Curiosity

Okay, so maybe I am opening a can of worms with the next post but I feel I need to write this down.

A couple of years ago, John and I were going through a very rough patch in our marriage. There were issues with us involving my ability to let John parent, intimacy issues and John feeling like a third wheel with Shawn and I.

John did not have many friends around to talk to at that time, so he confided in a friend who was female via email. I had no knowledge of this *relationship* that he was building although I do know this person. She had been to our house with other friends and at one point worked with John. I used to send her Christmas cards. She used to be really heavy but had gastric bypass and now was thin, so she had a perspective on the weight issues. She was also outgoing and adventurous in MANY aspects of her life. She was also safe for him to talk to.

How I found out about his confiding in her via email was that I went on our computer one day, opened Yahoo and his account was still open. This was an email account I did not even no existed. So I looked. I am not proud of my snooping but my curious nature may have actually saved our marriage. I forwarded all the emails to my email account to look at later as I was in too much shock to read most of them.

I saw email after email of him and her talking about Shawn, my weight issues, our sex life or lack there of. It was all put out there. I have to say if an outsider viewed the conversations, they would say she really was trying to help him and there was nothing going on with them but to me I did not see that. What I saw was my husband having intimate conversations with another woman. Granted most of the emails were about me and talking about my issues and issues John and I were having but at first I did not quite see it that way. The emails were a couple of months old but flipped out.

I confronted him about the emails and he and I really started to talk. For the first time in months, he and I really talked about what was going on in our marriage. I told him my feelings about what he was telling her. That he was telling her things that were so intimate and having an intimate relationship with her that he was not having with me and that is how affairs get started. I guess the hardest part in all of this for me is that another woman knew every intimate detail about our sex life or lack thereof. She even knew when I was having my period.

I know he was just seeking help in trying to find a way to repair the damage in our marriage but it took me a long time to get over this and there are times when I think of it and feel scared and sad. I believe if I had not found those emails we most likely we would still not be together. That was a big wake up call for me and since then our marriage has had some bumps but nothing like it was before. I did keep the emails and I am not sure why. I did reread them every now and then. Again not sure why but maybe just to keep as a reminder of what happened. Maybe to punish myself when I was feeling down about myself. I can say it took me almost two years to delete the emails but I finally did it. I had to let go of the past and move on look towards the future.

So what happened to the *other* woman? They stopped communicating. He thinks he sent her an email saying that things were better but she never replied back. Maybe she was starting to have feelings towards him.

So why bring this up now? Facebook. I looked for her and found her. She still looks good and has not put back on any of the weight. She is also still single. I hope she finds someone someday but it better not be my man because she cannot have him. He is my husband and I love him very much.

This Morning's Rant

I realize that John had surgery last week but I also know that he is taking very little, if any, pain meds. He should be able to drive.

I also realize that he is not a morning person so him getting up early is NOT normally something I can count on.

Shawn has been dragging lately in the morning. He sometimes changes his clothes 2-3 times and he has no sense of urgency in leaving in the morning. So my frustation level in the morning is starting to increase.

John was still laying in bed, partially asleep, while I am pushing Shawn to get moving. I see the time and I am starting to realize I am pretty close to being late to work. Did John even remotely stir? Um, no. After about 10 minutes he walks down the stairs and he can tell something is wrong.

I tell him that it would have been nice if he could have volunteered to take Shawn the last few days of this week to daycare/school to give me a break. He has an opportunity to take Shawn to school, which rarely presents itself and he is not helping me by taking advantage of it.

He apologized and is now taking Shawn to school the next two days. I will now be able to get in a bit early, leave earlier and take the little lagger to the pool.

The Social Networking Phenomenon

So having joined Facebook and getting to find friends I have not spoken with in years, I am asking myself, how did I lose touch with some of my old friends. Did our friendships mean so little to me or to them to not keep in touch? Where we even that good of friends to begin with? I also looked at my old yearbook and read some of the comments that were left for me. I was sweet, let's get together during the summer and keep in touch. Keep in touch. There is that phrase again.

Was it my fault that we never kept in touch or was it theirs? At this point, does it really matter? To me it does. I really looked at why I stopping communicating with my friends and I came to a startling conclusion. I became involved with a guy. Well I guess, I should rephrase that. I became all consumed with the guy and his friends and his lifestyle that I simply forgot everyone around me prior to the boyfriend. I have a hard time juggling multiple people in my life. I do great with one and even okay with two but even my marriage suffered at times when I could not juggle John and Shawn but I managed to pull that together. Anything over three, I just cannot seem manage.

I feel so torn about who I should be spending time with. If I want to go out with a friend, I feel guilty for leaving Shawn and John. If I stay home, I am ignoring a friend. I feel like I cannot resolve feeling conflicted. So, I stay home with the most important people in my life and lose friends. That is the choice I make and I have to live with that.

So getting back to why I stopped *keeping in touch.* I guess that is what happened. I stopped trying to juggle the people in my life and chose one or two. Well seeing that I am not with any of my past boyfriends, did I make the right decision? Most likely not but I have to live with the choices I made. I guess in some ways, having joined facebook gives me the opportunity to get back in touch with the people who did mean something to me at certain times of my life and see if we still can connect as friends. There are some friends I cannot find and some who are no longer with us but I am trying to remake connections because I think it is important for me to at least apologize for not keeping in touch.

He loves me, He loves me not

I am the type of person who needs reassurance and I have always been that way. Maybe it is my low self esteem but it feels good to know that I am loved and that everything is okay. This past Tuesday, I had one of these moments that made me realize how much my husband loves me.

My husband John had hernia surgery that day. I was worried about him and the surgery but I knew everything would be okay. I heard the call of OR1 to recovery room and knew since he was the first one into surgery, that it was done and he was headed to recovery. What I did not expect was within minutes, I would be called into the recovery room to see him.

I guess while he was coming out of the anesthesia on the way to recovery he was calling for me and getting combative because he wanted to know where I was and see me. Rather than trying to calm him down, they called me in. He saw me, held out his hands and grabbed my hand. He then held my hand to his cheek and kept saying he loved me. The nurses thought it was so sweet. I guess at that moment, any doubt I ever had of whether my husband truly loves me went away.

Hello old friend

It has been so long since I last posted. I feel like I am welcoming a friend back into my life.

Things have changed yet stayed the same. I am the heaviest I have ever been, Shawn is now 6 and playing little league and John's job is no longer secure. However, my life has not really changed. We still are trying to get our house back together but our house has been in chaos for so long I am not sure how to handle the fact that it is getting back to normal. What is now normal?

My work has changed some as my job remains the same but most of the players are different. I do have a new boss but I have worked with her for so long, I do not really see the change.

I guess that is how I let myself get heavier. I have been fat for so long that the extra 15 or so pounds did not seem to register in my head. My body felt it but my head not so much.

So now I am the fattest female at work. I am the fattest in my family and John's family. I am the fattest mom at daycare and school. Basically, I am the fattest of any person I know. Whoo fucking hoo, I get the prize.

So what do I do now? Well, I guess I will do what I do every time I feel like this. I will start to eat healthier whilst trying to justify my cheating moments. I cancelled WeWa due to money issues so I now am looking at Sparkpeople, which is free, to help lead me in the right direction.

So as I eat my WeWa ice cream since it is cake and ice cream day at work, I will ponder what I have to do to get healthy and lighter.

4th Of July

So I realize this was a few days ago but I had to write about it. This was the BEST 4th of July I have ever had.

Let me first start by saying that I am not a 4th of July person. When I was in the 8th grade, our neighbor's house caught on fire from a bottle rocket and it scared me so bad I did not sleep in the house for a week. I slept on a lounge chair in my sleeping bag. Getting caught in a fire is probably my greatest fear.

I was also in the middle of a riot in downtown Huntington Beach in 1993. I had a firecracker explode off my leg and someone threw a flower down my shirt. So, two not so great experiences.

As a kid, we used to have block parties which were great but the house fire pretty much killed any excitement for me for fireworks. Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with firework shows like Disneyland. It is the ground stuff and illegal in the air things.

Fast forward to this year. My cousin, Melody, her husband, Tom, and their 31/2 year old son, Zach, were here from Missouri. I have not seen Mel or Tom in a long time. Mel and I were very close growing up along with her twin sister Merri. Both sang at my wedding. Along with Mel, Tom and Zach, John's BFF Star Wars buddy Todd and his daughter Calystia were also in town. They just moved back from Colorado.

Since my mom has been out of commission I hosted the BBQ at their house. We all had a blast. I did what I love to do, which is hosting a party with all the fixings. I had not had an opportunity to do in years. I am pretty sure I surprised some people with my *hosting* skills. The kids played together pretty nicely and just hanging out with family and friends felt really good. We were able to watch the neighboring city's private country club's fireworks show from chairs on my parent's street and the neighbor did some ground fireworks, which are illegal. I enjoyed those as well and did not freak out at the sight of them which is a nice change.

When we got home, I did make John check the smoke detectors before going to bed but the most important thing was that I really had a great time. The best part about the day???? I actually slept the whole night without any nightmares or freaking out that I wander around the house smelling for smoke.

Jury Duty

Those two words can send shivers down the spine of most people. That letter that tells you, *Congratulations, you get to sit around a room with a bunch of people you do not know trying to figure out if any life experience will get you out of it.*

I received one of those letters a couple of days ago. The kicker, it is NOT for Superior court but for Federal. It is not a one day, one trial type service but a be on call for 8 days or one trial. Nobody I know has ever has this service before and I am going on my second round of Federal Service.

I am almost 40 and I have had a jury summons almost every year since I was 18. How the hell does it happen that there are people who are my age and has NEVER had it?

I do understand the need for normal people to be able to sit on a jury to ensure that justice is served whether it is a guilty or not guilty verdict. I understand that we are the keepers of justice. The only problem with me being on a jury is I have slowly discovered that I pretty much hate stupid people. I do not want to be the keeper of the stupid or insane.

So for a brief, okay not so brief moment, I thought about not responding and ignoring that letter. Hell, I even searched the Internet to see what can happen to me if I do ignore it. What are they going to do, send the jury police after me? Like that is money well spent.

So do I toss it? No, I filled out my form like a good little citizen. I informed my boss of the letter and what that meant. John and I are working on a plan for him to drop off and pick up Shawn if he needs to. I am picking out a good book to read. We are covering all our bases.

I will serve my country as a potential juror and hope that I either get picked early or not at all. I do not want to be the poor sap picked on the last day of my call in service day and get some 18 day capital punishment murder trial.

Why do I now want to sit on such a case you ask...I could never not talk about it for that long and do not even talk to me about sequester.