Mother's Day and Other Things

I hope you have enjoyed my return to blogging. For so long it was just too hard to stop and put thoughts together in any kind of articulate flow. I've always just blogged off the top of my head, whatever I was thinking and that became difficult for so many reasons. I'm finding it helpful to use a few writing prompts like... Reasons To Love Monday... and Throwback Thursday but I know that ultimately, who I am as a blogger is the girl who just types out a stream of consciousness for the world to see. I thought I might give that method a shot today.

The past nine months have been a very weird mix of highs and lows for me. Highs, from the standpoint of being in a loving relationship for the first time in a long time and honestly, being in a relationship where I can be myself for the first time ever. It's an amazing gift and it's made the lows not so low for me. I miss my mom so much. We always had a complicated relationship but she was the one person in the world who I could always turn to and losing that... leaves me emptier than I ever dreamed possible.

I'm finding myself processing grief in a whole different way as Mother's Day approaches. I feel the same sort of frustration toward the holiday as I did toward Valentines Day for all those years as a single woman. Despite the fact that I am a mother, I don't feel the same connection to Mother's Day that I have for the first 49 years of my life. I'm as disconnected from Mother's Day as I am to Ramadan. Or Passover. It's just not for me. And it's the first time I've ever been angry about a holiday. We got through Thanksgiving and Christmas just fine but this one... it's killing me. It's a manufactured, random consumer holiday that seems really unnecessary to me at the moment.

My fella and I have been lucky enough to have each other to get through the rough spots of grieving. Planning the trip to New Orleans for New Year's really got me through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Any time the holidays were just too sad to face, I could focus on the excitement of the upcoming trip. Last week he faced his son's birthday - the first one since Nick has been gone. It's also my brother David's birthday so it's a day of grieving in my heart too, as my brother is completely estranged from our family. A grown brother making a choice to abandon his family is completely different from a nine year old son who dies tragically... I don't mean to compare, just to say that it's a hard day for me, too. While Marvin and I are deeply tenderhearted toward each other's pain, we do tend to grieve separately. There have been only a handful of times that we have cried together, it generally is a matter of mentioning the storm once it has passed. It's like... "I had a hard day..." and then we move on to whatever thing is coming up next for us or we share a laugh over an inside joke or share a song that means something special... we just move on.

Last night though, he called as he was driving to work and he caught me in the middle of a really tearful moment, almost to the point of not being able to speak. I blew my nose and told him to keep talking because I wanted to move on from the emotion. It's ok to feel... I just don't want to linger in those moments too long because it's too easy to let it overcome you. I want to keep moving forward and reaching toward happier days ahead.

I have a precious, dear friend who is recovering from a really sad time in her own life. She attempted suicide and came dangerously close to succeeding. As I've talked with her as she recovers, I keep reminding her that there are so many days ahead that she's going to be glad she's alive to see. That's the thing... you have to keep putting yourself in the path of life, giving yourself opportunities for joy and happiness and ... living... even when you're not sure how you could possibly be happy again. Every single day with my grandkids makes me grateful that I managed to stick around. It's worth every sad day I ever had to live through. And Marvin too... every adventure with him makes me glad that I found the strength to take a chance on love again.

I feel so lucky that Marvin came into my life again the day before my mom died. I hate the reason he came into my life again, (to let me know his son had died) but to have that something else - someone else to focus on in the darkest season of life was literally the light at the end of the tunnel for me. And while it's sometimes tricky to navigate the emotions of a romantic relationship (especially with as much baggage as I have) in the midst of the deep, brand new emotions of grief that we are both walking through, it's been such a beautiful gift for me. His own grief is raw enough that he doesn't think I'm nuts for breaking down to snotty tears on a random Thursday. It also helps that his grief and my grief are not for the same person... I can grieve my mama without dragging him down. He's sad for me because he cares about me... just as I'm sad for him when Nick is heavy on his heart. But it has given me a safe place to feel whatever I'm feeling... and I'm grateful.

I had a hard time deciding to return to blogging because of the depth of my feelings, good and bad. I wanted to be in a healthy and happy enough place that every blog entry wasn't gloom and despair... nobody wants to read that. And I wanted to have a good enough handle on my feelings for my fella to be able to talk about him without feeling like I'm oversharing... and without making him uncomfortable. It took me a good long while to be able to even tell HIM how I felt about him, much less share it with the internet! Relationships are so much more complicated when you're older. They're more complicated when you're recovering from a loss. Obviously, he could never take the place of my mom... and although I bring a lot of family to the table, nobody is ever going to replace Nick for him. When people would ask me about our relationship, I would always just say, "we're having a lot of fun together"... because although it is a generic answer, it's the foundation of who we are together. I mentioned that to him the other night... and he very sweetly responded, "but it's so much more than that..." and my heart melted. Of course it is... so much more than fun.

I spent so long protecting myself from feeling anything and for awhile, empty felt good. I loved where it was safe to love, my grandbabies and my family... and there are definitely times I feel vulnerable for allowing myself to care about a guy... loving has cost me a lot in the past. If this ended tomorrow, I would be devastated, there is no doubt, but I would still be grateful for the strength he has given me over the past nine months. Sure, I could have done it without him but I'm glad I didn't have to.

Whew. I'm exhausted from sharing all of these emotions. I'll leave it here for now. I'm not sure if I'm going to post over the weekend but I like the idea of blogging every day. It's easier if it's a part of my every day routine. Thanks for stopping by and letting me get all this out. Love and hugs, y'all!

Throw Back Thursday - Blog Entries from May 10th

Just a quick post as I'm hanging with my fella today...

Thought it might be fun to peek back in time two years ago when I was recuperating from hosting Cosette's first birthday party... You can click here to read the post

Also... another fun flashback was this day in 2015 when I did a baby clothes haul... Click here for all the cute stuff

I always set links up to open a new window for you, in case you're afraid you might lose your place here.

I had to go all the way back to 2011 to find another entry for this day in history. It's one of those "stream of consciousness" blogs that may seem irrelevant now but... that's part of the fun of looking back, right? Newsday Tuesday 5/10/2011

And believe it or not... that's all in the blog history for May the tenth! Hope you enjoyed our look back. Is there anything special about this day for you?

My Dental Health

If you've been around for long, you probably know that I've spent the last dozen or so years trying to get my dental health sorted out. I spent a lot of years without dental insurance / as a single mom struggling to make ends meet and unfortunately, there was never money to do what I needed to do with my teeth. About fifteen years ago I got an estimate that it would take $13,000 to completely fix my mouth and to be honest, that was pretty accurate.

Once I got my Social Security Disability lump sum payout, I got busy sorting out my mouth. Things didn't go well. I had a lot of complications... it ended up being more expensive and more painful than I could have ever imagined. I LIKED my dentist but there were some decisions he made that probably weren't the best for me... things that probably should have gone to an oral surgeon instead of being done by a regular dentist.  We had discussed my pain situation at length in advance and he was fully aware of what medications I was taking. He called and talked to my pain doctor and they sorted out what meds I could take for the dental procedures. I confirmed with my pain doctor that he had talked to the dentist and that the dentist had permission to prescribe additional pain meds as needed. This is very important since I am on a Narcotic Agreement with the pain doctor. I literally cannot take anything for pain without his permission.

Then in the middle of a very painful complication from an extraction, when my pharmacist called the dentist to verify the prescription he had written for me, he told her that he had "no idea" I was on the other pain meds. This was a complete lie. I was so frustrated... it's hard enough to keep from being labeled a pill seeker when you have chronic pain and then the dentist makes me look like a drug addict... so I stopped working on my mouth for awhile because I honestly just couldn't face the pain and worried that it wouldn't be treated appropriately. I was afraid to be in pain and not be able to have it treated appropriately - or be refused at the pharmacy. Then my mom got sick and I just flat out didn't have the time to spend recovering from the next dental procedures.

SOOOO... finally last October I got my wits about me and went to a different dentist to get things finished up. I had one more major procedure to go through before I could get fitted for partials and finally, after all those years, have a mouth full of teeth. My dentist recommended an oral surgeon because I had so many complications in the past. I did my pre-op visit, we were all ready to go and.... two days before my last procedure was schedule... the oral surgeon was in an accident and broke his femur. He was out of work from October through February! You really can't make this stuff up! I struggled for a while trying to decide if I should go with a different office but... I trusted this guy. I had already gone through all the preop (and more importantly, PAID for the pre-op) and by the time I realized it was going to be such a long wait, we were already close to Christmas and then our trip to New Orleans. The LAST thing I wanted to do was go to New Orleans while recovering from oral surgery!

At any rate, in March I was finally able to get an appointment and have the last bit of surgery done. The Oral Surgeon was UH-mazing! The procedure was so fast that it was over before I realized he had really gotten started. The pain was completely bearable, I had no infection, no complications... it could not have gone better. I probably had about 3-4 days where I was uncomfortable but I was well enough to go to Marvin's the very same day as the surgery.

I have about half the teeth I should have so it is not easy to chew... I'm living on yogurt and softer things but I can manage just about anything... it just takes longer. I went in two weeks ago and had a mold made for my partials... I went in this past Monday to have the next fitting and in two weeks they will have the whole thing completed. I CANNOT wait to go out for a big, thick, juicy steak! I will probably gain twenty pounds in the few months after my teeth are ready and I don't even care. I'm just so glad to be past this. Now... of course, I still have some teeth that need work and there is still some additional expense (and pain) ahead. Chewing with half a mouth puts additional stress on teeth so there will be more work ahead, it's inevitable... but I'm glad to be past the worst of it.


So be prepared for lots of selfies with big toothy grins! I'd love to hear about  your dental experiences, bad and good, especially with partials since that is a whole new world for me. I also wanted to sort of set aside the stigma involved in all of this. I wasn't able to take care of things when I should have and there's no shame in that. I did my best to get my boys raised- mostly on my own- and I prioritized their well-being over mine. I'm sure I'm not the first mama to do that. I also imagine I'm not the first person to be terrified of dental work. It has taken me a long time and I'm really glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Shop around, the second dentist was far less expensive than the first dentist I used in my town. He also made me feel more confident. Be honest with your dentist about your fears and past problems. That made a huge difference for me. And if you can't afford it all at once, just keep plugging away. That's what I had to do and I'm glad now that I did. I'm also grateful for the support from my mom and dad along the way - driving me to procedures, helping with expenses I couldn't afford, etc. And to my fella who helped me recover from this last procedure.

I hope you're enjoying my return to blogging! Thanks for your support, it makes me WANT to blog!

Living With Pain / Just Your Average Tuesday

I want to do a detailed post explaining all the intricacies of my various and a sundry medical conditions because ...

• some people are curious
• it's helpful to me to record the progression of things
• people search the internet for people who have similar conditions to their own

There are lots of diagnosis' involved with me. Unfortunately, today is not a day where I can dig that deep into things like that because today.... I AM IN PAIN. I never have a day without pain, ever, but I definitely have days where I am better able to function than other days. Today is one of the lowest functioning days. At this moment I am currently experiencing the following:

• left sided migraine
• left eye blurry and weak and running
• excruciating pain in lower spine
• muscle spasms shooting out from tender part of spine
• it feels like there is a wire between the tender part of my spine going up to my left temple and every inch of my body along that imaginary wire is extremely sensitive 
• hip pain on both sides, most painful on the left 
• my lower belly hurts... this happens a lot when my spine hurts and the general consensus between gyn, primary care, pain doctor, radiologist is that there is nerve damage that wraps around me there
• my left shoulder hurts as if someone has a knife into the joint
• when I stand up I feel horribly dizzy and weak
• every step shoots pain up along that imaginary wire so even just walking to the bathroom is miserable. 
• light sensitivity
• and as a result of the meds I feel really sleepy but also restless

Usually Tuesday is a big day for me. I pick Cosy up from her mom's when she wakes up and we spend the day running errands and getting Nana ready for date night. I do the usual girly things like taking a shower, shaving my legs (sometimes, sometimes I forget) shampooing, drying and flat ironing my hair... makeup, packing for two nights away from home... gathering whatever snacks and stuff I need to take down with me, load the car... meet my fella at his house after he gets off work and then we head to the ballpark for his softball game (or two- tonight is a double header). Depending on what time the ballgames are over, we may go to Twisted Taco for my favorite - ahi tuna on wonton tacos and his favorite - korean taco, ... yikes, I can't remember his other two tacos... then we run by Kroger to make sure we have a small something for breakfast the next morning AND THEN we go to his house, get tucked in and watch tv until midnight.

When I woke up with the migraine this morning ... initially it was one of those that make me spill my guts (and not in a chatty, girlfriend sort of way)... so I sent a text to Tasha letting her know that Nana is not up for Cosy Duty today and I set about doing the things that make me feel better... smeds, sleep, ice... I was going to just post a short little Facebook message describing my trials and tribulations but I thought this would be a good opportunity to explain for my blog readers what life is like when things aren't going well for me.

And now the dog is barking at some imaginary something. His face is covered in a blanket so it's not something he sees.

I am FULLY expecting that I'm going to stay in bed until noonish and then be 110% better. I'll get that shower, do the glam routine, handle my errands and make it down to the boyfriend's house in plenty of time to cheer his team on/spend two hours playing on my phone while he plays softball. So far I have never postponed date night because of illness... at least I don't think I have. And... bottom line, once I get to him, he does the driving, the toting... and I just have to be. He takes good care of me.  Stay tuned to see if I make it to date night!

Reasons To Love Monday

I always feel a *little* bit guilty complaining about Mondays because... honestly, my Mondays don't really suck as much since I'm on disability. However, I tend to be a bit of an empath and I know a lot of you are facing a busy workweek / week of parenting / whatever and I do feel your pain. I really do! So even though we have to drag ourselves out of bed, knock the pollen off our cars (except for Wendy in Oz because I think it's not Spring down under currently, is it?) and commence this first full week of May... I found a few reasons to love this Monday! Here goes!

• 1. I'm bloggggggging! I haven't done a RTLM post in a really, really long time.
• 2. I DO have to take Austin to work (or Pop might, he sometimes does on Monday) and I DO have to pick Austin up from work... but at least he has a great job that is convenient to our house and they are so nice to him.
• 2.5 Austin gets paid every other Monday and this is not payday so I don't have to drive him into town to the bank today. It's the little things. (By the way... if anyone wants to let Austin practice driving with you, let us know!)
• 3. It's not cold and it's not hot yet.
• 4. I'll probably get some Bonus Cosy Time today since her mama has to work and grandma has a doctor's appointment this afternoon.
• 5. Today is fitting number two on my partials that I have been working towards for nearly fifteen years. I am so close to the finish line on this whole dental nightmare! I think there's one more fitting after today and then I get a full set of chompers near the end of the month. (I have a blog post written that will sort of summarize my dental journey... it will be posted some time this week, probably)
• 6. It's Marvin's Thursday... so, basically Friday Eve in his (our) world! He is off from his day job on Wednesday and Thursday so that's serves as his weekend. His weekend = my weekend since I usually stay with him when he's not working. He does host trivia on Wednesday and Thursday night but... more on that in a future post! But Monday means I'm only one day from seeing him again and that makes me happy! 
• 7. It wouldn't be RTLM if I didn't include some kind of food love... I LOVE the Bolthouse Farms fruit juice smoothies. They aren't cheap - usually $3.09 for 15.2 oz at Ingles, $1.94 for the same size at Walmart. BUT they were buy one get one free at Ingles this week so I did a mini-stock up and will be able to boost my fruit/veg intake this week. Chewing has been rough for the past month or so SO having juices helps me feel better. It's fresh juice so I don't think I can stock up too much because they will go bad but I may swing by and pick up a few more.
• 8. I woke up with a bit of a headache but I'm going to just trust that it WILL get better before I have to go to the dentist this afternoon. Advil is a Reason To Love Monday because it gets me through a lot of them. See also, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so forth. 

How's that for my return to Reasons To Love Monday? Can you pitch in with a few of your own? It is much easier to post a comment on the Facebook link to my blog post - and it's actually easier for me to see them so feel free to add your RTL there! Have a great day, friends!

Dating at Fifty

I have a list of things I want to blog about but I'm going to guess that the subject you're most interested in... at least the one I would find most interesting is dating, so I'll start there.

In the midst of all the exhausting, humbling, terrible time that was my mom's last few weeks on Earth, I got a text from a guy I had dated before. His nine year old son had died in a tragic, terrible accident the day before and he wanted to let me know. His son, Nick, died on August 16. My mom would die on August 18. I got the text from my fella on August 17. Those dates are relevant for you to understand the intense emotional circumstances he and I were experiencing.

Marvin and I had dated back in early 2009 but... both of us were still legally wed, although we were not living with our spouses. It didn't feel right and... in retrospect I realize now that I was in absolutely no condition to enter into a relationship. His son was an infant. My kids were not happy with the idea of me dating anyone so... it just didn't work.

We sparked up again at the end of 2010... started chatting, etc then on January 18, 2011, my world completely changed when I woke up with horrible back pain. That was the beginning of this nightmare of physical pain that would eventually force me to go on disability and change EVERYTHING in my life. He came to see me once after the pain started but... I just couldn't begin to understand how a relationship with anyone would work while I was dealing with my new normal. He was the last guy I kissed for... many, many years.

Over the years I would see him post pictures with women he was dating and... not gonna lie... I felt jealous. As far as I was concerned I would never, ever, ever date again. I could not imagine a situation where anyone would want to deal with the restrictions I live with on a daily basis... making plans that you have to cancel because of pain... being afraid to go more than twenty minutes from home in case the pain becomes to much to bear and I'm unable to get back home... avoiding anything and everything that could cause pain. I drew a very close circle around myself and shut pretty much everyone who wasn't family outside the circle. I didn't trust anyone to be able to deal with me and my pain.

So when Nick died, I had spent the past month- maybe month and a half- learning to grieve. I was ready. I knew a lot of stuff about grieving... the death of an older, sick person. Knowing that a perfectly healthy child went off on vacation and came home in a casket was beyond any level of pain I could possibly comprehend. My heart just broke for my fella (who was not my fella at that time, of course). I didn't have much to offer him but I did have time and so whereas normally I would not have responded to texts or answered phone calls, I made a point of being one hundred percent available to him. By helping him, I helped myself because I had someone who I could talk to who understood where I was in a tragically real way. We talked and texted a lot. He came to my mom's funeral which, honestly, was the most precious, selfless thing I could possibly imagine. He had Nick's funeral to attend the next day but he made the effort to be there for me. We weren't in a relationship, of course, at that point, so it was basically just a few minutes of chatting after the service and then I had the family stuff to do but just seeing him there... that was one person who was there purely out of concern for me... he had never even met my mom. It was such a precious thing to me.

I can't really say for certain at what point along the way I began to see us as a potential couple and not just two really broken people talking each other through a really painful time. We have tried to figure out what our "anniversary" is and the closest we can determine ... September 16th he came up to see me. We watched football and talked and... you know, hung out together... so it was somewhere between August 17th and September 16th that we decided we might like to spend time together. He came up again on September 30th and... same thing, basically.

I think it was the first or second week of October that I started going up on Tuesday nights for date night. Due to his work schedule, his weekend is basically Wednesday and Thursday so Tuesday night in his world = Friday night for most folks. He lives about 45 minutes away so... I can drive down and back in the same day if necessary but... we're grown ups so I usually stay overnight. I think we have kept that midweek date night fairly consistently ever since October. There have been a few exceptions where I came on Wednesday instead of Tuesday... and at some point it expanded from just Tuesday night to Tuesday and Wednesday night. Basically, though, that's the time I have set aside for my fella every single week and woe be unto any human who tries to come between me and "date night". It's essential for my mental stability.

**Disclaimer** I asked my fella if he wanted editorial control over any blogging I do about him, us, our relationship, etc and he said, "no.". He's a relatively private person and I would rather cut off my left arm (I'm left handed) than do or say anything to hurt him so believe me, blogging about our relationship has been something I've put a lot of thought into over the past few months. I do think that our relationship is unique for a lot of reasons that I'll go into in future blog posts and I think it might be interesting for those who might be entering the dating world as a more mature person... or a less-abled person... or a person who is dealing with grief and therefore a little more vulnerable than the average person. I think what we do, how it works for us, etc. is worth sharing and I'd like to do that if you're interested. I'd like to explore topics that are unique to more mature folks... and to explore the ways that dating is the same, no matter what your age!

For now, I'll just say that I'm having a great time and I really appreciate having a significant person in my life. He's a good man, he treats me well, he puts up with a lot and I think most of you would approve!

Welcome Back!

If you're reading this post it means that I have decided to start blogging again! Before I post this I want to have a few blog entries ready to go so... it may go up today (May 6th) or it may be significantly later! I updated a few things in the side bar but this page needs a drastic overhaul. It's going to take some time to get things fully up and running so lets just say we are currently under construction.

My blogging hiatus had a lot to do with the current political climate in our country (the United States, just in case you don't know exactly who I am or where I'm from). Things are so volatile and people take things so personally. There has been so much "people talking without listening" to quote the song, The Sound of Silence. There's a level of vitriol and a lack of empathy that doesn't jive with my non-confrontational personality. It became frightening for me to speak my heart openly because I felt like any strong opinion one way or another could be offensive to someone I love on one side of the argument or another. While my fella likes to "poke the monkey" (as he likes to say)... I don't. I'm a lover, not a fighter. I like to bring folks together and that just wasn't happening.

My blog style has always been sort of a daily mind dump... whatever was on my mind that I could share (without telling stories that weren't mine to share), that's what would make up the meat of my blog. Then all of a sudden I couldn't just say what I wanted to say... and I was also dealing with a brand new set of emotions as my mom's illness was progressing. Everyone wanted to argue about politics and I was in such a raw, vulnerable place emotionally that politics seemed trivial and ridiculous to me. I didn't have the emotional energy to have political discussion in the midst of things like making life or death decisions about mom's health. It was too much so I just shut down.

Once mom passed and that battle had ended, I just felt so stunned and ... alone. I didn't have words to describe life in those days and weeks. Fortunately, I had started talking to my fella and we both were in the same weird place of "what now?"and we were able to sort of fill in the blanks for each other. He was someone I could talk to without having to talk about things unless I wanted to and vice versa. We grew really close really fast and he is still the person I talk to about everything every day.

Losing my mom made me feel like I lost the one person on the planet who loved me unconditionally, who was there for me no matter what. I lost my safety net. As a woman without a life partner, my mom was the one who held me together when I was falling apart. Nobody else has the emotional investment, the inclination or the time to deal with "real Heather". My dad handles the financial stuff but not the emotional stuff - and he just doesn't get the pain and suffering involved in my life. Austin is good at the physical stuff like carrying in the groceries or taking out the trash but he will never have the magic cleaning and sorting powers my mom did. My sisters-in-law touch base with me periodically about how I am emotionally and that helps but they're both busy raising children and being career women and supporting my brothers. My fella is awesome at filling the empty hours. He is good company, he is a naturally positive (and funny!) person who is tender enough to shed a tear with me occasionally but he is also grieving and working and... not my mom. What I am is saying is there is no one who could ever take her place and there is still a big ol' hole in my heart that I don't think could ever go away.

I say all of that to say this: I'm not the girl I was before. Sometimes I'm more of a bitter brew than I used to be. I'm a bit rougher around the edges. I joke that my dad lost his filter when my mom died... but the truth is that I lost mine too. Some of the things I might not have said before because I ran everything through the filter of "what will my mom think about this"... I might just say now. She got a rotten deal there at the end and watching her suffer was the hardest thing I've ever lived through and I'm forever changed by it. In some ways I'm more sensitive to others than I could have ever been before and in other ways... I'm like, get OVER yourself!

I'm going to work on a few posts now so that you have a little something to look forward to. Once I know they're ready to go, I'll publish this bit. I'm going to need A LOT of encouragement! Let me hear from you... share my blog with people who you think might enjoy it. Ultimately, it's not worth it to me to expend the emotional energy of blogging if nobody sees it or responds or give a flying flip.

So here we go again!