The Love Dare

I write this post fully admitting the fact that I am grasping at straws. I will further be honest and admit that I am working at this alone. Or so it feels. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a 40 day journey. "The Love Dare" journey. If you have seen Fireproof, you know what I am talking about, if you have not, I urge you to do a little bit of research and self examination. In the meantime, I am taking that plunge and doing "the dare" and as divine intervention would have it, our sermon at church yesterday actually was all about dares. The dare of leaping in faith. Take the leap? I have had my eyes opened to what needs to be done. This is my chance to make my decision. 40 days feels like a long time, but in making a decision as to whether to stick with my marriage or walk away, it feels like it's the blink of an eye type of 40 days. I truly don't know what the outcome will be, but as "He guides me" I am sure to know my choice will be clear when it's all said and done.

It's official, we are done with this marriage...

Now, please, take a moment to pick your jaw up off the floor, and read on. The glory that Jesus has given to each and every one of us, is the fact that we can stop what we are doing, regroup and start over. Completely fresh. Forgiven. That is what I choose to do with my "ex marriage". I am proud to say I am not done with Al, my husband, I am just done with the marriage we have built rather bumpy. We are starting over, as a couple whom is dating. My "boyfriend" and I are reintroducing ourselves to one another as the new person we have both become and redoing it all. Not quite sure how long it will take to be ready to marry him again however, this is all new to me. It's not everyday that one chooses to divorce their marriage that is not working, but not divorce the partner. I think it's a rather ingenius way to survive the rough spots! It's an interesting direction, it's a God sent direction, it's the right direction. I feel it in my bones!

Armed and "dangerous"?

Well, counseling today was brutal. I think I cried through most of it, even felt the urge to leave the room, I swear the air in the room was not getting to me, I felt like I was suffocating. Or maybe it was truth coming to the surface, something Al and I have not allowed for quite some time. We have been running to keep up with life, we have been busy, we have been everything BUT a couple that works TOGETHER. Today marks a fresh start. I have been praying for the answers that God wants me to know, and yesterday, "Clean slate" kept coming to mind...it was clarified today when in essense the same idea came about in conversation. I am willing to try it. What do we have to lose, that isn't already lost? I visited the library, searching for a book that helps couples prepare for MARRIAGE, not the wedding. You know the basics of finances, and child rearing, and life goals, etc. The librarian actually had a hard time locating such a book. You see, when you say wedding, you think the wedding day. It's often mentioned that you need to prepare for the Marriage, not the wedding, because the wedding is just one day. I, infact went in to my wedding day, thinking I was prepared for the marriage, and truly I had no clue! I find the same to be true with school. You can't possibly know what you want to do for your career fresh out of high school, I still stand by my theory that the college age should be raised to atleast 25. Your first few years out of high school are about freedom. Your early 20's are about finding yourself, only when you find yourself, can you truly know where your life is going, and what you want your future to hold. Learning is not about education, it is about walking along life and picking up what's meaningful and powerful enough to stick itself to you, to make that impact.
I came home from the library with a few books, I plan to put my computer away for tonight, and hope that Al turns that TV off, the two "barriers" we often claim keeps us from chatting freely with one another. Will you do the same?

WOW!

I will start at the beginning of this story. I signed up for a Psychology course to fulfill the requirement for my associates degree. The class, though I started excited turned out to be a flop! I have come to the conclusion that the instructor should not be in the business that she is, because she was anything but helpful. I ended up withdrawing from the class. There is a time limit to when you can withdraw from a class and get a refund, I was past that deadline. It didn't sit well with us that we had fully paid for a class that I was no longer taking, nor would get credit for. I did what anyone else would do, I went and filled out a form that explained the circumstances and requested a "breech" in contract (so to speak) and hope for atleast a partial refund. Time passed, I bit my nails, then I received a letter. My request was denied. Ack! Not cool, however, not unexpected. Al was not happy with the news. You can't blame him, afterall, it's his hard earned money that we are talking about, and he really does NOT like to see it go to waste! I decided to contact that printed name on the bottom of the letter, to find out what else I could do. She stated there is a committee that meets once a week, and I was welcome to appeal their decision. I pulled out all the stops, I wrote a "sob" letter so to speak of why they should reconsider the thoughts they had already formed. No easy task. I faxed it to the number she gave me, and again I waited.
Fast forward to Monday, the day of registration for my CNA course, the day I signed up to be charged almost $900 to be paid within 7 days. Today, with 5 days left to pay, Al informed me that it was either pay the mortgage or pay the tuition. Shoot! Needless to say, my tuition was not looking like the winner. I went out to get the mail, (a great time passer if I do say so myself) in the mail, I had a letter from COD. Nothing unusual, that comes with any registration. This letter was different, it was an appealed version of the original refund denial. This time, it was different I say, this time, they granted the refund! And not just partial refund as I had requested, it was full 100% refund!!!!! Hallelujah! God asks us to put faith in him, he is kind and he delivers!! So, our mortgage will be paid this month, as well as a much smaller portion of the tuition I owe, after this refunded credit makes it in to my records! Happy day!

Quick quote!

Irony isn't irony, it's GOD!

Open my eyes

The last few days have been really rough on me emotionally. The registration fiasco really showed me the type of support I am getting (or shall I say LACK OF support) and it hurts deeply. My husband is a man who tries his best. He overdoes everything in his life. He works so hard, and I admire that. He wants things a certain way and who can blame him? However, when it comes to our marriage, something is grossly lacking, on both ends. I have spent countless hours wondering if this is something that is fixable or something that we need to bid farewell. I don't fully have my answers yet, but a few things became clear to me today. I am happy we have our counseling appointment tomorrow morning, I really have a lot to talk about this time, I just keep waiting for something or someone to tell me what to do, and this isn't that type of situation. No one but me and my husband can decide what we can do. I think that's what bothers me most, the fact that I want something so completely different from what my husband wants. This is what's unfortunate. Both of us walked in to this relationship with little expectations at best. I had no way of foreseeing the person I would become, and how bettering myself, would distance me from my husband. The man I vowed to spend my life with. I can say I didn't take my vows seriously at all. This is all in hindsight of course. I would never walk in to a marriage with a blindfold, but I anticipated something completely different than it's become, and what it's become has been there all along. I just didn't see it.
Simple changes from Al will be what makes us tick again. If he is capable of being a kind hearted spiritual man, my feelings for him will return. That much is clear, and I am glad that has become clear!! When you know something, you can work with it.

Green on who's side?

You know that saying "The grass is always greener on the other side"? Well, guess what.....I found the irony in it! :)

I've been hanging out with a friend I went to high school with. We have met a few times, the farmers market, or the pool, but majority of the time, I take Miles to her house, and he and her little boy have fun playing together. I love taking Miles to her house. It seems to have the perfect set up for playdates with small children. Not to mention, it's a nice house, one I admire, one I would love to have something like someday! Well, I swallowed my reservations and took my turn to host a playdate. I was cleaning this morning, getting all ready, and even mentioned to Al how I hate having people over (which I don't really, I just like my house to be perfect, and stress over it a bit. Once people are here, I always love it!!) and how I don't like our house, etc....I was ready in time for my friend to arrive with her two sons and she started at our greeting with what a nice house we have (Thank you!!) she came in and was walking around looking at everything, admiring the woodwork, etc. You see, me and her have completely different houses! My house is oooooolllllllddddd, it was built in the 1850's. Her house is nnnnnneeeewwwwww, I believe it's about 10 years old. My house has the "character" you find in old homes, lot's of wood, squeaky floors, dust piled in to the radiators. Her house is shiny and clean and "baby like" in it's newness and freshness. I go to her house, wishing I had what she has, she came to my house and was wishing she had what I have. We even joked about how we should trade houses!
Today's playdate taught me a few lessons about appreciating what I have, instead of always wanting something different. I have known this all along, I am a Christian and I know I "shall not covet". I am a sinning Christian though, and my nature sometimes is just to covet. God moves me back to where I need to be, and I am thankful I have a subtle reminder when I need it :)

I'm in!

I went today, and registered for the CNA course at COD. It starts September 15th, and I chose the day classes vs. the night classes that I had planned on trying to claim. This whole ordeal with having to find a sitter when I expected that hubby would be around, proved to me if I want to be successful in this class, I need to find others to count on! Day classes will give me the opportunity to drop Acilia in school when it starts and drop Miles off at my mom's to play with his cousins, while I study my booty off and hope and pray that I make it through to becoming a CERTIFIED nurses assistant! :) Onward and upward!

Really??

As hard as I try to be a wife that I can be proud of, I have a husband that sees me as a wife that tries, or maybe doesn't try at all, it depends on his mood I guess!

He tries too, he tries to be sweet and kind and all the things I hope to have in a husband, but then something sets him off and he loses it.

Perfect example:
Al went today to the grocery store. Came back with flowers for me, how sweet!! Then we started talking about my registration for CNA course (explain that whole story later) and he ended up losing his temper on me and hitting me on the head with the flowers! That behavior leaves me shaking my head wondering what the heck is going on in my life??

So, to explain registration. This is something that I have been pursuing for MONTHS! I wrote the registration date on the calendar back in April, I have been doing all the tests, etc. to be able to register, and now, all my work is done, and registration is bright and early Monday morning. Al has been notified of this entire process and also that registration day, I will be leaving at 6:30 am to get myself a spot in line to register at 8 am when the doors open and he was responsible for being home with the kids until I get back at 9:30 - 10 am. Perfect plan right? Well, he informs me today that he has a job scheduled in Darien at 9 am and he must be there. WHAT???? To me it shows me he cares nothing about my time and energy put forth to pursue this. He wants me to find a sitter. He was throwing a tantrum over the fact that HE has to work etc. How could he do this to me?

This is my relationship with Al. He works so hard, he forgets that he's human and not a robot, and in the process he expects the same of those around him. I recently called him a boa constrictor. He wraps his body around his prey and squeezes the life out of them. Happy marriage to me!

Would you, could you?

This post is directly from a mommy friend of mine, her son Logan is only 15 months old (Same age as my little Miles guy, they were actually born just days apart) and is in need of a new kidney! This sweet precious little boy has been on dialysis his whole life. As you know, I can relate in a sense because my husband who is 30 is also on dialysis. There is no age limit to organ donation, consider what YOU can do!

http://jessmomto3.blogspot.com/2009/06/spreading-love-in-more-ways-than-one.html

I have decided and I'm sure that the wording of this post will change many times over the course of this new project of mine. But, I am just going to dig in as I feel that is what God is telling me to do. In a dream last night I came up with a plan to share about organ donation. In my dream I had it fully planned out how I was going to write this post and which pictures I was going to post and the good that I was going to do. But, somehow in the waking up and doing the mom duties, it got lost in my brain and the coffee still has yet to drag my thoughts back to me.

The basics--there are plenty of organs to go around. The problem, not enough people are donating those organs when they die and the organs are being buried. The why--they didn't obtain and sign a donor's registration card and so when they died their family didn't know what they wanted and since they had just lost a family member, it was too hard of a decision to make and therefore they didn't make it and what could have been a lifesaving organ for someone was instead buried in the ground. As of today there are 102,019 people waiting for a lifesaving transplant of some organ. My son is 1 out of those 102,019 people. Statistically 30-50% of these people will die before they ever get a transplant. For a parent waiting on one of those, those are some pretty scary odds. Now, my son is lucky at the moment (in a sense) because he is only 15 months old. What an odd sentence as how could it be lucky to need a transplant?

He is lucky because he is only 15 months old. Due to his age, he is top priority and will therefore only wait around 6 months for a kidney. When he does this again in 10-15 years, his wait will be 3-5 YEARS. Dialysis in and of itself is risky business. There is the constant threat of infection. Then there is the wonky labs that could possibly harm him. And not even in the top 5 things that I worry about but still in the back of my head is that this will mean that for the majority of his preteen to teen years he will feel sick. That's a long time.

So, I have decided that I need to be the change. I need to advocate for him in the best way I know possible.

I have decided to make this into a contest. Right now I have two gift cards and I would like to give them to people. So, the contest goes like this. You will get one entry for every email, facebook post, blog entry, etc that you send out in which you tell someone that this is the face of organ donation. Organ donation is not just elderly people who have lived out their lives. Organ donation affects little bitty babies and it affects men with families in their 30s and it affects elderly grandparents as well. My gift cards are not much yet but I'm hoping through donations and God touching people's hearts to make this into something much bigger than just me and my blog. My goal is to inform 1000 people about organ donation and to help them to realize that this affects everyone.

So, get to blogging and emailing and facebook posting. : ) Right now the giftcards are a $10 to Starbucks and a $10 to Best Buy.

I have to go out in a bit so I'm sure this will be reworded when I get home but I felt the need to post this before I my brain totally forgot about the idea. Please let me know if you have any ideas.

He has me pegged!

Al and I began seeing a counselar once a week a few weeks ago, I went by myself today because Al had to work. I had the chance to speak with him myself and it worked pretty well. I can't believe how "transparent" I am! There were a lot of good points brought up, they got me thinking! (As if I don't think enough already!?!?) One thing that was a little bit unsettling was that apparently there is deepness behind my smile. I have a face that shows happy and joy and .... and.... but right behind that, there is a lot more. I have known this all my life, I have always been "deeper" without sharing too much. Mostly because I have sooooooooooo many thoughts that go through my mind that I am working through at any given time, to let that all out would send people running! Ha ha! I also learned that I should allow Al to be a part of my thinking process. I tend to come to conclusions on my own and then drop them like a bomb into Al's lap when my decision has already been made. I am going to strive to let Al in on some of the "pre thoughts" from now on. I have a feeling that may be easier said than done, but if it's done right, I think it will be rather effective!

On an unrelated note, Al and I are going to Vegas in August! Anyone that knows my history with anxiety knows how huge this is!! I am so excited that it's booked!! We will be going August 19-21 (Our 5 year anniversary is August 20th) flying in, I rented a convertible Mustang and we will stay at The Venetian! Can't wait can't wait!!