Mermaids? on Parade

The 25th Annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade

Fact or fiction?

Supposedly one of the reasons that a woman has never been elected President is the fear that once a month the big red button to blow up the world would have to be disabled because when Aunt Flow makes her monthly visit women are incapable of making rational decisions. True?
I was listening to NPR the other day and a highly renowned female doctor was discussing this and she confirmed that yes indeed, women should not make major life decisions in the days directly preceeding their monthly flow. Apparently our hormones are crazy little fuckers that really like to take our lives and turn them every direction but up and just make us miserable insane creatures.
So, my point, finally, maybe I can blame my insane anger at my husband and his abandonment of me to go to a private island for four days while I have to stay home and miss work to watch the dogs and clean and run errands and do homework on these crazy hormones. Yes, that's it, it's my raging hormones. It has nothing to do with the fact that if he could have waited a mere 6 hours to fly away that I could have gone with him seeing as how I am still missing work today. Or he could have actually hired the dog the walker that he has been promising me for 2 years now and then I wouldn't of had to miss work today. No, that couldn't be why I am angry. It has nothing to do with him telling me that this is a business trip and that all he will be doing is working the entire time and that his boss is no fun and he really doesn't want to go and then him calling me drunk talking about how beautiful the stars are above his private cabin and him getting up to go kayaking while the sun rises over his private stretch of beach. Did I mention that I am not at work today. (I kind of like my job and I really like my boss and want to make a good impression on her and this is not helping.)
No, none of those things should make me angry. Afterall, I left him this past Christmas to go visit my sister (who he could care less about) and her new baby (who he could care even less about) in Memphis (which he hates) so that I could help her (since she's all alone) but meanwhile I left him to deal with everything all alone so apparently now I have to be punished. There is a lesson I should be learning. Could it be that I am stupid? Am I crazy?
Michael likes to tell me that the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same things but to expect different results. If this is the case then all those times he's screamed at me that I'm a crazy bitch he's been dead on. I am a crazy bitch. Because I continue to let him get away with this bad behavior and I apologize for my hurt feelings and I bake him a pie and fix his morning coffee and scratch his back and let him walk all over me always hoping that one day he is going to return my kindness...be thoughtful, listen, actually remember the names of my friends and co-workers, clean, run errands... anything. Instead he takes vacations without me and doesn't plan vacations with me. No, if I want to go anywhere I have to do it. I have to book the plane and the hotel and board the dogs and pester him about getting the days off and listen as he tells me everything is too expensive and then about how he can't get away from work because he has to go to Jackson in September... So, no vacation for me, ever. No, I shouldn't be angry...

Sometimes it's easier to just let it go

These last few weeks have been a learning experience for me as far as my marriage goes. I have been trying to step back more and to try to not be so doom and gloom over every harsh word and every meal eaten in silence. I have been trying to imagine my life without Michael and trying to just keep it all in perspective.
Sometimes I try to imagine the life we would have had if different decisions had been made, different paths chosen. Would we have been happy on Walnoaks Drive? Could Crossville have fulfilled our dreams? Would Kingsport have offered the stressfree life that my ovaries need to procreate? At this point, I just don't know. I've never really thought that "place" was so important. I've always kind of believed that people and family and love and togetherness, these are the things that should dictate happiness, not where you choose to lay your head at night. But maybe I am wrong, maybe a place can make a person so miserable that realizing the family and the love are still there is an impossible thing.
I want to believe that when we leave this city that our life together will be magically restored. But restored to what? I don't remember a time of romance and rainbows. I know Michael and I have always lived life well together... but it's never been a fairytale. But is any marriage? Probably, not. Again, I've probably set the bar too high, maybe I'm not giving him the chance he deserves, setting him up for failure and all of that.
All I know at this point is that sometimes it's easier to not yell back. Sometimes it's easier to just wait it out. To move on when the apology never comes, to just get up and pretend it never happened. Make breakfast, try to make conversation, and smile at the outside world.