Here is a photo I took on Tuesday. Any guesses as to why I might have been, say, downtown, and, umm, say, in an office building on Tuesday?

Leave your guesses in the comments, and use Simply Linked to let us know where your own self portrait is!

On Monday nights, I am a Tiger Cub leader. Well, I guess I am one all the time, but on Monday nights I actually do it. This week, I had my Tigers start Valentine’s Day cards. These are the sentence starters I gave them:

See, I wanted to teach them that words are powerful. I reminded them of how good it made them feel when they got back school work from their teachers with “good job” stamped on it, and that we were able to make others feel that good as well with our words. And I explained that often we just sign VDay cards without even reading them, because there were just so many to do. And that even adults sometimes just go buy a card and sign it without a lot of thought, but that this year, I was going to do something different, and they could, too.

And then I told them to think about one very special person, and then write a note telling that one person what made them so special in their lives. I am not going to lie and say they all enjoyed it, but they all did it. And one little guy even looked at me as I came over to help him and said “Do you MIND??” Wonder what that’s all about!

So, the 24th was a Sunday. And instead of a SPS, I once again chose to depict the major activity of the day. I stayed home from church to make a little hell of my own.

Back in December, I got a wee visit from code enforcement. Now, I have a fair idea who called them, because the lady seemed to know, or at least think she knew, some pretty intimate details of my life. Stuff that only someone close to me or stalking me would know. Her letter was waiting for me when I got home from work on Saturday. Good thing I had taken all those antacids, huh? I need to clean up the yard and I need to do a few repairs to the house that were already on my agenda, so there were really no surprises.

Except that I had thought That One would be bringing a trailer to haul off most of the trash, as we had previously discussed, and he recommended burning it instead. GULP. I had never done a trash burn before, or a burn of any kind for that manner, but he assured me that I could do it, and so I said I would. And I did. If you are my friend on facebook, you may remember this set of status updates:

# Big party at my house today, complete with bonfire. Ya’ll come on. Bring marshmallows and weinies. 9:38 AM Jan 24th

# Arson is more difficult than you’d think. 11:05 AM Jan 24th

# Thank you grapevine wreath from 10 Christmases ago! We now have flames! 12:12 AM Jan 24th

# Remembering the last time I sat around a fire at night. It was at Boy Scout camp, and it was most pleasant. 5:46 PM Jan 24th from txt

I tell you, I was scared to try it, but I did and I am glad. There is just one word for learning to do stuff like this and it is “empowerment”. I dread the stretching, but I love knowing I can do new things.

Apparently, I have an ulcer, because on this day, Mount Vesuvius erupted in my belly. I’d had horrible stomach pain on the 2nd, and then it had tapered off to a low nuisance. It flared again at work on Saturday and I ended up needing all three of these meds to get it under some sort of control. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I avoided writhing on the floor, but only barely.

On this day, I had Michael put up this shelf that I bought on clearance months ago. And then I put this plaque on it, which I also bought on clearance. I tried to put some pictures on it, but …. the only ones that really fit are ones of my grandparents, and I am not sure that’s what I want there, so I took them down. I’m thinking that I may just put some candles up there. I have some in pretty burgundy jars that may look just right. Yep, you guessed it, bought them on clearance. The upside to working in a store is that you catch a lot of great sales. This is also the downside to working in a store.

Someone is going to the ball! On this day, I stopped by the thrift store and fell in love with a dress. And then I tried it on and it was perfect. So my mom gave me ten bucks to buy it. Gotta love her, right? She tells me that this picture does not do the dress justice.

Now, I am going to this ball with That One, and I guess now is as good a time as any to tell our story, or at least as much of it as I remember. Back in the day, I was a cheerleader for the local high school, and That One cheered as well for his school. The first time I saw him, I was a sophmore and we played at his school. I remember seeing those blue eyes of his from across the court, and nudging Ronnie in the ribs and saying “Look at that boy over there! He’s so cute!” I did not speak to him or even learn his name that night.

My junior year, Grand-dad was diagnosed with cancer and had part of his lung removed. He had a wonderful nurse, whose name was Miss That-One’s-Mom. She was one of those nurses who gets to know a patient’s family, and not just the patient. When she found out I was a cheerleader, she mentioned her son cheered too, for NHS and she would bring him out to meet me. I think I probably told her that I had seen him the previous year. Anyway, she brought him to the hospital, and he waved from behind her with those blue eyes and that shy smile. It was the same smile and wave he had when we met again 25 years later, btw. So, he spent a couple days there at the hospital with me and we hit it off very well. And I invited him to my junior prom. I remember very little about the hospital or about the prom. He remembers it all, for better or worse, and he has told me quite a bit, but those are his memories and not my own, so ….

Anyway, after the prom, we never saw each other again. We talked on the phone a couple of times and that was it. I thought he dumped me, and he thought I dumped him. (Keep reading, I’ll explain.) But I kept his picture in my wallet, along with the index card on which he had written his address and phone number. And after Pat and I split up, I was surfing the yahoo personals and saw a picture, and thought, “oh, that looks like That One”, except that really, the picture doesn’t look like him much at all. Not like he looks now, and certainly not like he looked back in the day. I looked at the rest of his profile pics and pulled out the one I had and compared it, and I was pretty certain it was him, so I thought I would call.

And then, I signed up at match.com, and his was the third profile presented to me that first day, and I thought “WOW, maybe I really should call”, and then the same thing at plentyoffish. So, I called and left a message with his mom. And he didn’t call back. And so I let it rest for a few days, but it kept nagging at me, so I called again. No answer. By this time, I had found his myspace and I left a comment, but I knew he wasn’t getting online much and probably wouldn’t get it for awhile. So I called on the way home from work the last Saturday in April, and we talked for a couple of hours that day, and I invited him to come up here to the movie in the park that we had here in Bittyburg that night. And he accepted. And I really thought that we would just spend an evening catching up and that would be the end of it. After all, he dumped me back in high school, right?

So he came, and we had a great time. And he came back the weekend after that and the weekend after that. And in between, we talked on the phone for a couple of hours every night. And some time in one of those long conversations, I got up the nerve to ask him why he never called me back in the day. And he told me he had called “but when you get told enough times that someone isn’t home, you get the message that they aren’t home TO YOU.” And I told him, I was so sorry, and I never knew he called, and that if I had, I would have called him back. And I asked my mom about it. “Did That One call me back in the day?”, and she assured me that she didn’t think so, and that she would have told me if he had. So there it was. I was seeing this guy who I liked a lot. I knew I’d liked him back in the day, cause some things I just know even if I can’t remember, and he said he had called. And all I was able to say in response was that I had spent a great deal of time away with home, because I had a job and also, it was bad at home, so I tried to be away as much as I could.

And then one day, this past fall, I was in the bathroom putting on my makeup and I remembered this thing my dad used to do that made me fairly aggravated. He got this habit of telling me when I got home that “some boy called.” And he told me this several times over several weeks or months (how long it went on, I don’t actually remember), and I realized that That One was Some Boy. Do you know how hard it is to return a call to “some boy”? We don’t think much about it now, with caller ID and all, but this was 25 years ago, yk? I tell myself now that we were young and stupid and would have wasted it anyway, because my heart can’t stand to think about the what ifs. But I know that what happened between us started a bad spiral for him and wasn’t really whoopie for me either, and so.

I am going to the ball in a dress that makes me feel like Cinderella, and I am going with Prince Charming also known as That One and Some Boy, and this time, I think the story is going to end a bit differently.

So, on this day, I came home to find I had been served with divorce papers.

That was not entirely unexpected, but I was a bit surprised to find out that after a year of my having custody of the kids and possession of the house, he’s asking for both. The house is not so important, but the kids are a different matter entirely. Now we have to go to court, and I have to say things I would rather not say. In fact, my heart is pounding now, even thinking about writing what I am about to write. See, it appears that I am pretty much wide open on this blog, but there is so much more that I never say, because I am basically a pretty private person, and my only goal in this divorce was to save myself and my kids. I knew if the truth came out, it would probably ruin the reputation he has been carefully crafting over the past 12 months. So, I kept quiet.

Quiet has cost me my reputation among my old church friends, because they have been led to believe that I am a tramp. In fact, when I pulled up Sunday to drop off the kids for visitation, two of my “friends” saw me and turned their backs and walked into the church. I do not want to tell my truth, because it shames and embarrasses me, but I cannot not tell if my children are at stake. Remember the goals of the divorce? To save myself and my children. If only I escape, then …. well, that is not acceptable. And since I have to tell it in court now, I thought it would help me to write it all out for you guys. I can pretend that all of you are just one or two close friends, and start getting used to the idea of people knowing the truth. Before I have to say it in front of a bunch of strangers.

So why would a dedicated Christian up and divorce her husband of some sixteen years?

I knew that Pat did not love me any more back in the fall of 2008 when he left me to mow our half acre yard that had grown so tall over the summer that snakes had started coming into the yard, while he went and sat in the air-conditioned dentist office with the kids and read a book. I had my suspicions the day before I actually did the mowing when I saw a snake bigger around than my arm under the shed and called him with my voice shaking and he told me to quit being a pansy and hung up. From the day I mowed the yard, we no longer lived as husband and wife. That was October 7th, as near as I can figure out from the entries on my blog. But that’s not why we are getting a divorce.

He let the house and vehicles fall into disrepair and he quit his job with 7 kids and a wife looking to him for financial support, but that’s not why we are getting a divorce.

He exposed my children, myself and even casual visitors to my home to screens of internet porn for years, but that’s not why we are getting a divorce.

See, I knew that when I married him, I didn’t just make a commitment to him. I made a commitment to God. And then as the children came, it was a commitment to them as well. None of those things were Biblical reasons for divorce. Well, the porn was, but I didn’t see it that way at the time.

The weekend of January 18th, we went to Polkton to visit with my family. Pat got drunk and he spoke about me in sexual terms to my cousins. As an aside, I have never in my life seen two grown men leave a room so quickly. It would have been funny if I hadn’t been standing there with my face alternating between beet red and death white. He also stumbled around the house there and broke a lamp, shattering glass down onto our son and wandered in and out of bedrooms occupied by other couples. I told him that next night on the way home that he needed to leave the house for a while until I could get over what he had done. I truly meant just for awhile at that point, but he refused to leave and instead we went to counseling with Pastor Chris for some six weeks. At that point, we were alternating nights sleeping on the couch, because I could not bear to be physically near him, but even that is not why we are getting a divorce.

At this point, Pat apparently found religion. I can’t speak much to that, because we have never discussed it, but I do know he goes to church each Sunday and that he also goes up to speak to the preacher each Sunday and that whatever he says can be heard by those up near the front.

Not long after this, still in January, I came home to see that Pat had changed the background picture on his computer. Now, his computer was in the living room. Back when things were better between us, I had allowed him to take a picture of me in a private moment. That is the picture he chose as his new desktop background. And all of my children saw it. Two girls, then ages 15 and 13. Three boys, then ages 10, 9 and 7. Two more girls, then ages 4 and 2. And then I told him to get out, get out, get out get out GET OUT. We are getting a divorce because he showed my children a picture of their naked mother.

I felt totally violated by that, as if he had raped me in the living room there in front of my children. And from that point on, that’s how I have thought of him. And every time we discussed it after that, he denied that what he had done was wrong. He said he had done nothing to me, and that he hadn’t hurt me, that I just thought he had. And every time he said that, it was like he was assaulting me again. And still Pastor Chris advised that I not make him leave, but I could no longer function in this house with him in it. I came home and I went to my room and that is where I stayed unless he was not here. And since he was no longer working, I spent a lot of time in my room.

Even today, of Pat is physically near me, my stomach turns and I flinch away from him. If we accidentally touch, I end up in tears. There is a restraining order against him, because he drove by the house twice a day for months. He called and harassed me by phone, and he called me nasty names both to my face, via text and also during visitation with the children. He also hit the wall of my home while the kids were here and said “at least I didn’t hit you.” His list of sins is long and grievous, and there is no need to list them all here.

There are always two sides to each story, and I certainly have my faults. The ones of which I am currently being accused are lies, though. I was faithful to Pat as long as he was in this house and did not even date until we had a signed separation agreement and for some weeks after that. It appeared that our separating was a sudden event to the community, but in fact, it was not. Remember up there I said I was a private person? Even though I knew he didn’t love me any more back in October, very few others did. But I had begun the emotional and mental work of separation back then. I truly intended to continue to live with him and parent our children together until he talked to my family about me that way. And I even thought I could continue to do it, if he’d just give me a little space to heal from that, until he showed the children that picture. I do not want my girls to ever think it is ok for a man to treat them that way, and I do not want my sons to think it is alright to treat a woman as an object.

I guess…..for my children’s sake, I wish I had made him leave the second time I caught him looking at porn in front of them, instead of waiting until he made me the star of the show, but it is done now and it cannot be undone. My boys will have that image in their heads for the rest of their lives. And that absolutely haunts me. When they grow up and they get married and they see that look on a girl’s face for the first time, they will remember seeing it on mine.

If it’s Tuesday, it must be time to blog! Gosh, I miss telling stories everyday, but I just don’t have the mental capacity for it after I work and see the children for a bit. There is one other problem, too. I keep losing my pictures!! For instance, I have no idea where the picture for this entry is. I’ve checked my main card and my phone so far, and nope, not there. This gets aggravating, because I KNOW I am taking the pictures. Sigh.

I guess I could go ahead and put the pic up each day and then come back and tell the story, but then I know the stories won’t get read because no one is gonna come scroll back through the blog for the words, particularly since lots of you read me on facebook anyway. Hmmm.

Speaking of facebook, that reminds me. A friend of mine offered to take over the Self Portrait Sunday for me this week. I turned her down, because I’ve had the project going for so long, and it’s kind of a pet for me. But her offer did make me reflect that it is a sorely neglected pet. She had a great idea of using a linky thing though, and I am going to do that. I am also going to start auto publishing the SPS for the wee hours of Sunday morning, so it’s ready when ya’ll are. I am hoping to get back the participants I used to have and then grow it a bit more, so please help spread the word.

And, I checked my back up card and there is NO PICTURE for this day. The secondary backup has poofed with one of the kids, just like that new auto insurance quote on the day you have an accident. So, I guess we are moving on.