Alopecia Update

I haven't written much lately, anywhere. Sometimes writing brings out truths you'd rather keep denying...so I had to wait until...

...

This last spring, Mister Man set up a lunch date for me to meet with a local TV celebrity and Alopecia Totalis battler. During a weekday lunch hour, I sat across from her listening to her story and her continuous struggle over accepting her condition. She had had it for less than a year, in her 50s, she woke up one morning to find her pillow littered with her hair. Her Alopecia Areata turned into Totalis within months. I listened to her desperation to find something to cure her, her travels to see specialists, and her list of medications to relieve her now all consuming anxiety. We cried together as we shared our common (new) fear of rain and wind, our appreciation for good hair pieces, and our loving husbands. I saw in her the other direction Alopecia can take someone. Being without the funds to make it my drive to be cured, I had to take the acceptance route.

Alopecia is like the second personality, it's underlying and exists parallel to myself. I love my life completely, I have never been happier and feel joy in my soul's core for every single day. It's the wind, rain, reflection, and picking up my own hairs that remind me of this other thing that's happening, my other identity. Until my lunch meeting, my alopecia self was separate from my own self.

A week later I lost all my new growth and then some. Defeated, I could no longer take the obsession AA was demanding of me. I stopped counting hairs, looking up articles and medical progressions being made and other people's blogs of their AA journey. I stopped wearing my hair extensions out of the paranoia that the weight of them was pulling out more hairs. I stopped using prescription topical steroids and over the counter Rogain.  I stopped taking pictures to chart this unchartable disease. I simply stopped participating and realized what will be will be, and I have no control over it.

I began a routine which included a multitude of vitamins and supplements three times a day. Wheat grass, Vitamins C, A, B, D, E, and fish oil, Biotin, Nature's Bounty Hair, Skin, and Nails, and something called Viviscal which is a marine based supplement. I also stopped making a "lack of time" an excuse for not exercising and instead found time. I haven't had another cycle of shedding in 4 months. That's the longest I have been able to hold on to the hairs my follicles have been trying to produce since I came down with AA. And I can now say for sure that I'm actually experiencing fluffy baby hair coverage. What was once a patch as smooth as a baby skin now feels like a healthy peach.

I'm ecstatic, obviously, but I am also nervous. I know I'll never be cured because there's isn't a cure. I can have another shed or complete loss at any time, I'm prone to it and my anxiety is hypersensitive from this. I don't want to put too much weight on my regrowth and being able to keep it...but it does make me happy.

Out of all the blogs I've read from everyone out there experiencing AA, the OCD part of me that developed over the course of my own AA found those with pictures more useful...just so I could compare mine to their's. And so, I'm sharing some of the photos I took over the course of 14 months of my patch.

The first picture I took, when I realized something was wrong and it wasn't going to get better on it's own and then 2 weeks later:

 

3 weeks later, I thought I was experiencing regrowth, but then 2 weeks after that you can see how the AA moved "south." I realized then that the short hairs along the "southern" boarder wasn't regrowth but the breakage of hair that happens before they fall out from the root. The
"northern" short hairs was actual regrowth.

 


Fall 2012, it held pretty steady. You can still see how it's moving "south" as that's where it thins out before it sheds out completely, then thinning further down.

 


Winter 2012-2013.

Today. 

 

Fragments of the Fragmented.

I've gone through 6 blood tests to find something, anything wrong with me. Turns out, I'm completely healthy. It's deflating to not have anything underlying to treat, but I realize it's also good that I'm not secretly dying.

Every doctor I visited said the same thing after giving me their results, "has anything traumatic happened to you a few weeks before you started losing your hair?"

Yes, of course something happened. However I'm not willing to give credit for my disease to a man I worked years to get away from. But I have concluded, privately to myself, that his desire to give up his paternal rights to his three daughters was the "traumatic" event. I spent weeks, possibly months...maybe still currently (if I'm being honest) in distress over this. The pain he had caused me by dismissing his children as if they've never existed, a mother's pain and guilt, immeasurable. It's as if he had hit me with one last (lasting) blow. I was KO'ed, he won. To give him credit for my Alopecia Areate (AA) disgusts my deepest self....yet, I feel it must be true. 

I've watched my scalp try to replace my lost hairs...and then lose them again shortly afterwards. I've watched the progression of my AA expand its boundaries weekly. What was once a bald spot the size of a nickle early this spring is now just coverable by the palm of my hand. April to November. It feels like I've been stressed for longer than 7 months. 

AA has a sense of humor. When doctors tell you there's no underlying condition to treat, they like to tell you to relax and not stress to prevent further loss...but then they tell you that AA isn't predictable. It can recover and possibly come back 5 years from now, or it can lead to complete hair loss over the entire body. How can one relax when a good chunk of their scalp is bare...and expanding with "unpredictable" as the statistic for the disease? I fretted over this for months before I decided last month to not focus on the hair I was losing, but to love the hair I have while I have it. I've also taken up sleeping, something I didn't have the time to do routinely. The combination of the two has resulted in a calmer mind in addition to more hair regrowth than I've seen in the 6 months before that. I can almost measure the regrowth with a ruler, 3 millimeter sprouts of hair litter the bare parts of my scalp. I've decided to disregard the new loss I incurred this weekend, though...a quarter inch loss...it looks like a lot when you hold those hairs between your fingers and find the fresh white spot on your scalp to measure 1/4 inch... I'm optimistic though. I figure if I can keep my new growth, in 6 months time it'll be long enough to cover the new loss and by then I may have new growth starting there too.

I probably seem neurotic measuring growth and loss. But I feel I must so I know what direction my AA is going, even though I'm aware I can wake up tomorrow without any hair attached to my head. It goes back to the sense of humor AA has, twisted and challenging. 

Bad hair days to feed my soul

The stream of water from the shower is mixed with my tears. I sat in the tub until the water turned cold and watched my hair dance down the drain. I knew what was happening to me, but I had a good sense of denial about it. Denial only gets us so far though, and finally, after months of hiding, I had to tell him. Telling him made it real. There was no more denying from here on out. I gathered myself in my towel and wiped the fog from the mirror. Here, I partook in a new ritual of mine. Like a gardener inventorying her crop, looking for new growth, and assessing the damage cause by disease. There, another one had fallen out; the lack of roots proved it too had fallen victim to the disease. Each day I study each one, looking for some sign of hope that the damage will be localized. How far is this going to go? How much more will I lose? Totalis? Universalis?These question, unknown by even doctors, torment me. 

A sense of identity, a symbol of femininity, vitality, and health. I had no idea how much my hair defined who I was until I began to lose it. Alopecia Acreata, damn you. Damn you for stripping me of my self esteem, for taking a strand of my confidence with each hair. But it doesn't care, it doesn't discriminate. This autoimmune disease goes after men, women, and children without sympathy. This has been a part of me even while I had denied it's existence. But now that the denial was over, changing the part in my hair and putting it up in an ever-shrinking ponytail in effort to camouflage my bare scalp was no longer enough. It's real, whether I hide it or not. 


It took me three month to admit to it, and two days to mourn the self I had identified with for 30 years. It seems shallow to mourn longer, yet two days doesn't seem long enough and I fear there will be more dark days ahead of me. I know I'm more than my hair, but I also know that it was just as much a part of me as my fingernails or my skin are, either just as devastating to lose. 


The vessel for my spirit in this world has malfunctioned...and there isn't a spare...but, I'm not dying yet. I may look ill more often than not now due to missing patches of hair, but my health is still good and there are varieties when it comes to hair pieces. I had recently discovered that not only are there extensions and full wigs, but also crown wigs, half wigs, 3/4 wigs, and band wigs. In fact, today I purchased and sported some new hair which enabled me to wear my hair down, finally! There is enough out there to see me through the progression of my disease...yes, my disease. I haven't totally accepted it, but I'm in the process of doing so.  


And Mister Man, his love for me exceeds the superficial. "Hair or not, I'm still going to be your husband, we're still getting married. And when I lose my hair we can wear each others' wig."


Alopecia, welcome to my journey. You're adding a higher degree of compassion to my spirit. 

2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005...

Touch.
The simplest, most basic form of conveying emotion.
We don't notice it unless it is unwelcome or until it is missing.

Touch is something I do often, I touch people I love constantly. To not touch someone in my life seems impossible to me.
Hugs, running fingers through their hair, holding hands, cheek kisses, linking arms. These are all common forms of touch in my life.

Sometimes unwelcome touch becomes so normal that we begin to not notice that either, until it is also missing and eventually forgotten

I sat down a couple weeks ago to watch the pilot of a show called Boardwalk Empire. In it was a scene of domestic violence so intense, it reminded me of what was now missing in my life. I watched in tears, not wanting to look but not able to stop. I could feel myself shaking with fearful recollection. As I watched the scene unfold on the television, I realized a number of things that had not occurred to me before:

1. I was never okay with how I was treated in my first marriage.
2. I was not okay with how I lost 2 of my pregnancies.
3. I'm still not okay with either of those.
4. I have never truly forgiven HB for his actions even after it stopped.
5. This is what ruined our marriage. THIS, which sadly began before we were married.

What was astonishing to me was that I had forgotten the details until I was watching it. Once, in 2005, I admitted to my father that I was a victim. That once was so humiliating that I dismissed all past and future occurrences from that point on. Dismissing is not the same as forgiving. I hadn't even realized this is what I did with it. And the details, the details I wish I could forget all over again.

Nov 16, 2007

I have a collection of blog drafts I never posted. Here is one from 2007, the only thing that must be added 4 years later is that the work we put into our own lives eventually pays off. No one will change your course for you:

There are so many things in life that can be enjoyed, so much humor tucked into the smallest cracks of the daily reality...little things that distrupt a rut and give you a chance to laugh, even if it is just at yourself. I used to be one that was keen in spotting the chuckles life hides for you to find, everyday was a day to wake up and laugh, being tickled by something random. I have tried and tried again to become the person I was, I miss that person; though just as the laws of living require, people must change with their environment...people must change, they must do so to grow and better themselves. For what, I'm not sure. What's the point in growing and changing? What's the end result? What piece am I to the big picture?

My current reality has become so overwhelming and stressful, plain and mundane. Life has seemed to become relentless in trying to push me down in so many directions to the point where I cannot breath anymore and waking up becomes painful. Something has got to give, and yet I have no vice or any clue as to how to release the pressures I feel. I fooled myself 2 years ago, telling myself that change will come with patience. Everyone has the power to change their own lives, to turn things around. Though many fall into self pittying excuses to give themselves reason to stay put where they are and who they are.

My patience has grown thin for the waiting I have done for the change to occur. I realized today that what I am feeling may possibly be a sign. When we are not on the path that was designated for us, I believe that severe unhappiness in the form of feeling trapped in limbo occurs. I go about my days (and have so for the last 2 years) picturing myself elsewhere, in another life. It was 2 years ago that I knew I was on the wrong path and for 2 years I have slowly tried to change it little by little by finally taking actions into my own hands and becoming responsible for my own existance. My here and now is not what is suppose to be.

Mr. Destiny

I rush through traffic to get home after work. It's a rush type of evening. Of course I still have much work that needs to get done at work, and I think to myself that I should have stayed just 20 minutes longer so tomorrow won't be so stressful for me...but there's also work to be done at home, and like I said, it's a rush type of evening. Mister Man has a shoot to go to, and I a meeting for the CRES organization (which it turns out I'm not going because I am now blogging...and in a sense relaxing, for now, with 3 children playing around me, on me, and at times with my toes and hair).

I walk up to our apartment and smile to myself, thankful that I didn't work 20 minutes longer. The people in there define me and my life, and I would rather spend every minute with them.

At first, it seems vacant inside when I make it through the door until I see heads pop up over the counter. Everyone was ducking in the kitchen searching for something that was lost under a cabinet.
Lettuce has taken over a good chunk of counter space.
Dishes, ready to be put away, are waiting to be put away.
I recall a couple of loads of laundry that I should do tonight.

I start dinner among the crowd in the kitchen, noting tasks to add to my to-do list.
I brown meat, it's tacos tonight, fast and simple.
Mister Man fusses with the smaller food processor and the lettuce.
I start chopping tomatoes, heat the refried beans, place the hard taco shells in the oven, pull out the soft shells, and begin making chalupa shells.
Mister Man sets up the bigger food processor, giving up on the smaller one. Tonight it's foreign to us as we struggle to turn the thing on.
There's art all over the table, someone is making a masterpiece for sure.
Sissy's on my laptop doing 6th grade homework.
There's chattering going on. I can't tell who it's coming from or who it's directed to, but it seems to be coming from every direction.
Don't burn the chalupas, don't burn the chalupas...oh, don't burn the meat. Did I put the shells in the oven?
The chattering gets louder, everyone is in the kitchen again.
Don't burn the shells...
I check the time, he has to leave in 30 minutes.Hurry, hurry, hurry.
...
The chattering is still going on, is it English? I can't tell...wait, did someone say blood?
Mister Man was ambushed by a food processor blade, he's bleeding...Someone's getting bandages, the napkins are blood soaked.
What the hell just happened?
Bandages won't do. Gauze and electrical tape become the solution. (Reminder to self: buy medical tape).
I finish his food, he's able to eat before rushing out.
He kisses me goodbye, I wish him a good shoot, and he kisses me goodbye again. (I love kissing him). I finish getting the girls' dinner done, start my to-do's, and help with homework.

But I was absent during a part of this, experiencing a waking dream:

I'm in Kentucky, in my back yard, with my dogs and my vegetable garden. The damp soil is familiar to me, I know all the neighbors, everything is familiar to me. The leaves on the trees are just starting to turn gold. The air smells of moisture, the way it does in Kentucky. How'd I get here? I go inside, my dogs follow me in. I run my hands over belongings I had given up over a year ago. I pet my dogs, my heart swells. I've missed them. I can hear my kids playing in the front yard, happiness fills me. Where's Mister Man? 

I check the kitchen calendar, August 28, 2010. HB is sleeping in the bedroom.  What happened? Didn't I leave this place? Everything is where it's suppose to be, nothing is packed. There's no evidence that I am leaving. I haven't even started?! There's so much to do, my God, where's Mister Man?!  

I have a decision to make, and I must make it now. The feeling is urgent. Do I stay here and keep my family in tact despite an unhealthy and unhappy marriage? Or do I do it all again, a year's worth of progress towards where I'm suppose to be? Knowing the outcome subdues the doubts and fears I remember having originally.
Yes, yes I'd do it all again, exactly how I did it the first time, every bit of it, in order to be exactly where I just was. 

I walk down the hall towards the bedroom where HB sleeps. It's not suppose to happen for another 5 hours, but I can't wait for that talk, it must happen now. I have to tell him now that I'm ready for the divorce he's been wanting the last 9 years. Just over a week from now I will hear from Mister Man, he will text me, and then he will call, it will be about another woman in his life, but that's okay, that's how it's suppose to happen. I know because I've done this already. I stand in front of the closed door...is it locked? Should I knock? The door is unlocked. I push against the door....

...wait, did someone say blood?

Mister Man was ambushed by a food processor blade, he's bleeding...Someone's getting bandages, the napkins are blood soaked.
What the hell just happened?
Bandages won't do. Gauze and electrical tape become the solution. (Reminder to self: buy medical tape).
I finish his food, he's able to eat before rushing out.
He kisses me goodbye, I wish him a good shoot, and he kisses me goodbye again. I finish getting the girls' dinner done, start my to-do's, and help with homework.

(I love kissing him).

'-mom'

In my past life, I was, for the most part, a stay-at-home-mom. I kept a routine and a spotless home.

I was not only there with my children for every milestone they reach and every new word or small muscle movement learned, I was a part of it until they were the ages of 10, 7, and 5. Many days, my heart pains for that part of that life, my favorite part. 

In my current life, I am, in every part, a working-mom. I keep a paycheck and a happy home.

I am with my children in the mornings, evenings, and weekends; together we communicate through playing, laughing, and talking. Every day, my heart swells over this part of this life, my favorite part.

Heaven was created by Lovers

Within days after my October arrival at my parents' driveway in Colorado, Mister Man and I got together for coffee and a walk. This could be where our story began, though I can't be sure since there weren't any distinguishing lines drawn. But from this point, we built a relationship that was completely open.

The following four months, I spent too much of our time together fretting over a man I will refer to as R.B. and sobbing over my then present situation. For whatever reason, he continued to be there every time I fell apart...and I fell apart only around him. I was as equally balanced as I was unbalanced. I'm still confused as to why he kept his presence a persistent constant.

The progression of our relationship has seemed surreal to me and the beauty our relationship holds continues to astound me. I can't help but to acknowledge wholly that I am living within my own love story, a love story I can't believe I'm a part of.

What follows are pieces of my favorite entries from my personal journal.

 December 2010:
"You're radiant, beautiful, and ineffably wonderful." It wasn't until this statement of his did I realize he was developing deeper feelings for me than what was suppose to be maintained within our boundary-less friendship.

January 2011:

Stolen kisses on rooftops under the winter night's sky and under dusk's lit streetlamps. He titles us "lovers," a word I have never been comfortable with (a word I never understood the meaning of until recently). He treats me with his homemade humus, red wine, music, and candle light as he shares with me works of his he's most proud of. 

"You know how I feel about you, don't you?" he asks. I simply responded, "You like me enough." My words deflate him. "I'm crazy about you. We fit, together we are incredible...amazing" he tries again.  I have no response, I kiss him instead.

We dance to music only we can hear. We hold hands in private and walk down dark side walks along busy roads, the two of us are smiling...happiness, peace.

"We are the two most realistic people I know, I know we're sane enough to just enjoy in what we have for as long as we have it...," he tells me.

And so we do, we don't discuss our behavior nor the pull that drives it. In it's simplicity, we just are. Our relationship strolls at the slowest pace needed to experience fully every skipped heart beat. There is no rush, we're blissfully falling 'into happiness.' We're timeless, time continues without us; when together, it does not exist.

"Thank you for bringing me happiness for as long as it lasts," I breathe.

He holds my face with both hands, "Je t'adore, Amy. Je t'adore."  

"I didn't want to be the first one to say this...," he looks at me intensely. I fain shock, "this isn't how you make humus?!" "I love you," it's barely a whisper. "...I didn't say that to be selfish and have you say it back. I can't believe I feel this strongly so soon, but in the last 4 months it's gotten so that I can't not say it any longer." I'm reeling as he speaks, I don't know what think, so I kiss him and trace his face with my fingers and find what I've known I've felt all a long, "I love you too." I love that I love him. 

February 2011:
I see the way he looks at me, a combination of vulnerability, happiness, trust, and love.
The Blind Cafe: our Valentine's Date. After the blind meal, the music starts. In the dark, I feel him turn his body towards me, his hands seeking my face. Kisses in this environment are magnified; slow, soft, careful, meaningful. We sat, kissing in the dark, surrounded by music and strangers. The next morning, he makes me homemade pancakes, I watch him with new sight. I'm convinced that I'm experiencing what it feels like, for the first time, to love the right person. I was unaware such deep feelings were possible, though when I finally saw what was in front of me, those feelings were already there.

We walk on snow covered ground to a dormant ice glazed rose garden in the park. I'm reminded of a similar scene from Beauty and the Beast and I'm convinced I've just arrived at my own fairy tale.

On a rooftop, he sighs heavily, "What's that heavy sigh for?" "I love you, that's what it's for," he buries his head in the crook of my neck.

His jawline, his wonderful dimples, his happy eyes that are soft when he looks at me...my favorite features of his face. I've been studying them for weeks. They are beautiful, he is handsome.

"I love your smile, I can look at it all day...I love how easy this is, where we are at, and where it's heading."

The sound of me giggling in my sleep wakes me.

"You don't mind me hanging on you like this, do you?" he's holding me. "This is only the second time we've spent the night together, I don't know if you like your space or not." "No, I don't mind." When I wake again it's light out, he's beautiful. His eyes flutter, he can feel me looking at him, I kiss him and exclaim, "Good morning! I love you!" He smiles in peace. 

It's late, we're tired and attempt to watch Amelia, but there won't be a movie that night, "We'll have to try to watch this again later...years and years from now." "Years and years?" I repeat rhetorically. "Yup." 

"I love what we have together, but this is my favorite," we're entangled, both our eyes and our bodies, "how did we get here?" He pulls me into him, "my girl." "Your's, yes."

March:
He expresses that he wants me to move to Denver, for us to move in together. I want it too, but he is a free spirit and I don't want to be the one to take away his freedom. I'm so foolishly in love with him, it pains all my senses.

He makes me breakfast, brews tea, and there's fresh strawberries on the table, it's perfect. He takes me to a house-band/party event where I am referred to as his girlfriend for the first time. Afterwards, we go to a night club where fog surrounds us. It's crowded but we can only see each other in this thick white blanket.

"You giggle in your sleep, and sometimes snore, but it sounds like a soft purr."  

I can't get enough of him. And when we're together, he can't keep his eyes off of me. He traces my face before he rests his head in my lap and takes my hand. He looks up at me as he runs his lips across each of my fingers; his eyes so full of emotions that cannot be express by simple words, it almost looks painful to me. ...His eyes close.

"[Sissy] wants a drum set," I tell him during a conversation about nothing in particular. "Let's do it!"  ..."Let's"...it echoes in my head. For the rest of the night, when he looks at me, I can see 'forever' in his eyes. "I look forward to all the things ahead of us," I'm falling asleep in his arms.

"I can't wait for when I get to come home to you and the girls and go to sleep with you every night." I pause, It's him, he's it. "What are you thinking?" he asks. "That I want to build a life with you." He catches his breathe, I hold mine. What did I just say? Did I say too much? He finally finds his air, smiles slowly and exhales, "Wow." There's a light in his eyes, and he can't take them off of me.  

He's loving me, his kisses are whispers; I lose myself when he kisses me, forgetting how to participate, how to breathe. I cannot process thought, I only know that this is what I want, this and him. He feels like home to me, as if this was always suppose to be. I never knew love between a man and a woman could be so completely peaceful, so pure. I never knew, not til now, with him.

"I don't know why I get so insecure with you, when we're like this it goes away....it's just in my head." "Don't ever be insecure. When I look at you, I see forever." We have something real and to me, somethings rare. 

April 2011:

"I want to be a part of your family...I can't wait to  just curl up together at the end of everyday...I love you so very much." I want it too, all that he wants. "I can feel how much you love me...I will never forsake your love for me." His words are so kind, I cannot form a sentence without the threat of crying all over him. 

"We just keep getting better, and I think, 'Wow, I love his woman!'"

We continue to grow in love. I don't know how I got so lucky, I don't know what role luck has to play in this. This cannot be the norm, Is this how everyone experiences love? He's confessed so much of his love to me, but I have barely voiced the surface...I should tell him, but my vocabulary doesn't seem elegant enough to express how I feel.

He talks about music and the Foo Fighters, I'm lost in his voice before he apologizes for being a music nerd, "You are incredible. You have nothing to be sorry for." He kisses me, pulls away, and smiles...his whole face is smiling, "I still can't believe it, how we got here."

He plays his guitar for me, giving me a private concert. His fingers dance naturally along the strings. His feet keep his beat and occasionally he skips and dances a bit. His eyes are closed, he's somewhere else as he plays. When he comes back to me, he sings to me a quiet love song.

"I feel so insecure when I open my heart to you. I'm afraid I'll say something that'll make you run away." "I'm not going anywhere."

                                                  ...........................................................................................

He didn't mean it the way it came across, the way I instinctively took it. I know this and knew the moment he said it, but it still hurt. I tell him his apologizes aren't needed, I know he didn't mean it the way it sounded, but my eyes continue to veer away from him. I can't look at him, not yet. I'm unaware that he is crying until I notice the porch light reflecting off the wet streaks on his face. I hardly speak to him the next 2 days. Saturday night, as he kisses me goodbye, his grip is strong. He holds me there, lip to lip, until I remember how much it is that he loves me and how I love the way he loves me. When I do, he's smiling; and we each know that we're alright.

May 2011:
I'm crying, the tears won't stop. I'm blubbering. I blame the tequila (not then, but once sober). Face in hand, I finally stop talking and just cry. Fears, worries, a world of stress out in the form of tears. He leans forward, I feel him breath in, and in a soft loving tone full of emotion, he says, "I'd marry you tomorrow."
His blue eyes sparkle, reflecting the small amounts of light available past the midnight hour. His words echo in my mind.
The crying stops, I'm speechless.
Moments of silence pass before he finally shakes his head, looks down, and murmurs, "I shouldn't have said that."
I'm still processing his words and the flood of emotions I wasn't aware I had. In my state of extreme intoxication, it simply swirls...a kaleidoscopic of his words with my emotions. I don't know what I'm suppose to say.
I realize my sluggish mind is playing with my sense of time and more of it is passing than I realize with me still in silence. My tears are dry by the time I climb over him in the drivers seat of his Honda Accord. I straddle him, hold his face in my hands and I begin kissing him to release the swirling mixture confusing me. Then I say the thing I've been thinking for weeks, "When you're ready, ask....just ask when you're ready and I'll say yes."
His smile is so bright, "Wow" he manages through my kisses.

He beams whenever he sees me, his love radiates and envelops me. He wants to belong, as a family with my daughters and I. He loves us. He loves me as I have never been loved.

We have a home June 11th. Together, Mister Man and I, we have a home to start building our lives together. I found a permanent job in Denver, I start in 7 days. Things are happening, everything is happening. After months...nearly a year of me in limbo, directionless in my life's path, completely lost. Back then I knew only one thing, that I wasn't where I was suppose to be, and so I changed it. 8 months later and a lot of work put into every aspect of my life, I've found it, my direction. Since then, everything has been measurably progressive towards the life I was always suppose to have. I can feel it with as much certainty as the air I breath. Everything has been comparably easy from where I was. It's in Denver, with my daughters, my job, and the man I've always known I should be with.

June 2011:

"I'm not going to pretend that I know everything about you. But I want to, over time."

We've been living together for a week now. Each day he comes home from work, the rest of the world disappears when he stops to kiss me. Unpacking is going slowly with both of us working, but a home is being made with each box that is emptied, combining his possession with ones I have forgotten I had. I'm excited for our future.

We've been living together for 3 weeks now, we remain to be amazed by one another.

"We're lovers: we're in love, we make love. We're lovers." "We've been bed buddies long before we fell in love, you know." "No, we've been making love. I'm going to love you for a long time." "And I'll love you back."

Rarely does he tell me how "beautiful" and "amazing" he thinks I am. But when he does, those are the words he uses. His spacing ensures I don't mistake his words as something said out of routine. Only after he's been watching me, studying me, does he sigh and express how he sees me; and when he does, his eyes look as if he's been holding those words back since the last time he's said them aloud.

July 2011:
We're laying in bed, starring at each other. He's gorgeous, so handsome, i can't stop looking...ever.

"What?" "You're handsome, I love looking at you." "You're beautiful and I love looking at you."  

We're lost, again, in each other's gaze. It's become a hobby of sorts. I think I see his lips move without sound but dismiss it as my imagination. But now his eyes are welling up with emotion and I'm convinced that he must have mouthed something profound to me. What was it? 'I love you...' that didn't fit the movement of his lips, it was longer. 'I want you....' no, still not long enough. 'I want...'  To much time has passed, I can't make anything fit any longer.

"Did you say something?" "Wha? No, when?" "A bit ago, your mouth moved." "Oh, you caught that." He dismissed it, and we changed the subject. 

"Can I ask you something?" "Of course." "Do you want to get remarried?" I pause before stumbling over an answer that mixes yes and no together. His face drops as he realizes he's not going to get a straight answer from me, this forces me to finally commit to an answer. "You make me want to remarry." And with that, he's reassured on so many things; it's written all over his face.

I love him more and more each day, it seems impossible. With wet eyes he tells me often how lucky he believes he is. He's so open with his emotions, I wish I had the ability to express myself as well as he does. I only hope that my actions and the words I do share are enough. I hope he will continue to feel from me the things I cannot seem to say with words.

We're going on a date, and I'm giddy about it. Mexican food on the patio, a Troll hunting movie, and my favorite part: climbing over a wall to sit along the water's edge of a pond. There, ducks quaked, the night sky mirrors off the pond, and we sit. I'm reminded of the dormant ice glazed rose garden he took me to 6 months ago, sitting in silence and me in complete wonderment that this is my life, just as I'm still in awe of it now.

Home, I'm home. I have a home and it's our home. A late revelation, but the full meaning of it finally hit me at this late hour as I walk through our home to make sure the doors are locked. Walking through the darkness, feeling the familiarity and the comfort, I grasp it wholly: I'm home.

August 2011:

"I just want to be with you. I want to be with you forever." "Okay, I can do forever with you." "Deal."

"What do you want for your birthday? I want to show you how much you mean to me, how much I love you." He smiles at me, but only with his mouth. His eyes suddenly become vulnerable, "I wish I had [unlimited] wealth...I'd put a huge diamond on your finger." But I don't need a huge diamond! Though rather than saying that, I kiss him. 

September 2011:
Time together, we have some every day, but it never seems like enough. I miss him while I'm at work and when I'm waiting for him to come home. It's absurd to miss him now since we're living together. But I do. From the moment I leave for work each morning, I am in constant anticipation for the next time I will see him. We continue to cherish the time we do get together. We are still timeless, but time continues without us. And here with my heart full beyond what words can express, it occurs to me, heaven must have been created by lovers who realized 'the rest of their lives together' wasn't long enough.

We ended and I began.

I consumed myself in alcohol.
I consumed myself in exercise.
I consumed myself with household chores and projects.
I consumed myself with my children.
I attempted to drown out my thoughts by constantly piping music in my ears.
But I could not escape it, we were unhappy and had been for a long time.

I was job hunting, successfully. Interview after interview, call back after call back; I went through the process only to reject all offers. One day last August I was struck by my own inner voice shouting at me, "Why are you attempting to begin your career here? Do you WANT to stay here?" And so, I did the thing I had been afraid to do: I left, with my kids and began MY life.

It wasn't like I disappeared in the middle of the night. HB and I had a long discussion and realized that this was what we both wanted, the first time we had wanted it at the same time. So, together we drove 17 hours west where he unloaded the kids and I at my parents' house and left.

I had spent the next few months in limbo, not knowing how I was to define myself any longer. Everything I had known the last 12 years was gone. To combat falling into a depression and running back to my past life, I surrounded myself with friends I had been estranged from for years, who were more than willing to have me back in their lives and reconnected with my family. The fact that it has been 5 months and I had yet to fall apart is confirmation enough that I had made the right choice. Though it hasn't been easy, and my life's comforts are no longer, I have no regrets. I know the best is yet to come and can finally see my path in life.

The Terror known as the Gas Weed Whacker

During a deployment, the spouse left behind has little control (aside from the Power of Attorney that gives us all control) of our emotions and when and where we are going to have a break down. Imagine walking on an emotional tight rope: everything is fine as long as you keep your balance, one wrong breath and you fall which results in an emotional breakdown. The key is balancing through the breaths we take, for me it is about controlling what happens during my days. My days are planned out so that everything that is done, I know I can do, this helps me keep my breath balanced so I don't fall. After all, deployments are taken one breath at a time.

This morning I intended to do some yard work, which I have done numerous times, it was something I knew I could do...knew I could control. But before HB's departure, he upgraded our electric weed whacker with a gas one. The concept seemed easy enough, rather than an "on" button all you have to do is press the red button 6 times, switch the lever to "Start", pull the cord and hit the trigger which switches the lever to "Run."

So I:

Push the red button 6 times...turn the lever to start...pull the cord...hit the trigger....

Push the red button 6 times again...turn the lever to start....pull the cord...hit the trigger....

turn the lever to start....pull the cord....hit the trigger....

pull the cord...hit the trigger...

pull the cord...

step on the weed whacker and pull the cord....

stand up-right...step on the weed whacker...pull the cord...

pull the cord...pull the cord...pull the cord....

Threaten the weed whacker...pull the cord....pull the cord...

Threaten Craftman...pull the cord...pull the cord....

Put gas in the weed whacker...push the button 6 times...put the lever on "Start".....pull the cord....

smoked a cigarette as I pulled the cord....

Cry....pull the cord...pull the cord...

After 35 minutes I fell off my tight rope. I called my dad (who's 2 states away) for help (what he was suppose to do from 2 states away, I wasn't sure), but he wasn't near his phone. So I attempted to start the weed whacker again. Instead of starting, I broke down and balled in my front yard. Crying ment that I lost control of myself, which made me angry so I cried some more. Realizing I'm crying over a weed whacker and how retarded that is made me angry as well, so I cried some more (it was a horrible cycle).

I am the only one on my street that doesn't go to church on Sunday mornings, so no one came to my rescue as I threw a fit in my front yard. Not knowing what to do, I called a friend who's husband was still home and lived close by. Within minutes a white PT Cruiser (which is as good as a white knight) pulled up. Sheri comforted me by telling me that she threw her weed whacker across her yard when it wouldn't start, so I shouldn't feel bad. Her husband, of course, started my weed whacker in one go....

He schooled me on the art of starting a gas weed whacker and after chatting with my dear saviors, they were off.

With a new confidence and getting over my cry-baby- act, I confronted the demon Craftman produced to harass women, and it started.

Feeling good now, I began to weed whack my front yard. Unfortunately, half way threw I ran out of string......figures....