeping bag is soaking wet. We try with some success to dry everything. If we saw the storms on Saturday morning, we probably would have stayed home. We faced cooler weather conditions, strong winds, and 3 foot waves most of the way home today. But we made it home safe, which might not have been the case the day before. Another adventurous anniversary in the books. 

18 years of smooth sailing?

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My husband and I have been married 18 years today. We decided to take an overnight sailing trip to celebrate. We spent several hours on the water to get to our destination. We experienced smooth sailing with a moderate breeze that pushed us to our destination. We were warm and complacent. It was a very hot day, so we spent the day next to the pool listening to live music. We followed that with a great meal. It was a Midwest summer paradise. 

Then during the night, the wind whistled through our boat and the rain started. It was nice being in a boat and not in a tent. It was also loud. The fenders kept squeaking against the dock, rain drops splattered, the lines whipped imaginary slow horses with a crack, and the main sail swayed noisily with the winds. Despite the noise I actually slept better than I thought I would. 

This morning the forecast changed drastically from the one we heard yesterday. The one that said we would just struggle against the wind and probably have to motor back. The heat brought the volitile weather. Strong winds in the opposite direction. Chances of severe thunderstorms not ruling out a stray tornado. Not smooth sailing. As sailing newly weds, we haven’t weathered our first storm yet. I’m not sure how our skills will handle this. Will we be able to get through this first storm?

After 18 years, I think that we finally figured out this marriage thing. Found out what works for us. We may have to sit this one out or face the storm head on. Whatever happens, I know that we will be facing it together. 

My husband, my boss

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Paul and I will be celebrating 18 years of marriage this weekend. The number one question that I have been asked over the years has not been how I have managed to stay happily married after all these years. That is too bad, because that would have been an easier question to answer. What people tend to ask me the most is how I can work with my spouse. Even couples with the strongest relationships cringe when I mention that we work together. We have been partners in the office for almost 8 years now. My husband left his previous employment 13 years ago to work full-time at his own business. So technically that makes him my boss. 

Have I ever been fired? Many times. Have I ever quit? Many times. Do we spend so much time together that we run out of things to say? Sometimes. What makes it work then? We are both willing to do what it takes and we have complimentary skill sets. He is an extrovert, I am an introvert. He is good at verbal communication, I am the writer. He is great at sales, I couldn’t sell water in the dessert. He is a good public speaker, I am a good listener. He is the visionary, I am the day to day planner. We make it work. 

A majority of the time working together has been a positive experience. It really forces us to work together as a team. We work through the demands, pressures, and stresses of owning a business together. We make all major decisions together as a team. I drag Paul back when he veers in the wrong direction and he pulls me ahead when I don’t embrace change for the better. We can be honest with each other to promote growth. We can say things that we don’t want to hear when our employees would say only the things that we want to hear. We make it work. 

Will I get fired again? Probably. Will I quit again? Probably. It has been worth it. Last night Paul said that he hopes that he dies before me because he couldn’t bear to live without me in his life. I hope that in the end we can sail off into the sunset together and that it will be smooth sailing…  

Here’s to another 18 years!

Up north, part 3

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This past weekend I was up north with my daughters. Luke’s wife, Emily, and I threw a bridal shower for Mark’s fiancé, Carla. This is the start of another strange happening this month. Emily recently had surgery and was having some health issues related to this. She ended up driving herself to the closest ER an hour away from the cabin after a sleepless night. I was running later than I wanted to the morning of the shower and had a lot of errands to run. Through a series of strange events, I ran into my sister-in-law at the pharmacy in the middle of nowhere hours from her house. My daughter rode back with her to the cabin to help keep her alert. It seemed like a bizarre coincidence and I still don’t know why things happened that way. 

It was lunch time when we all got to the cabin. Luke bought some bread to make sandwiches with the peanut butter that was there. First, he had to call our mom to make sure that this was not Matt’s peanut butter. I had almost forgotten about this very basic rule. Most of Matt’s food was labeled with his name. You did not dare eat Matt’s food without facing the wrath of my mom. Since he spent most of his life gluten and dairy free, his food a lot of times was separate from ours. If Luke put the knife in the peanut butter and touched the bread, then it would be considered contaminated. My dad would eat Matt’s food a lot of times probably just to piss off my mom. She would worry endlessly about food for Matt to the point of obsession. 

Another thing that happened, the last time we were up north my brothers put in an A/C unit. It was really hot this weekend so we were running it with a lot of fans. We had 13 people sleeping in the cabin. Matt came out to the porch angry saying that the fans were too loud, that he couldn’t sleep. My initial response was to ask Matt how long he was trying to sleep. Luke agreed. Mark was concerned that Matt would be up all night worrying. Mom went with Matt to turn off all the fans. Now no one would be able to sleep. Luke turned the fans back on after Matt fell asleep.  Luke said, “Part of this is his condition and part of this is his conditioning.” Matt never had any consequences, seems like we all had the consequences for his decisions. I felt the familiar old resentment towards my mom for allowing Matt to be the god of our lives. The god we sacrificed to day in and day out. Sacrificing the good of all for the sake of one. I hated being forced to worship and kneel before the alter of autism. 

The bridal shower went without a hitch. Haha. The future bride left saying, “See you at the wedding, if there still is one.” Mark and Carla spent most of the weekend fighting. Everyone at the shower said that Mark and Carla reminded them of my parents. That is not a compliment. My parents marriage is filled with strife. It is not something sacred, to be yearned for. I worry. My husband says I should only worry about the things I can control.