Thank you all, catching back up. It seems time skips by a few months and then I think of this board and you all again. Had a weird dream about XH last night. Seems that happens once in a while. The kids are always littler in my dreams, like back when we were married, and we are in our family home. But my perception of my XH has always changed in the dreams, like it's back then, but also, that I know what I know now and that he's different. It's weird.
So, I last wrote about our trip and we had a great time, but it wasn't without it's travails. Our drive over the mountains was great and we got to Denver but my new car (new to me) that I had gotten in January to replace the one that got totaled started acting up. It was a Saturday and I knew there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it until Monday. This is where probably my transferrable skills from BD come in! I knew it was out of my control. We limped it to the B&B and I got online and made an appointment with the closest dealer that had a Monday morning appointment and we proceeded to commence with our great weekend. We walked everywhere and thankfully our things were pretty close to where B&B was. Monday limped the car to the dealership and got some tough news. Major components of the transmission failed and had to have a total transmission replacement. Rental car for 10 days and had to go back to Denver to get my car almost 2 weeks later. Feeling completely like a helpless woman who had been tricked by someone but not sure who. $6700 later and the warranty company only paid $1900 for it. Not sure who screwed me over, if it was car company, warranty company or the new dealership, but in the end I just had to take the hit. Have been praying that God would replace some of that money lost and he has brought some into my life, like housesitting opportunities, overtime at work, and just recently, another part-time side job that I can do from home after my other job. Again, after fighting for what I thought was right, I just had to admit defeat and take the hit. Knowing that this too shall pass. Will definitely have to take someone more knowledgeable of cars with me if I ever go get a new car in the future, to make sure that I don't get taken advantage of. It makes me so mad! But I'm to the acceptance stage now, just a few months later. And my car is doing great, but I do worry that something else will go wrong.
My Summer has been good. I've gotten in a few paddle boarding excursions but not as many as I'd like. We had about 6 weeks of working 4-10 hour days so it was hard to get anything accomplished when I got off as I was pretty exhausted and Fridays were supposed to be fun but turned into a day to get some appointments done for mom and myself. Boring! But necessary. The weekend is always a mix of trying to get housework, yard work, and find time for rest too. I finally broke down last weekend and bought an electric lawnmower. I've got a small yard, but when we moved in here at the end of 2016 I bought one of those push mowers (the old fashioned nothing but blood sweat and tears kind) for $35 on Facebook marketplace. It takes me about 45 minutes every 2 weeks to pull the weeds from the yard, push mow the yard, and then take scissors and trim the grass around the edges. I've been doing this since Spring of 2017! It's gotten increasingly more difficult for me to do the last few years and my mower blades were getting duller and duller but I always told myself it's a good workout, lol. I bought the little electric mower and it took 2 minutes to mow! Oh my goodness. I also bought a trimmer and blower combo. Decided that I could get my workouts in another way.
We've been crazy busy at work all summer which is our usual, but we've also added another layer of skills to our every day work (yes SB I am still with the school district) and so once we went back to our 5 8's I could not keep up with the demand and it's been more like 5 9's
As a refresher, I moved over from Special Needs Para in an elementary school to Receptionist/Mailroom Manager in 2019. After 2020, they moved me in to HR. One, because they couldn't backfill a position, and 2 because they could see that my potential to learn and my skillset was being underutilized in the reception position. I continued to do Reception/MRM but also started picking up HR skills. In 2021 they merged the position all-together into one Umbrella under HR Assistant and I had to re-apply and interview because it moved pay-grades. In 2022, an outside market review showed them that they weren't paying me enough and that I was doing way more than an "Assistant" so I got another raise and a title change to "Technician" - this position has been a Godsend and I am learning so much. I may try to move into one of the Specialist positions as some of the older ladies retire. I love my work team and my boss. We have a great team and the culture is wonderful. No toxicity whatsoever. I also do not get micro-managed, am allowed to take sick time for my Mom's appointments, etc. So, so blessed. It's not without it's hiccups, but all-in-all, I love my job!
Last month I got to go stay in an Air B&B with my brother and SIL and one of our High School friends and her family. It was an old fashioned Drive-in back in the day, where I worked from shortly before I turned 15 until I graduated just before I turned 18. They kept some of the nostalgic things like the old ice cream flavor signs, the carhop trays that go on the windows, etc. but turned it into a functioning Air B&B with hot tub, climbing wall, mini golf, corn hole, etc. It was my 2 brother's 30th High School reunion and when I attended public High School for the first time as a sophomore where I barely knew anyone, the Seniors were who I hung out with, so I went with my brother as his plus one to the BBQ and my SIL stayed at the Air B&B. The next night my other brother showed up, my SIL went with B1 to the dinner and I could have gone as the plus one for B2, but our friend's daughter needed someone to stay and hang out with her so she and I hung out at the Air B&B. They insisted on paying for my portion because they wanted it to be a respite from having my Mom all the time, as they know how much I do for her. While in my hometown, I went with another classmate to visit the former secretary of our private school we attended when I was younger who was getting on in years and lived alone. It was obvious to us that she does not have the same type of support as my Mom does and I felt for her. I am hoping to go back and see her soon and take my Mom with me as they worked together at the school, my mom as a teacher. I know she could use the company, even if it takes a bit for her and my Mom to recognize each other.
Next weekend 2 of my Aunt's are coming to a town nearby and have rented a hotel room in Cedaredge, where my Mom and I will go up Friday night and stay the night with them. Then on Saturday we will all go up to the Grand Mesa, which is a beautiful place to spend time at. If you don't know anything about the Grand Mesa in Colorado, it's just remarkable. It's about 10,000 feet in elevation with over 300 lakes. It's about a 500 square foot flat top mountain, which makes it the largest flat top mountain in the world. Every Summer when I was a kid we would rent a cabin up there for about $8 a night, which was a lot of money for our family of 7 to fork up back in the 80's. But always worth it for the good times we had. Mom also worked up there at one of the lodges when she was a teenager. Last Saturday, D22 and M and I went for a drive and spent a couple hours up there before we had to get D back home for work. M was reminiscing about her teenage years in the lodge when we drove by it.
In September, I am headed to London and am super excited about that. Thankfully I had just paid my SIL for my airfare and hotel room right before my transmission went out in June so didn't have to worry about that payment on top of the unexpected expenses. I've been trying to get some extra $ tucked away for food and excursions while we are there. B and SIL are going, my nephew and his GF, my S24 and my D22. S19 is staying behind this time and he along with my younger B and a couple other people will be checking in on Mom. I have a couple cameras that I can check in on too and have set her up with grocery delivery while I'm gone. We will be gone for 9 nights, with the first night being an overnight flight. S24, D22 and I are sharing a room to save on expenses so it will be tight, but we don't care at all! We are just excited to be going.
So as always, you can see that there is definitely life after BD! I never would have believed at the time that I would be able to travel and do some of the things that I do. Yes, there are days that it is incredibly hard feeling like you are doing it all alone, but I have such a great support network. I woke up this morning thinking that next year is 2025 already. The end of 2015 is when BD happened. This Fall will be 9 years. How can that be? And yet, it is. Time marches on. Next month is my Anniversary of joining Hero Spouse back in 2016. I arrived here about 9 months after BD and 5 months after D was final. Incredible.
For any newbies reading the board, I stood for my marriage until 2020. Sometimes I wonder if I wasted my time standing and then I remember the incredible work that God did in my own life during that time and I no it wasn't all for naught. It's shaped me into who I am today, and if there is to be a future relationship, it will benefit from that unwavering loyalty and stance and the work that I did on myself during that time. And it caused me to be 100% focused on my kids when they needed me the most. They are incredible adults, just absolutely precious. We will never ever regret the tight knit strong family we were together, the 4 of us during those rocky years. And now, for whatever reason, my focus is on my M and what she needs and watching my kids fly, knowing that I raised them to do just that.
I am not sure where a relationship fits into that. And I don't have the answers. And maybe no relationship does. But I'm not desperate for it. I'm not "missing" a part of me. I am whole, and if there is to be one down the line, that wholeness will only benefit myself and any future partner I might have.
I know that if I were to hop onto a dating app tomorrow, I would have a plethora of possibilities. The reason that I don't have a relationship isn't because I'm out there trying and failing. It's because I am choosing to go about it a different way. Will that change in the future? Perhaps. But for now, I am happy and content just staying off the radar, so to speak!
Living Through The Ghost
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