Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett

Well I guess there is nothing like BIG news to take one out of one's own life for awhile. Between the divorce of Jon and Kate, and then the expected death of Farrah and the totally out of the blue death of Michael, wow, I have found some distraction this week for me.

I have never been a huge fan of Michael Jackson. Even though he is truly my peer, I remember liking his music as a kid but that was about it. It is almost now, that I see and read so much about his career, that I now get it. Far from his huge career, for me, he is overshadowed by his total weirdness for the last 15 years or so. I have to think that for the average person out there, we all think this. The plastic surgeries, his "children" the molestation accusations and the trial, the leaving the country to Bahrain (I did NOT even know he was back in the US) these are all the things I thought when I thought Michael Jackson. But the education I am getting in the news the last couple of days surely shows he was a muscial genius and a huge part of pop music and culture. Maybe I just don't get that into being a fan of anyone.

But I find myself most bothered that he was addicted to prescription drugs and had so many people enabling him and his problem. It always rears its ugly head "enable" here it is again.
And another person totally NOT in reality and dillusional and so many people just looking the other way. I hate how we do this with the average every day person, but clearly this is all over the place with celebrities. And it is all so stupid-all a celebrity is is someone we have seen so many times that they are now part of our mind--advertising at its finest.

Then you have Farrah. Now I can go as far to say I was a fan. Not knock em down drag em out fan, but I did think she was pretty great when I was growing up. I loved her look far more than the Marilyn Monroe kind of look, or the later day Pam Anderson or Anna Nicole Smith look.Farrah was like a real beauty and she was sweet and and sincere. She is a total icon.

But she hooked her wagon to men who were bad choices. Certainly Ryan Oneal. What a piece of work--I have read so much about him. He clearly is a narcissist and sounds like a sex addict and just drew her in and kept her in his crappy world. I hate the way he said when she was so sick
"I fell in love with her all over again." Why does it have to be one bit about him? And wanting to marry her before she died--just bizarre! Some sick twisted "romantic" notion of a total narcissist--again about him. Thank god it did not come to pass and she left this world single. I wish she had kept him dumped and out of her life. And I hope her son pulls himself together, that is a real tragedy.

So I am just blown away by all that we see about these people, the way they left the world, both with lives shattered --either by a terrible death of cancer or by years of speculation and questions and the changing into rather a macabe figure who no one knew anymore. And enablement, seems to always be front and center, and narcissim. It just sits there on the fence, part of all of these stories and making its way into our lives more and more. What is fame anyhow? Just people knowing your face. In the end we all end up with a white sheet over our face. I think we all hope that first paragraph of our obituary will not be filled with facts we would not have wanted to become our defining moments, but rather, good things.

Jon and Kate

Well I am sure there are hundreds of blogs and articles written all the time right now about Jon and Kate. It is kind of a phenomenon that it has become part of the fabric of our culture, maybe the whole world knows about them, imagine that stress.

I had never heard of the show until my daughter found out a year or so ago from her friend across the street. My daughter fell in love at first sight. Someone who loves family and cannot wait to have children of her own, she would watch the show for hours if she could. Honestly I only saw a little bit here and there. I thought Kate seemed kind of crabby, and I thought Jon seemed terribly immature. I sure called it! And little did I know at the time how much it mirrored my own life!

I, like the rest of the world, who were not really fans, suddenly became intensely aware of Jon and Kate in the last month or so when pictures surfaced of Jon in the late ..or really very early morning hours, hanging out with some chic who was not his wife. For many of us, that was it.
I do NOT care if there was nothing going on, and c'mon there was!! it is totally inappropriate for a MARRIED MAN AND FATHER to be out with any woman except his wife. CRAZY. Why wasn't he home with his children (I believe Kate was on a business trip.)

And then like we know, the story snowballed from there, and suddenly like finding out the terrible private details of a neighbor's marriage, the whole world found out about them. I have to say in the beginning of all of this, I was a bit in the middle. I felt like Kate was a bit of a prima donna, enjoying the nice life . Manicures, tanning, teeth whitening, nice clothes..it just did not seem what a mom of 8 should be spending so much time on. While I still think she has gotten a bit lost in the idea of celebrity...now that another few weeks have passed, and now that I saw them on the infamous episode last night announcing their separation/divorce, I just really had a change of heart.

Jon is an ass. Did he really say he is "excited." Beyond unbelievable. He acts like a college student. Listen, bud, you got married and you wanted kids--you got 8. Your life is not about having two pierced ears (really, when did he do that??) going out drinking, and being "excited" about ending your marriage. I wanted to throw up. This guy is so immature. I know 32 is pretty young, but he is acting so bad now, like he really went off the deep end. Like SO MANY men and I know one...who decide, life is better out there--there is sex and fun and wild women and parties and no crabby bitch at home to tell me what to do--watch out!! And let me say, YUCK. Get yourself together. You are not young, you have children and you made a commitment. I hate the way that is has become so EASY just to walk away, and the way society makes it so acceptable.

I grieve for Kate, as I know what she is feeling, and her grief is 8x mine. She is clearly sad and devastated, and does not want to have this be the future for herself and her kids. She does not want them to be labeled, and I totally get that. It is awful to have a marriage fail. I think Kate might be a bit much to deal with, but hey she has EIGHT kids--I am not sure any of us would be any better. She certainly seems devoted and on top of things and is not looking to become Miss Single out on the town screwing around, like her dearly departed husband.

So I just had to get on my soap box about this. I really feel for her. I feel like he was somehow convinced by friends or family members that Kate was ruining his life--didn't he say something like he let her rule the roost, but now he is standing up for himself and proud of it--YUCK. Get a grip buddy, you are married with kids--welcome to marriage with kids.

Our society has made it way too easy to just walk away--not legally, but morally. MEN for the most part blame their wives, they were just not fun enough, not sexy enough, not hot enough, not nice enough, did not give them plenty of attention..ENOUGH--why are there so many men who are forever little boys. Oh not to say there are plenty of loser women out there too--who also think they are going to go have some great new lives, who will drag their children through their endless dating and hook ups, and will blatantly along with their ex husbands show them lives and activities and concepts that are NOT meant for children, and thousands of children will lose the fabric of a solid home--and their parents will do this to them. Parents who decided to stop being parents, stop being grown ups, and worry too damn much about their good times and fun and sexuality and put their kids on the back of the stove.

I am LUCKY. I grew up with real parents. My dad is 80, and he WOULD never abandon his family. He would never run around and worry about his love life. He was committed 24/7. My mom stayed home with us, and did a million things beyond raise 7 children. Never once did I worry my mom was not a role model for a good woman for me--she was clean cut, and honest, and pretty, and taught me how to be a lady and my brothers how to be men.

So now we all witness yet another failed marriage and I wonder, what is the future of the American family?

Butterfly

I feel like I went in full reverse the last week. All the "work" I did, all the ground I covered, all the strides I made, it all fell by the wayside. I am quite intrigued by the way the human heart works, and so tough it is to control where we go. Oh I know, there are tons of people out there who don't relate to this at all, and probably find me stupid (I can certainly name one) who would make fun of me and what I am writing, some stupid middle age chic who cannot get past her past. Oh well. I on some level agree. I don't even want to be where I am at. It is like this visitor that just showed up at my front door and barged in and I did not have the chance to shut the door, let alone say "only for one night." This visitor seems to play by their own rules. So I am stuck with the visit. There is a lot crashing down on my these days, and I am overwhelmed with the thought of a great future when I can barely find the day something I look forward to. I want to, but I am having a tough time. I did read another blog tonight though that helped a bit. Talking about the dear sweet caterpillar that must cocoon in order to become the butterfly. How it cannot skip that step or rush that step (if someone tries to help it escape, it will die..) So that is it, I am this sad little caterpillar, waiting in a tight dark cocoon for some glorious day ahead. At this very moment I cannot even see it. I just feel the tight dark cocoon. And I hate being enclosed in dark spaces (I actually get out of elevators that are too crowded.) So maybe beyond my broken little heart, I feel a bit caged in with myself and struggling for the light to come when I can fly away.

Heavy Heart

You know, I have a heavy heavy heart these days. I feel like I stepped into a dimension where time stands still and emotions are forever--I will forever have a heavy heart and be broken hearted. This has been my reality. I find it hard to believe I will ever not love my husband, be over him, that this all will be my past, so past that I hardly relate to it. I believe that I must move past it to have a future, but in the very moment I find it hard to imagine that one day I will look back and read this and say "wow those days are gone." I hate the fact that I have to let it all go. I don't want this to be my reality. I feel like I lived so much on a whim, did not consider my own self in all of this, how I would deal down the road with my heart repairs, how brutal they would be, how they would shake me to my core, while the rest of the world moves on, and it must, and I get that, and there are probably millions of "us" at any given moment roaming the earth, lost inside with no future plan, but I know for me, I don't want to hang out with "us" how depressing that sounds. So I live in my own little world oh so often, and I have no control as it just pops up when I don't even want it to. I go running, and come home, and am overwhelmed with tears and find myself with my hands in prayer, kneeling, unable to speak, hoping somehow the universe will hear my call. The loneliness over losing one's best friend is agonizing and the toughest thing to endure. It is not like I can just go out and find some new best friend. Remember in Forrest Gump, when Forrest is heartbroken at Jenny's grave..that is how I feel.

No Change

It has been a tough week. Like when the doctor says of the patient, "no change" that is how I felt about me this past week, if I was diagnosing myself. It is so sly, but suddenly all the power that has built up, all the "I am moving past it" all falls to the way side, and I am back to being sad. Like I did not even see it happening. I had the worst dreams last night. One like I have had before, spilling my heart to my husband, over and over how much I loved him, and it is like he is not hearing me, as he shows me all the things in the dream he recently bought. I am so distraught in the dream, and while I did not wake up crying, I remember so clearly sobbing in my dream.

I count on my hands how long we have been separated, as if every day I will suddently find another month or two or year in there, when it was just yesterday that I counted, wait, let me count again, February, March, April, May, part of June, yep just 4 months, since February was near the end. Four lousy months. Not much can happen in 4 months. Yet I get stuck in the fact that I should be on some whole other plane by now, out of my marriage, but for all practical purposes I am still very much in my marriage, just now I am alone and cry alone. I actually found myself thinking today when I was at a bookstore, what would happen if I rounded the corner and there he was. I believed that I would probably just burst into tears. See, I cannot get past that I was not enough. I did NOT want to ever get divorced and I never thought we would. I am having such a tough time letting the illusion of what I thought was a lifetime partner, but none the less, someone I adored with every fiber of my being, letting this go. I know I must, I know I have no choice, I even believe that it was divine intervention that brought me to this place, but I find no real solace in that day to day.

I have been here before years ago with him. The world does not give us long to get over a broken heart. The world has its own problems. So after awhile it is just assumed that we are fine, but really we are not, but we have to at least act like we are. And now it is so much further down the road, and I shudder at the thought that is going to take me months, years? to get past all this, and in the meantime the youth of my life is quickly leaving me, certainly all too fast, and in these years I thought I would be having the best of times, and instead I am having the worst. Whether illusion or not, I was in love with my best friend, so my best friend was always with me, whether in person on in my heart. Now this is gone. And letting it go is so very hard. Plenty of people don't consider their spouse their best friend and I feel for them, marriage is so much fuller if you feel this for your spouse. I have so much good fortune, I know I am so very lucky. But it does not fix my broken heart or stop my tears. And that is all I can write at this time, I just don't want to cry anymore.

Back in the Storm

I recall mourning can skip stages or go backwards just maybe when you think you are moving forward. That clearly happened to me today. I could feel it coming on, like this quiet storm that is just edging along the coastline, before I could even see it in plain view, I knew it was coming

It is all around the )(%$#* Parenting Plan that Washington has parents come up with who are getting divorced.

I don't think there is anything worse than getting divorced with kids.

I just want to let that line linger there for a bit..

And I just caught myself in a pose I had forgotten--the "Mourning Card" Tarot pose, the holding of the head in one's hands while crying. How did I get back to this????

The Parenting Plan.

Too much email back and forth with someone I don't want to talk to. I wonder why I even have an attorney...and then to hear over and over how someone is planning every other Christmas holiday to visit family in Florida with my daughter...and yet, this never happened when we were married. I cannot believe it..How many times I brought the idea up, and was always told "I don't want to go there..let's go to Hawaii, California.." But NOW, all of the sudden, Florida is on the docket. Out of the blue, being with family is on the docket. It is like when women are sad when an old boyfriend they had, ends up marrying someone else--I feel like, "oh he just did not want to do that with me. Now that he got rid of me, look at him and all his family activity." And so it hurts me, and I hate the fact that I feel this way. I hate the fact that his M.O. is always to move on, and act like something else did not matter. It is so the way it is--I am left alone in the corner and someone I know just moves on like I never mattered.

I am so angry that I find myself in this space again, and recognize that no good comes for me from communication, it is the communication that goes on and on, the communication, like in the relationship, seeks to win and beat me down and get their way, my how I lived this for so long. I can see how I feel the way I felt so often. So bullied. And always feel like there is deception in all of it (I just did not get that part for all those years.)

So I wonder, when won't I care? I guess it will happen, like all other events in our lives, things just fade away.

Then of all things tonight my daughter has to ask me if I regret marrying her dad (as the dad in a show we watched actually asked his wife that..) and while I tell her it is complicated and grown up, I tell her one thing for sure, I adored her dad, every single person I know knows that, maybe not him. I never thought I would be getting divorced from her dad. But that is the way it is. I am troubled as to what to say. I do tell her that her dad broke my heart many times. I will not lie. How can she understand that I basically lived in an illusion with someone who had no understanding of what marriage is and now runs freely like he has no regrets. Again, leaving me in the corner.

It is in these moments that I must hold on, and hold on tight, to what I am, who I am, what I can do, what my future holds, because in these moments I find it hard to recall and find myself right back front and center with a broken heart.