Ayn's Multiple World

Saturday and Sunday morning

Good morning … this is me. We’re just starting out with the writing and it’s about 10 to 9 am. It’s taken us a while to get started. We got up this morning about 7:15 am. Both Rich and us got up at the same time … maybe because it was time for him to get up. He had to get going because he needed to leave about 8:15 am to go to his football game. I think he’s going to be home about 11 am – so, this only gives us now a couple of hours to write. The plan for the day is to take a ride in the car … and I think we’re going toward the north to check out a couple of boat places. I don’t think Rich jumps into anything, but it’s a good sign that he’s looking ahead.

We’ve got CNN in on the background and I’m not sure if we shouldn’t turn that off because it is distracting to us. Hmm, ok, let’s make an executive decision. We DO want to get on with our writing. Ok, let’s turn it off then … Maybe turn on some music instead, k?

Ok, that’s done … listening now to Rhapsody … soft stuff from the likes of Norah Jones. Ok, breath. We can get through this, right. We need to calm down and start thinking instead of responding to the environmental cues. We can do this … shhh let’s just calm down … Let’s see if we can get a coherent thought. Where are we?

What do we want to think about?

Let’s see … how about where are we at this very moment. We’ve alluded to being a little spacey, right? Just got too much going on in our mind.

When we woke up … we sat with our friend for a bit and rubbed his back while we were both watching a fishing show. It was entertaining … the fisherguy was pretty cool and enthusiastic about life. It was an intuit from northern Canada. He was a little nutty which made him fun to listen too. Plus, we got to smoozle with our bunny, which is always a good start of the day. After we zoomed through that show, we followed him into the bedroom and watched him get dressed. He had to go soon after that and we said good-bye bravely knowing that he was going to be home and spending time with us in not too long a time. We’re really looking forward to being with him in the car where our thoughts with his will drift along and go in and out of things that have been forgotten due to our time constraints of seeing each other only after long days when we are both tired.

I so adore him … it’s just incredible.

I think we’re going to not be able to go to the gym today … unless something were to happen and our bunny friend would get tied up. It would have to be though before 7 pm when the gym closes. We didn’t get to the gym over the last couple of days … yesterday being the day that we were with Dr. Marvin. Hmm, Rich said that we have to get the dishwasher started … forgot about that. Maybe we’ll take a second and get that in order. I want to do our part too. Hold on.

Good good … got the dishwasher started and remembering to sync up and charge the devises. Pswhoo - So much to remember in this day and age of electronics.

Waiting now for iTunes to load. Ok, we’re going to slow down here any moment now, right? The air is off so that warmer air is making us a little goofy. We’re going to be ok … shhh..

Ok, let’s get back to where we were before. Hmm, wondering though if we shouldn’t take our shower first so that we’ll be ready for wonderbear.

Hmm, going through something on the iTunes screen about Turning on something called Genius … it has to do something about recommending music based on my interests I believe. That’s ok. Hmm, not sure what’s going on with the sync. There should be some way of getting two things to sync without losing data from the last sync, but for now it’s best I have this one because of the music. I for sure want that from this computer. It’s got our Coldplay, Norah Jones Corrine Bailey Rae and all. If we’re going to be on a trip and have quiet time … we’ll want this stuff. The ideal would be to retain the audiobook I last loaded from the work computer, but even if we don’t get that … we’ll be better set with the stuff from this computer. Just be patient and all will come into form, right?

Ok, did we cover this morning with sweetie? There is one thing that has stayed with me from him being here. He said off the cuff something about that being what made me so lovable – he referred to my floating into his space volunteerily to make sure his back got rubbed. We were taken by the sentimentallness of the statement. Any good reason to love us is a good idea hehehe. That’s it just wanted to say that.

He’s so cool.

As to yesterday … we spent more time doing stuff we shouldn’t been worrying about, got kinda caught up in the news of the day and got through our few tasks, but disregarded following the schedule we’d set. In particular – we’re avoiding doing client goals, annuals and Qnotes. That’s going to catch up with us if we don’t get a handle on it. It should be ok after we get started, but doing that seems to be a real bear. Just don’t have the will to carry through. Not sure how to get past that. It seems that anything to do is better than getting stuff done.

We did have a Dr. Marvin time last night, but we stayed in the role mostly of younger parts. He got attached to the part that has so much trouble coming into his office. And, then it seemed to trigger going to our doctor’s office as a small child. There was stuff happening that we couldn’t tell him from that space.

Briefly now it had to do with underwear and all that might go with that to our particular nightmares. We aren’t going into it now here either … just wanted to leave a marker. We couldn’t talk to him and really froze up bad. We could hear his voice and I think we were understanding his words spoken, but we couldn’t get a grasp of our voice because it was buried below a certain level of guilt and shame.

I remember that he was leaving the space open that we might talk about it later … .reminding us that it was a safe place to talk. To the part that was out … there was no nudging. And, it seemed that she was going through pain or fear or whatever that she’d gone through a long time ago.

When this kind of stuff happens it seems very surreal. I don’t know how to explain it past that … it’s just that we’re feeling old familiar feelings we’ve been out of touch with. We feel as if we’re hearing a voice giving us soft confidences, but we’re so far from being able to speak it’s incredible as if we’ve never done it before. I can hear Dr. Marvin and his soft sighs in the background. I know he doesn’t like it when he’s not able to help, but the part is just so gosh darn lost.

I don’t know if this is the kind of stuff that always happens to people who are going through therapy. I can hear Rich … and we did last night. We told him about the part and we told him the part that we were trying to avoid. He was like – just do this and fix it. But, he doesn’t seem to be in-tune with those parts that are finding anything past breathing shallowly as too much. Somewhere toward the end we said something to Dr. Marvin about Rich knowing something about what we were hiding. He said something about having said something to him, but we said truthfully, that it was something he found out. But, Rich hasn’t got the richer story of what’s happening behind or beyond the piece that’s common knowledge for him. We were seeing glimpses of all that last night and the dread in thinking of it was too profound to delve into. And, then we remember that we were asking Dr. Marvin for the time. Apparently, we had only 10 minutes left and we both seemed to know that wasn’t enough … but Dr. Marvin being himself … left inroads and open doors for something to happen later. We felt sad that we couldn’t tell him … not because of the time, but because it had seemed so horrible to us. Especially on an emotional end – not necessarily a thinking through of it past the short images we were being flashed, especially in the Dr.’s office.

I think in general it has to do with our uncomfortableness of being exposed … especially to the doctor/nurses and or our mother being there. But, we are already going further into it now than we want considering we don’t have an entire day to process things. Maybe something will come up with Rich later down the line and we’ll be able to work a little more of it through with the talking. We want to make sure that we have time to listen to Rich though too.

We had a very bad nightmare last night that involved being tortured inside and out.

I am fighting not to regain all those thoughts. Quickly things insert into our brain that we don’t want and again like so many other things we work hard to avoid.

Too much, too much! Then we remember what Dr. Marvin said before about us not going into a lot of this before because we were so overwhelmed by it. We really want to get past all that … just we have to have safe places for our feelings to go so they don’t take us down with the ship. What’s inside of us is a very incredible wake of feelings of Tsunami strength. Just it’s all hard.

I think we need to leave that space for a bit … glad to have captured something … thinking now that the avoidance at work is an avoidance of a lot of things and maybe after we get past some of the hard stuff we’ll stop avoiding in the general run of things. Maybe we should ask Dr. Marvin about that. There was some other stuff too toward the end, but mostly a part of getting some other kind of doctoring work done. We need to see the mammogram people because it was set up from some other caution to be tested in 6 months again due to a question on the last reading. We talked to Dr. Allbright’s office about getting that paperwork in to make the appointment. Their office forwarded it to Dr. Marvin’s so that I have the order I now need to make the appointment. In the process we made an appointment at Dr. Allbright’s too, because it’s been 6-7 months minimum since we’ve been in. Figured we were about due. Never went back for the last “month-level” surgeons’ appointment … felt like we were getting in over our head at the time and we were fine in general … no complications from surgery.

I think we’re also going to need facing trips in to the dentist soon before the year is up to take advantage of our dental insurance of $1500 to be used in 2008. I don’t think we are going to have to need extensive work, but we’re afraid the repercussions of leaving our device in our mouth so long without taking it out to be cleaned daily. It’s just our habit and routine, but I don’t look forward to being yelled at for it and I don’t want to get into more dentist bills we have to struggle to pay. We had too bad an experience with the last time. Stupid doctors charging us for nothing just because we were late in paying the bills. That happened at the time we made our last payment – they stuck $200 more on the account. Idiots.

That’s our favorite word of late for people who do dumb things that come out as negatives in our life.

But, then we look ahead of our screen to a picture of Isa holding her chin in her hands … and we’re pretty much amazed at how simple and content she looks with life.

God bless her for being so wonderful. Just love her to pieces.

Ok, now it’s an hour before … we better think of getting ready to go out with Rich … better get that shower in and get dressed. BRB.

Hmm. That’s better … it’s about 10:10 am now. We’re showered, dressed, and we’ve picked up the living room. Ready for smooch pie to get home. I doubt he’s going to be in on time within about 45 minutes, but we’re ready nonetheless. Good girls!

I hope that his car is clean enough so that we can drive it today … It will be nice and comfortable and air conditioned with cool slippery seats. Hehehe yup yup … the little things in life count.

Just wanted to add one more note about yesterday before we go on. The Thinking Group turned out pretty good. We had been into news for the day, so we collected about 18-20 pictures of stuff going on and we went through it to find out what they knew or could be taught. One thing for sure … they sure are Obama voters! Good for them. I tried to convince them to listen to the debate, at least give up the TV so someone in their family could be watching, but I don’t know how good I was at doing that. They seemed to stay interested in the news stories. We went through them for about 40 minutes. We were up and walking around so we could show all the tables the pictures that we had collected. There were two occasions when two people who I don’t consider right on top of things – new the answers to something going on in the news … and for that we gave them a round of applause. I was pretty proud when they knew people that were difficult to know.

That’s pretty much all I want to say on that topic. I felt glad to be doing the meeting and happy that I had so much energy to be up and around them. Toward the very end someone from CSO came by while we were going through a quieter period of looking for news at the center. But, that seemed to be a good place to let things go. Everyone helped with the chairs, and then they found themselves out by the doors getting ready to leave.

Holly called about 3:30 pm to tell me she was leaving and I was alone in the building. I guess sister Florine had gone out. I spent another 10 minutes finalizing things. I had been listening to Pelosi and someone else in the Senate giving the economic news of the day. I finished with just enough time to get to Dr. Marvin’s. There weren’t too many seconds to spare though. You already know how that went … so I think now you are brought up to the present.

I’m thinking I might want something small to be eating … I don’t know but think we’re going to have lunch with Rich so I don’t want too much … Hmm, what could I have? Maybe some pineapple? Hmm, we’ve still got that big REAL pineapple to carve up … Maybe we can do that tonight. BRB though. Ahh that tastes good. Sweet and tart at the same time. We’ve been eating the small cans of dole pineapple chunks in juice. Sweet! They are just the small 8 oz cans. Ok, you … nuff of that.

Trying not to turn on the AC. Feeling a little warm though … It will be ok, right?

Hmm, why am I so unsure of myself this morning? That seems like a bad deal.

Ok, here we are … what’s up next to talk about? We’re still worrying over Thom’s ticket home. I think that will probably come up today. We figured we’ve got to work that through with Rich yet. Hmm, remember what we just talked about last. I have a card for the second account I opened for his interests, though it only has $10 in it now. I also have checks for that account. It seems that I have to go into the bank to activate the account code. I’ll try to do that today before heading out of town. That way I can mail Thom the card and some signed checks to him so if I can get some money – I will transfer it immediately to that account and he can draw out the money at a box.

Hmm, we’ve got $67 in the account now … It seems that everything is going through except the $140 we paid for Thom’s Best Buy Account … for some reason that’s not showing up. I was hoping to get that in – maybe as a paid overdraw. We’ll have to figure out what happened there. But, it looks like we’ve put $100 on the Dell account, $100 on the kohl’s … some little stuff, but then $100 on a Chicago ticket and $80 to the secretary of state for our sticker. That’s the extra money we didn’t want to spend, but had to pay off … I think we’ve got an extra month extension where we don’t have to pay school loans. So, we’ll take that money $400 and put $100 toward the Best Buy and $300 toward Thom’s ticket. It might cost like $350, but that’s about as much as we can cover and still get in the Best Buy. Oh Lordy I hope this works out. It would have been much more simple to have Rich help us with the Air flight. Just want to get Thom home. Even if we only see him once while he’s here that four days – if he can get the four days off … then I’ll feel it’s worthwhile getting him in to see Alexis – maybe even once with his brothers? Not sure.

I think today is Alex’s wedding. I would have liked to give him $100 too. You just don’t get married everyday. I’ll have to work things out though. I’m going to be short the money I need for medicine. Maybe there Rich will have mercy on us. It’s just we had extra expense of ticket and sticker. Well yes and then we’re trying to subsidize Thom. But, you gotta understand the way mothers work. They’ll do anything including sawing off their right leg to make their sons and daughters happy. We’ll just have to talk to Rich today to see where we are going. It’ll be ok, right? At least I got some bills paid and that was something. We better wait though until he’s in a REAL good mood. He’s not going to like helping out Thom when I can’t keep up with myself. I really hate money … it’s so limiting.

It’s after 11 now. Maybe we should put our hair up. I know Rich is going to want to take a shower when he comes home and then we are going to get going, I’m pretty sure. I don’t know what he has in mind for lunch though. Not sure what he has left here that won’t take up too much time. I could get by on a optima shake though so I’m not worried, besides we just ate that pineapple.

Rich forgot his phone at home that means that the first part of our trip will be him making calls. I’m sure by now that Chris has called. Not sure who else. Rich is going to a ball game with Chris tomorrow. Not quite sure what I’ll do, but should at least get to the pool before it closes for the week for cleaning. That’s about as far as we’ve planned.

Ok, good … we’re ready to walk out the door just grabbing keys, sunglasses, our purse and a bottle of water. Maybe I should grab a bag … hold on I’ll fix that.

Ok, we’re all set. Hmm, One kitty in the back bedroom and the other kitty sitting under the purple flowers on the balcony. I guess that’s a good reason to keep the door open… She does like to get out for a little fresh air. I think we’re a little unsettled about the money situation, but other than that we’re doing ok.

We haven’t been losing weight lately … probably too much eating and not enough exercise … about 4 days and only once in the gym. That’s not good. It’s going to be ok, right?

Damn why are we so unnerved? Maybe if we could get into something where we were ahead instead of being behind the 8-ball we would feel better? About the only thing we’re fairly good at now days … is figuring out what’s going on in the campaign.

We’re still trying to understand the economy. I get as far as the casual mid-range earner. I don’t have much to my name I’m afraid, but it’s allowed me to not fear the market. At least I’m not losing anything. Though my “little” dollars aren’t going to go as far as they once had.

I’m really scared about the bail-out. My feeling is if it is an emergency do what you gotta do. Obama seems to be for it, but I don’t think many are as convinced as the politicians how much this is needed. I’m kinda with the little guys thinking that this is money going toward people who already have secured their houses. I’ve been trying to figure out how much money they are talking about … what exactly is $700 billion. I don’t think they’ve put $700 billion into the war yet, but maybe I’ve got that thought wrong. I know it could cover entire programs for up to ten some years or more. I don’t think they’d planned on that much going to health. So it’s very hard to understand what is going on with it. They keep saying that it’s going to buy confidence. Well, as to my last best guess you can’t package confidence – it’s an ideal – and I don’t understand paying an ideal … why that amount, why now … who’s hands is it going to. And, how does it directly affect humans. Will my life touch that of the money? I’m pretty sure that raising taxes enough to earn that money is going to sting and it’s going to sting bad. Plus we’re back to just the part about … so what exactly are we getting from it? Enough time’s gone by to let the public doubt. Especially, if they are losing their homes already.

I feel pretty good about the fact that its impossible for me to lose our home.

Don’t got one! I know that Rich has a home and we’re hoping that’s going ok for him. I don’t know what is happening with him as to the divorce lately. I think he got something in the mail the other day that he hasn’t opened. I wish he’d just get it over with so I could legitimately be in his life. We’re still at the point now almost 16 years later where he’s not admitting his daily living contact with me to his mother and children. Kind of makes me invisible. There is some safety to that, because I only know them through his shelter. They could hate me and I wouldn’t know it … it would be harder later when they know me to hide their anger with me.

Or, even if they’d accustomed themselves to their parents’ divorce, they just might not like me on the basis of not being good enough for their father.

I wish it would be like with my kids. They’ve taken to Rich very naturally. I know that Maury in particular looks forward to getting to talk to him. I don’t know what his specific draw toward Rich is. I know that he looks up to him, but I’m not sure why. Rich does come across as a pretty solid guy. I think that Maury wants Rich to like and respect him, but that message has gone through all along. Rich has always respected my kids. Maury likes the part where he gets to talk to him, especially about the poker though he’s cooled of late to that. I think he just uses it as an excuse to get to know Rich. I’m not sure if the other two are as curious as Maury, but I know they hold nothing against him. I would like that to be the same for his kids, but I think Rich’s kids have more reason to be distrustful.

First their mother’s hurt is involved and they’ll be protective of her. And, second they are going to need to grasp their father’s dishonesty with them. Why has he been not telling them the truth. That’s going to hurt personally. They will think that their father didn’t trust them. I don’t know if he could make them understand that he’s always been protective of me and the sensitivity of our love for one another. I’m not sure how to exactly put myself out there so I can understand that new set of relationships anyway. So, I suppose the best thing to do is just calm myself and bide the time.

I hope that one thing come through and that is other than having a basic relationship with their Dad … that I’m not invasive of his life with them. I don’t look negatively of the kids either, because I see them through the love of their Dad and them. It’s a good screen whether or not I’ll ever be included more directly in their life.

I do worry about the health and balance of Rich’s mother. I’m afraid that something could happen to her and I will have never met her. I’m pretty sure she would like to meet me and to know that her Ricky is safe with me. I know she’s going to ask if I cook for him, and it will have to be known that he does all the cooking. I hope I will survive that moment. But, for now … we just have to imagine that we’ve survived the first meeting and will be ok – you know survive through it. I can’t imagine how scared silly I’m going to be one day to be meeting his family. We haven’t even gotten to the point yet of going out socially with Bob.
Rich is scaring me with him a bit now. Most often he paints a picture of Bob as complaining about one thing or another or of being aggressive. I know if I keep my wit and humor about me it will be ok. There’s no doubt Bob is going to read a bead on my nervousness around him. I’m really going to be happy one day when Bob is allowed to drop on over at the house at any time. It will be so strange one day to have relationships with Rich that aren’t hidden and secret.

AHA! It’s 11:38 am and Rich has just come in better go check on him, BRB

To Alpha Company MarineParents.com

Hi this is me. Well, and me and me and me. Tough being a multiple – I find we don’t know where we are or where we are going most of the time. I’m so extremely sorry I cause you all to wonder. It seems that some weeks are harder than others and for long periods of times I get lost in my concerns of various directions. I can’t tell you what it means to return here and find you all. I’ve read up on the entries since being here.

My prayers to all who have physical problems – specially you JuDee … I’d be worried sick. It seems too like there are quite a few going through changes in location while still trying to fit some home time in before going on. God Bless those who get to connect up and for those missing their sons and wishing they were with them.

There are hard days ahead, but then there are those days where you hear information about progresses and those times are oh so special. Congratulations also to those who have graduated – Lynn that boy of yours is a bear!

As to Thom – he’s been switched from 2621 to 2651. I think officially, his new duties are called, “Special Intelligence System Administrator/Communicator.” He’s supposed to know all aspects of special Intel communications including utilization of equipment. They give support to the intelligence network. There’s a bunch of fancy stuff that comes after that, but we haven’t grasped the bigger picture yet.

From what we know he will finally class up after these last lost months by October 6th. I think it’s about 2 ½ months of training. Not sure on that part. He should stay at Corry Station in Pensacola for the training.

I think this is a more responsible position than even the last couple they stated he would be in. Thom has been working on his physical condition to get back as strong as he was during bootcamp. Unfortunately, he’s now on light duty because he’s developed the dreaded shin splints. His spirits are still good and he’s happy to be moving to a space where he’ll share a room with another person who is going to be classing up with him.

Thom’s talking about a 96 about the time of October 10th-13th. We’re hoping that he can get off base to fly home. He’ll naturally stay with his new bride. I’m so proud of the two for being together. We’ve gotten several chances to talk or work with Alexis and she’s incredibly nice. I look forward to excuses for texting or calling her. It also gives me greater confidence knowing that Thom has a strong relationship to depend on emotionally. We all hope for our sons to be happy and in love. Gives them a nice contrast to all this war stuff. Shoot … just figuring out Iraq and now we’re needing to concentrate more on Afghanistan – plus … what the H*** are those Iranians thinking?

We’ve been lately spending time at work – regrettably … rather think of being at the gym, or at home writing. We bought a new iPod Touch and have been using it somewhat for music, but mostly listening to audiobooks and podcasts mostly on the economy crisis and in our support of Barack Obama. I’m not stating a political platform just stating the guy has captivated us and we find ourselves drawn deeper and deeper into the processes of the world and government. I think that’s because we have sons who are now serving – we want more to understand the world and circumstances in which they’ll work.

It seems that while we push for more understanding in one avenue or another – others get put aside as we argue amongst ourselves for every free moment. Rich comes home late many days from work or other obligations personal and professional and we’ll realize that we’ve watched hours of CNN or the military channel without realizing time’s gone by. I think if it were possible for someone to be in shock I would claim it for myself. That and we’re going through some heavy duty stuff in therapy. Trying to grasp the depth of melancholy. A majority of the time I’m feeling overwhelmed. Keep thinking if I understand more or understand better, I will be able to pull myself through things. Somehow we’ll move forward … Just right now nothing seems really safe. I want to withdraw into my thoughts and work on putting together ideas at my own slow speed.

I don’t mean to seem overly complicated … just finding ourselves struggling along. I’m so grateful to knowing each one of you and finding you still here when I surface life. Love you guys to pieces!

posted by Ann Marie @ 9/28/2008 11:40:00 AM Comments: 0