Tuesday, Nov. 14th

[Waves 2]

Tuesday, Nov. 14th

Hi all,
Lovely to read all the posts here as usual. Very quick one today from me. Becca, glad the first treatment went well. Jen, great to see your CHEERing posts!
Love to all as always,
Waves X

[Mary Anne]

Tuesday, Nov. 14th

Hi all you muffins!

Just checking in, another busy one! Congrats on 30 days there!(Dilayne?) Hope everyone is having a wonderful Tuesday! YUCK, precouspino, I would DIE if I had that commute too, I growl at the 20 min. I have!

Hope your hubby is mending well SM Mary! I am sure it will take a while and some TLC on your part, sounds like you've got some sound goals set though!

Will try for AF tonight, but not promising anything again, ended up having "a few beers" last night afer all....BUT I did have an awesome 1 1/2 hour workout at the gym, intend to do it again tonight too (boy am I sore!! A good sore though!

love and hugs all around!!:l

MA

[MKR]

Tuesday, Nov. 14th

Hey all,

took me most of today coming back for a few minutes at a time to catch up on the threads.

Sounds like a few people of have had their share of miserable days here. I am sorry to hear that. I think we just have to remember sometimes with what seems horribly bad at a particular time turns out to be an absolutely great thing overall. Just doesn't feel like that at the start.

Judie, wow on a post somewhere you totally freaked me out about the garage and the doors closed. We are all blessed with your wonderful thoughtful personality on board with us. You have been my guru from the start or this, but then you know that!

Just when I say, I haven't been sick in years - WHAM! something I ate on Sunday evening or just catching the flu because I didn't have much an apetite on Sunday. Got sick, Monday, early monring and never got back out of bed, tried a group of times. First time in years, I didn't make it into the office and took a sick day. Pretty worn out today, think I must still be running a fever as I have basically slept for 30 some hours and still want to go to sleep! Waiting on my part timer to get him set up and then I think I am going on home to sleep some more. GEEZ! Was AF yesterday, and only got about one glass of water down for the whole day. Nothing was staying put.

Sunday evening had about a half glass of the wine I was having with my in laws back in town and over for dinner. My hubby finished off my glass and he is feeling fine so I don't know what I have.

Love and Hugs to all,
Mary

PS: The empty nest . . . thought I would hate it . . . you find over time, you got more time for your own things and your hubby . . . it's good stuff!!

[Quiescent]

Tuesday, Nov. 14th

Jenneh wrote: Hang in there Rachele. This is a really scary time, no doubt, but you will all find your way, I promise. We are here - keep your head up, stay as strong as you can and - you know what? Cry as often as you like. It's your right, damnit.
Love you and hugs
Jen

Thanks Jen:l

[eustacia]

Tuesday, Nov. 14th

Greetings, Muffs--

It's been awhile since I've had the energy to check in but I've been thinking about everybody. I'm sure that there is a lot I've missed and I hope that it is all good!

I'm still doing battle with the "black dog" and I'm not winning. Compared to Soccermom Mary, Gypsi, Mojo, Allie and a few others, my life is free of tumult and I feel like a petulant brat reporting on my sorrows.

Still, I am feeling unmoored and my drinking has increased to two or three glasses of wine over the past several days. I am disappointed with myself for drinking so much! I have got to cut my tolerance in order to stay out of trouble.

I'm having a hard time dealing with some things that I've had plenty of opportunity to get in a better perspective.

For example, Saturday night I went to a salon that meets regularly. I wish I could call it something other than a salon because that sounds so pretentious and this group isn't even remotely that way, but everyone who goes there just calls it "the salon," and so I am going to let that moniker stand. This week we watched a film about an alcoholic woman writer, Louise Bryant, who ran with a bohemian/socialist crowd. I had seen the movie when it first came out more than 20 years ago and I had read a biography of L.B. that predated it. Two bad but related things happened: for the first time, I was aware that I could only hear about 25% of the dialogue. I was fortunate that I remembered the movie well enough to be able to "guess" what the actors were saying. I have had some untreatable hearing loss all of my life but now I'm developing the kind of difficulty hearing that afflicts large numbers of my paternal relatives at midlife. I might have been the youngest person there that night and yet no one else appeared to have any difficulty hearing. My husband who is older than me told me that the acoustics were fine and that every word was completely clear to him. At the end of the movie, a woman who is not a regular and whose name I don't even know said that Louise Bryant was a "narcisstic bitch." Was it that I was more troubled by my difficulty hearing (and concommitant loss of youth) than I knew that I identified with the L.B. character and countered the remark in an unnecessarily arch fashion? In any event, the woman left quickly. The room became quiet because people who had known me for decades had never heard me speak unkindly to anyone. For the next few days, I felt that my husband was passive-aggressively mumbling around me. I know that he felt that I was unnecessarily strident at the gathering. I've told him more times that I can count how frightening and lonely it is to be losing my hearing and how much it would mean to me if he were to speak clearly to me. Last night, I felt so angry about his mumbling that I drank two glasses of wine after 2 a.m. just to take the edge off those feelings. I've got to stop this reactive drinking and I don't know how!

The salon/husband/deafness situation is related to something else that is going on in my life. I am an academic who has officially been on sabbatical for the last few months. Last week, I stopped going into my office because I know that the institution is "sick" and it is making me crazy. I just cannot deal with professional jealousy anymore. Or, maybe, I just don't want the bother of it at this point in my life. I never again want to hear that I had not clawed my way up the ivory tower, suffering enough to deserve the appointment that I'm leaving. Only a few people know that not planning on returning after my sabbatical ends. That means that I am now working in isolation from my peers but I am doing only the part of my work that I most love, the clinical aspect. I feel sad when I realize that I have more emotional intimacy with my patients than with my husband who almost never notices that I exist. Love, what is that? Does he even think of me as gendered? I can walk around nude and he doesn't even look up from his newspaper. I now hear that he took up with me when I was in my twenties because of my looks! What a friggin' joke! I never thought of myself as beautiful then (and I truly wasn't) but a couple of decades certainly haven't improved matters in the looks department. I feel that he finds me a decrepit old woman who has nothing to offer him anymore. I'm certainly not in his league intellectually. To heighten my loneliness, all four of my closest women friends have recently moved from this city because of career demands or because they wanted their kids in good schools without the 30K annual tuition that the better private schools in this city charge. I am so bloody lonely without them! My family is thousands of miles away and it is too expensive to make frequent trips to visit.

Poor, pitiful me! I am in a funk even though I know that I have a wonderful daughter and that my friends might have moved but they still love me. And so this brat drinks. OK, end of pity party. I'll probably read this later on tonight when I can't sleep and delete it. I'm so grateful Roberta provided us with that option!

E

P.S. Has anyone heard from Mojo?????

P.P.S. Can anyone relate to anything that I wrote?

[dilayne]

Tuesday, Nov. 14th

HI Eustacia..again, I think you articulate your feelings so well..and express things that I think most women feel, especially as we transition from youth to maturity. I read a book recently that really transcended how I viewed what was going on between my husband and myself..every time I read your post, I think about this book..if you are interested in it, let me know..I'd be happy to tell you about it. Marriage is such a complex thing and most of us go through some of what you are describing, I think..to some extent or the other. You certainly are not alone with your feelings! It sounds also like you are making choices for your deepest self around your career..and that you must do what you are called to do...I commend you on that..sometimes it is risky and contrary to everyone and everything around you so...sobeit! (((hugs)))

[Guest]

Tuesday, Nov. 14th

E

-- In perhaps odd ways, I can relate. Not from your womanly perspective and not the unique perspective that is your life perhaps ... but with many of the feelings you express so well.

I left a "partnership" because of the "sickness" I couldn't take anymore ... all the fighting over "points" and compensation...

The hearing thing must be horrible for you, and scary as heck. I mostly hear pretty well, but that doesn't always seem to help me understand what people are saying ...

Consider us a cyber shoulder to lean on. And, more importantly, a non-judging group who will listen and support you no matter what.

Hope today is a better one for you. Keep involved here, please. You help me with your sharing, okay ??

Mike