On a jet plane

My kids are in New York.
Hashtag #Sob-Fest2016 #Whambulance #SoBored

They go twice a year to visit family. I'm used to it. They have a blast. I'm happy for them.

 

What to do.

 

Isn't that the questions we all face. What do we do with our time? What is the ideal goal of accomplishment in our lives?

What happens next after you've experience some of the more common life goal things people strive for.

• Marriage- check
• Having babies- check
• Get a career you Love- check
• Have Abs of Steel- well......okay, so not everything is ideal.

But what else.

I still feel this immense urge that I am not living up to my full potential. WHY is that!? I want to make a difference. But how. What is my passion????? Who needs something!???

I literally watch motivational YouTube videos while I get ready in the mornings.

Tony Robbins 4 life.

This eventually leads me to spend the first 4 hours of my day in full "Arnold Mode,"  Eyeballing that stack of papers on my desk. Whispering in my best Arnold voice, "You look like a little puny pile, who do you think you are with your little puny words and deadlines"
My work never even sees it coming.

But the strange cycle I live is, eventually by 5:00 p.m., there's nothing more I want to do, than to do the exact opposite of "Pumping Up" my motivation. In fact. Cooking dinner seems like a lot of work by 6:00 p.m. Like a serious work out for my brain.
Putting stuff in a pan and setting the temperature is hard work man. You have to actually make decisions on what to mash together with the ingredients you have.... that late in the day. But I just spent 8 hours deciding things? No way.  I have a list of  dinners I rotate during the week because of this. Got chicken. Yup. Chicken tonight kids. Leftover Broccoli? Looking like stir-fry tonight kids.
Not even an ounce of creativity that  so heavily engulfed me  at 7:46 a.m. that morning.

I literally thought of starting my own organization to help others at 7:46 a.m. this morning.

Maybe I'm just a morning person.

That's all for today.

Gotta make dinner...... :/

 

Where do I begin?

Or should I say, where did it end.....

I'm divorced now.

One Plus One Equals?

Last week was the first time I read this blog since my divorce, which happened five years ago. Five. Long. Years. Ago. Like a bad fairytale ending. I didn't want to be reminded of what "was" and wanted to focus on what "is."

I cried like a baby after reading it.

Mostly because my kids were so wittle and cute and precious. Time is a gift. Another big part of my sob-fest 2016, was witnessing the years we were a happy family. It brought out the best qualities in me. Stabs the heart.

It feels like a lifetime ago in a far away land.

My raw truth.
I left.

I left because I wanted to experience something else. I left because I felt overwhelmed, claustrophobic and too young to be where I was in life. I left because I didn't value what a healthy and long lasting relationship could have provide me. I wasn't grown up enough yet to know the importance. I don't beat myself up over that.

I also left because of him.

That boy.

The one you swelled up in hives on your face for as a teen. The one that made you giddy to go to school and motivated you to show up to class, even when you had a history of not doing so.  The boy you used to call into the 'love songs after dark' radio station for, and request songs like, "Crazy for you" by Madonna, and 'I Touch Myself,' which, by the way, I did not actually touch myself at the thought of him, it just sounded sexy. And sexy was not what I was at 15 with bad teeth and boyish hips.

The boy you thought would eventually be yours, and this perfectly cute romantic, adorable, sexy love story would eventually end up your future.

I finally got that boy.

I've kept this part of my life private. Only to my closest friends, have I expressed my guilt of giving up my family for this ridiculous fantasy. He was everything that I didn't have at that time of my life. And everything I thought I wanted for my future.

(insert judgments here)

It only turned out to be the most debilitating relationship I've every experienced. It may not have been all him. I could have held him to standards too high. It could have been the divorce too.

I just couldn't give it up. Even when I knew.
That Boy. I held on to.....with hope.... until our depressing and pathetic drawn out bitter..... 'The End.'

I see it so clear now.

The tainted grass.

Thus is life I suppose.

Sarah and Noah, who have now grown to be 9 & 6. My babies. Both equally as darling as the other. I am so proud them. I still wanna suffocate them most days with my love. I still read them a book every night.
I still look at them the way I did, the first day they were born. Some things have stayed the same. My love for these two.

 

My story, I hope, doesn't end poorly for me. Because I know, as much as we can't see it sometimes. Everything happens for a reason. I enjoy my life. This life. Without The Husband or The Boy, but with just me. Amber. That was my lesson. I'm the one I needed to love, only to start my real beginning.

Amber

 

Bye Bye Birdie

Its so surreal.
These moments in your life that you anticipate. Wait for.

It's crazy how you look forward to something for so long, then one day, it happens.
All of a sudden, you are living in the moment.
You want to laugh. But your brain gets foggy. This dream/vision becomes a reality.
I think its hard for the brain to accept.

Like childbirth.
I remember being in labor with Sarah. I was in so much pain and hazy.
All of the those expectations are either being met, or things are going unexpected.
I realized that at THAT MOMENT,  I, Amber Gaither, now wife, was HAVING A BABY, a moment I had processed for 9 and a half months was NOW, ACTUALLY happening.
Oddly, after having my mind focused on only pain tolerance, was now focusing on the room, my mom, sitting in the corner starring at me helpless and Ali fiddling with his shirt, nervously waiting for whatever was going to happen next.
I smirked.
I really wanted to laugh.  In fact, in my mind I was laughing. How odd, I thought to myself, suddenly laughing out of the blue.
That awkward laugh you get when your being yelled at by a person who has a huge booger in their nose, you have to be serious and listen, but all you really want, is to bust out laughing.
But you stay composed.
I stayed composed(well sorta), and she was born.

I really should have just laughed.

I waited 4 1/2 years for Sarah's  first day of Kindergarten. Scratch that, I knew Kindergarten was coming and I was preparing for it.
Throughout the years of seeing pictures of 'first day outfits,' shiny new sneakers and Dora the Explorer lunchboxes, what a proud moment that must be.
It is.
I am proud. Proud I have made it this far alive. Proud that I have become the mother I am, and most of all proud of who she is.

We love you.

Wonder

 

This picture frightens me.

After stumbling across this photo amongst many that we took at the beach that day, my heart sank to my soles. Where did this come from? I already looked through all of these pictures, how did I miss this?

It so loudly predicts the unwanted fact that my son will be grown up, and on is own someday.  Facing this unsolvable world we live. Takings steps away from us instead of closer. I feel like I want to yank his little body out of this picture and squeeze him in my arms and never let go.

Sigh.

I don't like this picture.

Double sigh. 

I also don't like packing.

Both of which I am avoiding.

Going on a treasure hunt!

It's been a crazy summer. Crazy good and, well,........crazy.

My husband and I are moving....not just to another town. Another state.
What state may you ask?

Maine.

From New York.

Crazy,.............yes.

Things have been going smooth. We got the only apartment we could afford and Sarah into the school we desired. My parents are excited and the beach is always open.

But by far, the hardest part about this, is leaving our family, and the friends we have made here.

My daughter was all ready to go to school, riding the bus with our neighbor boys.  Last night the parents explained how the youngest, Michael, was groveling to his pediatrician  how sad it was that Sarah is moving.

*sob*

This move is getting harder and harder and we haven't even reached the countdown.

My husband is training his replacement at work!? Whaat?!  He told me this Friday his name will be written on a schedule in another store, in another state.............crazy!

My last day of work is next week.
NEXT WEEK!

The time is going by too fast. All our family and friends are surfacing, letting us know how much we will be missed..........well.....the kids really. My heart is being anchored.

I remember these emotions. The feeling of sadness and last minute heartbreak. But good always comes out of it. You will always have these friends in your life, and had the pleasure of meeting them.
I miss my family and friends in California, I know if I ever went back, they would be there. Even though we may not talk as often on the phone or email.
No friend/family is forgotten.

The love is always there.


oh, and we haven't even started packing yet.

Cropsey

I don't know, is cropsey a word?

My dumpling of a daughter is "graduating" from Preschool.

dun, dun, dun dun.

I spent countless hours shopping for the perfect "graduation" dress for her.
I had visions of  little white  flowers in her 'romantic style updo' with her SHNAZZY white summer dress carefully plucked from the racks of Target.............perfect.

Why did NO ONE remind me that they had made their very own Tie-dye t-shirts a ba-gillion days in advance with their trademark iron on label:

'I grew at First Untied Methodist Preschool'

um...

My vision of sunshine hair and summer dress spins are smashed to the ground and stomped to bits.

Bits.

Exhibit A:      Last Years tie dye shirt.

Letting go

Sometimes you just need to hear the right words...

Something to encourage you to keep going, keep fighting for what you believe in.

Deep breath....

It's hard for me to write this....having my personal life out in the open.
But I think that everyone goes through these problems, and part of the issues is, we make believe we don't.

I was feeling separated from my husband.
Whether it be loneliness or jealousy.
My connections was getting further and further away.

For a minute, I wanted to be free.

My history with dating is no good. I am not the commitment type.
My view on marriage was a joke.
Not one couple on earth has not had some type of affair.
So why commit to one person for the rest of your life?


But, Ali was different.
No really.

I value that I can talk to him about anything. Even these thoughts of wanting to escape, and how I am 99% vested in this relationship and the other is waiting for the day it fails, and I run.

Of course, I didn't realize this until we talked.

I expect failure.
How can you progress past a certain point?

Then, he said....

"that day in Reno, I had that ring, you had no idea that I was going to ask you to marry me.....I had a moment with myself.....Ali, is this the right woman for you......I could just put this away and she would never know......but I said, nope, you were everything I asked God for. Your everything I ever wanted, and nothing has changed since that day, I still love you"


It's time to let go.
It's time to jump in.

I have to know that some things in life are real.
This is real, our life.
We may have our moments, but the foundation is there.
I have to remember that safety net of "we".
We are here, together, forever, holding hands until death separates us.

I love you Ali.
Thank you for being by my side
Even when you know I am broken.