L is for LifeSavers

When I was a little kid, I choked on a LifeSaver and my mom told me she thought I was going to die. Some days I wish I would have. I think about everything in everyone's lives that would be different had I not survived that incident, and I don't think there would have been a damaging impact on anyone.
                           
Would Ex have found someone else to marry? Has he now, even though I didn't die? I sometimes wish I would choke on something and die now, even though life isn't that bad anymore. I'm back in school and doing fairly well. I have dinner with friends about once a week. My family is all healthy and getting along. I'm still in therapy (will I ever be done?) and that is moving along as it should. My dogs are both healthy, happy, and currently sleeping on the couch beside me while I write this.

So why the death wish? Now don't get me wrong - I AM NOT suicidal. I just don't particularly want to be alive anymore. Haven't for a very, very (very) long time. Sometime at the beginning of my nightmare of a marriage is when I stopped wanting to live. There is just no zest for life left in me. 
                               
Maybe I used it all up. Maybe I accidentally starved it do death. Maybe I threw it up. Maybe Ex took mine since he didn't have any. Maybe it is just hibernating. Maybe I should go buy some LifeSavers.

K is for Kind

I used to be quite the stalker. I had all of Ex's passwords to facebook, both emails, his favorite forums, and his bank. He gave them to me while we were married, so it's not like I obtained them in a secretive manner, but then he never bothered to change any of them after we split up.

I obsessively checked all of his accounts. I was an addict and checking up on Ex's online activities was my fix. It was awful but I couldn't stop.
                              
Finally, I sent him an email asking him to change his passwords. I couldn't stop on my own; I knew this because I had tried and tried. Ex never answered my email. He just abandoned his old accounts and opened up new ones. What a pain.

Once the damage was done, I became frantic. What had I done? I was cutting off my source. My dealer was dead and it was my fault.
                     
Ex went about the change by answering emails and including his new email address. He got some interesting emails in between. One was from my older sister, who was replying to an email from Ex. He had asked her to "congradulate" (his spelling, not mine) me on my graduation. She was jealous that I had graduated college and was not speaking to me. She replied that she had decided to not speak to me until I learned to "be kind".
                  
My sister saying that I was not kind hurt me in a way that is indescribable. Being kind is a personality trait I strive for, and having one of the most important people in my life say I was unkind stung.

She later did talk to me again even though I had not changed a bit. She told me she was mad at me because I had said something mean...not that she could remember what it was. I apologized for saying whatever I had not said and she thinks everything is fine now.
                                
She never did tell me that Ex wanted to "congradulate" me. I will never forget that. Forgive, but don't forget. There is kind and then there is stupid. I want to be kind, not stupid.
 

J is for Juice

It is still hard to go to the grocery store. It is taking me forever to get out of the habit of buying stuff I don't like but Ex does.

Ex likes orange juice with no pulp.
I like orange juice I have to chew.
I still reach for the orange juice with no pulp.
             
Ex likes expensive salsa with huge chunks.
I like the cheapest, smoothest store-brand salsa.
I still buy the chunky salsa.
               
Ex likes Braeburn apples.
I like apples, period.
I still buy Braeburn apples, even though they are more expensive.
               
Ex likes Olive Garden.
I like Olive Garden.
I can't stand to eat there anymore. It makes me miss him too much.
              
Typing this has made me thirsty. I think I will go pour myself a nice, tall glass of orange juice with extra pulp. Why is there no victory in this?

I is for Insulin

This is a hard one to write. Some things still hurt worse than others...

When I met Ex, his mom had a dog who was very old and about to die. Technically, she was Ex's dog, but he had not been able to care for her and his mom wanted to keep her when he moved, so I didn't think much about him not stepping up to care for his dog. I hate calling her "the dog" but, even if I was using real names here, the poor girl's real name was so stupid. Ex named her after his friend's girlfriend. Weird, much?

I will call her Heart, because she was all heart.
                             
Anyway, Heart was diabetic and on death's door when Ex and I got married. Ex and his mom decided that the desert climate was too hard on Heart, so they decided that she should come and live with me and Ex. I was thrilled - I love dogs.

Heart needed a lot of attention. She needed insulin shots twice a day, twelve hours apart, which required great planning on my part. She ate special food that had to be purchased at the vet, and also, of course, needed to go on walks. I did everything for her. We became fast friends and I spent a lot of time with Heart. Ex patted her on the head every other day or so.
                             
Then came the day that she started having seizures. I don't want to get into it here. Suffice to say, Heart's seizures became rapidly worse and, in a matter of days, they were uncontrollable and she had to be put down. Ex wouldn't go in the room with her; he would have let her die alone. I held her and told her what a wonderful friend she was and then, once she was dead, just cried and cried.
                      
I'm crying now. Heart was my only friend at the time. Ex had fairly efficiently isolated me from everyone, and Heart was my only companion. She was the only one happy to see me when I got home. I still miss her so much.

So this rather long post is in honor of Heart, the greatest friend I could have had at the time. She shall forever be loved and missed. I will always be grateful for her friendship during my darkest days.

H is for Hypoglycemia

As a continuation of "G", I thought it would be fun to tell you about another illness that Ex thought he had: hypoglycemia...and yet he would go for hours and hours without eating.

On our first (and only) anniversary, we went to a fairly large city about five hours from where we lived. Ex wanted to wait until we got there to eat lunch. So we waited. We always did what Ex wanted to do. We got to the hotel, checked in, and Ex proceeded to watch television. (Have I mentioned that Ex claimed to HATE television and yet watched it for hours every day?)  I got ready to go while Ex watched a movie and then we watched it together.
                             
I was starving by the time Ex finally got ready to go out. We had eaten no lunch and now dinner time was long gone, as well. We finally got in the car but Ex kept passing restaurants because they weren't good enough for him. He said he wanted to eat a nice meal and kept driving. It had been so long since we had eaten that I was lightheaded and feeling like I might throw up. Ex wouldn't even stop at a gas station so I could get crackers.
                        
Finally, he stopped in a little neighborhood and we got out to walk around and find a nice place to eat. The problem was, it was past ten o'clock at this point and everything was closed. We finally found a Japanese restaurant that was open until eleven. It was delicious, although I would have eaten sandpaper at that point and found it satisfying.
                            
Ex barely touched his food. He did, however, order Sake. He drank the hot water in the pitcher that was there to keep the Sake warm. He thought it tasted weak. I didn't tell him he was drinking water. Mr. Hypoglycemia needed to figure it out himself, yes?

G is for Grandpa

Ex's grandfather developed Alzheimer's disease at a fairly early age. Ex, being the Negative Nancy that he was, firmly believed that he, too, would get Alzheimer's.

Then Ex's mother started showing signs of dementia. Ex immediately decided that this confirmed his belief that he would die of the disease and he gave up. Ex stopped making plans for the future. Anytime anything in the future was mentioned, he would make a biting remark about how at least one of us would be around to enjoy it.
                             
Finally, I was too drained by his negativity to even be scared of him anymore. The last time he told me he was getting Alzheimer's, I calmly told him that it was a possibility that it would ruin the end of his life. Then I told him that, by worrying about it and obsessing over it constantly, Ex was letting it ruin his entire life. Even though he didn't have Alzheimer's, he was dying of it.
                          
Amazingly enough, Ex heard me. That was the last time he mentioned it. His mood seemed to lift and brighten a bit. Although brighter than pitch black is still pretty dark.