Two Years Later . . .

Two years ago today I filed for a divorce after almost twenty-two years of marriage. Every single day since that day has been a wonderful gift of renewal.

Oh, there have been plenty of horrible and difficult days -- and there still are a few, but they are now blissfully few and far between -- especially between the day I filed and the day he actually moved out, which was twenty-one long days later (hmmmm, interesting -- I just this second realized that the number of days I had to endure his presence after filing was the exact same number of years I spent married to him -- and oddly enough, twenty-one was also the age I was when I married him, so clearly twenty-one is NOT my lucky number).

The divorce was a long time coming, and it was something that I should have done years and years ago, but we all know the clarity of hindsight, and I can't go back and fix that particular mistake. If it weren't for the two great kids I got out of the marriage, I'd say that the entire marriage was a bust and something I never should have done, but because of them, I'll never say it was a complete waste of twenty-one years of my life.

The two years since I filed, though, have by far been the best years I've spent since I was a little kid with no worries dragging me down. The worries and the stress of life are the things that suck the joy out of living, and when I was married to him, my every waking day was totally filled with worry and strife, so once I eliminated him from my day-to-day life, a lot of my joy-killing stress went right out the door with him.

Naturally, I still have stress and worries in my life, but now they come from the places they should naturally arise, like work and bills. Now, I come home to a stress-free house; back then, I avoided coming home because this is where my stress level became instantly compounded the moment he walked in the door.

In the past two years, I have received so many compliments (sometimes daily even) about how happy I seem and how I appear younger and how I look healthier. That's because I am all these things. Once he left, I could physically feel the load coming off my shoulders, and the constant knot of pain I'd carried around at the base of my neck between my shoulder blades disappeared within weeks and hasn't returned at all. I started losing weight without even trying simply because my life had joy in it again, and this wasn't because I had been a mindless snacker or a junk food junkie while I was married but rather that I was now eating the good stuff that people are supposed to eat and not striving (unsuccessfully at every attempt) to please an ungrateful man who would only eat red meat and potatoes meals full of fat and carbohydrates. I quickly lost fifteen pounds and have kept it off for the past two years, and I'm actively working to shed a few more, but I'm not obsessing over it.

Sometimes it is really hard for me to not be angry with the financial load I was left to carry as a result of the divorce -- all of it a result of his overspending on his horses -- and not to be bitter at the large chunk of my teacher's retirement money he was awarded -- all of it from my hard work after years spent in a classroom -- , so when I have those bad moments or days when I'm feeling depressed about the debt I am left to bear, I remind myself that at least now I am slowly but surely getting a handle on it. During the marriage, he just mindlessly spent and spent and got loan after loan and let things continue to spiral completely out of control, and he purposely left me out of the loop and hid those things from me, but he was more than happy to let them all fall on my shoulders in the divorce. He managed this because I'm the responsible one with the stable and steady career, and since he was "willing" to walk away and "let" me have everything, the court then stuck me with the check, so to speak. It will be years and years and years before I am free of this load, but I'm free of him, and that is worth more than money to me -- that, in fact, is worth everything.

Despite the crushing debt I was left to manage, I am striving very hard to help my son as much as possible with his college expenses. I also bought myself a Harley-Davidson even though financially speaking, I shouldn't have. However, mentally and emotionally speaking, it was something I needed to do partly because of the debt I'd been stranded with. I knew that the debt had me in its grip for the next twenty to thirty years and by then, I'd be either very old or very dead, and my dream of once again owning a motorcycle would be either physically out of my league by then or dead alongside of me. That's a depressing thought, and my life post-divorce is about not living a depressing life, so I got myself a bike to enjoy as much as possible for as long as possible. Time will tell if it was worth it, and if it proves not to be, then I'll sell the bike and remove that much from my debt pile at least.

I do have the house, and prior to the divorce, the mortgage was almost paid off. Since the divorce, I have paid it off, but sadly I now owe more on it from his horse debt than I ever owed on the mortgage -- and I, and I alone, paid off the mortgage; he never paid a single dime toward this house, not a single dime. I could sell the house, but at the moment, I wouldn't get enough for it to pay off what I owe, so I'd then have no home and no money to start over somewhere else. For the time being, I will stay here and pay down the debt, so that when I do sell the house, I can at least break even. That is a few years down the road which coincides well with my daughter completing high school first before I set off on a new path.

However, the fact that I can plan for a future elsewhere and doing something else is another benefit from getting divorced. While there are plenty of good things about living in a small town in Nebraska, there are also plenty of bad things about it, and I'm ready for a change -- a change of scenery, a change of weather, and a change of opportunities. I'll bide my time for three more years, but during that time, I'll make plans for the next chapter in my life, and I'll be thankful every single day that I have the opportunity now for a next chapter.

In these past two years, I've learned to love again. I've had three relationships with men. The first could easily be considered that rebound relationship that we all seem to need to get us back on our feet. It didn't last long, and he clearly wasn't the right sort of guy for me, but I appreciate the time we spent together because he showed me that there are plenty of men out there looking for a woman to treat well. The next man was someone I spent a whole year with, and he was very nice, but in the end, our differences split us up. Again, I have no hard feelings toward him, and I am grateful for all our days together as he was there for me during the really hard part of the divorce trial time period, and he was the rock I needed in my life at that time. Currently, I am with a man who complements me in ways that no other man ever has because he is very smart, as am I, so our conversations alone keep me spellbound. I feel that I will spend a very long time with this man, and although I'm not keen on marriage anymore, I wouldn't completely rule it out with a man like him. Again, time will tell, but for now, he adds to the joy I feel every single day.

When I look back at this day two years ago when I was sitting in a lawyer's office making the hardest, and yet the easiest decision of my life, I am astounded at how far I've come internally. My outlook on life has completely changed. I awake every day and say "thank you for another day without him in my life" because I know that no matter the problems I have to face that day, they don't compare to the ones I lived with every single day for over twenty years.

While I often regret ever getting married, there hasn't been nor will there ever be a day in which I regret getting divorced.

"You're Worthless, Cat!"

First, let's look at my cat. Here he is:


He looks like a bad ass, doesn't he? Well, . . . he's NOT! Turns out he's a big ole pushover, and I had to find out the hard way. Allow me to elucidate.

It all began about two weeks ago. It was a Monday in January, to be specific concerning the time frame for this story. I came home in a rush after a day of teaching to change quickly and prepare to go to another town to watch my grown son play basketball with his men's league team. I had enough time to throw in a load of laundry, and then I was going to toss it in the dryer quick before I left. When I started the dryer, I heard a horrible racket of what I took to be excess lint being blown through the vent hose. I cussed a bunch because I'm diligent about cleaning out the lint screen to avoid such a thing, but I'd been very busy lately, so I assumed I'd neglected it the last time -- thus, I was cussing at myself for creating a new problem with my previous neglect. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner, attached the hose and did my best to clean out the lint trap before starting the dryer anew. I then left for the basketball game.

Later that night, as I was just about to drift away on a cloud of much needed sleep, suddenly there arose a tremendous ruckus in my daughter's bedroom, which is adjacent to mine. The cat will often decide to do his aerobic exercises late at night, so I initially was simply annoyed at the noise he was making. Then my daughter started yelling, "Cat! Cat!" (When we get mad at him, we forget he has an actual name -- it's akin to using that dreaded middle name when scolding a child.)

Those yells quickly turned to cries of help directed to me that went something like this: "Mom! Mom! Blackjack (the cat's real name) has a mouse! Mom! Mooooooooommmmmmmm!"

By then, the ruckus had passed by my closed door, which I threw open while emitting more curses. I turned on the hallway light, but the cat was not to be seen. My daughter then informed me that she had turned on her lamp when the cat's noise had become too much, and she had seen him with something in his mouth, and that thing had squeaked! Then he had dropped the thing, which she immediately saw was a mouse, and that mouse had taken off down the hallway with the cat in hot pursuit.

At this moment, I was more annoyed than anything. I was really tired, yet I was certain that the cat would take care of the mouse -- despite this being his first ever encounter with one. I ambled down the hallway, turning on lights as I went. At first, I couldn't find either of them, and then I spotted them in the formal living room, and it was then that I knew I had a problem.

Basically, the mouse had the cat cornered, so to speak. The cat was under my grandmother's old rocking chair peering out at the mouse who was simply crouched on the carpet looking back at the cat, and I could have sworn that damn mouse was taunting the cat with a "come-n'get-me" little twitch of his tail. I sighed and tried to urge the cat to do what was supposed to be in his nature to do, but apparently you can't coach a stupid cat.

The mouse suddenly bolted. The cat leaped, and he caught the mouse up into his mouth. I was both happy about this and frustrated because I didn't really want to watch him kill a mouse or eat it or dismember it or any other nasty thing like that, but I also wanted him to take care of the mouse. I stepped into the kitchen for one brief moment to look for something to try to catch the mouse in, but when I turned back to check on the cat and the mouse, I only saw the cat.

No mouse. Anywhere. Just a dumb cat looking up at me with a puzzled expression.

I looked down at him and considered: Either that was the fastest disposal of a mouse in the history of cat-eat-mouse stories, or the cat had let the mouse go -- again. I assumed the latter, and I began a search of the premises while the stupid cat looked on in idle curiosity.

After about twenty minutes of searching, I gave up for the night. I was really beginning to think that the cat had swallowed the mouse whole in the few seconds my back was turned, but mostly I was too tired to continue searching. I put out some sticky mouse traps and went to bed. I thought that I'd surely catch the mouse in one of the many traps by morning.

I awoke the next day, a Tuesday, and checked the traps. No mouse. Then I began to wonder if the cat had injured the mouse enough that it had crawled off somewhere to hole up in my house to nurse its wounds or to die. I didn't have a lot of time to worry about it at the moment because I had to get to work. I truly believed that I'd find it in a trap after work because years ago (pre-cat) when a mouse had violated my house, that was exactly what had happened -- a full day away from home had brought the mouse out and into a trap. It was then that the events of the day before concerning the dryer came rushing back, and I knew exactly how the little bugger had come into my house -- the dryer vent.

It had happened that way years ago during a bad cold spell, and we'd been having one of the worst cold spells I can ever remember this past month. The mouse back then had climbed through the dryer vent slats outside, along the metal tubing and then chewed a hole through the hose behind the dryer. That explained the noise when I'd started the dryer the evening before. It wasn't lint I'd neglected to clean as I'd first imagined; it was the mouse's nest, and when I'd then run the dryer, the mouse had chewed his way out of the hose rather than go back the way he came and simply vacate my home. Sure enough, when my father came over to help me move the dryer to attend to the situation, we found a huge hole in the hose and the rest of the lint he'd used to make his nest.

Unfortunately, when I returned from work, still no mouse. I was then feeling more certain that he'd gone off and died somewhere in my home from the wounds inflicted by the cat, so I started looking under things, but I have a lot of possible places in my home where a small mouse could hide, so I gave up on that. I knew that if he really was dead somewhere, I'd smell him soon.

That night I had to drive to another town somewhat distant where my son is assistant basketball coach at a high school for the Parents' Night ceremonies there. I returned quite late, checked the traps, and shook my head in frustration when I saw that they were still empty.

I allowed the cat to sleep on my bed that night -- something I rarely do since I actually am allergic to him and he's actually my daughter's pet and not mine. He prefers to sleep on my bed, though, and I thought that if the mouse were still around, maybe he'd awaken me during the night, so I could take care of it once and for all. However, the night passed without any ruckus.

On Wednesday, I awoke and was surprised to not see the cat still curled up at the foot of my bed. I stumbled into the bathroom and flicked on the light. There was the cat . . . sitting on my toilet.

He had the strangest look on his face, and I immediately knew that the mouse was somewhere nearby. I began searching for it, making a lot of ruckus myself in an attempt to flush it out if it were still alive. I opened the drawers and doors of the bathroom vanity, I picked up a towel that was lying on the floor and shook it vigorously, I looked behind the toilet, I opened the shower curtain from both directions and peered into the tub, and then I repeated the process. No mouse.

By then, I was running late. I climbed into the shower. I shampooed. I rinsed. I put conditioner in my hair. Then the washcloth I keep on the edge of the tub to wipe down the shower afterwards slid to the floor of the tub at my feet.

This has happened before, so I wasn't surprised when it did. I simply bent to pick it up before it got wet. That's when the mouse ran out from under the washcloth.

Fortunately, it ran away from my feet, but it couldn't scramble up the sloped and slippery sides of the tub, so as it proceeded to try to escape the shower it was now receiving, this is basically the thought processes I had in a time span of 2-3 seconds:  The mouse is in the shower with me. There is the mouse. I hate that fucking cat. What the hell do I do now? I'm naked and wet in the shower with a mouse!  At that point I screamed. Don't ask me why, but I did. I was well aware that the mouse was in my house, and I was well aware that he was now in the shower with me, yet I still screamed. Jeez. Sometimes I embarrass myself.

I turned off the water, hopped out, wrapped my robe around me, pulled the shower curtain out of the tub so he couldn't latch on and somehow get himself out of the tub, and then I went in search of that damn cat!

In fact, my search went something like this: "Where's the damn cat?!" I repeated this until I found him sitting innocently on the back of the couch looking at me like he couldn't possibly imagine what my problem was. I scooped him up, took him to my bathroom, set him on the toilet where he'd been sitting earlier and pointed at the mouse. He proceeded to watch as if he were viewing a lively tennis match from above.

In fury, I scooped him up again and yelled repeatedly, "You're worthless, cat! Worthless!" I then stormed into my daughter's room, turned on her light -- eliciting a momentary complaint from her since she was still in bed -- and shouted, "Where's that damn box?" I was referring to the shoe box which had contained the dress shoes I'd recently purchased for her to wear to speech meets and which I knew was still sitting in her room.

I grabbed the box and returned to the bathroom where the mouse was still attempting to free himself from my tub. I set the box sideways in the tub, and the mouse climbed right into it. It had a hinged lid, which I immediately slammed shut, and then I didn't know what to do with the mouse. I knew I was really running late for work by then, and I still needed to finish my shower. Despite the hassle the mouse had caused, I don't have it in me to cold-bloodedly kill a creature, but I really didn't know what to do.

The cat had already proved his worthlessness at disposing of rodents, so with box in hand and still clutching my robe shut, I strode to the front door, wrenched it open and then I threw the box with the mouse still inside out into the yard. It landed upside down on the sidewalk. I figured I'd check on it when I left the house.

I finished my shower, got ready quickly, and we all left the house. I walked down the sidewalk, approaching the shoe box. It was then I noticed that the mouse's release to freedom hadn't lasted. Since he'd been soaking wet from my shower when I tossed him and the box out my front door, he'd frozen to death immediately after crawling out of the small hole on the side of the box.

The cat couldn't kill him. I couldn't kill him. But Old Man Winter -- he certainly could.

Looking for Love

                                           

Those who know me also know that I am a cynic, especially in matters of the heart; however, if they truly know me (and only a handful of people truly do), then they know that I came by that cynicism through my long marriage to a very selfish and cruel man -- not physically cruel, but mentally and emotionally nasty. I was married for more than twenty years, but I'd say that at least fifteen of them were truly loveless years.

So, why did I stay? Ahh, therein lies the rub, right? I stayed for the old cliche -- I thought it was best for my kids to have both their parents in their daily lives. Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't. I cannot go back and undo the harm I may have caused them by staying where I shouldn't have stayed. All I can do is go forward and try to fix the damage done to my own heart.

Shortly after we separated, I signed up for an online dating site -- I won't say which one, but it was a free site that had been recommended to me by a friend who had found love on it. I wasn't necessarily looking for love, but rather I was hoping to find that there were some decent men out there who would be genuinely interested in me, a very lonely middle-aged woman who had a lot to offer a guy who would really value me.

I got some ridicule from people who were surprised that I was looking for a man so soon after my separation. After all, I wasn't divorced, and divorces can take awhile to accomplish, and I had my children to consider, and also, I'm sure, they were mostly astounded that I wanted to move on so quickly and that I wasn't more broken-hearted about my pending divorce. While all those things did affect me, they didn't change the fact that I had been miserably lonely for far too long in a loveless marriage that had been slowly killing me from the inside. I didn't need to "get over" my husband -- I'd gotten over him long, long, long ago.

Mostly, my first venture into the online dating world was a matter of pure curiosity. However, I was both pleasantly surprised and a bit perplexed by just how many men of all ages were on that same site looking to find the right woman. Admittedly, many of them were just looking for casual sex, and many of them were lying in their profiles, but those are easy to spot, and none of them received any replies from me to the various messages they sent my way either blatantly asking me to have sex with them or doing it in a veiled way.

In my initial quest, I was only looking for somebody to date. I didn't want anything beyond that as I was not even divorced yet. I just wanted to spend some time with a man who was interested in me for the things that are important to me -- my smarts and my sense of humor. I met a very nice man who was a few years younger than me, and we went out for about a month or two. He became quite needy of my attention, though, so I broke it off with him because he was ready for a long-term commitment while I wasn't, and despite the fact that I'd made that very clear to him from the get-go, he seemed intent on changing my mind. He wasn't right for me in many ways, but he showed me that nice guys do exist, and that it was really quite easy for me to find somebody to date.

At the time that one was coming to an end, I answered a message from a man who shared a lot of similar traits with me according to the dating site. We had a 93% compatibility match, and after reading all the information on his profile, I could see that he was genuine and quite nice, so I replied to his initial message. We began a correspondence, and then we met. While he wasn't my idea of what I wanted physically-speaking, he did have a lot of the characteristics of a man I'd want to spend time with. He was very, very nice and attentive. He opened doors for me, he held my hand while we walked places, he really listened to me, he went out of his way to help me with projects, and I could go on and on. Initially, I began to see him just to have somebody to spend time with, but it soon developed into more of a relationship.

We ended up staying together for over a year; however, along the way, he had professed his love for me a couple times, but I just couldn't return the sentiment. While I cared for him very much, I knew that I didn't love him, and I knew that what we had would have to come to end sometime to be fair to him. It was good on so many levels while it lasted, though, and I was loath to end it, but eventually it was our differences that slowly brought it to an end. While we were compatible in so many ways, we were not compatible in areas that became too insurmountable. His religion is super important to him, and I don't care for religion at all -- I prefer to have a personal relationship with the divine that is guided by my own beliefs rather than one dictated to me by others. I detest the snow and the cold weather, and he adores it. I am an avid traveler who can't wait to go abroad again, but he's never been outside the U.S. and fears doing so. There were other things as well, all of which just finally drove us apart, and while I was sad to see it end, I also knew that it was for the best for both of us. I wish him well in his search for that woman who he can spend the rest of his life treating well and who will return the love that he so freely gives.

During the year that we dated, though, I did actually get divorced, and I've now been happily divorced for about nine months. Immediately after the break-up, a part of me decided that I'd had enough of trying to find somebody. After all, that part said, if I really couldn't love the truly nice guy I'd seen for over a year, then maybe I wasn't capable of loving any man ever again. Maybe the emotional cruelty I'd suffered in my marriage had effectively killed off that sentiment forever. I knew I loved, of course. I love my children more than anything, I love my best friend dearly, and I love my parents along with some other family and friends. But maybe I wasn't able to love in the head-over-heels romantic mushy sense anymore.

That thought made me very, very sad.

And I refused to believe it.

So, I decided to give that dating site one more try. I figured I'd go on for about a month, and if nothing good came of it, then I'd give up on trying to find love that way, focus on me a bit more and then just see what happened with my life.

Just like the first time, I immediately began to receive messages -- most from men I wasn't at all interested in, and a few (disturbingly) from men in their twenties apparently on the prowl for "cougars." I didn't reply to any of those messages. I did find a couple men that interested me a lot, and I reached out to them only to be quite embarrassed when neither replied to me. Sooooo, I was on the verge of just calling it quits after about a week and a half of using the site when the profile of a man who had visited my site caught my attention.

I decided to put myself out there one final time. I sent him a very short message. He replied right away. Here was progress. We messaged a bunch of times and then began to use the instant messaging chat option on the site, and I discovered how funny he was and how much we had in common -- we're both brainy and total nerds who love to travel and hate, hate, hate cold weather among other things.

From there, we quickly moved to texting via our phones and then to an actual voice conversation. Then we met. And then I knew that my heart wasn't as frosty as I'd feared.

While I haven't known him long, I have found somebody that I want to be with and talk with all the time, and I have found a warm spot in my heart that just keeps getting warmer and warmer ever since he entered my life. Do I dare hope that love has finally found me? Time will tell, but I hope so, and isn't that what makes life worth living -- hope.


                              

National Novel Writing Month

This initial post will be short. However, I will add to it from time to time this month.

As of today, November 2nd, I have signed up to take part in the National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write daily on a novel or book-in-progress and write at least 50,000 words for it. I took part in this endeavor in 2011, and I did manage to write a little over 50,000 words in a novel called "Worldly Widow" that currently sits on my desk next to another unpublished novel called "The Clearwater House." Hopefully, one of them will see the light of a bookstore someday, but in the meantime, I am going to attempt to begin another novel, and this challenge is a good way to make me do the one thing I've always said I want to do with my life -- WRITE!

I will update here with word count.

Nov. 2nd -- 310 words.
Nov. 5th -- 1590 words.
Nov. 9th -- 3949 words.

Sadly, while this seems like a lot, I am waaaay behind where I need to be to actually finish 50,000 by the end of the month. November is always a difficult writing month for me because I'm busy most evenings practicing with my one-act team for the fast-approaching competition, and my days are full with teaching. It's very hard to find the time to sit down and write; however, I like the challenge of attempting to reach that goal by month's end. At my current pace, though, I won't reach 50,000 until late February. For now, though, I must stop for the day as I am dizzy. Maybe I'll come back to it later tonight after I rest my eyes and my brain.

Nov. 13th -- 6891 words.
Nov. 15th -- 8742 words.



Nov. 24th -- 10,398 words    According to the word count chart on the NaNoWrMo site, I should be at 45,000 words by now. Oops.

As you can see, I haven't accomplished much in the past nine days; however, I do like what I've written so far even though I'm not really sure where the story is going. I wish this novel writing month were any other month but November. One-act practices suck up most of my evenings this month, and, of course, teaching takes up all my days, so finding the time to write is extremely difficult. But, let's face it, if it were held any other month, I'd find other reasons to not write like I should, too, so there's no perfect month in which to do it, and I should feel pretty damn good about my word count considering all that I have to accomplish this month. I will still bravely attempt to make it to 50,000 words, but I don't see it happening, so I think I'll just give myself an extension on the deadline and continue it until the end of this year.

Sadly, though, I never did complete what I set out to do, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up on the book I've begun or on my dream to one day be a published book author. It's all about the journey, so I'll write when I can, and when November rolls around again, I'll give it another shot. After all, I accomplished this the first time I tried it, so I know I can do it. I'd really love to use it as a jumping off point for writing a book a year, so wish me luck, and someday, hopefully, I'll see one or more of my books in the hands of actual readers!

My Poetic Side -- yes, I have one!

It may shock any readers of this blog or even people who know me (of think they do) that I write poetry, but I do, so get over it! I'm not saying I write great poetry, but there are times the mood hits me for whatever reason and I feel compelled to get some thoughts down via poetry. Sometimes I want to capture a moment, sometimes it's a feeling, and sometimes I just feel the need to let out my smart-ass side in a way it wouldn't be expected. I've attempted a couple times to submit poems for publication, but I haven't yet had any success with that, so I'm saying "Shtick This!" to the standard way of publishing poetry and simply offering up some of my pieces for you to read right here. I hope you like them, but if you don't, oh well. More to follow, though, if I get any positive response about these. 

Poncho-clad child

Poncho-clad child of the seventies

proudly enveloped in the hand-knitted

product of a grandmother’s love.

Pink and white and fringed,

patterned in jagged stripes,

punctuated with buttons of tightly

packed thread. Worn as a child and

pre-teen before being discarded for

purchased jackets in the newer styles.

Packed away for thirty years and then

plucked from storage by another girl -- the

pretty daughter of that 70’s child -- who

puts on that forgotten poncho,

prized possession once again.

Preening before her mother’s mirror, she

pirouettes to watch its flare, and then

pauses to admire her reflection --

Poncho-clad child of the present.

By: Tammy Marshall

Home is . . .

A good book,

A deep laugh,

My family anywhere,

A dear friend,

A loving dog,

My reading chair,

A rainy day,

A sunny beach,

My inherited chinaware,

A long meal,

A kiss good-bye,

My memories we share.

By: Tammy Marshall

            One More Glimpse

My daughter walked down the street

to play at her friend’s house today.

I watched from the window as she

tromped through the slush on the road,

sliding her feet as if she were

skating over the icier sections

where the plow hadn’t scraped low enough. 

She clutched her coat around her,

preferring that to actually zipping it up. 

The breeze brushed her hair back

from her face and out of her eyes,

allowing her to avoid the many puddles

of melted December snow.

She walked away, and I stood alone,

following her every movement until

she turned the corner and disappeared

behind a house, but I waited, knowing

she would reappear, momentarily,

in the space between that house and

the next -- one more glimpse of her

before she slipped out of sight.

All too soon, I will stand alone at

this same window hoping and

waiting for one more glimpse of her

and wishing I could return to

this wintry day of her youth.

By: Tammy Marshall

Clicks

The first call awoke my roommate.

She plunked the phone on my bed. 

“It’s for you.  Him.”

Instantly awake at three a.m.,

my voice sang out a “Hello” to you. 

You slurred one in return, then mumbled

“I Miss You” and “I Want You to Come Over.”

Not “I Love You” or “I Want You Back.”

Come over? To do what? You? 

Disbelief.  Hurt.  Silence. 

A drunken apology for calling and a click.

No more sleep for me that night.

Tears, my only company.

The next call came a few weeks later,

once again in the wee hours of the night.

This time, my roommate ignored it

until I roused enough to answer.

Same routine – until the end. 

This time there was no real click. 

A fake hang up?  Why?

To listen to me cry?

To hear me beg for your return?

Then, finally, the real click,

the click that stabbed my heart. 

The click that showed there was no going back,

even if I wasn’t yet ready to accept that.

Another call a month later – 

almost the same as the others,

but with less crying on my part and

more inebriated sexual pleading on yours. 

One more attempt to lure you back.

One more refusal from you. 

One final, pitiful, sob from me. 

Again, you pretended to hang up.

I waited in silence; your confusion grew. 

Finally, in a rather sober-sounding voice,

you said, “Good-bye,”  Click.

Dry-eyed, I lay awake, listening –

the winter wind wailed for me.

The last call came a few months later,

a little past sun-up on a Saturday morn. 

Perhaps you’d struck out all night, so

in desperation, you called me, your cast-off. 

I asked, “Are you ready to try again? 

Can we get back together now?” 

“No,” you said. “I’m so happy without you.”

I sighed and asked, “If I made your life so miserable,

why do you keep calling me?”

Uncertain silence.  Prolonged silence.

Another fake hang-up.  Muffled bated breathing.

No need for either of us to wait anymore.

Click.  That time, it was me.

By:  Tammy Marshall

In the Absence of . . .

In the absence of insults, I gain confidence.

In the absence of ridicule, I try more than once.

In the absence of malice, I smile again and laugh aloud.

In the absence of discord, I sink into peace.

In the absence of selfishness, I search for love.

In the absence of bitterness, I taste life’s sweetness.

In the absence of jealousy, I stretch my wings.

In the absence of laziness, I seek out new challenges.

In the absence of slovenliness, I organize my world.

In the absence of pettiness, I see the big picture.

In the absence of deceit, I learn the truth.

In the absence of his absence, I find great company.

                Absence makes the heart grow and grow.

By: Tammy Marshall

#3

The birthstone sapphire ring from my youth

            . . . no longer fits.

The gold monogrammed 1986 class ring

            . . . lies neglected in a drawer somewhere.

The pearl ring gifted to me at graduation

            . . . reminds me of a broken promise.

The diamond engagement ring I once prized

            . . . is of no value to me now.

The plain wedding ring is gone from my finger

            . . . though its indentation yet remains.

(That, like the regret encircling my heart, will fade.)

My finger enjoys its freedom after all these years –

flaunts its nakedness, soaks up the sun, and sometimes,

to be daring, throws on something large and gaudy—

but now, and forever after, it will remain independent.

Others may call it my ring finger, but to me

it’ll be known as “finger number three.”

            Live free, Number Three!

By: Tammy Marshall

 Slogan

If I could choose a slogan for my life,

“It’s my time,” is what it would be.

Time for a change and time for me,

No time like the present to start anew.

I’m done doing time – now, I’m free.

Called “Time!” cuz I’m my own referee.

Threw him out of the game – too many fouls.

The team works better as us three;

We’re winning now as all can see.

I’ll have me a whale of good time,

From here on out I’m saying “Whee!”

And laughing until I hafta pee.

No more “Once Upon a Time” bullshit – enough!

It’s my time! Mine! All mine! Hee hee hee hee . . . .

By: Tammy Marshall

If a Friend . . .

If a friend cheers you when you’re blue, then laughter is the perfect pal.

If a friend lends an ear to your woes and a shoulder for your tears, then a Teddy bear is the pleasantest playmate.

If a friend lifts you up and helps you soar to new heights, then a colorful kite on a windy day is the coolest companion.

If a friend shares words of wisdom and advice when you most need it, then a well-chosen book is the smartest sidekick.

If a friend bolsters you in whatever you do no matter the wisdom or folly, then a form-fitting bra is the surest supporter.

If a friend provides great company without saying a word, then the sound of waves gently lapping the shoreline is the sweetest soul mate.

If a friend gives unconditional love and attention, then a dog is the best buddy.

And if a friend does all of the above and then some, then she must be you, my dearest, bestest, truest, greatest, belovedest, and foreverest friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silvia.

By: Tammy Marshall

It only took twenty-three years . . .

This was my summer or year for making some of my dreams come true. In the last blog, I wrote about my whale shark expedition, so if you haven't read that one yet, please do so. In this one, I'm telling you about my Harley.

Yep, that's right, I finally got a ride again. Years back, many many years back -- see the title of this post for the exact number -- I owned two small Yamahas. I loved them very much, but I gave them up as I entered the realm of adulthood and responsibilities and bills and other excuses/reasons for giving up the freedom and joy of riding a motorcycle down the open road.

Granted, the bikes I once owned were small and didn't really have the power to go very far down the open road, but I still got enough of a taste of it that I've been craving it all these years and just waiting for the day I'd have enough money to buy a bike of substance.

That day never came, so I gave up on the having "enough money" part and just decided to pile on more debt. Who wants to be out of debt, anyway? What's the fun in that? I have no idea because I'll never know, so I can only imagine that it's no fun at all and thus justify my keeping myself in debt.

Back in April I fell in love with a 110th limited anniversary-edition HD Super Glide Custom. He was a beauty, and I couldn't stop thinking about him even though I knew I really couldn't afford him. But I also knew that the day when I truly could afford him or another like him would never ever come.

Two months later I returned to the store just to see if he was still there, and he was! That could only mean one thing -- destiny. He had spurned all other suitors and was patiently awaiting my return, so of course I couldn't let him down. Especially when he gleamed at me so seductively in the light of the showroom.

So, I signed the papers and bought him. I left him there, though, so they could attach saddle-bags to his frame. If he and I were to go out and have some excursions, I'd need a place to stow some gear. It took a little longer than I'd hoped before he was finally finished and delivered to my doorstep, but he arrived looking even sexier than I remembered -- and bigger and (gulp) scarier.

There he was sitting, gleaming, in my driveway and I was suddenly scared that I'd made a horrible decision. What the hell was I thinking? I'm a middle-aged mother of two, recently-divorced, long-time teacher and coach -- I have no business being on a bike. At least that was what the fun-sucking voices in my head were telling me until I sent them away to torment somebody else.

I got on and took off for my first solo ride in almost a quarter of a century! I sucked. My gear shifting was jerky, I wobbled a lot, I had a hard time holding the bike up at a stop -- basically, the voices came back and started yelling at me to cut my losses and give up.

But I soldiered on, and soon it was all coming back to me. It was glorious -- even though I still looked like I was about to fall over at any minute to anybody watching me. But with every short ride, my confidence and my abilities grew, and soon I was venturing onto the highway for short jaunts at high speeds.

I still have a lot to learn or relearn, and I still haven't gone out on any long trip. I figure for the rest of the summer and this fall,I will simply take it a bit easy and stay cautious. Then, when next spring and summer rolls around, I'll have the whole time to take my baby out and go places with him.

So, if you see a slightly plump, middle-aged blondish woman on a gorgeous bronze Dyna Super Glide, please wave -- and give me a wide berth (just in case) -- and know that I'm just out enjoying the ride and the road after far too many years of seeing it from the inside of a car.

Holy Holbox! I found Heaven.

For years now I´ve dreamed of swimming with whale sharks. No idea why really -- the big beasts have just fascinated me since the first time I heard of their existence and the fact that they are docile and actually enjoy human company (and not as a snack).

I thought that I would only be able to reach my goal of swimming with them by visiting the Seychelles, which are quite far away and quite a pretty penny to reach, so I tabled my dream until a day when money would begin to fall from the sky.

Then I somehow heard of the small island of Holbox off the north tip of the Yucatan Peninsula and the fact that the whale sharks migrate there as they follow their food, plankton, during the months of July through September primarily.

This couldn´t have been a better discovery for me than if I had somehow waved a wand and made it happen somehow. My best friend lives in the Yucatan Peninsula, and I was overdue a visit to her, so we worked Holbox into our plans.

The trip there from Playa del Carmen was an adventure in itself. Driving on unfamiliar roads that go on for kilometers and kilometers through dense tropical foliage in a deluge of never-ending rain is enough to make the most intrepid traveller second guess her desire to swim with the largest fish on the planet. But we trekked onward and finally arrived at the small town of Chiquila shortly after the storm finally broke.

Immediately upon our arrival in the small coastal town, a young boy appeared running alongside our car and directed us to his family´s (or his employer´s) parking facility. It was a luxury one, let me tell you, with a tin roof covering for the car that just barely contained space for her tiny Volkswagon to fit.

From there we took the equally luxurious taxi service of a boy on his converted bicycle who carried our suitcases and our two daughters while my friend and I walked alongside in the newly falling rain. I use sarcasm here, yes, but I loved every minute of the unique experience.

We arrived two blocks later at the dock and bought our tickets (80 pesos each) for the ferry that would take us the short ways to the island of Holbox. Due to the weather, we rode inside instead of on top as we would have liked to have done -- fortunately, on the return trip two days later, the sun was shining and we were able to enjoy a ride in the seats on top of the ferry.

The moment we got to Holbox, I knew it was special. My advance research had prepared me for the lack of cars and the abundance of golf carts, but I was still a bit astounded to see them being used and even painted up as taxis. We hailed one, if you can even call walking up to the nearest waiting driver and asking for a ride "hailing" one.

The streets of the town are all of sand, a very white, soft sand that has been pounded down by the tracks of the golf carts. I did discover a few vehicles besides golf carts on the island, but they were few and far between and most comprised of small motorbikes. People walk or drive their golf carts or ride their bikes.

We stayed at a lovely residence/inn, and the owners´ son was quite helpful in arranging our whale shark excursion; however, arranging one on your own is quite easy as there are an abundance of people offering rides out to see and swim with the sharks.

The following morning we awoke early and awaited our taxi. The man arrived and took us to the dock and walked us to our boat. There were many there awaiting their clients for the day. Each boat is small and can only accomodate anywhere from six to ten people.

Ours held 10 counting the four of us. In addition there was our captain, Diego, his assistant, the very talkative and heavily tattoed Marcelo, and our diving guide, Franklin. The others were a polite and quiet family of four and a very annoying late middle-aged couple who monopolized the assistant and made general pests of themselves during the dives. (If I ever return as I would like to, I will pay the extra money for a private boat to be sure I never have to put up with people like them.)

When the boats go out, it is anybody´s guess if they will even be able to find the whale sharks. They make no promises. They have to go out and search for them, and it is a very big ocean.

We drove for quite awhile, and then suddenly the captain pointed ahead and said "delfines." He came to a stop so we could have a good view of the dolphins frolicking and jumping out of the water. We didn´t get close enough for a really good view of them, but seeing them in their element was priceless.

Then we continued onward, and some of the passengers even dozed off to the lull of the boat, but not me. I didn´t pay 100 dollars to take a nap on a boat. I love looking at the water because I live nowhere near it in my real life, so the view itself was worth the money paid, and I revelled in it.

Then, quite suddenly, we came upon a collection of boats bobbing up and down in the water, and the moment I´d long dreamed about was there. Whale sharks! A bunch of them feeding on their plankton and swimming around the boats and near the people already in the water with them.

We slowed and came to a stop. And that´s when it hit all of us. Seasickness. Horrible, horrendous, hideous seasickness. We hadn´t felt it at all while the boat was clipping along over the waves, but once we started bobbing up and down with the waves we all felt very naseous.

Two, both men from the quiet family of four, of our party were suddenly vomiting over the side of the boat. At least my daughter and I managed to quash our need to hurl even though it was quite overpowering. My friend also managed to remain vomit-free, but her young daughter got quite ill, and she had to spend the whole time consoling her while the rest of us took our turns with the great fish.

The annoying couple of course had to be the first ones in the water. You can only go in two at a time with the guide, and you have to jump in quickly when a shark swims by and attempt to swim fast enough to keep up with it long enough to get a good look at it.

My daughter and I were the last to go in. Right before I jumped, a wave of nausea hit me hard, but I kept it down and managed to get into the water without throwing up on the way down. Being in the cool sea helped immensely and the seasickness vanished right away.

Sadly, I had a faulty mask and didn´t realize it until later, so the water kept rushing into my nose and I did more gagging on salt water than actual viewing of the sharks on my first time in the water. The reason to go two at a time is so that you can hold the guide´s hands as he attempts to keep you alongside the nearest shark.

The giant fish are just that --giant fish. They are breathtaking, though, and at no time did I feel any fear of them or the deep water we were in. This was probably mostly due to me trying to breathe and stay alive despite the water flowing up my nose!

We discovered that they are very quick, and just as soon as one appears he also quickly disappears. They are also very difficult to see from above in the boat because their coloration blends in perfectly with the water in which they swim, so I am hoping that the few photos I was able to take below the water with my waterproof disposable camera turn out (the photo above is not my photo but rather one I am borrowing from Google images).

I later took a second turn in the water with the annoying woman who swam off by herself and left me alone with Franklin, which was fine with me since he found a beautiful manta ray swimming nearby and pulled me along behind it for a ways. I also spent more time in the water actually seeing the sharks this time despite the fact that I still had the faulty mask --I just focused more on holding my breath and looking than on actually attempting to snorkel the way I was supposed to be doing.

You can´t touch the whale sharks, and I doubt I would want to anyway, although I can imagine a lot of selfish people out there who would want to do just that. They glide by so quickly that it would be difficult to catch up to one fast enough to touch it anyway, but they don´t need to be touched to be admired and appreciated.

I still cannot believe that I actually did it. I swam with whale sharks. I completed a dream. Now, of course, I want to return to Holbox to do it all over and to this time take some motion-sickness medicine before I get on the boat.

Holbox is a long, narrow island with a small population. I hope it remains that way and that cars continue to be banned by and large and that the streets never get paved. I hope the whale sharks continue to thrive and return there each summer/fall and that the number of people wanting to go out and swim with them is abundant yet not to the point where the selfishness and greediness of humans end up harming the most magnificent creature in the sea.