Love

The Adventure Begins

Posted on May 24, 2008 by Debora

Family outings were always problematic when Steve was here. He didn’t enjoy “family friendly” activities like trips to the Wild Animal Park or Sea World or kid movies or pretty much anything that Luke and Elizabeth wanted to do for their birthdays. He wouldn’t stay home, mind you. No, he’d come along, making it very clear that here he was doing his fatherly duty and we’d all better be appreciating it.

Talk about sucking all the fun out of a day.

A few weeks ago the kids and I realized that summer vacation is just around the corner, and we are totally free to spend it any old way we want. So we immediately sat down and started making a list of all the places we want to go, all the movies we want to see, all the things we want to do. We started calling it The Summer Of Adventure, and in short order we’d put together a pretty exciting summer agenda.

Last week I called an old friend that I used to hang out with before I had kids. Julie was sorry to hear about the separation, but very happy at the idea of getting together and doing stuff again. She invited me to a barbecue she was going to this weekend, and we made plans to go see Indiana Jones next Friday.

Yesterday the kids and I kicked off the fun early by going to see Prince Caspian right after school. I was pleasantly surprised by how good that was. It was no “Return Of The King” (although I got the feeling that it really wanted to be), but it was a much stronger movie than TLTW&TW. I really enjoyed it.

Today we went to the barbecue, and that was more fun than I even have words for. I had a blast, the kids had a blast, and even though I didn’t know hardly anyone there they all totally made me feel like part of their big happy family. It was exactly what I needed. At one point Julie’s teenage daughter smiled and told me that she liked my laugh. It made me realize how long it’s been since I’ve laughed like that…big, joyful belly laughs. It felt good.

Right now Julie is dating another old mutual friend of ours, Josh, so it was like getting two friends back for the price of one! At one point I jokingly mentioned that I thought a guy at the party was cute, and asked if they knew anything about him. They didn’t. “But I’ll see what I can find out,” Josh assured me. I laughed at that, but true to his word Josh brought me little snippets of information all afternoon. “His name’s Jacob…everyone seems to like him…he’s an electrician, steady work…he just got out of an eight-year relationship two or three months ago…really down-to-earth guy…” It was a fun game, but to be honest I was a little relieved to learn that Mr. Wonderful lives way the heck down in Escondido, about two hours away. I’ll probably never see him again.

It’s just as well. The truth is, I’m still trying to figure out how to stop missing Steve. I know for a fact that separating was the right thing to do, but the heart wants what it wants, and mine still wants him. I kept wishing he was there with me at the barbecue. Loving someone who’s all wrong for you just really sucks beyond words.

But that’s an old familiar ache by now, and I didn’t let it spoil my fun. AND, Julie and Josh got to talking about a trip to Laughlin they have planned for this summer, and they asked me to come along! They’re taking their boat and spending three days there on the river in June. It’s a no-kids trip, but Steve had already said he’d be happy to keep Luke and Elizabeth with him for the occasional weekend this summer, so that’s no problem. LAUGHLIN, baby!!

I feel a bit like a phoenix, rising from the ashes and starting over with a shiny new life.

I just wish I could figure out how to make letting go of the old life hurt a little less.

Categories: Family, kids, Life, Love, Marriage | 1 Comment

Moving On

Posted on April 15, 2008 by Debora

Sorry about the long absence. Been dealing with some life changes, and apparently the first thing to go was my usually compulsive need to write.

With crushing irony in light of last month’s romantic marital musings, Steve and I have separated. It wasn’t any lack of love that ended the marriage; we were just too different. Different goals, different values, different interests. During our almost-twelve years of wedlock both of us compromised and sacrificed so much of ourselves to make the marriage work, that by the end we both felt like we’d lost touch with who we really were. Letting go of the struggle was almost a relief.

It was all as amicable as a breakup can possibly be. He kept what was important to him and I kept what was important to me; there was no overlap, nothing we both wanted enough to argue over. That’s a sort of sad commentary in itself, I suppose.

I love this house and Steve doesn’t much care where he lives as long as there’s room for his band equipment, so I stayed here and he moved back in with his parents a quarter-mile up the road. They seem happy to have him: the prodigal son, back safe where he belongs at last. The kids took it hardest, but we’ve made it as easy as possible for them and they seem to be adjusting well.

I could go on and on about all the effort that went into this marriage and why it ultimately failed, but…I don’t feel like it.

So. Moving on.

To celebrate my birthday I did something that I was never able to do with the city-phobic Steve: I took the kids to visit one of my favorite old stomping grounds, the Mission Avenue part of Riverside. I used to live on the corner of 7th and Locust, within walking distance of the library and museums and everything, and my memories of that area are warm.

We started the day with a climb up Mt. Rubidoux. The weather was gorgeous, and all the winter rain made the scenery a lot greener than usual. The Santa Ana riverbed wound lush and verdant alongside the city’s edge, looking nothing like its usual sandy deserty self.

We took the “down road” up. Steeper, but shorter.

The cross at the summit. Its sheer size never comes across in photos:

The view from the top:

The Friendship Tower and Peace Bridge:

Elizabeth likes livin’ on the edge. In each of the next three pics, she is inches away from bone-breaking drops:

At the base of the cross:

On the way down we skipped the roads and took a footpath:

Our next stop was the Riverside Marketplace. We wandered through all the beautiful shops, and picked up some fun trinkets for the kids. Then to the Mission Inn, to admire the wonderful courtyards and all the incredible details.

Then we headed over to the Natural History Museum, which I’ve loved since I was a kid.

By then the kids were starting to get tired, so we called it a day and headed homeward. We stopped in Temec for a nice supper, and got home just as dusk was falling. In spite of all the personal drama going on right now, I think it was the nicest birthday I’ve had in years. It felt like…a new beginning.

Categories: Family, food, Gardening, kids, Life, Love, Marriage, Travel | 7 Comments

Self-Indulgent Romantic Musings

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Debora

The Internet’s lousy with memes these days, but I saw one today that caught my attention. (Actually I saw it here, but the above links to the original author.) Anyway…specifically, question #4 caught my attention:

4. Rather than discuss the typical characteristics of someone you’d desire (sense of humor, good body, etc.), I’m going to focus on the little details. Rank them in order of preference, with #7 being the one you consider more important than the others and #1 being the one you consider the least important:


1. Good fashion sense,


2. Ability to dance well,


3. Encyclopedic knowledge,


4. Odorless feet,


5. Quick-wittedness,


6. Even tempered nature, and


7. Likes the same music, movies, and/or television

Looking at that list, I realized how much my priorities have changed since my single days. Before I met Steve, my wishlist would have looked like this, least-important to most:

1. Even-tempered nature

2. Odorless feet

3. Good fashion sense

4. Ability to dance well

5. Encyclopedic knowledge

6. Quick-wittedness

7. Likes the same music, movies, and/or television

Then I met Steve, and he was absolutely nothing like that shiny ideal image in my head. Steve was into Metallica and Black Sabbath and Kiss, and he expressed a disbelieving horror when I confessed my deep and abiding love for John Denver. He couldn’t understand my Star Trek addiction at all. He couldn’t understand my failure to appreciate the comic genius of Beavis and Butthead.

Witty conversationalist? Uh…no. Steve is the strong silent type. So taciturn is he that one might know him for years and never guess at the mind-boggling trove of information he possesses beneath that untalkative exterior. Need to know some obscure fact about world history, geography, ancient cultures, or who played the Third Cop From The Left in some unremarkable movie he watched once five years ago? Steve’s your man. Want a bit of fluffy idle social chitchat? You’re pretty much out of luck there.

He can pull off a nice two-step, but that’s the full extent of his dancing expertise. His fashion sense can be summed up in one word: Wrangler.

This post mustn’t be misconstrued as a complaint. I love Steve, and most of the time our differences complement each other beautifully. Almost any kind of crisis can come up and one of us knows exactly how to handle it, even if the other is clueless. It’s just that looking at that list really made me think about how expectations and reality totally part ways sometimes, and you end up getting what you would have wanted if you’d only known to want it.

So here is my list, rearranged so that it now describes Steve, with 1 being least applicable to him and 7 most applicable.

1. Likes the same music, movies, and/or television. (Not.)

2. Good fashion sense. (Wrangler jeans and Megadeath tee shirts never go out of style, right?)

3. Quick-wittedness. (I’m assuming this refers to verbal wittiness. If we’re talking about the ability to respond quickly to an unexpected emergency, then Steve scores a lot higher on this one.)

4. Ability to dance well. (As long as it’s a two-step.)

5. Odorless feet. (I never thought about it until I saw this meme, but Steve has remarkably odorless feet.)

6. Encyclopedic knowledge. (Seriously, he’s like a circus act if you hit a subject that interests him.)

7. Even-tempered nature. (Ironically, the trait that mattered not a bit to me fifteen years ago is Steve’s strongest suit, and one that I’ve come to prize above all the others.)

Funny how things turn out. But really, I wonder how many long-time-married people would have the same reaction I did to seeing that list. Most of them, I think.

Falling in love is such an involuntary phenomenon sometimes.

Categories: Life, Love, Marriage, Memes | 3 Comments

Blog at WordPress.com.