Uppercase Woman

Denial

Ack.

Today is a Very Bad Day. I have them now and again, but today is particularly bad.

Part of it is because we are just past the two year anniversary of the day I lost my boys. It's been in the back of my mind for a while now, but I've been hesitant to get too close to it because there is still just so much grief there and I don't have the reserves right now to cope with it.

But, alas, just because I don't feel capable of dealing with it all doesn't mean I don't have to. As often happens when grief comes calling, I express it all backwards and sideways. This time it came out in bitterness towards Charlie, which led to hurt feelings, which led to a big "discussion" that made me 45 minutes late for work and got nothing resolved.

So now I sit feeling as if all my joy was scooped out and replaced with rage and grief. I know it will pass, but I hate having to wait through it. Again.

Maybe I'll chop all my hair off. Or get a new tattoo. Or possibly just cut off a pinky toe (oh, I kid, I kid. My toes are too cute to chop). Nothing major. But the urge to do something--anything--is very strong. I've called some folks I trust, gotten some good advice. I will probably finally call a therapist as well.

This black hole will spit me out again, and I'll be in a better place. Right?

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On a happier note, we tried a new experiment with Tori. She's been fighting her naps lately, often only napping for twenty minutes at a time which makes her a lot more fussy than usual (although I shouldn't  complain, because she's the least fussy baby ever). While I haven't actually read the No Cry Sleep Solution, I've read lot of blogs by women who have, and I decided to put some of those ideas into practice.

I know that they say more sleep at night leads to better and longer naps during the day (which makes no sense to me, but whatever). For a long while now our routine has been to put Tori on the boob the minute I get home from work, around 7pm. She then nurses for an hour or so, and we play a bit until about 8:30pm, at which point she suckles and sleeps, suckles and sleeps, on and on until we go to bed after The Daily Show (11:30). While I relish the time with her, I know she needs to be getting more solid sleep instead of dozing. So last night, at 9pm, I took her up to the co-sleeper and put her to bed.

I didn't know how she would feel about it. Although she'd been mostly asleep downstairs, by the time I changed her diaper and put her in a sleep sack she was pretty awake. We shared some giggles, and then I put her down and turned out the light and walked away.

It was TORTURE. Even though I always put her down in the cosleeper and then go do my night time ablutions and she is just fine, happy as can be, the light is usually on and I know I'll be there next to her as she actually falls asleep.

I was prepared to go get her and put her right back on the boob the first moment she made a sound. But--and many of you will now officially hate me with a white hot passion--she was completely quiet. Nary a whimper. I heard her thumping her legs down a few times (she lifts up her legs and then slams them down as hard as she can--it's very funny), when I got the courage to poke my head in and take a look at her twenty minutes later, she was out cold. And she stayed asleep until about 3am, her normal middle-of-the-night feeding time. And then she slept until 8am this morning.

While I miss that time with her---oh, hell, that's not really true. Right now, I'm feeling so depleted and stretched thin I'm really looking forward to having an hour or two at night I can move about my house freely instead of being trapped in front of the television with Tori on my boob. And I know Charlie is looking forward to spending his days with a more well-rested baby. Already today she took a much longer nap after her morning breakfast and play time (in fact, she slept through the entire "discussion" this morning), so hopefully we'll have continued success (but I'm not counting on it! I'm not that foolish) with putting Tori to "bed."

Next step, we'll put her to sleep in her crib! You know, in about ten years or so. Heh. Oh, and this weekend she fell in love with her Exersaucer. Pictures to come.

I'm going crazy, now with links!

I think I'm going a little nuts. I'm having some issues with paranoia and (bad) fantasies. Worried that I'm going to lose my job and/or that I'm going to fall down the stairs while I'm carrying Tori. These little fantasies play out like movies in my head and I can't seem to stop them until something horrible has happened. This morning I parked outside my job and glanced up at my boss's office and saw that he was in a meeting and I decided that it was a meeting about me and I was getting fired.

Yeah.

This kind of paranoia was normal for me back when I was still drinking, and I've always thought of it as an extension of my addictive personality; you know, how addicts are extremely self-centered and grandiose, and paranoia is just a malfunctioning ego trip (as in "I'm so important everything is about me, even the bad stuff!"). The return of this brain fart might be a sign of several things:

a) I'm going crazy

b) delayed Post-Partum Depression

c) I need to make more meetings

d) I'm just a normal mother with post-partum hormones

I'm voting that it's "C" plus a bit of "D" (right? tell me I'm right, please!) but I've queried the fabulous Moxie to see if it might be "B" because she is my Expert On All Things Motherhood. It's been really difficult to get to meetings since Tori is much more focused on being with me when I come home from work now that she's nursing. She'll spend the whole evening, from 7pm to 11pm, nursing off and on and sleeping. I'm grateful that we're so bonded now, but sometimes I think that getting her hooked on the boob was an unwise move; now she's addicted. A boobaholic, if you will. These long nursing sessions make it hard to go to a meeting (although I'm getting closer to feeling comfortable nursing in public, I'm not there yet).

More nursing means less pumping, which is good, but also means that my stockpile of frozen milk was completely decimated by Tori's last growth spurt (combined with a few late work nights, it's nearly all gone). Charlie was feeding Tori in the middle of the night (since he's better at getting back to sleep than I am) and I was sleeping instead of pumping, but that was also eating into our stockpile so now I'm nursing Tori in the middle of the night, which means I'm getting less sleep and that is making me more...crazy.

I'm not sure why I'm rambling on. I still haven't picked up a phone and called a therapist; it seems like adding weekly therapy to my schedule would stretch my time and brain too far and everything would just collapse. I feel the same way about more meetings, even though I know that meetings ARE therapy for me and can really help.

Anyoo. How about some fun links while I ponder my psychosis?

This terrifies me. On what fucking planet did the adults involved believe that would be ok?

This is also horrifying.  Again, how did that product get created? Who thought that was a good idea?  Via Feministing.

This looks pretty cool. I think I'll participate! Via Laid Off Dad.

This is super cool. If you like, publish your six word short story in the comments! Mine? "In the mud, her unused ticket." Via DaddyRoBlog.

Have a great weekend!

Guilty Pleasures

I'm finding myself without a topic or idea today*, so I'm going to discuss two** of my current guilty pleasures. First up?

The supernatural romance novel. Heh.

Romance novels get a bad rap. Recently, Dear Abby wrote this to a mother concerned about her 14-year-old daughter reading adult romance novels:

Some might argue that the idealized depiction of romance, and women being "rescued" by powerful, wealthy men, is more worrisome than the sex and eroticism.

It's evident that "Abby" (actually her daughter now) hasn't picked up a romance recently. After all, according to This American Life, the romance novel industry currently earns about 1.5 billion dollar a year, and is the only segment of the publishing world run almost entirely by women. Woman-run publishing houses, women authors, and women consumers.

These ain't your grandmother's romance novels.

I read a lot of romance novels in my tween years (I didn't have a television and I read everything I could get my hands on). Those indeed were, mostly, novels featuring women being ravished and rescued by rich and powerful men. I stopped reading them in high school (deciding I'd rather read actual porn), but decided to give them a shot again after hearing the story on This American Life.

The first thing that surprised me about the new romance novel is cunnilingus. Seriously. There's a LOT of it in the novels now. These rich and powerful men cannot WAIT to get their heads between your legs, and in fact, they go on down long before they do a thing with their rigid shafts. Instead of heaving bosoms, you've got quivering thighs.

The second thing I noticed is that there is little "rescuing" going on. Instead of "feisty" heroines, you've got balls-out kick ass ones. They literally are kicking ass. More often than not, the women are rescuing the men from either their commitment phobia or from their antiquated pre-conceived notions of what women should be.

It's pretty cool, I have to say. And don't worry, there is still plenty of ravishing going on, and of COURSE everyone lives happily ever after. But on the way the women are getting head and kicking ass. Can't beat that, right?

As for the supernatural part, well, that's my own bent. I particularly like vampire-related fiction of all kinds (don't ask me why, but you could call it a fetish. I think vampires are hot). I just read two of these books back to back: Even Vampires Get The Blues by Katie McAlister and Dark Demon by Christine Feehan.

In both novels, the women are tough and get things done. In both, the vampires and the women become unwilling life mates, and then fight and fuck their way into acceptance of their fate. In both books, the women have a job to do: in Dark Demon, the heroine is a vampire hunter, and in Even Vampires Get The Blues the heroine is a private detective.

Otherwise, however, they couldn't be more different.

Dark Demon was ponderous and has waaaaaaaay too many needless and oddly placed sex scenes (I know, how weird is that?). So many, in fact,  that I found myself skipping them and going on to the action which was much more interesting. Also, Ms. Feehan's language tends to be a lot more old school, particularly during the sex scenes. You get the feeling that here is a woman writing about cunnilingus but has yet to actually receive any (that might be a bit harsh, but sounded too good not to use).

Even Vampires Get The Blues, however, is much, much funnier. I found myself laughing out loud more than once during this book, and the sex scenes were just as funny, sexy and awkward as they can be in real life (minus a couple of supernatural details). This was a fun little novel, and I'm planning on trying to find more of hers to read.

What are your guilty pleasures these days?

*Poor Charlie is sick, and I slept like shit last night, and that is my excuse for having a lame topic.

**The second guilty pleasure? Reviewing shit in my blog, even when no one asks. :)

Grace, Joy, and Water

I found myself tossing and turning most of Saturday night. By 6:30am I knew I wouldn't be sleeping any more, but I stayed in bed for another hour. Tori was still asleep, so I ran through the shower and put on my makeup while Charlie got ready to go pick up the food. My heart was pounding so hard my hands were shaking and I had trouble putting on my eyeliner.

I swear, I was less nervous at my wedding. I get myself so worked up about these events sometimes I can't remember to enjoy them. Hard to believe I used to be an event coordinator, eh? Sigh.

At 10am my mother picked up me and Tori, and Charlie went off to pick up his mom. The choir rehearses for about a half hour before the service starts, and the music we were doing was lovely and simple, thank god, since I could barely focus. Once we were done rehearsing, I put Tori in Charlie's gown.

She looked like a little angel. And she tolerated the bonnet.

I realized  as people started to arrive that I'd forgotten to bring the roses to the church. Elise and her husband were going to hold a bowl of rose petals at the front of the church while everyone came up and said a few words about Tori then placed a rose petal in the water. It was a major part of the ceremony. We tried to dig up some dead roses from the previous week's flower bouquet, but they looked pretty bad. Blessedly Elise's hubbie ran back to our house and got them before the service started.

Then Charlie called and said our friend Mark, who was going to do the blessing, took a train to the wrong town. I didn't think there was anyway he could make it on time, but he got there only a few minutes late.

The service finally started, and the choir did its thing. It was weird, in a way, singing in front of my friends, but it was nice too. After we were done and could sit down, I tried to do some deep breathing so I could be in the moment instead of just racing with anxiety. It helped. The sermon was awesome, and then it was finally time.

Everything was perfect. Tori was just amazing, awake and engaged and paying attention. Everyone said the nicest things... Tori is truly loved. Sarah made us all cry, and I cried a bit while I spoke too. Mark cried while he read the blessing. In fact, everyone but Tori cried.

Tori was nonplussed by the water; she just stared at my pastor the whole time like he was the most fascinating man ever. The pastor walked her around the church, showing her off, and I took a deep breath and was grateful it was over. Then it was back to the house for food and cake!

Enjoy a ton of photos here. If that's not enough, check out Sarah's photos too.

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If you haven't had enough of me, check this out (it's a podcast of a Canadian radio show that I'm featured in). I haven't listened to it yet, so I hope I don't sound like a complete idiot, but it was fun being interviewed. Now I've been on Australian and Canadian radio... NPR, here I come!

Test Tube Babies

As I mentioned on Friday, the good people involved with the American Experience on PBS asked me if I would preview an episode entitled  "Test Tube Babies," dedicated to the history of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). This made me feel very important so of course I agreed (ah, to make a living reviewing things!).

The show is airing Monday, October 23rd, at 9pm (but check your local listings).

When I first got the DVD, I bristled a bit because of the title; after all, IVF utilizes petri dishes, not test tubes. But given the context and history of IVF, the title makes perfect sense.

I found the show fascinating. I'd heard a few things about the history of IVF (mostly courtesy of Julie), but not the details. I didn't know, for instance, that most of the initial research and study was done by a woman, and in fact, the first human egg to be fertilized outside of a womb happened because she was suffering from a lack of sleep due to a teething child and let the experiment go on longer than usual. That was all the way back in 1944, which surprised me. But that scientist quit her job to follow her husband across the country and research stopped for a long time.

Until Dr. Shettles. The American father of IVF was a little toad of a man, a total lab rat. He was obsessed with the human egg, and pursued his research even after he was told not to and was demoted (thanks to a conservative boss who thought fertilizing human eggs outside the womb was unnatural). He went so far as to find a human couple that was willing to go through the whole process.

The Del-Zio's were each in their second marriage, but eager to have a child together. Thanks to major surgery following a ruptured appendix, Doris Del-Zio had no functioning fallopian tubes. But eggs were harvested, fertilized, and left in an incubator ready to be transferred to her uterus. But much to their dismay, the test tube was spotted and that conservative boss found out and ORDERED THE SAMPLE DESTROYED.

Talk about a canceled cycle.

Even now, thirty years later, you can still see the grief and rage etched in Doris Del-Zio's face. Her heart was broken that day; she and her husband never did have a child.

Somehow, though, the Del-Zio's managed to channel their rage into the law suit that made IVF possible for all of us. The hospital's lawyers kept trying to portray Dr. Shettles as a mad scientist intent on creating a monster in his laboratory, but on the stand Doris Del-Zio just kept saying over and over "They killed my babies. My babies."

Two years later, the first IVF clinic opened in Norfolk, Virginia.

Not long after that, of course, the controversy around IVF switched from "they're creating monsters!" to "they are murdering innocent babies!" In fact, the entire IVF history is nearly identical to the current attitudes around stem cell research--and since the baby born of IVF in the world did NOT happen here in the US (Louise Brown was born in England), I imagine we can expect to see the first first stem cell breakthroughs to happen somewhere other than here.

All in all, I enjoyed the show immensely. My only real gripe is a standard one: when, oh when, will people stop fucking saying that embryos are "implanted" into the uterus. If doctors could implant the embryos themselves, IVF would have a significantly higher success rate. Instead, the embryos are transfered into the uterus and have to implant themselves.

TRANSFER. NOT IMPLANT. TRANSFER TRANSFER FUCKING TRANSFER.

So, check it out and come back here and discuss. M'kay?

PS: The baptism was AWESOME. I will post about that soon!

Baptism-A-Go-Go (you may be totally bored by this post but I don't care!)

I am ridiculously giddy about Tori's baptism on Sunday. It seems like a weird thing to be excited about, but it's really just a big party celebrating her existence, and that IS something to get excited about (and yeah, there's that whole "dedicating her to God" thing going on too). I mean, other than a baptism, can you picture an event celebrating a baby that would involve a choir? Yeah, I didn't think so.

We met with my pastor on Tuesday morning and he spent over an hour hammering out the details so that the ceremony would encompass everyone. Charlie, being an agnostic, doesn't want to lie to my pastor's face and promise to raise Tori "in Christ" and neither does Sarah, the Jewish godmother. So Charlie and I are going to say the following:

Will you pledge to nurture this child so that she may grow in joy & faithfulness? We will!

Will you pledge to raise this child in this Spiritual Community? We will!

Will you pledge to do all you can to increase her faith, confirm her hope and perfect her in love?    We will!

Nice, huh? I tell ya, my pastor is a genius. The congregation itself will promise to raise Tori "in the example of Christ" which is awesome because no one can say Jesus set a bad example, right?

We will also ask everyone present to come forward and share their hopes and dreams for Tori, placing a rose petal in the baptismal font while they do so. Elise and her husband will lead this, staying up front and holding the bowl of rose petals (do you know I can't find a florist to sell me rose petals? I have to buy roses and rip them up myself). Then my dear friend Mark (who needs to get a blog already!) will say a blessing over the water, and my pastor will baptize her.

Then we'll do the following while anointing each part with oil:

Head (Sarah):  May you know God’s love always.

Heart (Sarah's daughter) – May you learn to love others with your whole heart.

Mouth(Pete) – May you speak truth & wisdom with caring & grace.

Hands (my mom and Charlie's mom)– May you help create a better world.

Feet (me and Charlie)– May you walk the path of life to see your children and your  children’s children to the third and fourth generation!

Cool, huh? Then we finish the church service and everyone comes to my house for chow.

I'm so happy. Remind me of this moment when Tori is a teenager and making me crazy. I'm just so damn happy that she's finally here...

Here's a preview of things: Tori's baptism gown and her dress for the after party!

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Be sure to drop by the blog this weekend to catch my review of this PBS program. It's airing on Monday, October 23rd. You can find local listings here!

 

Bill O'Fuckhead

Several of you lovely folks have sent me links to this story. Apparently, Mr. Bill O'Reilly, in his infinite wisdom and, I'm sure, WIDE range of experience with this issue, has claimed that there is NEVER any time a mother's life is in danger during a pregnancy and therefore requires an abortion.

Never, huh?

Well, my own story aside, has the man ever heard of ectopic pregnancy? Perhaps he thinks we should become like El Salvador, where women with ectopic pregnancies are forced to wait until their fallopian tubes burst before they can get treatment for ectopic pregnancies.

He's clearly never heard of preeclampsia happening before a baby is viable, which of course is what happened to me. I suppose I could have had a c-section instead of a dilation and extraction, but since we were still so early in the pregnancy what was the point of subjecting me to major abdominal surgery when there was another option (and no chance the baby would survive)?

What about the woman whose husband/partner/man who raped her has threatened to kill her if she gets pregnant again?

Sigh.

I would go on. And I've covered this subject better in the past. But I'm sick of shouting at the sky and asking it to stop fucking raining. Trying to make someone like Bill O'Reilly understand is like trying to get water to run uphill.

I'm tired. I'm tired of being called a murderer. I'm tired of being told that what happened to me doesn't happen very often. I'm tired of being told I made the wrong choice.

Cause I didn't, you bastard. I did NOT.

So, Mr. O'Reilly, to quote Rosie O'Donnell to you on The View yesterday, just because you are louder than I am doesn't make you right. So shut the fuck up. Culture Warrior my ass. You can suck my infected tit.*

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*Sorry you haven't heard from me. I'm coming back from a brush with a blocked milk duct and possibly some mastitis (not too severe--staying home and nursing the baby like crazy seems to have cleared it up). I was feeling pretty run down and flu-like, but I'm ok now. Although my right boob is significantly larger than the left one. We have a huge event at work today, but hopefully no one will be checking out my boobs too carefully. Heh.

Lovely

That's what the weekend was. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Too short, though. Could have used a couple more days, I must say.

The beach in the off-season is one of my favorite places. It's still warm enough to walk by the water (but too cold to swim!). The sun is still bright enough that you get a little tiny tan from it. Ah... it was awesome.

There was some drama, of sorts. Charlie forgot to request a king-sized bed when he made the reservation, so our room had two double beds and no room for the portable crib (we could have slept in different beds with Tori with one of us, but come on). I took this in stride by freaking the fuck out and pitching a major fucking fit. We tried twice to no avail to get them to change our room--I even attempted the "recreating the honeymoon" angle with no success. Finally, Charlie offered them an extra $100 a night to change our room and they did (but they did NOT charge us extra. Very sweet of them).

If you go to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, please stay at the Sand Castle Motel. They are very nice to hysterical new mothers.

We took a walk on the boardwalk (with the bugaboo! Wow, that thing turns heads) Friday night, enjoyed the sunset, and then went to dinner at our favorite restaurant. Tori saw the ocean for the first time! She was unimpressed.

The next morning after a hearty diner breakfast we drove over to Cape Henlopen State Park, a place we usually camp a couple of times a year. They have free bikes you can borrow for a couple of hours, so we reserved a couple along with one of these (yes, all for free!). Tori was probably a bit on the small side for one of these (I hear you all gasping in distress) but we bolstered her us with sweaters on either side, strapped her in tight, and off we went. We were biking on car-free paved trails within the park (a great place to bike, by the way) so I wasn't too worried about it.

She LOVED it. She was back there checking things out as happy as can be. We took her out on the beach and watched the waves for a while, then biked back to the car. We had lunch, then went back to the room for a nap, then off to walk the boardwalk and eat dinner out again. It was awesome.

That night we all slept hard. Tori actually slept from 9pm until 5am without a break! Other than my exploding boobs, it was wonderful. Sleeping the night through is on the horizon, me thinks.

Sunday we packed up and started home, stopping off at the Wilmington & Western Railroad for a ride on the train. Which Tori also adored. Her third train ride already! Charlie was also very happy because they were running a rare engine that day and he got some great photos.

All in all, a lovely weekend. We realized that we never really took a vacation last year at all, and we need one. We didn't camp at all last summer. Sigh. Ah well. Plenty of summers to look forward to camping with Tori...

Here are the photos *. Enjoy!
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*I didn't realize you couldn't leave comments on Flickr without an account; but you can all see the photos, right? Would you rather I posted them here? It's just much easier on Flickr than on Typepad...

Miscellany

Wow, I've been quiet! Sorry. I try to post 3-4 times a week but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Don't hate me. After my last post, I've felt pretty dry, so I'm just going to do one of those rambling posts that bores everyone. M'Kay?

First off, Charlie and I are going away tomorrow for the weekend. Our tenth wedding anniversary (tenth! oh my god, where did the time go--oh, wait, I remember) is a week from today, so we're going back to the illustrious site of our honeymoon for the weekend: Rehobeth, Delaware. Hey, we were poor when we got married, it was all we could afford (for the two people left in the universe that haven't already heard the story of how we got together, you'll find it here). It also happens to be one of our favorite places. We usually camp nearby, but I'm looking forward to the luxury of a hotel with an indoor pool (must remember to pack Tori's adorable suit). Should be relaxing and wonderful.

The reason we're going this weekend and not next weekend, of course, is that Tori's baptism is next Sunday the 22nd. I'm absolutely unreasonably excited about the baptism. Partly because I love having any event that gets the people I love together. Partly because my pastor is so awesome and he enjoys baptisms so much. But mostly, it's because of this (you have to scroll down to the end of the post to see what I'm talking about). Go read it, I'll wait.

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That vision is what got me through the whole last half of my pregnancy. You have no idea how many times I closed my eyes and pictured it when I got scared or sad. Even now thinking about it makes me tear up. Dave et all won't be here, sadly, but that's OK. It's a lot to ask someone to fly across the country for a two-hour event. But I know he'll think of us that day (you will, won't you, Dave?).

Not too long ago, I found photos of Charlie in his baptism/christening gown (we're not sure if he was baptized or christened--he has a Lutheran mother and a Catholic father). I said to him then that I bet his mom still had the gown. He didn't believe me.

But we found it!

So Tori is going to wear Charlie's gown, which makes me happier than you can imagine (I love family hand-me-downs and traditions). Plus I bought her the cutest fucking dress EVER to wear to the party afterwards. With tights and little shiny shoes. I could squeal just thinking about it (but then I find myself squealing over baby girl clothes all the time--what is wrong with me?).

I promise to post a gazillion pictures.

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A quick note: the amazing and fabulous Dawn has come up with a great idea that will get us bloggers free stuff. Cool, right? Here's how she describes it:

I’m putting together a database of bloggers who are ready, willing and able to get FREE STUFF in exchange for reviewing said stuff on their blog. I decided to do this after goodies started coming in via my blog (books, CDs, DVDs and a couple hundred dollars worth of toys). I want to share the wealth.

You can read more about it here. Or you can just fill out the survey and sign up here. Enjoy!

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You guys have a great weekend. I'll post photos of us on the boardwalk Monday! If you like, share your baptism/christening/baby naming/whatever ceremony stories in the comments. That will be fun to read!

Forgiveness

I've spent a great deal of time thinking about forgiveness. When I first got sober, I thought forgiveness was about letting someone off the hook. Naturally, I was disinclined to let the folks I believed had wronged me off the hook. No way, baby.

Luckily, sobriety tends to wring out such notions. It wasn't long before I realized that many of the "wrongs" I believed had been done to me were actually my fault (for instance, I was really angry at a former boss for firing me--even though I was fired for stealing). It wasn't until later, however, that I was able to see that forgiveness doesn't actual benefit the forgiven particularly--it benefits the forgiver instead.

In my experience, forgiving someone is like taking a heavy rock I've been carrying around and setting it down on the side of the road and walking away. I find my burdened lightened. It can be very freeing.

But it's miserably hard work. A few years ago I found myself sitting across from someone (an ex-boyfriend) who had wronged me considerably (he surprised me by moving out while I was at work one day, leaving me only a note) asking him to forgive me for the part I'd played in our breakup. This was nearly impossible for me because I still carried so much anger and resentment toward him for leaving me in the first place. As I looked at him, all I could see was the fucking note (it said, "Cec, I thought about our relationship and moved." We'd been fighting a lot and I'd asked him to "think about our relationship" that morning). Apologizing to him was the hardest thing I'd ever done. He then told me he'd left that way because he'd feared I would injure him in a rage (yes, I was prone to rages in my drunken early 20's). In that moment, my anger toward him swelled even more strongly, then, suddenly, burst like a soap bubble. In that instant, I forgave him. I stopped caring  that he'd hurt me. I let it go.

I haven't seen him since that day (at least not on purpose). I have no desire to. I don't want to be his "friend." In fact, I don't like him much at all. As a wise woman I met in recovery said, this falls into the category of "Forgive you, but fuck you." My part is done. He's no longer on my radar. It's such a relief.

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I've been thinking about this again since I'd heard that the Amish attended the funeral of the man that murdered their daughters. Such is the nature of their religion; they not only invited the killer's family to the girl's funerals, they also went to his.

An act of forgiveness so huge I cannot fathom it.

The only vengeance the Amish will vent in this horrible story is on the schoolhouse itself. It will be destroyed, and they will build a new one instead. This seems entirely appropriate to me.

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Someone that has taught me a great deal about forgiveness is my husband.

We've been working on clearing out his mother's condo. There is a lot to go through; it appears she stopped throwing anything away once she got sick--there are hundreds of papers to examine and discard.

While going through them, we've come across some things. Charlie's mom was not a nice woman before she got ill. In fact, she was nasty. My very first impression of her came from the first time I visited Charlie's new apartment. I noticed a large finger smirch on the dust on the cover of his answering machine. I asked him about it, and he said, with a big sigh, "My mom." The first time she came to see our new house, I cleaned that place within an inch of its life. I mean, I scrubbed the baseboards. But when she came into the house, she made a beeline for the kitchen and put her hand on top of the fridge. At just barely over five feet tall, it hadn't occurred to me to clean there. Her hand came down sticky. The look she gave me! Ye gods.

Add that to the fact that I know she beat Charlie within an inch of his life when he was a kid (until he was 12 years old and he hit her back and said, "No more."), I found it hard to be fond of her before she got sick. Even now I find myself tolerating her more than actually liking her.

But Charlie, amazing man that he is, has set all of this aside to take care of her. All the pain she caused him, all the grief, yet he dotes over her nearly as much as he dotes over Tori. It's a beautiful thing to see. He practices forgiveness daily with her.

In her papers we've found notes listing his grievances against her. Poems of his where she's written "No good" in the corner. Each time we unearth something painful, I watch him just sigh and set it aside, forgiving her yet again.

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This morning some jerk shoved me in his hurry to get off the train. He stepped on my foot too. Twenty minutes later I'm sitting at my desk still fuming over it when I remember about the funeral and the Amish. Maybe that man was ill and running to the restroom. Maybe a friend was in the hospital. Maybe he was just late for work. Whatever it was, it was such a minor offense. Yet these, I find, are the hardest to forgive.

Today, though, I took the lessons that Charlie and the Amish have taught me and said a quick prayer for the man. As soon as I did, my anger burst again and disappeared. I felt much better.

And that, I've learned, is the real gift of forgiving. Feeling better. Feeling lighter. Feeling clean.

Now, if I can just figure out how to forgive myself.