I guess I should clarify that... they don't dig me. They don't know who I am. They is the doc. He calls me Number 2. Really. He does. No big whoop. There hasn't been a new person in his office in over 10 years, and then 2 of us started the same day. The other chick was hired first, so she's Number 1 and I'm Number 2. I would be offended if I wasn't TOTALLY clued into the fact that doctors are generally assholes. True, he's merely a dentist... but still a doctor. I've met more doctors in the past 3 years than I care to remember. A small handful of them were lovely people... and one of them was an angel on earth. In general though, a bunch of shitheels. Anyhoo.... the one who really digs me is Val, the office manager. She's the one I actually work with, so hers is the only opinion that matters. I was doing a shantastic job today... even more than usual ;-) ... Val came back to my desk and said, "You're a fuckin' BADASS!" Oh really? Tell me something I don't know. Bwahahahaaaaaa!!!! And can you even believe I landed in a place where the office manager would talk to me like that during my second week???? Hellllooooo.... methinks this office is a perfect fit for Shan!!! :0) Yup... a VERRRRY good day at work. A good day at home too.. just long. Lots of homework, piles of laundry, dinner, clean-up... you know the drill. Me tired.
This will be a short entry... it's 9:40 p.m. and I just finished folding. MUST get in the shower asap, before I start to offend myself! One weird thing happened today... for the VERY first time since he died, I had a fleeting thought to call David and ask him something. I know that's really common for most people after someone dies, but it had never happened to me before. Not only do I not really miss him, every cell in my body knows... every second of every day... that he's dead. But today I had a question. I guess it's because I've been writing a lot about his parental units, so they've been on my mind. Eeew. Anyhoo, I wondered if they knew he was leaving me before I did. Obviously, it doesn't matter. I'm just curious. I don't know why I hadn't ever wondered that before. That day... June 6th 2009... we had all been together watching the boys play sports. It was a Saturday. In the early morning Rory had soccer in Ashburn, and then Reilly had an 11:00 lacrosse game in East Jesus... aka Vienna. The whole day was very tense. Neither the troll nor the cactus spoke to me or even looked at me. I can remember being at the lacrosse game... it was fucking BALLS hot and I just wanted to be away from them. David was in a pissy mood too. Hmmm.... I think I may know why! So I busied myself with Rory and took tons of pictures of him. I got so many cute ones, but I can't enjoy them. The second I see one of them I think, 'that's the day he left me'. The plan was for all of us to go out for lunch after Reilly's game, but I just couldn't take it. We had come in separate cars, so I asked David if he minded if I skipped lunch and went to the club. Fine with him. So that's what I did. When I got home, he took off to the club to do laps. It was shortly after he drove away that I disovered the note he left on my bathroom sink.
I really hope they didn't know before I did. I know... let it go... but it bugs me.
Supposed to snow tomorrow.... we'll see!
Nite nite...
S
Trying to survive and thrive, through the most difficult time in my life.
10 January 2011
Well fuck... It's Monday
Hey nubbins. NOT happy that it's Monday. It has nothing to do with going to work... it was just such a fantastic weekend that I hate to be done with it. We were planning to take advantage of the fact that Jayden & Leilei were at their mom's and get all kinds of shit done. How'd that work out? We accomplished absofuckinlutely nuthin. And I LOVED it!!! I think it's really important to allow yourself to be a lazy puddle o' goo every now and then. Finn & I snuggled up in bed and watched a couple movies, and the boys watched movies and played games together. It was sublime. Especially since my poor Finn was horrendously sick all week. :( He's one of those guys with a steely constitution who NEVER gets sick, and this thing knocked him on his ass. He even missed a couple days of work, and he does NOT do that. With him being sick, my anxiety was through the roof. I've always had a touch of the germophobia, but as soon as David got sick it spun completely out of control. Having a neutrapenic cancer patient in the house... someone with NO immune system; no white cells, no red cells, etc... and having 2 kids bringing home germs from school, sports, etc. It made me CRAZY. Seriously. It became a real problem. Real enough that I had to be medicated to ease my germophobia-related anxiety. It helped immensely, but the fear is still there. Even though I no longer have a cancer patient in the house, germs & illness of any kind STILL send me reeling. I think it's one of those things that's etched into your psyche forever. Remember the whole H1N1 thing? If David had gotten that, he would have been dead in less than 24 hours. Talk about striking fear into your soul. I know my intense fear is abnormal... people get sick. It happens. But knowing that doesn't change anything... my mind goes where it wants to go and I have to figure out how to deal with it. You think the fact that I now have FOUR kids in the house doesn't scare the holy shit outta me? It DOES. But thank God for my Finn. He understands the root of my fears and does everything he can to help me through those episodes, WITHOUT making me feel like a complete nutjob. And let me tell ya, THAT is greatly appreciated.
More to say, but I'd better scram. Happy to tell you that I made it to the club this morning. :0)
xoxo
S
"Give your attention and energy to trust, love, abundance, education and peace."
-Rhonda Byrne
More to say, but I'd better scram. Happy to tell you that I made it to the club this morning. :0)
xoxo
S
"Give your attention and energy to trust, love, abundance, education and peace."
-Rhonda Byrne
09 January 2011
My secret escape...
Howdy doody noodles. I'm enjoying my favorite little secret escape for a while. Yes, I'm pathetic, but my favorite thing to do by myself is to get a smoothie at Robeks, and pull into a spot in front of Starbucks. Then I can steal their free wifi from the comfort of my car, and write. :0) I have to tell you something heeelarious.... yesterday, just for the helluvit, I googled 'shantastic'. First of all, I was NOT pleased to see how many Shantastics there are on the web. What the fuck???? Who ARE these bitches???? Don't they know that I'M the original???? The only TRUE Shantastic??? Grrrrr... anyhoo, the first thing that popped up was a definition in the Urban Dictionary. It said, "SHANTASTIC"... This is a term used to describe the level of amazingness of an event or incident. Usually sexual, this word is known to replace or provide a substitute for the term 'orgazmic'." WHAT???? Oh my God... I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.
Yesterday turned our to be fabulous. I slept in for HOURS, which I never get to do. Then we just padded around the house, doing this and that until Reilly asked us to leave. Wha??? He said that he and Rory wanted to have a dude's day, and that we should go out and do something. Seriously???? Don't have to tell me twice... Finn & I were out of there like a shot. We didn't have any plans... wandered around and ended up at Tysons, the most fab mall in existence. And FYI.... anyone who says our economy is hurting, hasn't been to Tyson's Galleria in a while. Holy shit! It was nut to butt in that place! We browsed, people watched, laughed and generally enjoyed being together. We have so much fun doing absolutely nothing. Then we thought it would be a treat to hit a movie, and actually found a theater that was still showing The Social Notework. Awesome movie... absolutely loved it. We hit the grocery store for a few things on the way home, and then passed out after our lovely day. It was great.
So I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this whole book publishing thing. Leigh Ann seriously knows her shit, and if she thinks I'm going to have to do tons of research about the genre, immerse myself in similar authors, take classes about memoir writing and basically start over with the narrative, she's probably right. I barely have time to pick my ass these days.... I certainly don't have time for all of that shit. So for now at least, I'm just gonna keep blogging. Remember that movie Julie & Julia? That chick started out just writing a blog, so you never know. It's all about readership, and that takes word of mouth. So if you know someone you think might like to read this drivel, pass along the info, would ya?
I also looked up the Oprah show yesterday. They always have a section that lists all of the shows they are working on, and you can apply to be on the show if you fit with one of the relevant topics. One of the shows they're working on is 'Nightmarish In-laws'. Hmmmm..... think I'd qualify for THAT one? They've never HEARD shit like I've gone through with these people. It sounded promising, so I clicked on it. The bad news? It said that you AND the in-laws have to be willing to appear on tv with Dr. Phil. I'd do it in a hot minute. Those oozing anal warts? Never.
Speaking of hideous in-laws, I guess I'll get back to filling you in on the back-story. The Cactus is a horrible man. One of those people who spends every minute of his life being pissed off... about everything. He's incredibly demeaning to those around him, and seems to take great pleasure in telling his wife and his younger son how stupid they are. It's really gross. In fact, just before David was diagnosed, we had come to the decision that we needed to cut ties with his parents. They are SO toxic and brought nothing positive to our lives... we really didn't want the boys exposed to that shit. David had endured that for his entire life, but there was no reason to put our children through that. But then came the word 'cancer' and we were a little busy focusing on other things.
The Cactus and I had not spoken since October of 2008. They were around fairly often and the tension that they brought was unbearable. At that point, at least the Troll was able to be mildly pleasant to me, but the Cactus? He just seemed enraged ALL of the time. We all attended one of Rory's soccer games one morning, and afterward I took the opportunity to try and smooth things over with him. I simply asked him, "why are you so angry with me?" and that was IT. I didn't have the opportunity to utter another word. He spent a solid 30 minutes ripping me apart... telling me what a horrible wife and mother I was, that they'd never liked me, never wanted David to marry me, that I was pathetic, useless, helpless... etc. He was a crazed lunatic. SCREAMING at me in public... at the soccer field with a good 300 people or so looking on. I was sobbing hysterically... so hurt and so shocked at the pure hatred that he spewed at me. Keep in mind that at that point, I was in month 7 of full-time caregiving for my deathly ill husband, trying to handle the kids and their uncertainty and grief, and basically just trying to keep my head above water. He eviscerated me. He took any remaining shreds of self-esteem or good feelings I had about myself and ripped them into bloody pieces. Just a few days later was the HUGE 40th birthday party that I threw for David, and I made sure his parents knew that I wanted them there. He never even made eye contact with me. I also included them in our Christmas celebration, as I did every year, and again... nothing. He acted as though I didn't exist.
Fast forward to June of 2010, as David was making his final descent. We were at his girlfriend's house. I prefer to call her the Skank. The Cactus approached me and apologized for his past behavior, and said he hoped we could work together to make all of the final arrangements. It was incredible. We had some wonderful conversations. It was the first time that I had ever witnessed his humanity and I can remember telling the people around me that I thought maybe, having to face losing his son had caused him to have an awakening of sorts. He vowed to help me untangle the hideous web of a financial disaster that David had created. FYI... he lived that last year of his life like he was a fuckin' Rockefeller. Taking trips and spending money on God knows what. And he also promised that he'd make sure we were taken care of. That's a promise that he made AGAIN, to David's FACE, in the final days of his life. It was just the 3 of us in the hospital room and David asked his dad to "take care of Shan and the boys". He swore that he'd take care of us and that there was nothing for David to worry about. David KNEW the financial mess he was leaving me. I had NO idea the magnitude, but HE did, and I know that his dad's promise gave him great comfort in his last days.
The Troll & Cactus had ALWAYS believed that I was a gold-digger and a crazy spendthrift. Yeah.... TOTAL gold-digger.... that's why I married David as a 22 year old Navy Ensign. Puuuhhhlleeeez. Cactus offered to go through all of the bills and figure out how bad it was. It turns out that David hadn't even opened ONE piece of mail since his botched radiation treatment at UVA in February of 2010. There was an entire garbage bag full of bills he'd never addressed. The only reason I had no idea how bad things were, is because he had thankfully put all of the bills regarding my home on auto-pay. I had been asking him for months to let me start paying my own bills, but he never wanted to relinquish that control. I thought it was a wonderful thing that the Cactus was going through all of that shit.... he could see for himself that David was the one who'd spent all of that money. I hadn't even used a credit card since he left me... I was debit only. David, on the other hand, opened every credit account he could get his hands on. At the time, we were talking about revolving credit debt in the vicinity of 80 grand. I have since gotten notice of another delinquent account with a balance of 33 grand.
I'm not sure what happened. As quickly as the Cactus had warmed to me and offered his help, he flipped the switch again and reverted to demon from hell. I can only guess that he was incredibly angry... angry that David was dying, angry that he'd been so careless about his finances... and he had to be mad at someone. It all had to be SOMEBODY'S fault.... and that somebody turned out to be me.
I'll leave you with that for now. Let's just say that the 2 weeks between David's death and his funeral were all but unbearable, largely due to the interactions I had with the Cactus. And you pretty much know when you're going to a funeral to bury your husband and the father of your children, that it's gonna be a bad day. I had NO idea that his parents would make it their mission to disrespect me and hurt me as much as they possibly could on that day. If it's possible for a funeral experience to be even worse than you ever dreamed in your most hideous nightmares, that's exactly what they were able to make happen for me. And you haven't heard anything yet.
Miss Robin... give your in-laws a special squeeze from me. You are so blessed to have them, and they clearly realize how lucky they are that YOU are married to their son, and the mother of their grandchildren. What a gift.
Adios for now...
S
"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn... my God, do you learn."
-C.S. Lewis
Yesterday turned our to be fabulous. I slept in for HOURS, which I never get to do. Then we just padded around the house, doing this and that until Reilly asked us to leave. Wha??? He said that he and Rory wanted to have a dude's day, and that we should go out and do something. Seriously???? Don't have to tell me twice... Finn & I were out of there like a shot. We didn't have any plans... wandered around and ended up at Tysons, the most fab mall in existence. And FYI.... anyone who says our economy is hurting, hasn't been to Tyson's Galleria in a while. Holy shit! It was nut to butt in that place! We browsed, people watched, laughed and generally enjoyed being together. We have so much fun doing absolutely nothing. Then we thought it would be a treat to hit a movie, and actually found a theater that was still showing The Social Notework. Awesome movie... absolutely loved it. We hit the grocery store for a few things on the way home, and then passed out after our lovely day. It was great.
So I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this whole book publishing thing. Leigh Ann seriously knows her shit, and if she thinks I'm going to have to do tons of research about the genre, immerse myself in similar authors, take classes about memoir writing and basically start over with the narrative, she's probably right. I barely have time to pick my ass these days.... I certainly don't have time for all of that shit. So for now at least, I'm just gonna keep blogging. Remember that movie Julie & Julia? That chick started out just writing a blog, so you never know. It's all about readership, and that takes word of mouth. So if you know someone you think might like to read this drivel, pass along the info, would ya?
I also looked up the Oprah show yesterday. They always have a section that lists all of the shows they are working on, and you can apply to be on the show if you fit with one of the relevant topics. One of the shows they're working on is 'Nightmarish In-laws'. Hmmmm..... think I'd qualify for THAT one? They've never HEARD shit like I've gone through with these people. It sounded promising, so I clicked on it. The bad news? It said that you AND the in-laws have to be willing to appear on tv with Dr. Phil. I'd do it in a hot minute. Those oozing anal warts? Never.
Speaking of hideous in-laws, I guess I'll get back to filling you in on the back-story. The Cactus is a horrible man. One of those people who spends every minute of his life being pissed off... about everything. He's incredibly demeaning to those around him, and seems to take great pleasure in telling his wife and his younger son how stupid they are. It's really gross. In fact, just before David was diagnosed, we had come to the decision that we needed to cut ties with his parents. They are SO toxic and brought nothing positive to our lives... we really didn't want the boys exposed to that shit. David had endured that for his entire life, but there was no reason to put our children through that. But then came the word 'cancer' and we were a little busy focusing on other things.
The Cactus and I had not spoken since October of 2008. They were around fairly often and the tension that they brought was unbearable. At that point, at least the Troll was able to be mildly pleasant to me, but the Cactus? He just seemed enraged ALL of the time. We all attended one of Rory's soccer games one morning, and afterward I took the opportunity to try and smooth things over with him. I simply asked him, "why are you so angry with me?" and that was IT. I didn't have the opportunity to utter another word. He spent a solid 30 minutes ripping me apart... telling me what a horrible wife and mother I was, that they'd never liked me, never wanted David to marry me, that I was pathetic, useless, helpless... etc. He was a crazed lunatic. SCREAMING at me in public... at the soccer field with a good 300 people or so looking on. I was sobbing hysterically... so hurt and so shocked at the pure hatred that he spewed at me. Keep in mind that at that point, I was in month 7 of full-time caregiving for my deathly ill husband, trying to handle the kids and their uncertainty and grief, and basically just trying to keep my head above water. He eviscerated me. He took any remaining shreds of self-esteem or good feelings I had about myself and ripped them into bloody pieces. Just a few days later was the HUGE 40th birthday party that I threw for David, and I made sure his parents knew that I wanted them there. He never even made eye contact with me. I also included them in our Christmas celebration, as I did every year, and again... nothing. He acted as though I didn't exist.
Fast forward to June of 2010, as David was making his final descent. We were at his girlfriend's house. I prefer to call her the Skank. The Cactus approached me and apologized for his past behavior, and said he hoped we could work together to make all of the final arrangements. It was incredible. We had some wonderful conversations. It was the first time that I had ever witnessed his humanity and I can remember telling the people around me that I thought maybe, having to face losing his son had caused him to have an awakening of sorts. He vowed to help me untangle the hideous web of a financial disaster that David had created. FYI... he lived that last year of his life like he was a fuckin' Rockefeller. Taking trips and spending money on God knows what. And he also promised that he'd make sure we were taken care of. That's a promise that he made AGAIN, to David's FACE, in the final days of his life. It was just the 3 of us in the hospital room and David asked his dad to "take care of Shan and the boys". He swore that he'd take care of us and that there was nothing for David to worry about. David KNEW the financial mess he was leaving me. I had NO idea the magnitude, but HE did, and I know that his dad's promise gave him great comfort in his last days.
The Troll & Cactus had ALWAYS believed that I was a gold-digger and a crazy spendthrift. Yeah.... TOTAL gold-digger.... that's why I married David as a 22 year old Navy Ensign. Puuuhhhlleeeez. Cactus offered to go through all of the bills and figure out how bad it was. It turns out that David hadn't even opened ONE piece of mail since his botched radiation treatment at UVA in February of 2010. There was an entire garbage bag full of bills he'd never addressed. The only reason I had no idea how bad things were, is because he had thankfully put all of the bills regarding my home on auto-pay. I had been asking him for months to let me start paying my own bills, but he never wanted to relinquish that control. I thought it was a wonderful thing that the Cactus was going through all of that shit.... he could see for himself that David was the one who'd spent all of that money. I hadn't even used a credit card since he left me... I was debit only. David, on the other hand, opened every credit account he could get his hands on. At the time, we were talking about revolving credit debt in the vicinity of 80 grand. I have since gotten notice of another delinquent account with a balance of 33 grand.
I'm not sure what happened. As quickly as the Cactus had warmed to me and offered his help, he flipped the switch again and reverted to demon from hell. I can only guess that he was incredibly angry... angry that David was dying, angry that he'd been so careless about his finances... and he had to be mad at someone. It all had to be SOMEBODY'S fault.... and that somebody turned out to be me.
I'll leave you with that for now. Let's just say that the 2 weeks between David's death and his funeral were all but unbearable, largely due to the interactions I had with the Cactus. And you pretty much know when you're going to a funeral to bury your husband and the father of your children, that it's gonna be a bad day. I had NO idea that his parents would make it their mission to disrespect me and hurt me as much as they possibly could on that day. If it's possible for a funeral experience to be even worse than you ever dreamed in your most hideous nightmares, that's exactly what they were able to make happen for me. And you haven't heard anything yet.
Miss Robin... give your in-laws a special squeeze from me. You are so blessed to have them, and they clearly realize how lucky they are that YOU are married to their son, and the mother of their grandchildren. What a gift.
Adios for now...
S
"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn... my God, do you learn."
-C.S. Lewis
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