As I was driving to work today, I thought of a game that we used to play, huddled closely around our notebooks. Somewhere, amidst the boxes of my past not swept away by Hurricane Katrina, there is a slip of paper showing my favorite results. I still see the bold letters inside my mind, which gave the game its name, sitting mightily at the top of the paper.
M. A. S. H.
Sometimes I'd lie awake into the wee hours of the morning hand picking now faceless boys out of my yearbook. I remember being mysteriously besotted with some of them, much to my present horror. Time was not kind to us all... Our circle of friends would sit around the band room in the mornings, and when asked our selections, we would choose the order carefully. A poorly thought out query was sure to land you in a shack with the current school nerd (said kindly, from one nerd to another).
Was I disappointed when I didn't marry my M.A.S.H. boy of choice? Nah, I didn't even think about him as I skipped down the aisle to Pachabel's "Cannon in D". My Bridegroom had been a college friend, and while I'd never played a round of M.A.S.H. to his name, things still worked out okay. When I looked down at my new pearls, and my (average sized, but sparkly) marquise-shaped engagement ring, and I was thrilled. He was a stable, strong man, who loved me with everything that he was. And of course, as De Beers would have you know, "A diamond is forever".
Except that it's not. Well, perhaps it is. My ring is still in tact and healthy, even though my marriage fell apart. Nobody tells you, when you're young, that it's a bad idea to move a million miles from home just to be with a boy you hardly know. And it was true, I did hardly know him, though what I did know, was stellar. Nobody tells you about the years of loneliness that you'll endure when you're thrust into the center of one of the most ardently religious communities in the country. Underage, unaccepted, but loved. Alone, I trekked through the streets of Religioustown, NJ with only the love of my husband in my heart.
What do you do when he grows tired of you, and begins to ignore you? When the words he says to you ring hollow? When he pressures you (at 19) to have a baby, because his religious family is suggesting different kinds of fertility treatments, and checking our medicine cabinets for prophylactics? Nobody tells you about the steady spiral into desolation when you realize that you're totally alone, and you can't even return home because it's just been torn apart by the baddest storm to hit New Orleans in a looooong time.
"Nobody tells you about the steady spiral into desolation when you realize that you're totally alone, and you can't even return home because it's just been torn apart by the baddest storm to hit New Orleans in a looooong time."
Then I found out I was pregnant.
I'd like to start this paragraph by saying that I love my son more than anyone on this Earth. He's my sole form of sunshine, amidst a life of ever present black clouds, and I'd give my life so that he could live. But that doesn't mean that I was ready for him. I remember crying myself sick in the kitchen, while my husband slept in the bedroom. I remember trying to hit myself in the stomach, starving myself, and doing anything I could to miscarry. I was terrified that I'd hurt a child, the way that I had been hurt, when I was little. I was never that 'mom type' that people would run into around town, driving minivans to soccer practice. There was actually very little that would signify that I was kid friendly. Up to that point (and to this day, if I'm honest), I was serious, cynical, and both volatile and mercurial. I wasn't even old enough to order a drink from a bar, but I was definitely old enough to have a child. A sick child, which meant a sick mommy. My husband was happy because he'd gotten his way, and I loved him.
I loved him all the way through the three months of intense bedrest. He kept me chocked full of needlecrafts, and audio books to keep me busy, and in return, I was happy. Even living in a sunless basement apartment, which was always cold, and though we made it pretty, it always slightly stank of mold. We were young then, and still are, but back then we had nothing. But we saved every penny we could towards our dream home. By the time my son arrived, we had enough to place 20% down on a nice home, but he was sick. Our savings was rendered nil by huge NICU bills, and collectors threatening to sue.
He had a serious heart murmur, and problems feeding, breathing, and regulating body temperature. He was hospitalized for three weeks, before they reluctantly sent my tiny baby home on an apnea monitor. None of us got any sleep with that thing. Too many false alarms, but it kept him alive, which is all that mattered at the time.
Unable to nurse, due to the low tone in his throat, I had to express milk via my suitcase sized Ameda double pump. I carried it with me everywhere, and every two and a half hours, I'd hook myself to the machine for at least 45 minutes. My poor boy was allergic to milk based, soy based, and even the foul smelling hypo-allergenic formulas. In that respect, I had no manner of luck at all. It was breastmilk, or bust.
And bust I did. I managed to keep up with him until he was two and a half, with a good forty day supply in the freezer, but in those months, I didn't sleep. I was only able to keep up with his ever increasing supply by pumping for two hours before bed (to produce about 12 ounces), once at 11, another at 2:30, and then again at 5:00. Morning pumpings happened at 8:00, 11:30, while on my lunch at about 2:00, and then I'd dart to the bathroom at 5:30, just as soon as class dismissed. My entire world was based on lactation, and it didn't help me cope with my new baby at all. At my best, I produced forty-two ounces a day, and was hooked to the machine for about four hours a day. Four hours. It was awful, but I did it because I loved him, and it was the best start that I could give him. This is lots of great information on my post baby schedule, but I digress. The point was that my sleep deprived stupor caused my already fluctuating hormones to rage, much to Zev's dismay.
I was almost always in tears, I rarely showered, and didn't always change my clothes. On the outside, I looked perfectly normal, but on the inside, I was dying. My darling friend Elky tried to intervene, but even she couldn't gt through to me. I took it as a personal attack on my apparent lack of parenting skills, and didn't speak to her for a while after that. Pushing away what few friends I had was the last thing that I needed, but it was also the primary action of which I was (and still am) the reigning Queen.
You can read a thousand books on relationships, parenting and pregnancy, but when push comes to shove, most of it is bullshit. Nobody prepares you for the ugly side of having a baby. They don't tell you about the important at the baby shower, had they done so, I might have run. I was sucked deeper into the murky waters of depression with those pesky post partum hormones. My inlaws were no help, though I was stitched up from top to bottom, front to back. All the laundry in the house was done by me, as was the sweeping, the cooking, the mopping. On top of that, my son was too weak to nurse, and I had to express my milk by pump. I had no time to myself.
He had a serious heart murmur, and problems feeding, breathing, and regulating body temperature. He was hospitalized for three weeks, before they reluctantly sent my tiny baby home on an apnea monitor. None of us got any sleep with that thing. Too many false alarms, but it kept him alive, which is all that mattered at the time.
Unable to nurse, due to the low tone in his throat, I had to express milk via my suitcase sized Ameda double pump. I carried it with me everywhere, and every two and a half hours, I'd hook myself to the machine for at least 45 minutes. My poor boy was allergic to milk based, soy based, and even the foul smelling hypo-allergenic formulas. In that respect, I had no manner of luck at all. It was breastmilk, or bust.
And bust I did. I managed to keep up with him until he was two and a half, with a good forty day supply in the freezer, but in those months, I didn't sleep. I was only able to keep up with his ever increasing supply by pumping for two hours before bed (to produce about 12 ounces), once at 11, another at 2:30, and then again at 5:00. Morning pumpings happened at 8:00, 11:30, while on my lunch at about 2:00, and then I'd dart to the bathroom at 5:30, just as soon as class dismissed. My entire world was based on lactation, and it didn't help me cope with my new baby at all. At my best, I produced forty-two ounces a day, and was hooked to the machine for about four hours a day. Four hours. It was awful, but I did it because I loved him, and it was the best start that I could give him. This is lots of great information on my post baby schedule, but I digress. The point was that my sleep deprived stupor caused my already fluctuating hormones to rage, much to Zev's dismay.
I was almost always in tears, I rarely showered, and didn't always change my clothes. On the outside, I looked perfectly normal, but on the inside, I was dying. My darling friend Elky tried to intervene, but even she couldn't gt through to me. I took it as a personal attack on my apparent lack of parenting skills, and didn't speak to her for a while after that. Pushing away what few friends I had was the last thing that I needed, but it was also the primary action of which I was (and still am) the reigning Queen.
You can read a thousand books on relationships, parenting and pregnancy, but when push comes to shove, most of it is bullshit. Nobody prepares you for the ugly side of having a baby. They don't tell you about the important at the baby shower, had they done so, I might have run. I was sucked deeper into the murky waters of depression with those pesky post partum hormones. My inlaws were no help, though I was stitched up from top to bottom, front to back. All the laundry in the house was done by me, as was the sweeping, the cooking, the mopping. On top of that, my son was too weak to nurse, and I had to express my milk by pump. I had no time to myself.
He was diagnosed with Williams syndrome, at age two, which was when things truly fell apart. Being a special ed teacher, I knew that there was something that wasn't right. He started missing his milestones, and he wasn't eating any solids. But we loved him, and yet it wasn't enough. My husband and I would sit in the same room, and talk about nothing but the baby. It was the only commonality that we had, and yet neither one of us thought the big "D" word.
I begged for him to let us get help. I begged, and even went to men he looked up to, to try to persuade him to get help. No one could get through to him; it was almost as if he didn't care. I made appointments to marriage counselors, and yet he 'poo pooed' them. His ambivalence was the last nail in our relationship's coffin, so I dropped a big divorce retainer on a hot-shot lawyer (I needed to be able to take my son back home). Only then did he finally started to listen. His six month long affair, with a flat chested, cross-eyed Israeli, didn't end right away. But he finally realized that I could, and would win, if he didn't shape up. I'd go back home, with our son, and he'd lose everything.
It's been three years, and though he swore that he'd never forgive me (nor I him), we're still together. Is it a good thing? Well, that's a loaded question. Good for whom? For my husband and my son--sure! They both seem to love me, though in vastly different ways. Good for me--maybe. I'm still not entirely sold on the idea, but I love my son too much to split us up. In the mornings, when he comes thundering up the bed and flings himself on me, I'm happy that I stayed. When my husband and I sandwich him between us, to give him "double kissies", I'm glad that I have the opportunity. The love we have for our son is astounding, and limitless in quantity. I just wish that it didn't come with such guilt.
I look into my husband's eyes, to see the newfound love shining therein, and I am consumed by raging fires of guilt. I feel terrible that while he was able forgive me, for my part in our misery (in a marriage, the dissolution is never one-sided), I still haven't been able to forgive him. His affair has costed us over ten thousand dollars in credit card bills, and the remainder of our savings. She used him, and used him well. Every month, when he drops that two hundred and sixty dollar (minimum) payment, I see it as a painful reminder of what was. I see it as a never ending part of our suffering, compounded by the fact that I'm now unemployed, and money is tighter than it ever has been. I joined the ranks of New Jersey's unemployed in September of 2010, when the state closed our school due to lack of funding.
So it wasn't just the canoodling that I struggled to accept. Had the affair been solely physical, I could have forgiven, forgotten, and moved on. We're only human, and we all make mistakes now and then. I'm not so far removed that I don't recognize that strong, smiling man who was waiting for me under the Chuppah. My loving husband is still in there, he just made some very bad choices. It was, and still is, the financial repercussions of his decisions that I battle to accept each day.
It eats me alive that I have to feel guilty about buying myself something small because she now has two very expensive coach bags, hundreds of dollars in Abercrombie and Fitch clothing, and Jesus only knows how much in Victoria's Secret. It's no La Perla, but it adds up, quickly. And that's exactly where my mind goes when he tells me that we don't have the money for something.
Divorce is ugly, though trying to put together a totally disintegrated marriage isn't all roses either. We fought, and valiantly, for nearly two years after. I was shattering cologne bottles with baseball bats, I was so angry. After all, I'd never bought him cologne in my life; did he think that I wouldn't know where it came from? Though finally, after we purchased a house, that things started to get better.
We were finally escaped from Religioustown, NJ and could sit in our living rooms without fear. People were no longer leaving hate mail in our box, or throwing garbage down our stairs. Kids weren't breaking our lawn ornaments, or denting my car with ill operated motorized helicopters. Escaping from that town was the only decent thing about moving though. I was so very scared to buy a house with him; scared because it was one more thing to have to split, if our relationship still ended in divorce.
Like all things, he somehow managed to talk me into it, and thankfully, it was the best thing we could have done. My son is happy in school, and is learning in an intimate environment (three teachers for five kids). He has therapy seven times a week, and he's really thriving. The added responsibility of having a yard to maintain has been good for my husband as well. As for me, I felt like I could sit on my porch without fear of persecution from my "holier than thou" neighbors. I could take out my trash in flip flops, and a jean skirt without worrying that someone would throw piles of dirty diapers at my door in retaliation.
We had a little more space, a lot more yard, and miles more privacy. Everyone was happier, safer, and that was met with less fighting. He and I don't fight much these days, though our relationship isn't anywhere near the love that was there in the beginning. I try, and I'm hopeful for the future. I am only certain that I'm not leaving him; I couldn't. Not for myself, but for the love I have for my son.
I married a good man, I did. I just have to relearn how to see the good within. My grandmother always told me that while the love that you have for your child is unconditional, the love you have for your spouse is not. "It's like elastic (actually, it was control top panty-hose, but I'm taking a little license here!)", she says, "You pull on it once, and it snaps back into place. Even one really hard pull will allow it to mostly stay in shape... A good washing will undo any damage left over. Too many pulls, too often will leave your once pristine band in a warped mess on the floor. By then it's almost always too late--No amount of cure will fix what a little prevention could have done."
I don't think that we're unfixable, but I do think that we have an awful lot of washing to do. Going forward, I'm going to try to prevent the damage that destroyed nearly three years of our lives. He's trying. Now, it's up to me; the ball's in my court. My full time job is now trying to love myself, so that I can relearn to love him.
Enough with the heavy. This is the worst of it, I promise. I actually want this to be an upbeat journal that's mostly about crafting, challenges faced mothering a special needs child, and my writing projects (mostly novellas, and short stories). But I wanted to start off with a good foundation, so that any readers that happen to pop up would know what's going on. I repeat, this isn't going to be a whiny "woe is me" blog. I'm a pretty funny person, and I'm hoping to impart that dry humor into my writing, which should, in turn, entertain my audience.
I'm not certain what this will turn into, or if it will even be read by anyone of important. All I hope to get out of it is a little piece of mind, and maybe a few "Oohs" and "Aahs" over my needle work, or a new chapter preview.
Until next time,
Ayah Papaya
It eats me alive that I have to feel guilty about buying myself something small because she now has two very expensive coach bags, hundreds of dollars in Abercrombie and Fitch clothing, and Jesus only knows how much in Victoria's Secret. It's no La Perla, but it adds up, quickly. And that's exactly where my mind goes when he tells me that we don't have the money for something.
"I know you're exhausted, and that you're sick, baby, but we don't have the money for takeout because I'm still paying off her Christian Louboutins." Meanwhile, I'm wearing worn out shoes from Targé.
We were finally escaped from Religioustown, NJ and could sit in our living rooms without fear. People were no longer leaving hate mail in our box, or throwing garbage down our stairs. Kids weren't breaking our lawn ornaments, or denting my car with ill operated motorized helicopters. Escaping from that town was the only decent thing about moving though. I was so very scared to buy a house with him; scared because it was one more thing to have to split, if our relationship still ended in divorce.
Like all things, he somehow managed to talk me into it, and thankfully, it was the best thing we could have done. My son is happy in school, and is learning in an intimate environment (three teachers for five kids). He has therapy seven times a week, and he's really thriving. The added responsibility of having a yard to maintain has been good for my husband as well. As for me, I felt like I could sit on my porch without fear of persecution from my "holier than thou" neighbors. I could take out my trash in flip flops, and a jean skirt without worrying that someone would throw piles of dirty diapers at my door in retaliation.
We had a little more space, a lot more yard, and miles more privacy. Everyone was happier, safer, and that was met with less fighting. He and I don't fight much these days, though our relationship isn't anywhere near the love that was there in the beginning. I try, and I'm hopeful for the future. I am only certain that I'm not leaving him; I couldn't. Not for myself, but for the love I have for my son.
I married a good man, I did. I just have to relearn how to see the good within. My grandmother always told me that while the love that you have for your child is unconditional, the love you have for your spouse is not. "It's like elastic (actually, it was control top panty-hose, but I'm taking a little license here!)", she says, "You pull on it once, and it snaps back into place. Even one really hard pull will allow it to mostly stay in shape... A good washing will undo any damage left over. Too many pulls, too often will leave your once pristine band in a warped mess on the floor. By then it's almost always too late--No amount of cure will fix what a little prevention could have done."
"No amount of cure will fix what a little prevention could have done."
I don't think that we're unfixable, but I do think that we have an awful lot of washing to do. Going forward, I'm going to try to prevent the damage that destroyed nearly three years of our lives. He's trying. Now, it's up to me; the ball's in my court. My full time job is now trying to love myself, so that I can relearn to love him.
Enough with the heavy. This is the worst of it, I promise. I actually want this to be an upbeat journal that's mostly about crafting, challenges faced mothering a special needs child, and my writing projects (mostly novellas, and short stories). But I wanted to start off with a good foundation, so that any readers that happen to pop up would know what's going on. I repeat, this isn't going to be a whiny "woe is me" blog. I'm a pretty funny person, and I'm hoping to impart that dry humor into my writing, which should, in turn, entertain my audience.
I'm not certain what this will turn into, or if it will even be read by anyone of important. All I hope to get out of it is a little piece of mind, and maybe a few "Oohs" and "Aahs" over my needle work, or a new chapter preview.
Until next time,
Ayah Papaya
