Still alive...

So the day of my last post was a day my life changed.  I noticed that evening that my husband was not talking much at all and I tried to get him talking to see if he was just choosing to be quieter than normal or if he really was having an issue.  Of course it was an issue.  We got an emergency neuro appt the next day and they started treating him with IV steroids and planning for a weeklong stay at a specialty unit in the Syracuse VA.

Long story short - I did get a part in the musical and I had to turn it down and bow out completely because that week my life changed significantly as I became full time caregiver to my husband whose MS had definitely gotten much worse.

I am now blogging at "www.marriedtothemonster.com" although not very regularly there either.

Because you matter too...

One of my husband's healthcare providers (a social worker in one of his clinics) gave me a hug on Wednesday when I sorely needed one and told me that it was because I matter too.

It's nice to hear this once in awhile, she is a great person for always noticing me and what I'm feeling.  Down is what I was feeling Wed, very down.  Her attention helped.

His illness is all consuming.  It has taken over every part of our life, my life.  He wants people to see him for who he used to be and not who he has become so he lies.  He talks to old high school friends and he lies.  He has inappropriate conversations with other women and he lies.

I know I'm here day in and day out and he can't lie to me about his illness or it's severity so he seeks others who don't know and he tries to make himself feel like he used to because they don't know or understand that he is not at all who he used to be.

The latest instance was with a friend he had from high school, a woman of course.  Some chatting got way out of hand in my opinion.  I know and understand his illness and that impulse control is nearly zero for him.  What I want to know is why she went along with it?  She is supposedly in a relationship and happy and she KNOWS he is married, happy or not you don't go there with someone else's husband, not if you have any class that is.  Maybe it's just me being pissed off, but I have spent the last 4 days writing a letter to let her know she has been played, and that I have caught her out and that I am NOT amused and wish her to just drop off the face of the earth.

Somehow not finding the nerve to push send right now.  But I will, yep I am going to tell this woman to BACK OFF my husband, or maybe I'll offer to drop him and his dirty laundry and many problems off on her doorstep, that is if she really wants him so bad?

Promises broken...

I know that his disease really does affect his thinking.  I know he has dementia and cannot always help the things he says and the things he does.

Part of me can forgive him over and over and over for the same offenses.

Part of me dies a little inside with each new lie, each promise broken.

Part of me wishes walking away were an option.

Part of me wishes that I could make him feel just a fraction of the pain he makes me feel.

But it's a disease.  And it isn't in me to do the things he does over and over just to get even.

And it isn't in me to leave.

Today I don't like him very much at all.

And despite it all I still love him.

Trying to save him from himself...

And it just gets me burned.  He resents me, yells at me, tells me to shut up.  Meanwhile he tells everyone far more than they need to know and sometimes more than they should know.  If I try to stop him to save whatever can be saved I get screamed at.

It's been a bad day.

Don't Fall in Love With A Dreamer...

Cause he'll break you every time.

Just when you think you've really changed him...

There is your biggest mistake - thinking you can really change anyone BUT yourself.

Filed under lessons learned the hard way.

Minor Humiliations...

This shouldn't humiliate me and yet to a minor degree I felt some humiliation.

Friday Night at the Restaurant - in walks a large group of 13 people that I do not know BUT wait I do know one of them.  One of them is a man who was a Brand Director for a company that I worked for 5+ years ago when I was a Brand Manager and he was my boss.  Back when I was someone important.  When I had a STAFF that reported to me.  Back when I worked 50+ hours a week and traveled on business and garnered respect as I climbed the corporate ladder.

He recognized me because he said hello to me by name.  But that was it.  He did not ask how I have been since I left there 5+ years ago.  He did not seem interested in why I was now taking his pasta order rather than managing a team of brand marketers somewhere.

I wanted to explain - when I left that job my husband was still relatively healthy, walking, working full time at his own career.  I wanted to say how far I went before realizing I could no longer be part of that corporate world and still fulfill the promises I made at the altar that day 13 years ago.  I wanted to tell him how my own private endeavors that I work at less than 20 hours a week are providing an income just shy of what I made when I worked for him.

I didn't want him to think I was just a waitress.

But he didn't ask so I just brought him his food and acted like I didn't care.  I did.

Blah Days

I've been having too many of them lately.  Days where I don't want to do anything and so I just vegetate and stew over the facts of my life.  Really it is not bad, I have it pretty good right now, and yet I miss the me I used to be.  Energized, motivated, driven, ambitious, although I do not have the energy to be any of those things right now.

So.... bump on a log it is.

Fall has arrived...

And I am NOT happy about it.  It's cold out there and I want more summer.  :(  August was a weird month, only hot the first weekend, wet and rainy, temps in the 70's, not at all like August.  I never got into my swimming pool ONCE in August and I'm so bummed.  Now it is downright freezing - frost warning overnight and temps around 40 when I woke up.  I have to close my pool and that depresses me to no end.  :(

The upside to fall is I probably only have to mow a few more times as the cold nights stop the grass from growing and once we have a real frost it will be done for good. 

Time to get into fall mode I guess, sweaters, jeans, boots, apple picking, leaves changing, bonfires, I guess I can do this. 

Reinventing myself once again...

Time for a change. Job clearly didn't happen. Stuck in a bad place for me and it's time to get unstuck.

So here goes nothing - I'm reviving my Design Firm - graphic design, websites, shopping carts, social media marketing, blogs, and more!

And come September I plan to be enrolled in a Post Baccalaureate Teacher Certification Program that will allow me to become certified to teach in New York State - this will be paid for courtesy of the VA thanks to my husband's 100% disabled status.

I will take whatever shifts I can from the restaurant, and scrounge for business however possible for my design firm. I will no longer be selling advertising - now to get up my nerve to make the jump.

Deal Breakers...

What do you consider a deal breaker?

• In a friendship?
• A romantic relationship?
• A marriage?
  

To me it all comes down to promises kept. If you promise to do something for someone you do it. If you promise you won't do something because you know you shouldn't and they asked you not to you don't do it.

Recently my husband made some promises to me in an effort to recover what we once had. He does not want to keep his end of the bargain now, says he didn't realize what he was promising. But to me not keeping these promises is a deal breaker and I'm ready to walk.

I feel like a bitch if I put it out there like that and yet this is how I feel. Do what you said you would, keep your promises or I will no longer feel bound to keep mine.

Just wishing for life to be easier all around...

The job is a job, the weather is depressing, the status of my marriage is still in limbo land, we are trying but there is a lot to overcome and I feel like he's not trying as hard as he should. Overall I am just feeling blah.

Husband tells me to quit my job - we probably COULD afford it but where does that leave me if this relationship rescue goes south? With no income and totally dependent on him? I'm not ready for that.

Husband wants to go on a vacation - we definitely can afford it but I don't have any time at work. He wants me to ask for unpaid time and frankly while they would probably give it to me I have to wonder what makes me entitled when no one else is? I'm not asking for unpaid time to take care of a medical issue, or a child, I'd be asking for unpaid time to go on a cruise, or to the beach. I just don't know if I can ask for that, feels weird. :(

I want the husband to take me seriously, to really do what he said he would do and stop pushing limits. I want him to realize that this is our last chance and not think I'll cave and give in like I have a hundred times before if he blows it off this time.

I want to be happy, desperately happy, I want it more than anything and it feels so far out of my grasp.

Trying not to get discouraged...

The great cover letter I wrote last week in application for a local job didn't get a call back. The deadline for applications was last Friday and I felt confident and hopeful. I thought I'd get a call early in the week to at least set up an interview and talk to me - I mean what could just talking to me hurt? But it seems once again I won't even get the call after really pouring myself into that letter.

I just don't get it. :(

Hope and Despair

The hope part - I got the part time gig - but it's way more part time than I had thought based on the ad. The job will only be 10-15 hours a MONTH! But it's with a marketing company and it's a marketing job so it will help my resume to not completely die. Also there are other companies that do the same job for other clients/brands and I can have more than one job at a time, many reps work for 3-4 or more and get paid 3-4 times for the same hour of work. Sounds good to me! :) I'm working on finding those other jobs now.

The despair part - I was listening to a song about loss, losing a loved one and saying goodbye especially. And I thought how cut and dried that was and how though no one really knows what to say they do somehow find the right thing. When your loved one slips away a little at a time and turns into someone you don't recognize and sometimes don't like and yet is still there and present physically? Well people have no clue what you are going through and if they do they don't know what to say. I'm not supposed to grieve my husband because he is alive and in my bed each night and yet this man that I am married to bears no resemblance (other than the physical) to the one I married 10 years ago most days.

Every once in awhile the old guy peeks out, shows kindness, shows compassion, shows love. Those are the moments that keep me going.

Trying to snap out of it...

There has been a job in the local paper for over a month. It's a Legal Assistant - part time - experience preferred. I've been looking at this every week and thinking I should apply. I don't have experience but I am highly educated, have been an assistant before, and have had at least 3 classes in business law which included terminology.

Working for a local lawyer likely means lots of real estate law, divorces, traffic tickets and the like. I think I could easily handle the paperwork surrounding these. I type 70+ wpm and I'm smart and organized. A legal assistant should pay fairly well, even at part time it should be enough to keep us going with me still waiting tables 2-3 nights a week.

So I wrote a cover letter, I printed it out with my resume and an envelope and I'm putting it in the mail today. It's a blind ad - the resume goes back to the paper - so I can't follow up on it but for some reason I have a good feeling. I hope I get an interview so I can show this lawyer that I'd be a great addition to their team - prompt, responsible, smart.

And for me - it's local, short commute! It's part time, so no 60 hour weeks! It could be perfect.

Wish me luck.

p.s. Still hesitating on presentation for "dream" but may try to get that done today as well. Why not? What have I got to lose? (oh yeah the "dream" part.)

Things that eat at me...

Trying not to be bothered - BUT - a good friend, a best friend, who said she wouldn't miss my birthday party for the world - bailed on my birthday party this past weekend. Her son had a baseball game at 3:30 (party was 4pm until ??? and food wasn't served until 6:30) and she had a hectic week so after they were just going to lay low. Well rain ensured the game was canceled so I guess they just laid low all night? Her son was also invited to the party so it wasn't about spending time with him.

The reason I'm kinda bothered is that her birthday was in April and she also threw herself a party, and I worked a double shift that day - 11:30 am until 10:30 pm and then I rushed to her party and stayed out until 2am partying with her because no matter how hectic I wouldn't miss her party.

I guess I'm finding out who loves more in this one. :( She often tells me how hectic it is being a single mom and I get it, really I do BUT I wish that I thought she understood that being married to a disabled man is no picnic and while her dependent is growing more and more independent by the day the opposite is happening to mine.

I had a great day, a great party, and I have great friends. Just found out that one I had ranked up there in the top 5 of friends maybe doesn't see me quite the same way. :( But I will get over it and forgive and hope to be a higher priority next time but won't hold my breath.