Reviewing, Revising and Reinvigorating

I have such a clear view of what I want this blog to be and, as I look over it, I notice that I've strayed. Badly. I found out yesterday that I'll be out of work for at least the next month (I recently had surgery) so there's no better time than now for me to do some serious work on this. This is where I want to work out my thoughts, compare the person I am with the person I used to be and hopefully touch/help/connect with others in the process. Keep coming back and checking out this blog....hopefully you'll enjoy it! If you're more interested in my fun side, I'd love for you to check out my blog on crafting, creating and organizing: http://thegiftedginger.blogspot.com/

Happy Saturday!

~ Heather ♥

The Adirondacks - Moose River

One of the things I've loved about my relationship with Wendy is that we're always up for an adventure.  One day, while the kids were up visiting, we took a ride up to Old Forge and, in the spur of the moment, decided to rent kayaks. None of us had ever tried it before but we had a great time! Not long after that, we decided to buy our own kayaks - especially seeing as how we live in heaven =)  I painted this picture from some photos I took that day.

That brings me to another thing I love about our relationship - she has always encouraged me to be creative and often surprises me with different tools/media etc. that I can use to create new projects.

Heather Smith (@ADK_Dreams) tweeted at 10:10 AM on Sun, Feb 17, 2013: Moose River, Old Forge NY #ADK_dreams http://t.co/6ojLVsjj (https://twitter.com/ADK_Dreams/status/303159448535453697) Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download

Questions

They always say that women fall for men that remind them of their fathers; does that mean lesbians fall for women that remind them of their mothers? I've had to come to terms with that a little bit because (after a year of adamant denial) I have admitted (at least to myself) that my girlfriend is an awful lot like my mother. My mother was a frustrated jock growing up during a time that girls were discouraged from playing sports; there were almost no opportunities in the small town in which she grew up for a girl to play the sports she loved. When I was young, I can remember mom always playing softball for our church league, throwing the football around with the kids in the neighborhood and being front and center when there was a basketball or football game on. She carried this on by encouraging my brother and I to play sports and finally being one of the most enthusiastic fans at my son's football, lacrosse or hockey games. In the summer, she could often be found in her john boat fishing. My father, on the other hand, had very little use for sports (although he did enjoy watching hockey now and again), preferring to spend his time gardening or woodworking in his shop. My girlfriend is a wonderful woman who grew up playing basketball and would have played football had her mother let her. Football season finds her in front of the tv, yelling at the current football game; summer will find her out on her boat fishing or kayaking or playing basketball or tennis (with her favorite girl, of course). My mother and my girlfriend like to fly under the radar; don't rock the boat, don't upset the status quo. My father and myself are more likely to be in-your-face, outspoken and stubborn. So, if my girlfriend is like my mother and I'm like my father, maybe it's just that the dynamic works, despite the gender of the people involved. Maybe it's just a good fit.

Changing Times; Changing People part II

After moving back to Florida, things began to deteriorate. ExH started to reconnect with his old friends and his old bad habits. ExH would work all day, come home for dinner and then go right back out the door to hang out with his friends. There was always a good excuse - this one needed help with a car, that one needed help with remodeling - and it always kept him out till 2 or 3 am. By this time, I was pretty much raising our two young kids by myself. I was lacking sleep, depressed and overwhelmed; I'm sure I wasn't a bundle of fun for anyone at that point and I truly regret it....for the kids. My kids are amazing and I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for not being a better mother to them; for not being more fun or happier. I wasn't allowed to work so I homeschooled the kids - despite everything else, this will always be a blessing for me: I got to raise my kids and teach them and I'm so proud of the adults they've become. You would think working all day then being out all night would be hard on someone, but ExH found a way around it. First he was diagnosed with ADHD and got a prescription for Adderall. It wasn't long after that before I found a tin full of pot remnants (which he vehemently denied were his....even though they were under the front seat of my car and no one else had been in it). Apparently those weren't enough; I caught his stealing pain pills from my disabled father and not long after caught him buying pills from a neighbor. Some of the pills made him extremely angry; coming down and dt'ing from others made him even angrier. He would pick fights with me and scream obscenities and put-downs in front of friends, family, the kids; I begged him to stop, told him I'd fight with him all he wanted, just please, could we do it in private. The worst incident was one night when we had an argument (about the fact that he was always out all night "with his friends"). He was angry and flew out of the driveway on his Harley; I was angry, sad and frustrated and I went out to the shed and got some old mismatched dishes that I was going to drop off at the local Salvation Army. I took the dishes and smashed them, one by one into the fire pit. When he came back, he came out to the fire pit and started pushing me around. He was out of control. He punched me in the right eye, turning me 180 degrees and fell onto my knees. He then came up behind me, put his forearm around my throat and pulled me up to where I was hovering off the ground - too high to rest on my knees, unable to get my feet under me and stand. He held me there until I blacked out; I woke up lying face down in the back yard in the middle of the night. Thankfully, the kids were with my parents for the weekend (he knew enough not to hurt me in front of anyone). This was the point where I decided that I would stay with him until the minute the kids graduated and then I was gone.

Changing Times; Changing People part I

He wasn't always a monster. When I met him, he was a sweet 18-year-old boy who hadn't had a great life growing up. Sure, he was too young to become a father but I was too young to become a mother...but he tried - for the most part. I watched as his parents treated him like garbage and ignored our children. although I wasn't in love with him, I did care about him and for a long time I loved him. I took my vows seriously and, even though it was becoming more and more apparent to me (and, to an extent, even him) that I was a lesbian, I fully intended to stay married to him forever. In the early days we even had some good times together. I think the downfall started when we moved to Florida - where he had grown up, where he had left his troubled past, where he had - at a young age - fallen in with a bad crowd. To be continued

Strong

I wrote this in September 2009 when my oldest child - Shaner - broke his leg during football two-a-days right before the season started.



I was strong as I sped to the football field. I was strong as I watched my husband carry our 6'1 230 lb linebacker son to the car. Strong as I drove him to the ER, listening to his screams and cries - this young man who doesn't believe in pain, who certainly never stopped for it. The young man who broke his nose the previous week while playing hockey and went to his doctor's office to get a release so that he could play football. My child - who won't even take a Tylenol. Strong through the exam and the x-rays and finally, as they moved him to his room. The room that he'd spend close to a week in while his friends started their junior year and prepared for the football season. Strong as I sat with him - night and day - trying to ease the pain as best I could, knowing it was useless. As they wheeled my baby, my first-born into surgery and through the four hours...shaking the doctor's hand, seeing the x-rays of his rebuilt leg. Strong getting him home and getting him settled; praying to find some magical position that would make him comfortable.

Strong until I stood in the middle of Dicks Sporting Goods looking for the only thing he wanted for school - new Nike socks. As I stood there, surrounded by football cleats, as I'd done so many times before with him, I stopped being strong. I cried. I sat on a bench and wept. It was so unfair; he should be standing there, excitedly picking out his new cleats, eagerly anticipating his first year of first-string on the varsity squad, explaining to me why he needed that $100 UnderArmour. Instead, he was home, in bed, in pain. I cried for the pain he was feeling, for everything he would miss out on this year, for the guilt I felt - when he came home on his break between two-a-days, he had said he didn't feel good...that he didn't feel like going back to his second practice. I wish I'd made him stay. I cried


Then, I came home, and again, I was strong.

Getting to know.......Me

Looking back over the last year or so, I'm really amazed at what I see. I went from being a miserable, sheltered girl who moved out of mom and dad's house, directly into my husband's...someone who was a bit stunted at age 19 (that's when I got married -- with my first child coming that year, and my second the next year). I'd never been on my own, never given myself permission to have a social life, and certainly never gave myself a break for all of my "failures". I stayed because it was what I had convinced myself that I had to do. At first, it was because I felt I'd made my bed and now I had to lie in it....as things got worse and worse, I amended that to "until the kids graduated". Despite this, I never really saw myself as being able to get out...I felt sure I'd be far too weak to leave because I believed that everyone elses' happiness came before mine (this included the happiness of the husband who mistreated me, lied to me, cheated on me and once blacked my eye and choked me out in our back yard after a fight). Thankfully, at some point, I started to realize that I really did deserve to be happy...I do deserve to live my life for ME. Of course, my kids still, and always will come first, but I'm learning so many things about myself all the time. I'm also doing things that make me proud (some of the big things for me have been cooking poultry - the stuff freaks me out - and opening my very first checking account that was mine and mine alone! It may not seem like that big of a deal to some people but for me it was! I'm learning how to be alone and how to be lonely - two completely different things, each with it's own merit. I'm learning who my real friends are and who didn't make the cut. I'm learning that life is too short to not make the very most of every minute of every day! I'm learning who I am and learning to be happy in my own skin. I'm learning not to give other people my power - some people will use me and some will hurt me, but they can only hurt me as much as I allow them to. I'm learning that it's so much better to be me - the person I really am; not some false image projected to distract people from the truth. I've learned that just because someone is blood, it doesn't mean that they'll stick by you when it counts....but the ones who do? They're the only ones that matter. I've learned that I'm such a strong, intelligent woman...much stronger than I ever knew....and I'm proud.