And so...Someone Married My Kevana?

Hello to my two followers! I know its been a long while! I could write about so many things, but I am choosing to be selfish and write about my own bullshit tonight. Not that everything happening in the world right now isn't something giving us all a great pause of reflection, or at least I hope you all are doing that.

Kevy and I frequent about 3 places in our town. One is the grocery store where they all know me. Another is our liquor store, where they know us both well. The last is the one restaurant/bar in town we go to once, sometimes twice a month, on the weekends we don't have the kids.

Anyway, as life goes I have become friends with some of the people that work in those places, both in real life and on social media. One of the social media finds was a bartender at the Local Pub who saw me show up on a mutual friends post and commented, "You know Kate!? She's married to Kevin! Her and her husband are some of my favorite guests!" I went into our local liquor store this week and one of the boys that works there said, "You have to settle a bet (lets call him John), and I have going." Me: Okay...is it which Bourbon County is the best? "No! Are you and Kevin married?"
Ha, well no we are not. "Oh okay...I bet you were. I guess he'd better get on it then, huh?" Ummmm...well...that doesn't exactly work for us. (And trust me guys, if I didn't care for and respect this person, I would have told him to fuck off. But I do, and I will not.)

So, if I did not explain any of that well, I am sorry. But my point is this: Kevin and I are NOT MARRIED! According to TSMA, we never will be. But does that mean our relationship isn't sound? Faithful? Do we not have a life together? Are we forever bound by the terms and stigma they bring of "boyfriend and girlfriend"? I dunno. And I also don't know what the people that we interact with in these consumer situations assume about us. Because I know as a bartender and tenured in my trade, I don't assume a mother fucking thing about a person. But somehow we have been dubbed and assumed as married. Except to the people that really see us.

So, I don't know, friends. I am happy that people see us as a forever-bound-by-love type. But I am also happy some of them see us as not, and get why we aren't.

Whatever comes and whatever will be. But I know that there will never be a time that Kev or myself, didn't see one another as partners in life. And we don't care if we meet your social standards. And we don't care if we had a fancy way of committing ourselves to one another. We care about our kids. Our cats. Each other. In that order.

WE are the real MVPs.

The whole #Metoo thing...kinda making me crazy. For a lot of reasons and some I cannot explain. Ok, I'm going on whim...

My first experience with sexual abuse happened at 9. I thought I may tell you about all the good times I had leading up to this, but in hindsight, there are few that matter and more problems have been caused by that one act than I can remember that were good before then.

I thought for a long while "that one act", was my telling my parents what happened to me. Telling my daddy what his father did to me.

The moment in my life I decided I wanted to hang out with my Papa and watch horse races (he was an avid member of the community and they were into that and I was 9 and into horses)...it was my younger cousins birthday..,.November....THAT decision changed my entire life. I chose to hang out with my Papa and watch horse races on his little TV in the basement. I sat on his lap, as I had every time I saw him, those 9 years on my life. This day was different. This day I sat on his lap to flip through the horse magazines, cut out the pictures of the Arabians and Palaminos. This day, he chose to put his hands on my nine year old body in ways a man puts his hands on his wife. He touched and rubbed my 9 year old crotch. He put his hands up my shirt. I was so terrified I couldn't...move. This was MY papa.

Fast forward to my teenage years. Dated someone I didn't like a lot. He decided he liked me enough to have sex with my drunken corpse, in a room where my best friend was present, and his mother walked in. Nobody cared.

Lets move forward, I marry a man, have 3 kids with him. We decide to divorce. All is amicable. I start dating a man I like, go to a club without him. Get turned down at the bar asking to pay for drinks...guy steps in, gets served immediately, by the scanilty clad bartender. My friend and I give one another a look, because were being passed over for the guy with iron biceps when we are flashing cash. "Guy" sees our disdain, buys us drinks. Guy priceeds upon me, we dance, music is flowing, best friend is with us. He pushes her to his friend, "wingman", who she dances with and is having fun doing so. "Guy" decides it would be appropriate to put his hands down my pants ans put his fingers inside me. I shoved and elbow in his gut and slammed my foot into the crown of his.

What people don't see, is an amazing thought. I see it all the time. And I think about it all the time. But I am going to be selfish, today. What people don't see about me, blow my mind now that I live in a "neighborhood". People saw me differently when I was living in a place that accepted section 8 housing, not something I was ever a beneficiary of, but was a member of that community paying full price. Now that I've gotten back to a single family home, I find myself in a more judgmental "community" than I ever saw there. And maybe one could argue race played a part, I was the white, single mom, that worked. And here I am the white single mom that works. Perhaps you don't see the difference. When the comma is used, I am defined by each of those things, individually. When I write that sentence, without any comma use, I am defined...as a woman, without stigma. Until I create my own. Because what I have learned NOW is being a white single mom in a neighborhood of white married families, isn't a pleasant place to be. I am not judging those moms, or families. I was one of those moms and the matriarchal piece of that married family, once upon a time. Now I'm not. The difference is, when I was THAT mom, I didn't get tagged on facebook as a imaginary figure. I didn't HAVE a facebook or know what it was. What happens NOW, is I get judged...because after I've worked and spent 4 years in an apartment, as a single mom, by myself...I send my kids to the bus stop alone. They have been doing it for 2 years now, and with a little further walk than the end of my driveway. Now that I have the home I worked to have, and they catch the bus at the end of the driveway??? I don't need to be there. My kids had BETTTER behave. And all you judgy moms that gather there every morning, please tell me if they aren't. because nobody will be up their asses more than I, should that be the case. And once upon a time a year or so ago, that was the case. My neighbor in the section 8 housing, that is a close friend of mine, called my kids out on shit behavior...AFTER she corrected them! And I applauded her, invited her in for coffee, and we talked about it. I cannot stand, and call this hypocritical, if you will, I cannot stand judgmental people. I did not move here to be friends with anyone, lets get THAT clear. I moved here with the man I love, into a house I love, that provided us with space we need. I don't need your consent to be here. I don't need your friendship, and I CERTAINLY do not need your judgement of what you don't see. You don't know me, you don't know our life. We take our trash out the day it is collected. We send our kids to school every day. We cut our lawn, we smile and say hello, we feed your kids snacks when they play with ours. We don't require your invitations, though youre OKAY with the kids being there. What we do doesn't work for you and I get that. But I don't care. It works for us. I'll do whatever works for use, until I die. Your judgment is lost on us. But we're the house with wide open doors. For your kids, for you, we're always home.

I haven't posted anything here, nor have I written anything in  a very, very long time. So, please excuse all errors. I can tell you that after the passing of my father, which changed me deeply, and after the passing of my marriage, that I always saw failing, I have found the utmost happiness. My existence is peaceful now. It isn't perfect. We struggle with integrating 2 families, 2 lifestyles, 2 ways of being. But what I know, each day is the most beautiful thing any human being could ever dream to be true out of another they were with...my person does dishes. My person does laundry. My person cleans up after my kids when they know what they should be cleaning up. My person cuts the grass with a push mower. My person cleans the shit off the underwear my littlest loin muffin cant seem to do himself. My person attends every event he can for his kids. And he comes home every time he cant, feeling defeated, hurt, and wishing his job were not so demanding. My person loves me more beautifully than I deserve to be loved, He encourages me, supports me, lifts me up every time I (rightfully do ) bring myself down or am brought down. My person, encourages the growth of everyone he loves. And he loves a number of people. His 2 children, his best friends, his dad, me, my 3 children, my mom, my aunt, my cousins, my friends, the guy at the gas station by his old house, the guy(s) at the liqour store near ours. The things I wanted in a life partner, as a child...this man....exemplifies. I told my mom, in a private, random text, who lived through my marriage and divorce, "I never thought...I IMAGINED! I DREAMED! Of a person that would be perfection for me. The man He created for me. I never thought I would get that. And I lived a divorce, a relationship, I always knew would end that way...But I finally found my partner. I am not a wife. He is not a husband. We are a team. Always. and he is who, next to our kids, I live for. I see our life together and I see how he loves me. If soulmates exist, mine found me.

Happy National Wine Day, bitches! The celebration I have every day??? Doesn't compare to the 300 dollar bottle of cab I will never taste. I won. And so did he.

So...I've kind of had enough. I am so over listening to people debate mental health and substance abuse as if it's some kind of fucking Hollywood created, money induced, pathetic CHOSEN disability. It isn't. It's real and prevelant and taking lives, if not literally, then certainly metaphoriacally taking away anything important. It is a cruel, non-discriminating, son of a cunt, piece of shit disease that ruins lives EVERY DAY. I will maintain through this post, that until you or someone you love or in most cases, BOTH, have gone through it, than you can fuck right off because you have no idea.

Do you know what depression does? Do you know how you get out of bed every day and go to work and something tells you, even when you don't want to do it, that you're doing it for your kids, or your family, or to have a life some day where you don't have to work so hard and can retire? Guess how that is when you're depressed? It isn't that you don't care about your kids, or family or retirement. You care very much. In fact, you stay awake every night worrying about how they're going to be taken care of. You become an insomniac. No matter what you do, you can't sleep. So maybe you try taking a Unisom. But that isn't enough. You feel like garbage in the morning. So you try beer, or liquor or wine, just enough to let you fall asleep peacefully. But then you wake up feeling like just as much garbnage the next day. Hungover. But if the sleeping pills do the same and the wine is cheaper...??? WHY NOT. So there begins the substance abuse used to cure a disease you can't find tresatment for. OR you take the anti depressants. You gain 50 pounds and then people make fun of you, your doctors tell you you need to diet, even though you're only consuming 1200 calories a day. And that doesn't help. None of it. Your husband thinks you're fat and doesn't want you anymore. So you stop the anti depressants that are keeping you sane and work out like a maniac and it STILL isn't enough. So you keep drinking to sleep, keep running to lose weight, start vomiting what little you do eat out of nervous anxiety and what is becoming self hatred for things you can't control.

Sound fun yet? It gets better. Your marriage fails because you're accused of losing weight to be more attractive to other men, even though he doesn't know how severely unhealthy your "weight loss" habits have become. You're sleeping in fitfull spurts from the nightmares you're having that are made worse from the alcohiol you're consuming to try and sleep. And all the while you're wondering what is so wrong with your brain that you cannot function on the same level as every one around you.

Does de[ression sound like Hollywood "fun" yet? You think back to when it first began and chances are, you were a child and didn't recognize it for what it was. My first panic attack happened when I was 11. At least the first one I have vivid memories of. It came on entering junior high with a bunch of kids I didn't know in an environment that was new to me. A routine that has changed. And, for me, this has been my biggest trigger. While I welcome changes, if they're too new, too real, too fast, I panic. I've found

I suck at communication. If you could imagine a Tintanic or Armageddon type setting and place me as the person that relays what is happening,  I am the reason the boat sinks and why the world explodes. If you tell me something is happening, it isn't that I am not listening, because I am, it's just that eating the mashed potatoes I made last night is more important to me, I am not hearing you. This isn't true for every relationship I have, if I care about you enough, I am seeing the signs that you're drowning or facing a catastrophic asteroid from Hell, it's just that I seriously don't even have the skills to deal with that happening in my own life, to know how to handle that in yours. Yes. I am that retarded at life. What's worse is when I try to understand and don't. Because there is nothing worse than trying to relate to a situation or perspective on anything when you cant even grasp your own. but that is a serious side effect of being "aware". Society is so quick to diagnose and label and place blame, but I believe that if you are in the place I am

I remember the first anxiety attack I had. I was eleven and starting junior high in a new school with kids other kids that had been fifth graders the year before from four other elementary schools. I walked into a classroom filled with people I had never seen before and I looked around and no one else was scared. My heart started to race. So much so, that I could feel my blood coursing through the veins in my hands and head. I took a deep breath and when I tried to exhale, the tears poured uncontrollably from my eyes. It was the hardest I think I had ever cried in my eleven years. My teacher walked me to the school social worker and for two months I saw her every morning because every morning I told myself I would go into class with the other kids and sit down and I would be okay. And every morning, I walked through those doors and felt like a stranger in my own body.

I don't know what changed, but eventually I was able to go to class without feeling so scared. I didn't know that those things I had felt were a real issue. I just assumed there was something wrong with me and for my whole life I battled these attacks from time to time. They kept me from attending social gatherings in my teen years. They kept me from wedding showers and baby showers and when I became pregnant with my first child, they were so uncontrollable they began to affect my work. My obstetrician limited my work availability to fewer hours. That helped.

When my kids were born and had their heart problems, I experienced them again, with full force, every time we had to see a doctor. They usually occurred the night before the visit, when I was alone in bed with my thoughts.

I had a severe panic attack the day I got married, walking down the aisle. That should have been a clue.

I started having them more frequently, when my dad died. Over the years I tried several medications for them, but none of them ever really seemed to help. My husband, when I was married, told me I didn't need them. That the attacks were in my head and that I just needed to "stop" them myself. I never claimed he was the world's smartest man.

The last few months have been a living Hell for me with not only panic attacks, but also with depression. I finally found a place to get help and get healthy with these things. As I type tonight, I am mourning the loss of when this illness has cost me over my life. Over the nearly twenty years I've been having them. And the fifteen or so I've dealt with the depression. I've lost fun with friends because the comfort and safety of my bed was more appealing. Or because I couldn't find the strength to get myself out of bed. I've lost the ability to communicate openly and freely even with those who I love and trust because of my fear of displeasing and being rejected. I think, looking back, had I been open and honest immediately instead of waiting until it bubbled over, those people I held back from would have accepted and appreciated my honesty and open heartedness and we would have worked through whatever the issue was together.

The last couple of days have been the hardest I think I have ever had. The months of self doubt and internal pain hit their peak and came bursting to the surface. It was when TSMA said, "You need to get your shit together, KK. I can't be your savior" that I removed myself from the situation and saw it from a point of view I never had. I was drowning. I know that I am now on the path to understanding. I am excited to learn and to change different patterns of behaviors and I am happy I found a way to do it healthily.

I started today off a little rough, but I was optimistic because I felt like I had the man who was my biggest supporter, who sees me for me and gets me, who knows my strength and I thought understood my weaknesses, by my side. Here to watch me as I figured this all out. To give me a boost when I needed it. I could see myself growing, learning and doing that with him. In the ways I think I've fallen short at times. But now I'm not so sure he wants to grow with me. And it's tearing me apart. This is the only man I have ever felt truly connected to. All through my marriage I felt I was with someone that never saw me. Never saw what was beautiful about who I am. Never saw that I had strength behind my pain and kindness overpowering to any angry word I spoke and good to any negative thought I had and felt. Never saw the way I wanted to experience life and love and happiness and joy. I married a man that put all the things about me into a tiny bubble and let them build for years and years until I wasn't just drowning anymore, I was dead on the ocean floor.

Finding my way to the surface over the years following our divorce was rough. When I met TSMA, I in no way intended he'd be the one to breathe life back into me. I thought, over the last few days, how lucky I am to have someone that not only gave me that breath, but continues to give me the tools I need to breathe on my own and to be HAPPY I was doing it alone.

A favorite lyric from a favorite band came to me just now...

"So I'll meet you at the bottom
If there really is one, they always told me
When you hit it you'll know it
But I've been falling so long
It's like gravity's gone and I'm just floating"

I hit bottom. While I broke out of the bubble my marriage created for me, I never learned how to really live outside it. That's what I'm doing now. My heart is just breaking because I really believed the man that made me see I needed to live would be here to live with me. I guess I still don't know that he won't. But I'm hurt and I'm scared and this is all new to me.