The journey between here and there

So I was talking to a friend of mine, who has gotten a divorce and she says that if she could do it over again, she would just stay married and after the kids were grown she would get divorced… Ugh… that’s a looong time to live miserable. She weighed the pros and cons with me of getting divorced vs. just staying together. Bleh… each side totally blows stinky billy goats. So, I guess this is as good as it gets, cuz on either side of the fence you’re still dealing with a jackass.

Is it bad to love not having Ryan around when I go camping…. or ever? I went to Sandy McNab and Writing On Stone without him and had the time of my life! I was relaxed, had a routine down, everything was fun, light and simple. I just went on my own time schedule and didn’t have to go Ryan’s time. I just absolutely loved it. I love camping at WOS. It was the best camp site ever! The kids ran to the hoodoos and to the river back and forth all day. They had water gun fights and I loved the camp ground cuz the only extra fees to camping there was treating the kids to an ice cream or a slushie when it was hot out. We saw deer, rabbits, a raccoon came and ate our dog food at night. The weather was perfect, hot and the days went by wonderfully.

I called Ryan on our last day to make sure he was coming out or Shauna was coming out to pick us all up. He whined that he missed us. I told him that the kids missed him, but I didn’t cuz he just stresses me out so much.

FOR EXAMPLE… we get back from camping. We had been gone for 4 days.

4.

1.2.3.4 days.

The day we left I was running around getting everything ready to go and the kids left a couple glasses of milk on the table. When I got back the glasses were STILL on the table, the milk had turned sour, all curdled with fruit flies in them loving life. The dishes hadn’t been emptied out of the dishwasher, dishes were piled in the sink and the one thing I asked him to do before he left, called and reminded him AND left him a note on the fridge… he didn’t do… what was it? Take out the recycling and the trash on Wednesday.

It’s not rocket science. So I instantly was annoyed when I got home. I talked to him about it and asked him why he didn’t do it… he forgot… he was too busy… he went from work to the gym to bed… he was hardly around.… those were his excuses… so then later we’re talking and he then begins to talk about the movies he watched while we were away. That’s when I snapped. So he had time to watch 4 movies, yet he couldn’t take the time to put the glasses of milk in the sink and rinse it out? He passes the table EVERY MORNING on his way to the fridge where he grabs his fruit and milk for his shake every morning and evening. He couldn’t move the garbage pails outside? Holy hell…. I was furious.

So then I make dinner. Steak, stir fry, rice. So yummy. After dinner he just gets up and leaves. Doesn’t clean his plate or bring it to the sink. The kids bring their plate to the sink, but he doesn’t. His excuse? I forgot I was too tired. Seriously…. so am I! Yet I’m left to constantly clean up after him AND the kids. He’s an idiot. I can’t stand living with him. I wish we could live in separate houses.

Marriage sucks. I hate it. Men just stop trying once they figure they’ve got you. It sucks. I’m so sick of it. I’ve tried talking to him several times and he just plays dumb or he has a million excuses as to why he can’t help or his inability to continue to ‘date’ me.

I’d rather be by myself and depend on no one but myself than to turn to him and constantly be disappointed. He always lies to me and makes promises he can’t keep. I’m just so sick of it.

And no matter how unloving and mean I am towards him, he still sticks around and thinks life is the best ever. I’m just flabbergasted and exasperated. He never fights with me. He always avoids confrontation. Just tells me what I want to hear. He’s a total hard core passive aggressive. I hate it.

I constantly plan out his funeral in my mind. Is that bad? I think so…. *sigh* I’ve figure out what I’d say, what I would do, where people would sit, who I’d invite, the food, the music, what I’d do after,…. go on a trip. Take the life insurance and play hard. Invest it and just travel…. I haven’t picked out exactly WHERE in the cemetery to bury him, so I suppose that’s a good sign…. mental note… next time I go on a run, run by the cemetery to scope it out.

He’s just an idiot and I’m tired of living with an idiot. It’s so frustrating. But do you give up financial security or do you give up personal happiness? I dunno. It’s hard. I’ve got 5 kids. Ryan would be a total prick to deal with if we got divorced and I know he wouldn’t pay child support. The kids would have to live with him, although it would be so hard for them cuz he’d never be around and he’d make Laura do everything. There’s 5 of them. It’s not like there’s just 1.

I wish I could have an open marriage. We’d stay together for the sake of the kids, but just go out and date and do whatever we wanted. *sigh* again… I’m sure that’s a bad thought. I just have so many bad thoughts. It’s really getting hard to control them all… thank goodness I’m not Darth Vader.

That and I don’t feel like dealing with his issues. I found more crap on my computer when I was just going through some files and deleting things that were downloaded off the internet. I confronted him about them and again… out pours the excuses. I’m sick of them. I keep being optimistic that things will change and get better…. but I’m just a naive stupid girl.

He’s lost his wedding ring way back at the beginning of July. I’ve told him where it is and he hasn’t made the effort to go get it and put it back on. I really don’t care. I wish he’d go off and have an affair so I’d have a valid excuse to get out besides just being a bitch and wanting more out of a relationship.

I always think that I will go do things for myself, but he’s never around to watch the kids so I can. Laura can watch them, but then she feels annoyed that she has to watch them all the time. When I do go out, he whines that I’m not around when he gets home and the kids have torn apart the house and where’s supper?

I’ve got to get myself financially set. I’m going to start working again. They said that they’d offer me 100 G’s if I’d just commit and work 9 - 5 M-F. *ugh* I just don’t know if I can mentally handle it. I suppose if I HAD to I could, but I really love to play. I love my nothing days. I love having an open schedule. I feel so run down and worn out. I’ve GOT to figure myself out. I’ve got to write down some goals, post them everywhere so I don’t forget and just start aggressively pursing them. I’m so sick of wasting away my life. I want to spend time with the kids. They are heaps of fun. I don’t want to work full time. I want quiet days. I also want to get out of this mess I got myself into.

We didn’t even celebrate our anniversary this year. He forgot, until I reminded him. I didn’t get him anything. I didn’t know what to get him. He got me these earrings from Hawaii. A nice gesture sure. However, he paid way too much for them and they are too big for me. They look stupid. I just want our wedding pictures. I’ve been asking him to get them for me and he gets me all kinds of other crap except for what I ask for. I swear he’s THE most dense guy I’ve ever met. I’m sure I sound like the most ungrateful byatch around, but I’m just not a jewelry person and I’m very picky. I do have jewelry items picked out, which I’ve clipped and put on the fridge that he uses every day.

I mentioned this to him and his response…. You did? I’ve never seen them. Really? I’ve never noticed.

Shocker.

I could walk around with purple hair and he wouldn’t notice.

I think he does try… maybe in his own way he tries… but how can someone be so dense all the time? He just irritates me immensely.

I’m so much happier when he’s not around. It’s horrid to say, yet true. Bleh. Men suck. I don’t believe in happily ever after. It doesn’t exist. I’ve told my girls that. I’ve told them they have to be financially secure themselves with a good job so they don’t have to depend on anyone. Laura wants to be an anesthesiologist. She’s got the brains that she could do it too. Mya… too early to tell yet, but I’ve got to try to get her to find something she might enjoy. That one would be an excellent lawyer cuz she’s just ferocious.

The entire time while we were on vacation I would ask him if it was ok that we stopped at the farm or at my school and he’d say, “sure, I don’t want to stress you out, we’ll do whatever you want.”

I just rolled my eyes, gritted my teeth and didn’t say anything. I turned up my ipod and glared out the window. F. Seriously F me.

This weekend we headed up to Slave Lake to go to my brothers wedding. I did his wedding cake and did his wedding pictures. I was 1/2 hr late for the wedding and held it up. I felt bad, but doing the cake prevented me from getting there on time.

If anyone wants me to show up on time, don’t ask me to do anything except for show up, or I’m gonna be late. You’ve still got a 50% chance that I’m going to be late, but asking me to do something on top of that will up it to a 99% chance that I’ll be late. It’s so frustrating that I can’t understand the concept of time. I never have enough time. I waste time and don’t use it efficiently.

Anyway, the wedding was beautiful. They were married on the beach, it was a beautiful summer day, the sun was setting… the exact wedding I wanted to have but didn’t. I took lots of awesome pictures, I’ll work on them, have them developed and put into an album for them as their gift.

It was so good to see my brother’s again. They are truly hilarious and I love to hang out with them. I think having brothers is why I get along with guys better than girls. Girls are so catty and they take the slightest offense to the things I say. Guys just roll with it and are so much more laid back.

We stayed at the Super 8 and played at the waterslide and pool. It was sooooooo much fun! We asked for a later check out and just played hard for 3 hours. I LOVE going to waterslide places like the hotels cuz you can go backwards, on your knees, anyway you want and there’s no one there telling you what to do. It was just a blast! I kept getting water in my brain and it just killed. So my fav. way to go down the slide was backwards on my back. I want one of these in my house. The kids laughed, splashed and goofed around. I was in the middle of the pool and Ryan was coming down the with boys. I turned to get out of the way and Laura pushes me into the middle again saying, “go meet daddy!”. I almost got drowned by Ryan’s huge splash with the boys. We did trains down the slide where 3 - 5 people would slide down at once. It was hilarious. So much fun! I love staying at the Super 8 with the waterslide! We’ll definitely go back.

We had 2 rooms so the kids stayed up until 3am watching cartoons, having pillow fights and goofing around. I was so exhausted cuz for the past 3 days leading up to this wedding, I’ve only been getting 3 hours sleep each night. I just crashed. Thankfully no one complained about the kids goofing around.

On the way home we stopped to say goodbye to my brothers, my mother and all the relatives. I was so glad to be leaving that town. It is such a hole. No wonder I was dying to leave and get out of there as soon as I could when I was younger. I was getting cabin fever from that town and I was only there for 2 days.

We stopped at my old farm where I grew up. The road is grown in with tall grass and the tress are growing so close to the road. No one lives there anymore, it’s just a tree farm and all the buildings have been torn down. A load of memories washed over me as I looked at the pond. I would always sit by the pond, dream, write, play with the frog eggs, play with the cat tails and escape my mothers wrath at the pond. The clumps of trees that housed my fort still stood, I looked to see if I could see my fort, but I’m sure it had been knocked down by weather. The farm looked deserted and ghost like. Nothing was the same except for the trees. I really wished I could just get out and walk around, surrounded by the silence of the wind rustling through the leaves.

After that we stopped off at my elementary school and Jr. High. Again a rush of memories came flying back. I had THE BEST playground as a kid. Looking at all the old tires that were buried in the ground that we were able to play with was nostalgic. The only thing that was taken down was the tire swings, everything else was still in it’s place with new equipment added as well. My kids had a blast playing on everything. I took Laura around the school and explained the classrooms to her. Oh my gosh, they still had the old shuffle board table we’d play on during lunch time and the same old couches we had in the library.

The grass was cut and it just closed my eyes, listened to the wind rustling the leaves of the trees. I smelled the heat from the grass, heard the grasshoppers chirping and remembered the heat I felt in my lungs from running cross country. I looked fondly at the path that I churned up when I was younger. I always came in first among the girls and was usually 2nd in from our entire class. I could never catch Chad who was always in front of me when we raced. I remembered the wonderful feeling of my lungs burning from heat, the unquenchable thirst and my legs burning from all the acid flowing through my legs. The runners high is always fabulous.

I remembered feeling antsy and wanting to leave this little 2 bit town and school. Wanting to go to the big city where the possibilities seemed endless, full of life and excitement. I thought back to all my dreams and hopes and visions of what I wanted the future to be. Then I just shook my head my stupidity…. more like naivety of a sad little girl.

“I often miss this little girl whose dreams had no barriers… who believed in a world where anything is possible with a heart that was full and unbroken.”

hmm… too true. I do miss her…. a lot. I hate being grown up.

I’m taking these Empower vitamins through True Hope and they are seriously the only thing that is saving my marriage. Crazy, but very true. I find that when I come off them I know they are wearing off when I start to pick fights with Ryan and I begin to hate him. Odd, yet very true. If I take them for too long I begin to stay up a night because too much stays in my system and I can’t sleep. I need to figure out the proper dosage.

Right now I’ve been off them for a few days and I’m getting extremely irritable and I really am beginning to hate him again. It just drives me nuts that whenever his father calls, he gets up and go does whatever his dad wants. When I ask him to do stuff he just ignores me…. or just tells me what I want to hear so I’ll shut up, then continue his merry way of doing nothing.

I hate being married. Really. Maybe I should fix that statement. I hate being married to HIM.

We’ve turned into one of those couples that live together and tolerate each other for the kids sake I think. He does his thing, I do my thing, we don’t see each other much and if we do it’s dull and boring. Communication consists of what the kids are up to. It annoys me that he gets up so early to go work out, then comes home exhausted after work and goes straight to bed. He rarely pays any attention to me or the kids. I think he doesn’t like being home, he gets up and leaves the house for hours on end. He’s been working out like crazy and he looks great. He’s been tanning, going to yoga and working out like a dog. He’s also been shaving his body hair as well. My friend who has gone through divorce and the whole, ‘guy cheating on her’ thing is quite leery. She’s suspicious and says that I should be more aware and not so trusting. I do feel a little nagging voice, but Ryan’s such a charmer. He can talk his way out of everything. Of course I’ve already confronted him, but he’s saying it’s all for me. Right. And what about the past 15 years? I dunno. I don’t want to discourage him from working out. I do wonder what he does when he leaves for hours when he isn’t working. He’s always got some sort of valid excuse. Whatever. I just don’t even care anymore what he does. I’ve begged him to spend time with the kids and hang out with us, but unless it’s a forced vacation he’s too busy working out or working.

I don’t wait for him anymore to do things. The kids and I just go out without him. Out of courtesy I will call him and tell him what we’re doing and if he wants he can join us, but he’s always too busy. I’ve stopped doing anything for him. I no longer cook for him or do his laundry or clean up. I’ve given up. I’m just biding my time. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of asking him to do things. I’ve just started to do them myself.

I’m wondering if it’s bad that I really liked being away from Ryan so much. Every time he goes away, I just breathe a sigh of relief. He drives me nuts and I really hate living with him. I wish we could live in separate houses. I’m sure he wishes the same thing. Marriage sucks. It really does. I’m sure once I’m on my vitamins again I’ll change my tune, but right now I’m so annoyed at him.

The kids and I camped at Sandy McNab for 3 days and it was the best 3 days ever! We had so much fun! I wasn’t stressed, or angry or irritated or frustrated at all. I was blissfully happy. The kids and I just went and did whatever we wanted. It was so great! I just loved it.

I’ve been writing in a journal when I go camping. I love to sit amongst the trees, the river, bask in the sun and warmth of the day and just write. It’s so peaceful and serene camping in the mountains in Kananaskis. I love nature so much. Cities drive me crazy. It’s too chaotic for my brain.

I got to see a female deer while camping. We were able to get up to 6ft away from her before the boys screamed and ran after her. Then she bolted out of there. Ridiculous kids. I was so irked. I love Sandy McNab because the campsites are far away from each other, there was hardly anyone there, so the kids and the dog ran out and played in the trees. It was fantastic! It was so relaxing, so low stress and so beautiful. I think I’ll go back again in the middle of August.