I host WordPress on my own site. I just updated it to a new version, thinking the post editor would be spiffier. Somehow, the spiff got missed on my upgrade. And I ended up having to update my stats plugin and reset all my stats. Sucky. But looking at my stats page, it got me thinking: I have readers from all around the world. See the pic on the right. And that’s just the last couple weeks. Yet I only have commenters from Canada and the USA. So this is my call to all of you lurkers in the rest of the world. All ya have to do is just leave an anonymous one word comment – “Hi” (or “Hola” or “Bienvenue” or “Marhaba” or “Ni Hao”). My spiffy new stats plugin will put your flag by your comment. Come on! And I won’t make you comment ever again.
After being asked to dance at the New Year’s Eve Umphrey’s show, something lit up inside me after quite a while of having been extinguished. 17 months of sickness and 6 months of loss didn’t leave much room for romance between Anna and I. Not to say there was none during that time. We spent a weekend in Chicago for Anna’s 44th birthday and it was very romantic and sweet and one of the finest weekends I’ve ever spent in my life. Going to the theatre. High tea. Going to the Art Institute (even though she only had the energy for about 45 minutes). Making sweet love for one of the last times.
But that New Year’s dance left me with the embryonic hope that maybe, in some way, I would be able to love someone again.
We had that talk when Anna was sick. She wanted me to find someone else and to be happy. I told her I wasn’t interested. That I was planning on her being around for a long time. I was. I had to have that hope. And I did. There were people that lived more than 5 years after a diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer. Anna could be one of them. My friend and neighbor, Alan, lost his wife about 6 months before I did. She told him to grieve for a year and then remarry. Anna wasn’t quite so specific with her directive. But I think I understand. If I were the one to be going, I would definitely want her to remarry if it was what she wanted.
I’m now at the point where, occasionally, I can imagine spending my time with someone else. What I can’t possibly imagine is someone else being a step-parent to my kids. One of the driving forces in my life has been the very unpleasant relationship I’ve had with my stepmother. She’s a very unhealthy woman who has seen her share of suffering but has never faced it head-on. Thus, she was pretty efficient at passing that suffering on to my brother and to me (and to my dad) growing up. My mom’s second husband was also an angry, violent man. He treated us all – my mom, my brother, my stepsisters, even my Dad – very poorly.
I told myself that when I got married, I would never divorce. I would do whatever it took to make the relationship successful so that my kids would not have to go through what I went through growing up in terms of stepparents. Now, without having chosen it, I have the Faustian bargain of potentially trading the companionship of another friend, partner, lover, confidant, dreamer, see-er of visions, traveler, and sufferer for the risk of my kids living through my former hell. Yes, I understand that it’s much more complicated than that and there are a million reasons why things were the way they were in my family of origin. But that’s the bargain my monkey mind faces anyway.
So, despite all that, I decided to throw caution to the wind and at least dip my toe in the waters of dating. Being a netizen since the days of 300 baud modems and dialing long distance from Allston, MA to San Francisco to find good conversations on The WELL, it only made sense to check out online personals.
I don’t know how many of you have seen these, but let me tell you, it’s quite an experience. I wanted to see who was out there, but you really can’t do much lurking without setting up your own profile. So I put one up on Yahoo! Personals, just a few words to get started. The way these things work is you enter your gender and zipcode and you specify your potential mate’s age range (I went with 32-42), gender (I went with female – I’m curious about, but probably not looking to get serious with men), and you’re presented with a list of possible matches. Everyone provides a tagline or headline and then some verbiage about themselves. They also specify biographical stuff like never married/divorced/widowed, how many kids, education level, smoking/drinking preferences, etc. And they normally upload a few photos.
After reading through a few hundred of these profiles now, let me tell you – it’s a hell of an insight into the human condition. First, most people can’t write a coherent sentence to save their souls. Not that we all have to be Ralph Waldo Emerson, or Thordora, but geez. And can someone please point more than half of these folks to a spell checker? Now, my wife was dyslexic and several other people I love dearly have mild to severe dyslexia. So you can’t judge someone on their spelling. But if you’re going to try to attract the best person out there, wouldn’t you run your profile by someone you trust? And wouldn’t you spend more than 10 minutes writing it?
And then there are the pictures. Some of the pictures are so blurry or dark it’s impossible to tell what the person looks like or they’re sort of frowning or they have their ex-husband’s arm still around them. And this is not just a few. My photos aren’t winning any awards, but they’re at least not underexposed. So once you rule out the half that smoke, then the half of those that are unintelligible, then the half of those that are inscrutable, then the half of those that are trite (I mean who the heck doesn’t like long walks on the beach at sunset and cuddling by the fireplace?), then the half of those that listen to country music and what are you left with? Pretty much squat.
I’ve found exactly one profile on Yahoo! Personals that makes me inclined to put finger to keyboard and make contact. Someone who seems to know how shine some light on the prism of her self and to radiate some of the resultant color to her profile. But she smokes. For me, that’s a deal killer. I lost one beautiful soul through lung cancer and couldn’t do it again.
I’ve found that if I widen the distance of my search, I can find all sorts of potentially interesting people in Indianapolis and Chicago, but I’m not leaving this area and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to relocate. Not to mention, how the heck would you date someone 60+ miles away when you have about 4 free hours a week? Yeah, there’s that whole interwebs thing, but, well, Indy is just too far.
So then I decided to check out match.com. I had seen ads and wondered if it maybe attracted people who were more, perhaps, dedicated to actually finding a date? I had put together a decent profile on Yahoo! by this time and copied it over to match.com (where you get to add a few more blurbs). It’s really about the same, as far as I can tell. The site’s more user-friendly, so that helps. And you can do reverse and mutual matches (i.e. you meet their criteria and/or you both meet each other’s criteria). So that saves time and the effort of looking through dozens of NASCAR fans.
I found one profile on match.com pretty quickly that was rather intriguing. Her headline was a Jack Kerouac quote I’d always liked about living a passionate life. She likes The Grateful Dead and Tom Robbins and Van Morrison (all big, big faves of mine). She has a young daughter she’s very dedicated to. She’s an english teacher. The Kerouac alone probably would have been enough. So I wrote to her, putting my best foot forward. She wrote a relatively short, but pleasant reply. I suggested we IM or get coffee or whatever she was comfortable with. This was almost 2 weeks ago and I never heard back. I suspect I won’t at this point.
The last few weeks have found me at relatively low tide on grief beach. But I did find myself stopping a couple days ago and just staring at a picture of Anna in the hall. One we had done with my dad and brother and all of our families in matching white polo shirts. She looked so gorgeous in her bushy red hair against that white shirt. And I remembered so many plans and so many dreams. And I realized that I’m really probably not ready for dating at this point. I think the online personals may have been a bit of a shiney thing. I do miss having someone to kiss on the neck, right between their jawbone and their ear. And I do miss having someone with whom I can share the joy and rage of the day. And I do miss having someone to fuel the fire of my ideas and fueling their fire too. And I do miss looking into someone’s eyes and making that instantaneous, deep, real connection that says “we were thrust here, unwilling, unwilled, and unprepared, but let us face it all together because it’s sure as hell better than facing it alone”. But I think the time is not yet.
I spent last Monday night (2/5) in the emergency room. I was getting ready for Tae Kwon Do just before 5pm when I felt my heart do some weird bumpity-bump for about 10 seconds. It was scary. You should never feel your heart. I had had one or two skipped beats here or there over the years and have even seen the doc about it, but it never went on for 10 seconds. That feels like an eternity when you’re wondering if your heart has started to check out. I was fine afterwards with just the slightest of chest pains (1 or 2 on a scale of 1 to 10). And they were very localized. I was in a hurry to get to TKD, so I put the fear in my pocket for 15 minutes. It crept out when I gave Alyssa a lesson in the car about what to do if I were to become unconscious while driving.
When we got to TKD, I was upstairs in the changing room and the fear jumped out like a rabid dog and demanded my attention. I decided it would be foolish to ignore something about my heart, especially being my kids’ only living parent. I called the babysitter and arranged to have her pick Alyssa up after TKD and headed to the E.R.
When Anna first got her cancer diagnosis, I had a panic attack the weekend after and thought it was a heart attack. It wasn’t, thankfully. The nice thing about heart problems and the E.R. is that you get a golden ticket right in the door. Having spent 17 months in hospitals and doctor’s offices with Anna, I was depressed and scared to be back in one. You get kinda used to it at the time, but having been away from the medical establishment, more or less, for 6 months, I hadn’t missed it a bit.
There I sat on a gurney in the E.R. They hooked me up to an EKG and took an X-Ray and took blood and I just sat. And sat and sat. My blood pressure when I came in was high – 170 over 120. So I watched the machine, glad to see it dropping as I sat and waited. Just sitting there with my thoughts for 3 hours, I had a bit of an epiphany.
I had gotten myself into a pattern of staying up late goofing off. I loves me my alone time. Playing guitar, reading, watching TV, reading blogs, writing in my blog, whatever shiney thing crosses my path. So I was getting to bed at 1am the previous 10 days or so. And since I have to be up no later than 7:30 to get the kids to school and daycare on time, I was really building up a sleep deficit. On top of that, with Anna’s birthday and 6 month anniversary the week before, I wasn’t sleeping too well when I was actually down for the night.
About those shiney things. Following the next shiny thing that crosses my path is the story of my life. I have ADHD. It can be a blessing at times (like when I write software), but mostly, it’s a curse. Especially now, trying to raise kids on my own. Anna helped me re-remember that I have it. I got an official diagnosis a few years ago. So I sat there with my thoughts and realized that my ADHD was going to kill me via a heart attack via sleep deprivation if I didn’t do something about it. My therapist, Cricket, told me years ago that being a morning person or a night person is just part of your nature and is very difficult to change. Interestingly, I had had coffee with my friend Alan that morning (a friend of Cricket’s, actually), and he suggested that it’s much more malleable than that. I decided, sitting there on the gurney, that I would become a morning person. That I would start living like my dad, with order and discipline. That I would, at 37 years old, finally become a grownup.
Now, the mind of someone with ADHD is full of grandiose plans. The irony was that this was just another grand plan. (plus a bargain with myself in order to stay alive until Emma turns 18). Luckily, I still had several hours of wait ahead of me, so I figured out a way to actually turn my plan into concrete reality. It was time to make some real changes in my schedule and in my mind:
The doc came in and told me my heart is totally fine. That I need to keep losing weight (I’ve actually lost about 8 pounds since MLK day, thanks in part to SparkPeople – Thanks again for the tip, Kat). That what I had was probably PVCs and there’s no link to fatality with those whatsoever. That if I had something more serious, there would be signs. The PVCs are often linked to too much caffeine and too much stress (and, I surmised, too little sleep).
So I’m doing all those things above. I’ve been early to bed and early to rise nearly every day since that night. It’s glorious to be mostly caught up on sleep again. It’s quite nice to be up early and see the sun rise. I’ve always liked this, actually. Now, it’s a regular occurrence. No, I haven’t picked up my guitar for more than 5 minutes in the last week and a half. No, I’m not blogging as much as I’d like. No, I haven’t watched Iron Chef or Good Eats in that week and a half. But I do have my next actions list current and I do feel good and I’m much less tempted to overeat now that I’m not sleep deprived. I’m much more focused on parenting being my shiney thing for the next, oh, 20 years. 3 hours alone with my thoughts in a hospital gown and no computer or anything to be shiney was an unexpected gift.
Having more sleep helps keep my ADHD in check to a decent extent. But it’s still there. And I do still get tired of so much soup and garbage can. I made a deal with myself there in the E.R. that if I don’t get my shit together by March 1, I’m going to treat my ADHD. My shit is now much more together and hopefully keeping it together isn’t just another shiney thing itself and it will stick. If not, I may consider ritalin or strattera. I’m considering it anyway. In a classic ADHD move, I ordered the book “Scattered,” only to find I’ve read it already (and can’t find my copy). But it’s a worthy re-read.
People have told me I’m doing such a great job raising my kids by myself. I’ve always appreciated the compliment. And, in a lot of objective ways, I am doing pretty well. Before the holidays, I was managing our family better. But I never felt like I really was doing the right thing in my heart. I’m getting there now. Sometime in the future, I may take the compliment and even believe it in my heart of hearts.
Anna’s friend and mine, Kelley, suggested I create a place on my blog for folks to record memories of Anna. I think this is a good idea. I would enjoy it and I’m sure the memories will be treasures for my kids to enjoy now and into the future. So if anyone has memories of Anna, please add them to the comments of this post. Thanks to Kelley for the idea and to anyone who might have something to share.
Kassie is struggling with kids and sleep. I think it’s the lament of every parent of young kids. I have hardly met a parent (certainly none with more than one kid) who hasn’t struggled with this. Here’s some of my journey with kids and sleep in a nutshell for Kassie and whomever else:
We have struggled with kids and sleep for 9.5 years now. I totally feel your pain. I could write a book about this, but I can share with you what I’ve learned in a nutshell. With Alyssa (now 9), we did the family bed and no one got any sleep. She was up multiple times a night nursing for several years. It was very, very tiring for Anna. She was in our bed until she was about 5.
With Ian (now 4), we tried the crib, but Anna actually gave in to his cries after a few days and he was in our bed. No sleep. At 2, we tried to get him to sleep on his own, using advice from The Sleep Lady – books and I think even a phone consultation if my memory serves. Lots of Ferber-lite training for weeks. We were exhausted. He was nearly there when Anna got diagnosed with cancer. We gave up and he was back in bed with us, except on my side, no nursing. He’s a more sound sleeper than Alyssa and I can manage a good night’s sleep for the most part with him next to me. He’s still in my bed.
With Emma (now 2), Anna was suffering from pretty bad post-partum depression, so we put her in a crib and let her cry. It was hard, but with Anna depressed (and then sick with cancer), we had no choice. We put her on the main floor in a pack-and-play with me on the couch listening in case something was seriously wrong and Anna upstairs with the door closed so she could sleep undisturbed by Emma’s cries. Once Emma got past a few weeks of progressively less waking and crying during the night, she started sleeping well. She got a full ba-ba of milk at night when she laid down. This is still her routine (though she’s in her own room in a proper crib). She still wakes up once every few nights and cries for 5 minutes or less, but in general is a really good sleeper. And sometimes she cries going to sleep, but not much and not often. We have the same routine every night – read 2-3 books, sing the same 4 songs (Frere Jacques, Peter Cottontail, The Polly Pocket Song, and Ba Ba Black Sheep), lights off, kisses, and off to sleep with the door open 6 inches or so.
As a parent, we never want our kids to suffer a single bit. This is why we get up with them at night. This is why we do all kinds of stuff. But now, with 3 (and I’m sure you know, with 2 and especially a teenager), they’re going to suffer no matter what we do – it’s the first noble truth of Buddhism – life is full of suffering. So I guess with bedtime, baby suffering in order to learn to comfort him/herself is probably a worthwhile journey. Now, your could never have convinced me of this with Alyssa. But perhaps I’ve gained a bit more wisdom and can accept my kids’ suffering, especially when it’s likely to result in personal growth and no long-term irreversible harm.
