A simple prayer

Yesterday I walked down the hall at work and saw the moment the sunset. The right moment looking out the right window. It was a beautiful sight, a sight that you know you can see the Lord.  I gave a simple prayer for RG. As always I pray for RG to forgive me, to be safe, to remember something kind about me. But this prayer was simpler. I prayed he could see this same sunset. Perhaps he could see this fleeting moment and see something kind in this world.

Sushi on a Sunday

It had been over a year since I could take my daughter to a nice sushi restaurant. We were in Carytown in Richmond, VA and I was so excited to treat her to good sushi. Well this blog post will have the story but not the name of the restaurant. I don't want to be rude and name a restaurant with the persons way of living with my negative opinion. If it was great, yeah I'll name it all day long, bad food, nope just the tale not the name. I actually wanted to take my daughter to the fancy french restaurant in Carytown but she freaked at the prices. My daughter is amazing with money and the biggest cheapskate I have ever met. I mean that in a good way. So we walked around in the swampy Virginia heat searching for sushi. Our favorite place in that neighborhood, Moshi Moshi had closed its doors permanently while I was financially strapped. So cue the music, we were looking for a new love baby. This place was not it. We walked in and I tend to enjoy a lot of air conditioning when I eat raw fish. This place wasn't much cooler than the outside. The decor was plain and dark and pretty empty. We were seated promptly and we stuck with just ice water. This was not the sushi orgy of greed from the late nineties. When my daughter was seven she could eat over fifty dollars of sushi by herself. It's been a while since we ordered like that. I only ordered tuna and octopus and a spider roll, she ordered a shrimp roll and some other low priced roll. We picked a moderately priced roll to share. The waitress brought my seaweed salad and it was so tiny, the bowl could have been part of a doll's tea party set. The flavor was normal, just like the seaweed salad at the old Ukrop's. Then the sushi came and the small portions were aggravating me. First time in over a year I could afford sushi, I was hoping to have a memorable meal. The spider roll had a sweet sauce on it that took away from the crab flavor. Oh, wait a minute I really couldn't taste the crab flavor. Back in the late nineties Hana Zushi had the biggest spider rolls, they were amazing. The claws were coming out the edge of the roll and the pieces of the backfin were so huge in the roll, that you knew exactly what you were eating. My octopus was tiny and just okay. Please don't kill the baby octopus just for me, kill a grownup octopus so I can have a grownup size order. The tuna was medium size, but not the pretty shade of pink. It was kinda dark. The roll that we shared had no rice, and instead of seaweed was rolled in cucumber. The cucumber was too much, you tasted the cucumber instead of the tuna. When we were done, I was still starving. Literally starving. I ordered a bowl of rice just to tide me over until we got home. When we got the check, it was twenty over what I had thought we had ordered. And about twenty five more than what I would have spent at the French place. Next time in Carytown it will be ooh la la at the French restaurant and the next sushi trip, we will play it safe in Shockoe Slip.

Saying Grace

Every meal is started with saying grace. A solid tradition. Gratitude for the meal, gratitude for your spiritual beliefs. At this house, the gratitude is genuine, you can feel the compassion rolling off in waves. A kind house. The meal was simple. Fried croaker on a white oval plate. The father caught the croaker and fried it for his wife. Lima's and corn in a casserole dish, french fries on another white oval plate. You could see how much this man loved his wife with every part of his life. From the way his fishing boat was named after her to the way he cooked dinner for her. The way he smiled when he looked at her, the kindness when he he greeted her with a kiss. They have been married for around fifty years give or take. The parents of a high school friend. Seeing this couple made me think about my short marriage. Fifty years ago marriages weren't so disposable. A man would have been shamed for abandoning his wife during a health crisis. No social media to congratulate him, shame her. In another value system a man never called his wife ugly, evil, or a psycho. No lies of soap opera worthy crimes leveled against the wives of yesteryear. Maybe I'm looking at that generation with rose colored glasses. Two weeks ago I met a man in his nineties, he talked of his wife, and their sixty-two year marriage. He said she was his true asset. This man, his walls are covered with his accomplishments in business, agriculture and county politics, does he boast or brag? No, his asset was his wife. I wonder how RG thinks of me. Does he remember the way I drove him to work everyday for three and a half years. Every meal I cooked for him. The pork butt I dry rubbed and roasted for hours a month before he left me. The flour tortillas I made by hand that same last month. With the gossip I heard about me, I imagine not. I still remember every kind thing he did, every meal he cooked for me. I wonder if our meals had started with grace from the beginning  would last September had steam rolled over us? If we had a home filled with grace from the beginning, a kind house, a compassionate home. What if? Perhaps if our meals had started with grace, it could have been a tradition to last fifty years, give or take.

My mother's shoes

They were brown hard leather with intricate holes, dirty and turned up at the toes with the wrinkled crease broken in across the top of the shoe. Black footprints melted into the inside where my moms feet were always dirty and she didn't were socks, she ran around barefoot a majority of the time a throw back to her days of poverty growing up in West Virginia. Those aren't the shoes I'm walking in now. It's my depression to her bipolar. I spent four days in the same hospital unit as her. She was always able to come home with her life intact, my father took care of her. Took her to the hospital, brought her clothes to wear, allowed me to visit. I had no visitors, no clothes not even a pair of underwear to change into. I remember being heavily sedated, bare butt in a hospital gown, eating breakfast and lunch at the table in the middle of the unit. The food was cold and bland and I was a zombie, oblivious to my lack of clothes in public. I have never gone without underwear in public a day in my life. That's not the worst, I wish my lack of underwear was my rock bottom. Not even the top ten. Instead of going through the laundry list of what happened to me, I wonder how my mother dealt with it. I never once wondered that before. Before I made rude jokes about how bad could it be to in a psych unit, I joked that's where all the good drugs are. No, that's where lives can end if your not careful. Being over sedated, my head felt like it was wrapped in bubble wrap. Under water, where every thing is muffled and you can't speak. All the words are gone. Is that why she hated going, getting lost inside your mind, no words, no map, no trail of crumbs to your old life. When she came home what was it really like? I remember the house had to be cleaned, dinner had to be made, she got to come home to a comfortable home. What was life like outside of our house? Did rumors fall like rain about the details of her hospital stay? Tall tales and exaggerated stories of oh my lawd did you know what that woman did? Was she publicly shamed, water cooler gossip, lied about or was anyone kind to her?

Lip gloss and poverty

How many times have you bought an expensive lip gloss that never even got used. Forgotten and unopened at the bottom of a drawer or left in the original bag. I never thought about it before. I didn't care before. One of the biggest mistakes was my choice to take a break from nursing to work in the food industry. I under employed my own self and thought it was a brilliant and brave choice. I had no comprehension how huge the pay cut really was. I took a huge pay cut, and didn't even budget my money. RG was worried about the power bill and I was clueless about how bad my pay cut was and I was still buying make up. And fake eyelashes. And you name it. Six months after the break up I am trying to learn how to budget. I write every purchase down in a budget book. I have a bottom of the tube make up rule. Finish a lip gloss before you buy another one, which means all the tubes in the drawer have to be used. If I want a new foundation, than I need to use up the cakey bottle, period. I have wasted money my whole life, but now that I am dancing on the edge of being homeless, one financial crisis away from losing my place to live, it's a lot easier to see that greedy amounts of sushi and twenty two dollar lip gloss was a waste of money. There is bitter sadness that permeates poverty, it's the regret. Regretting ever bad choice you made to get there and the person you can't apologize to.

Compassion with a side of hash browns

Compassion with a side of hash browns

Working the last six months in a busy breakfast diner has taught me a million things. Of course it taught me the food industry is not my talent. Twenty years ago I was a great waitress, today not so much. In this economy, people will say anything to get free food. I understand that hot food when your hungry is like a hit of cocaine when your sober. Complaints of how horrible the food is to get a full refund after you ate the whole plate have driven the food costs up to the astronomical  point even I can understand how bad this industry is financially. I'm glad I learned that money lesson as a waitress and not a food truck owner.    
The lessons that are kinder are based more in humanity. I have not been my best these last six months. I have been my worst. Fragile and crying and sad. My co workers never knew me before my hospital stay and break up, and not a single one has a college degree. Every single one has had more compassion then every degree nurse working with my husband. When I am crying too much they set up my tables and get their drinks. When they hear my voice shake, the ten second warning to tears they try to help me redirect. One waitress knows if she lightly pinches the side of my neck it makes me laugh. The cook knows I get too scared to walk to the bus stop in the dark, so she has her husband take me to work even on her days off. These women are strong and caring, and they gently try to push me to be stronger everyday. They have shown so much compassion to me just saying thank you doesn't feel like it's enough, but it's a start.

All about food!

How easy would be to change one part of your life. If it was easy everyone would be Barbie Playboy perfect with a PhD and the greatest job ever. Insert sarcastic tone with the last sentence. Changing habits is hard so I am going to try to change one small habit. Instead of the same old same old food choices every day I want to eat all vegetarian one day a week down here in the south. Here in Richmond Virginia gravy is on every menu at every restaurant or at least it seems to me. This blog was originally intended to have everything and a whole lot food. I love food, it's fun but after working in the restaurant industry for the last six months it is the owning side is not for me. So much food waste make really high food costs, long hours of prep time, all the reality of food service isn't really me after all. Dreaming of opening a food truck would not have been my cup of tea it after all. I'm lucky to learn that lesson working at a food job instead of buying a food truck! So instead of cooking food I just want to eat food. So looking towards the next six months I will be planning a series of how to eat vegan in Richmond Virginia. Can it be done walking into any old restaurant. Can you do vegan through a drive-through? Can you go to a diner, a mom-and-pop restaurant, a chain restaurant what food choices can you make when you want to make a statement with your diet. Here in Richmond it's easy to eat pizza, tacos, hamburgers and especially barbecue but what about raw vegan and doing it without spending three hours cutting vegetables to eat one for meal. Can this choice be a quickie food option on the run and eating out? From what I have seen, it looks like vegan get judged a lot and I wonder is some of the judgement that the diet is just too hard to even try. But I think one day a week with no bacon and cheeseburgers would be great, how hard can it be? We will see! 

Messy bits of life

Sam is throwing up today. The first thing I did was want to call you.  You were always better at dealing with the messy bits of life. I miss you. All the bad all the good. We adopted a dog that is the size of a moose and he loves you. He doesn't understand divorce and running away when the messy bits of life get too ugly. Yesterday is the first time I went to the grocery store and bought a normal amount of normal groceries. It felt weird not picking up your favorites. Every baby step I take to get back to normal life without you feels weird. Guilty and strange. I wonder what is going on in your head when your alone, do you miss anything? When I would cook for you? Buying you pigs feet and salted pork that you would eat like candy. The roast chicken you loved, I know I miss your chicken wings. I even miss the way you screw up cooking steaks half the time. You loved our kitchen so much. I loved our marriage so much. Well enough wallowing for now, Sam left another messy bits of life and I can't call you.

A Christmas Carol and a breakup

A Christmas Carol and a breakup

She is in her late forties, thin, always frowning. Her long brown hair in a low twisted bun, her mouth always set in the same stern frown. She doesn't want to be happy. Her husband left her a million years ago for a younger woman. Before he heft her he was abusive, financially, emotionally, and physically. She was homeless for two years. She is still bitter, still complains about every thing he ever did. She won't divorce him, she thinks if she files she will have to see him or he will beat her again.
Another woman, a classmate from fifth grade, I saw her at fast food restaurant. I said hi and sat down to wait for my friend to get their cheeseburger. She sat in the booth with me and before my friends burger was ready she had told me her whole divorce story. Her divorce from seven years ago. She lost her house and had to live in her car. She was all the way, in the moment from her husband leaving her from that far in the past. She wasn't alone, an older gentlemen was her current companion and he was finishing his food while she talked about her ex husband. She barely mentioned this man.
Scrooge saw his future if he didn't change, could these women be my ghosts of bitter wife future? All I can do is have hope even when I can't see hope ( part of one of my favorite bible verses). Every day it gets clearer that I may never get an explanation from RG. No closure no I'm sorry, not even a talk about the bills and the business end of a marriage ending. Hopefully I will not be one of these women in five years or maybe even five months. The way he left hurts but I hold onto every wonderful moment we had. RG is a bad break up, but when he was my husband he was kind and wonderful. I can hope to everyday take baby steps towards a future I didn't plan for, but I have had some amazing people show me a huge amount of compassion everyday. Perhaps those kind people, from some amazing places are the reason I can bypass the divorced woman's  version of being Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

Why 4:30 a.m.?

Why do I wake up every morning at 4:30 thinking of my husband? No alarm clock, just melancholy memories of everything good about him. I have to walk to the bus stop in the bitter cold to get to a waitress job, so I should be angry and hateful over this change, my new standard of living that's barely living at all. Just surviving.

Nicknames of an EX

Nicknames of an ex

I can't remember when LA Boy stopped having a name and was just called LA Boy. But break ups are hard and broken hearts sometimes need a push. So perhaps it is too much to have my husbands name in my essays and letters. A nickname for him and an evening of blog editing for me. Nothing mean or rude, but fitting. RG is how I will reference him from here out, not his initials, it's just a cheesy reference to the Julia Roberts movie Runaway Bride so RG / runaway groom, after all the marriage was just eight months, it might take me longer to edit his name off of my blog.

Dear RG

Dear RG,

Here I am again, writing to you because we can't talk. I wish I could know why you have so much hatred, so much anger. I wish I could know if you had any kind thing to say about me. After the email I received from you yesterday I can't imagine you have any kindness towards me. I still care about you. I worry how cold you are on the scooter in the winter. Have you forgotten every kind thing I ever did? When you grandfather liked me and I bought him an electric razor. When I was the only person he would let shave him? He called me princess and told you to let me have the wedding cake. You broke up with me and left our marriage when he died, and your grief was so huge. I can't change how sick I was when your grandfather died.
Do you remember any kind thing you said about me? The last time we went fishing how you gushed over me when I caught that fish. When we were first dating we were at 7-11 and I asked you how did you like the new video game you bought. You had such a look of shock, and you said no one had ever asked you if you that. I still wish I could ask you about your day, your life. This break up is yours, please stop being angry. I begged for you to stay, I begged for you not to move out, I begged for you to reconcile, to work things out, therapy counseling. I begged while you hated and left. You have the breakup you wanted why are you still angry?

Still human

When my husband ended our marriage it sent me into a crippling depression. I'm still drowning in it today. My husband left a thousand unanswered questions, but as I sit here crying for the millionth time, I wonder when did I stop being human? I drove him to work for three and a half years and I am now walking, biking and riding the bus to work. Winter weather that he wouldn't leave a dog out in, I am out in that weather getting to work any way I can. I am saving to get a car, but it feels like forever. And even with the mess he left, I still don't hate him. I don't understand him but I don't hate.

I remember screaming

I remember screaming. I couldn't stop at just crying. I was beside the bed we picked out together and he was gone. He hated me. I crumpled into the floor. I was howling. Crying so loud that everything hurt. Visceral and thick, loud and ugly. I just couldn't stop. That whole month I just couldn't stop anything. I couldn't stop the break up and I couldn't stop how messed up I was.  I still don't understand that month.
I couldn't even scream 12/28/90. I cried quietly and was just numb after. When I was a little girl and watched my father beat my mother I never screamed. I was quiet. The day after my mom would have "that talk", the talk where she would explain how "those fights" were our secret. I had to be quiet and not tell. Be quiet, keep those secrets. I wish I had kept quiet September. Everyday I dissect every detail. Thinking thinking over thinking. All the what ifs. There is no what if to fix it. Only what to do to survive it. I get up, I cry less every day. Sometimes. I breathe. I go to therapy. I mourn. Yes I mourn. My marriage was everything. I didn't take it for granted. I trusted it would always be there. I didn't throw it away like a forgotten piece of mail misplaced in the trash. I didn't forget my vows, I just got sick. So I mourn the loss. The loss of the life we had together. Cooking huge amounts, how much I just loved cooking for him. I even miss hanging up his clothes on the clothes line. The bickering over mowing the grass. Trying to buy him every hot pepper plant I could, then he would only eat the jalapeños.
So I mourn. I cry. I breathe. I phone a friend when I need a kick in the butt. And now I pray. Never before this break up, but everyday I pray now. Everyday I am blessed with what I have and every night I pray. I know little by little I am surviving. It's hard.

Dear RG, All the things I don't understand

Dear RG, All the things I don't understand

I don't understand any part of you leaving. I drove you to work every week for three and a half years and we had a normal amount of arguments and one or two break ups a year before we got married. The break up that stuck? The first one when I didn't have a car and couldn't drive you anymore. Every day that thought kills me. The whole what if I still had a car would things be different. What if I hadn't made the mistake of changing industries. I'm thankful to have a job, but I need to get back to health care to get my finances straight. I know your not coming back but I still need to get my finances in order for me. Waiting tables has me treading water and it's exhausting. I'm making baby steps everyday and I'm thankful for that.
I wish you could explain all the bizarre parts. You used to hate when I said ugly things about my first husband, but you have gossiped about me a lot. Why do you think everyone has turned against me and hate me? I still have the same wonderful friends and they still love me the same. Six months before you left me, you disliked those same gossips at your work. I remember when you heard them gossiping about you. The girl that swore you fit the profile of a serial killer and the other girl you heard laughing about which of your eyes was the lazy eye. I love you so much I never knew which eye was the lazy eye. It wasn't important to me. I just loved you completely. Those coworkers of yours, their opinions were so important when you left me, not a single one them called and checked on you when your grandfather died. Not a single sympathy card.  Your job didn't even call and check on you when you went to the emergency room in August. I remember when you hated that place so much you were putting in applications everyday. And I remember the day you got so upset when your memory failed you. You were filling out an application and you told me it took you a long time to remember what year it was. I still worry about that. You said you thought your memory was messing up from time to time. I wanted to help you, I wanted to take you to the VA for help. Now I have to get over losing you, because I know you can't remember how great we were. I know you used to love me and it is lost somewhere that you can't find anymore. I can't forget how much I love you, and you can't remember how much you loved me. That is what I will never understand.

Food trucks and left field

Food trucks and left field

One minute I thought I was in the "best marriage ever". Then September happened. A perfect storm of every bad thing at once. A Shakespearean tragedy, I thought my husband was completely happy until thirty minutes before the breakup.
Rewind to a month before the breakup. I wanted to take a break from nursing, and buy a food truck to run with my husband. I thought his cooking was the best and I loved how happy he looked in the kitchen. The pride he had with cooking. My sappy bohemian dreams of starting a micro farm and running a small food truck with my forever husband. Why not believe our marriage was going to last forever, it was still brand new. Only eight months. He supported my ideas and supported me taking a break from being a nurse aide. I took a huge cut in pay to work at a sandwich shop in walking distance from our home. I thought it was fun. I watched videos of micro farms and vertical gardens. I found a used food truck for $3000 and was hoping to get it with my tax return. I thought the perfect theme would be coffee because of how much my husband loved coffee. He would drink tons of it all day every day. I researched and thought I could start the truck with under $5000 of coffee equipment. I thought it was a happy goal that we shared. I still can't believe he would let me take such a huge cut in pay if he knew he was about to leave. I regret my decision to change industries, and will hopefully be back as a nurse aide as soon as possible. It won't get my husband back, but at least I will get my life back on track financially.