recipes and secrets

 There is another story I want (need) to tell, but in order for it to make sense, you really need to know the beginning. And this is the beginning, or as close as I can get.

When my husband’s grandmother was passing away but still lucid, I thought to ask my mom in law for her mother’s cookie recipe, just known as grandmother’s cookies, always given nestled in plastic inside a tin, they were a delicate cookie, like the expensive ones in the specialty section of the grocery store, where it’s like $8.99 for 12 cookies and by the time you get them home half are broken from the shuffling around. She had the original copy of the recipe, and gladly gave it to me.

After she had passed away and we were planning the memorial, I decided that a sweet gesture would be to make her cookies in her honor. No one else is the family made them or ever wanted to try...I’m the baker and chef of our family. Upon reading the recipe, I had to read it 3 times and flip it over to look on the back. While ingredients and amounts are there, it ships right to putting them on the tray and into the oven. It’s handwritten so it’s no mistake. It dawned on my what a sly, smart woman she was. It was her recipe, the one she was known for and who everyone knew to expect when they saw her, and whose cookies everyone could identify in the dessert table. The cookies that would be hidden inside their tins tucked away in secret spots to prevent them from being stolen by others...everyone got their own tin and would easily go through them in a day and search for someone else’s stash.

I told my husband when I discover this that “she was sneaky. Don’t be surprised if there are some secrets that come out and her will and papers come out and we all start going through things. This was not an accident or coincidence. She purposely did not put the technique, which any baker knows for a delicate cookie like this is crucial for texture and there’s no real room for error in these cookies. You just wait.”

Well, now I’m eating my words because things did come out. But that’s another story, the one I want to tell next.

So some days before the memorial I decided to try the recipe. My mom in law was over and I though perfect she can taste test them for me and see if I can recreate these.

I looked up towed the heavens and said “ok mom-mom you got me. That was pretty good, but I’m better. I got this.”

And I figured it out based on what I knew and they came out exactly prefect.

I didn’t know what kind of forbidding I was predicting when I spoke those words to the heavens. But man.

A Christmas Miracle

 Amazing things can happen when you let love, kindness, and empathy lead. It can be a very hard thing to do, but if you can live like that you will reap great rewards. I know. Because it happened to me.

My story that I’ve been posting about is completely crazy, weird, bizarre, scandalous...the stuff of tv dramas and bad TV movies. Yet it is all true, and it’s my life.

Things seemed to take an unexpected turn at my last post. Guys, this stuff has been really hard to deal with and process at the tail end of a year that was weird and hard in its own right, for everyone on the planet. I’m fatigued, and when that happens I tend to cross over to the dark side and sometimes get stuck there.

But since working hard on my mental health and trying to be a more positive, calm, happy person, I knew I couldn’t stay in the dark place for long.

My husbands lies and actions were awful, but they were coming from a place of rejection and hurt and distrust. In the time since I wrote about learning the truth, more and more truths have come to light, more dark secrets and fears that were hidden have come out. The understanding I have of this man I married is incredible...and it’s given me a real way to help him. He’s been in therapy for a couple weeks now trying to sort out the traumas of his childhood.

And that never would have happened if it weren’t for his ex, who so bravely opened up to me about their shared past. Together we were able to give each other the pieces we truly needed to see the complete picture, and it allowed her some new understanding and closure after all this time. It gave me a jumping off point to further keep putting the pieces together for him to have his memory jogger enough. It also gave him great understanding of all the hurt he caused, because he had been hurt over and over again during his childhood by people he was supposed to be able to trust and who were supposed to protect him.

Yes, I had a big crush on this girl. Yes I think she is amazing. But we are friends...and friends we will stay. Talking to her reminds me of talking to an old friend, like talking to my sister.

So tonight (the 23rd) I found myself done every outside of  the house errand, went to alll the packed stores, finished everything. I had a lot of cooking and baking to do...hours worth. Her and I often FaceTime in the evening and sit and chat over folding laundry and a glass of wine, and it’s strangely comforting. Her and I were chatting and as this is her first Christmas after a difficult split, I could sense she was feeling lonely, as I was. I may have a house full of people but it’s not the same as having a sibling or friend to hang out with while doing all the things. I lamented to her that I wish there was a way she could just come over with her girls and hang out. She said she wished that too, and I say maybe someday...

My husband hadn’t seen her in 20+ years...he has a lot of guilt and shame about all of that regarding her.

But, like I said I can’t live in the dark place, I also can’t sit on things I want to do or things that have to be done...I don’t like things hanging over me. It unsettles me at best. So I broached the subject with my husband tonight. He hasn’t even been comfortable with us talking, let alone anything more like a friendship. But I pressed on because that’s what I do. I told him the above story and asked if he thought that would ever be possible. So of course his first reaction was to balk. A lot. But I have a way with words and thoughts and I was able to explain why this is important to me, why she is important to me.

You see, she is part of my story, as much as I don’t like the plot line. She fills in so many parts of all of it, the same as she does now.

So we had her and her youngest daughter over that night. They talked privately, albeit briefly. I checked in with them both separately to make sure each was ok. She stayed for several hours, and we just chatted and baked cookies and did mom stuff. Occasionally my husband would pop in and chat for a few or crack a couple jokes, always his way, which I happen to adore. I love that he makes me laugh. And it was a really fun time.

Since I first started this post on Christmas Eve (it’s Saturday night now) we have all hung out again. She and I had decided since everything was cool or could at least be going forward, that we should get a do over, a chance to really get together to hang out without all the awkwardness of the initial start to the night that sort of hung over us. We all kept it light and funny and just make jokes about the weirdness of the whole situation. So our plans were for her to meet at our house Saturday night, all three of us do a shot together and cheers to friends, then her and I would go find somewhere that wasn’t crowded to grab a late dinner. (Which wasn’t at all hard to do in the closest couple towns near me)

*****side note, I get the vaccine tomorrow (Sunday)!!! I had to read all the disclosures and it’s scary but also not because the information they are providing is is directly from the Pharm company and is incredibly transparent, but also because I’m now part of a clinical study, and they will be taking media photos and recording this crazy bit of history we are all a part of. But I wholeheartedly believe in science, it’s been my passion for as long as I can remember. So vaccinated I will get.*****

So back to Saturday...of course nothing could go to plan. Late Friday night she texted in a panic because some lights came in in her car. It’s already been a year, her first Christmas separated from her husband, and she struggles from anxiety and depression, which I know all too well. So I offered to help and I talked to my oldest son whose a mechanic (he’s 15 but he’s got skills) and he agreed for us to go help her Saturday morning, as long as he was back in time to leave with his oldest sister and her mechanic boyfriend to look at a truck my son wanted to buy. We even found time on Christmas Eve to make an after dinner run to a liquor store and pick out a couple last minute gifts and a nice bottle of whiskey to shoot. Everything was set. Until.

UNTIL...

Hubs and I stay up stupid late Christmas night into Saturday. Basically take a nap. Get up and start getting ready and make sure my son is awake. I’m in the middle of getting dressed when I hear my son from the hallway saying how he can’t go, he had to leave with his sister rightnow!! Wait, what?! Mind you we are already running late and I’ve told her we’d be on the way in 10 minutes. Find out my oldest daughter on a whim changed all these plans to suit what she woke up and felt like doing, had everyone all worked up as per usual, ended up leaving with her big and my son to go to look at the truck...and I’m standing there trying to figure out how I’m going to still help her, when I see my husband pulling on his boots and saying her would go to help. So we went with it. I did text her on the way to warn her, asking her to take a breath and not freak out, so she had a good half hour to get used to the idea. I’ve told him over and over that the more normal he acts, the more normal it will be, for everyone. So we got there and he acted like he was going to help an old friend, making jokes, giving advice, eventually fixing the problem for her without too much effort.

Later that night I was running behind again because my husband I were spending some quality time together while the kids were all occupied with all the new things. Hey, ya gotta stay connected, amiright?! And naked time is the best stress reliever!!!

I digress.

So neither of us were quite ready when she got there but he was more ready than me so he had to answer the door. Luckily the little boys were still up and the older two teeens were floating around so she was well entertained for 10 minutes.(I check the clock when I came downstairs haha) But I brought down my socks and boots and makeup and sat and chatted with her while I finished getting ready (not a usual wearer of makeup but I do like too sometimes even if it’s simple. But these days I’m doing it more because it makes me feel good, and I could always use more of that!! About 10 minutes before we left we all Saluted to friends and had a shot of some of the smoothest whiskey I’ve ever had, and just talked for the last couple minutes. It was nice, it was fun, it was comforting.

I’ve talked to both of them separately to make they are each feeling ok with everything and they both have said that it’s just like a person they once knew, like an old old friend. Usually there’s always gonna be some tension in any long term relationship, even friendships, and so when he reframed it that way he was like yeah it’s like a chance to make things right and ok in the universe. In his universe. She has made a peace with everything long ago.

And I have grown so much from this...I have learned the power of unconditional love...I have learned that I was correct in not stopping my search for the truth, even when my digging caused some huge waves for a lot of people, and that I will always fight for the truth, I have learned how deeply flawed we are as humans, every one of us, though some more than others. But if we can look past the exterior and see what’s inside it’s so damn beautiful. Leading with kindness and love in mind, even when it’s hard. I’ve learned just how incredibly strong and smart and empathetic, and downright fierce I am. I’ve learned an entirely new and deep love for my husband, in a way words can’t describe. I am so damn proud of him. Because of his willingness to fight his instincts and live in the area of kindness and love. Because he’s open to seeing the beauty and it just might change his heart for the better even more. I’ve learned what it truly means to look at someone and such a detailed whole picture, to know every secret there is to know, to know all the bad things but to also see the immense good that is there, and to just let the love surround us and guide us through. Letting love lead.

So this crazy twisty wind-y story of mine isn’t over, far from it. I don’t know the ending yet, but I know that all of these characters that make up my crazy, messy, blended times I don’t even know how many times anymore family, will be in my story until the very end.

“Silent night. Holy night. All is calm. All is bright.”

where it gets twisty-er...

 As if all of the other things in alllll of this aren’t weird enough, I go and do what I do best...make it weirder. That’s my specialty, apparently.

Oooof. Ok. Putting my husband back in touch with his best friend/former (and again to be current?) lover, I also had a long heart to heart with his best friend. And it gave me a ton of insight. And how right now they both really, really need each other.

Over the last several months I have developed an incredibly close friendship with a woman and it has recently become a very strong attraction to each other on both our parts, not by force or anything, just incredibly naturally. We have not acted on anything, merely acknowledged to each other that this is feeling like something more and we are trying to work through that. I’m aware how I’ll advised this is, completely. My eyes are wide open here. But when the heart starts getting involved things start getting really complicated and that is something her and I need to sort out, for everyone’s sakes. The twisty-est part of all of this is that she is my husbands ex-wife.

I KNOW.

But. He created this crazy entanglement of people and circumstances by lying his whole life to everyone around him. The past was always going to catch up with him. We all had to make connections to put all the pieces together. In some ways it all feels like we were pawns in his sadistic game of chess. The dark angry part of me feels that way.

But the connections that happened between all of us in different ways are all authentic, based on a mutual shared past and the blurring of the lines long ago. No one in this situation is holding grudges or acting out of revenge or hate...we are all too old for that.

My husband is all wrapped up in his therapy and reconnecting with his best friend...I’m sort of over here holding all the pieces together. Right now I feel like the glue.

It’s messy and twisted and weird for sure. But this is my life, and I have to find a way through all of this mess, no matter how hard or uncomfortable it may be.

Thank you for everyone following along and leaving these amazing comments. I appreciate the company, support, and love on this crazy ride and wish nothing but the absolute best for all of you. Hopefully you feel the love, because I sure do.

up and downs

 There’s no way any of this was ever going to be smooth sailing. The truth isn’t a magical cure for all the hurt that was caused. It doesn’t erase the feelings of sadness, anger, pain. It doesn’t erase the distrust, the doubts, the fear.

It takes digging very deep within myself to find the courage and strength and love I need to get us through this. And it’s exhausting...I’ve been living in this space for weeks, months now...and I’m so tired.

Sometimes, like right now, it’s all I can do not to just curl up in a ball and cry. To shut the world out and just grieve and cry until I have nothing left. But I don’t have that luxury. And even if I did, I couldn’t because my husband needs me more. I have to be brave and strong for him.

But what happens when I waiver, when I don’t feel strong, or like I can’t emotionally handle much more? What happens when I feel like all these things have broken me, too?

It’s just a phase, it will eventually pass and somehow I will summon the strength to keep going for both of us, until we can both hold our own again.

It’s just that right now I feel like I’m sinking. Who’s gonna save me from drowning?

the truth shall set you free

 Thank you to everyone who is reading and following along with me on this journey. I have felt the strength and love and prayers I have been sent by everyone. I’ve had some very intense experiences with feeling the love and peace and calm and knowing where it came from. But this post isn’t about that.

What happens when you open Pandora’s Box and take a see dive into the past is that sometimes there are truths that pop out that are pieces of information...but it’s like opening an old chest in an attic and sifting through lifetimes worth of stuff that is basically like dumping a 1000 piece puzzle out all over the floor. The pieces are there, but it takes a lot of time to sort the edges from the middle, and the bit of info are so tiny compared to the big picture it can take a while to see what’s supposed to be there when all the pieces are sorted and put back together the right way. But sometimes it takes trying a whole bunch of different pieces to find the ones that click together. Sometimes there are so many pieces that even ones that seems to fit together isn’t always the right pieces in the end.

So that’s what happened...I had all the pieces but they didn’t fit together, even though they seems to at first. I had pieces together that didn’t fit, and the big picture I got still didn’t look the the picture on the box. So I pulled what I had put together all apart and tried to rearrange the pieces so that the true picture became clear.

One I spent my time grieving and writing and hours upon hours of talking it was so obvious that the truth had been sitting right in front of me the entire time, the pieces were just  put together wrong. What snapped me out of it was my old friend who was there the night I met my hubby...she sort of initiated the entire thing. She’s know me over half my life now. She said to me “I’ve know you since you were a 19 year old little brat running around the hospital, and you are one of the strongest people I have ever known, so act like it”. And I was l like “Oh yeah...I am strong. I forgot who’s daughter I was for a second there, but I got it now.” And I took a step back at my puzzle and realized it was all wrong.

The truth that came out because of my unrelenting quest for the truth, and the inability to reconcile the person I knew with the lies he had told, the things he had done. Something wasn’t making sense. I took myself back in time. Remembered everything from the day we met onward. And one thing I kept thinking of is how I’ve looked into my husbands eyes millions of times over 21 years. I’ve seen his soul, especially in those very intimate moments where we are connected as one as we keep our eyes connected...and I remember a sadness I’ve seen come through sometimes, almost a pleasing look in his eyes begging me to know the truth. The night we met and our eyes connected across the bar for the first time, I saw it then to. The pleading in his eyes that said he wanted me to know the truth but that was the only way he could communicate that, he didn’t have the words or if he did he couldn’t say them. And I remember small hints that have been dropped like little Easter eggs in movies where they don’t broadcast them, but really in tune people figure it out and find all the easter eggs, and feel more connected to the movie and walk away with a better understanding of the plot.

We spent hours and hours this week talking. I had switched to night shift this week to help with coverage, and I’ve had such little sleep since last week. Once my friend pulled me out of the darkness and we talked and talked the events of the past and all his little Easter eggs he was leaving me started to Be some revealed, he showed me where they were all hidden. And as it usually is, the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes of my life.

There were two revelations that are things I had suspected or known a small part about, but not to the extent I needed to in order to understand. People can make us believe what they want if the truth is too hard to face.

The first thing is that when he was 12 one of his stepmothers sexually assaulted him. He never said anything because he was afraid he wouldn’t be allowed to see his dad, who left him when he was a kid, he watched his dad drive away and waited for him everyday at the window for weeks.

2 years after that he met a boy who needed up becoming his best friend and so much more. He told me “I fell in love with him in the biggest way. I didn’t fall in love with him for any other reason but him. I loved him without it being about gender. None of that even mattered.” This continued on in absolute secret until he met me, through all his girlfriends and through his marriage, which was all just a way for him to try to cover for himself, to hide it, to try and forget that he loved someone he couldn’t fully be with, not in the way he wanted. He didn’t know how. And how pressure from his mom and bra mom when he was just 18 to marry this girl, for family optics. He said he knew it was completely wrong and he hated that he felt so trapped. It was all a family cover to prevent people from finding out about his being with another guy, because by that time people were starting to find out and talk about it and they got less and less good at hiding how they felt about each other.

I watched his face change as he recalled the story. He would get a wistful smile when it seems like he was remembering a good memory. But after I searched his face I met his eyes, and I saw all that pain and emotion and bottled up love he held for so many years, trying to deny himself. His lies and coverups started unraveling when he would let loose and tell a story, and hints were sprinkled throughout. But I think the thing that really punched him is that over the last year I have been really working to get back to who o really am. And since the summer, and each season brings even more of this out, but I have been able to be my authentic self again, I found my way back. I’m still rough around the edges but my mental and emotional states have evolved along with me, making me feel like a badass super hero.

“I think that’s amazing.”

That was my reply to his confession. And I smiled at him. It broke my heart to hear his stories, to imagine how painful that must have been for him to have been ever able to tell his best friend and lover how much he loved him. And it was instant, the soaring love I felt for him, the extreme need to wrap my arms around him and protect him. And for the first time in his life he cried over this. I could feel 30 years of sadness leave his body. And I admitted my truth.

That I have never felt like I was enough. Like I wasn’t girly enough for guys to date, but I wasn’t male-like enough to be in a relationship with a woman, either. I just felt like I didn’t fit in. And from the moment I met him, he always made me feel like I was perfect. And he still does.

And I know that it had to happen this way. That we had to tear down every brick and talk about every hard and uncomfortable thing in order for me to finally see his entire truth, the whole picture, with the pieces all fitting neatly into place. I knew exactly how he felt and why everything happened. I filled in words for him when he didn’t have any.

I told him that I think it is amazing and beautiful because he was able to full and freely love, that he has the capacity to love like that. That I would always be his safe place. And he said that I was only the second person who had made him feel like that...the first being his best friend. But they never got to tell each other how they felt.

I know now that it had to be like this. That I had to be strong enough for both of us to find my authentic self again, in order to help him feel ok about his.

A week ago I had told him that it would be a long time before I ever felt like I could be intimate and trusting in that way with him again. And a week ago it felt like the impossible. But a funny thing happens when you let the love and empathy and kindness and compassion shine through, you are rewarded a million times over.

I thought it was going to take a long time for me to feel like I could be close and intimate with him again. But once he revealed his true self to me for the first time, it’s like my whole heart opened wide towards him. And we lay there last night with our bare chest pressed hard together, holding each other tight and staring into each other’s eyes, it was like we were transferring everything we were each  feeling separately and ended up making a big huge love, breaking unconditional love that transcends time and space.

And I know that with my help and strength and love that he is going to be ok. And that now that we are living the full truth with no more lies and guilt and doubt, that there is nothing that we can’t handle and that would ever tear us apart. 

We’re graphene.

That’s what happens when you let love lead. The past has healed the present.