Can There Be More?
Chapter 1
In my thirty-seven years on this earth, I have endured a lot, and learned a lot, but mostly, I learned to love the life I have been given. I have not always felt that way but through maturation, examination of relation-ships and reflection on how I got to where I am today, I have learned to love every part of my journey to the present.
It all began just over thirty-four years ago on a cold New Year’s Eve in a suburb of Chicago called Grayslake, Illinois. The date was December 31, 1972. I was two, about to turn three on February 11. My parents were having a New Year’s Eve party that evening. All their friends and family were coming to help ring in the New Year.
I don’t remember this day, but through the help of my sister, Kelly, the day is brought to my mind like I was there. Kel, as I like to call her, had just turned seven in September, and my brother, George, was eight months old.
I should go back a bit and tell you that my mother was the love of my father’s life. My father had scholarships to Western Illinois University for football and baseball. My mother was still in high school when he left for college. Greg lasted three months at college and quit; he couldn’t stand to be away from my mother. He returned to his home town, became a butcher, and married the woman he loved more than anything.
I have been told that my mother loved my father just as much. They married young and had my sister when my mother was nineteen years old. My father opened his radiator business in Grayslake after I was born. She would tote us with her as she delivered radiators, trying to help my father build his business. I have also been told that the day that my brother, George, was born was one of the proudest moments of her life. She was so happy to give my father a son!
Life was looking up, the business was building, and they had three healthy children, not to mention, a deep love. That is why what happened on that day is shocking and saddening, proving nothing should be taken for granted.
Have you ever wondered if your destiny is in your control? Or is your life and death mapped out for you before you ever take your first breath? My mother was afraid of bridges. the direct route to the grocery store that fateful day entailed crossing a bridge. Instead of crossing that bridge my mother took the long way there and paid dearly for it.
The day was going along just like any other day. My mom needed to go to the Jewel (grocery store) to pick up buns for the party that night. Before she left, she was playing with us, a regular occurrence. My mother was chasing my sister and me around my brother’s crib. George was laughing and we were screaming and laughing as well, the whole time. My mother told us that she needed to go pick up the buns, but she would be back soon to play with us some more. I asked to go, and Kel asked her to stay. My mother said that she would be right back, and that Grandma was there to play with us.
My mother left, and on her way to the Jewel, she was killed in a car accident. I don’t remember a thing about that day, or her, but my sister says that when Grandma answered the phone and Kel heard my grandmother’s piercing scream, she knew that mom was not coming home.
Chapter 17
Elizabeth stopped babysitting right after I ran that god awful marathon. You should know that being a competitive person and running a marathon did not bode well for me. I was hell bent on coming in less than three hours and forty-five minutes. I came in around three hours and forty-two minutes. It was a horrible experience. I became very dehydrated and could barely walk for a week. When the race was over, Jason and the kids met me at the finish line. I went back to the hotel and ate a pint of chocolate chocolate chip haagen daaz ice-cream, took a bath, and passed out. The next day, we walked in Disneyland for twelve hours!
By this time, I had already found our house in the Bay Area. I found the house one night, while looking at houses on the Internet. While I was browsing for houses, an ad that said Crystyl Ranch popped up, as quickly as it popped up, it disappeared. The next morning, I researched it, and found it to be a new development going up in Concord, CA.
The kids and I flew out to San Francisco in January and went to look at the models. I walked through them and told Jason that the only way we are moving there was to move into one of those houses. The house was $680,000, for the same price in a better zip code we would have gotten one thousand sq feet less with shag carpeting.
We picked out the model, and the location, and made appointments to pick out all the upgrades a month from then. I wanted to move in May, and the house would be complete in May.
Isn’t it funny how life really does work out? Rarely does it go the way I exactly thought it would, but somehow, the kinks are worked through and most of us are delivered to our destination unharmed. I know that we look at homeless people and ones less fortunate and think why didn’t they arrive at the arrival gate? I believe that it stems from our own human spirits, having trust in God, or whatever it is you believe controls your destiny and having faith. I have lost faith along the way. The only place that ever got me was in a big black hole that I had to climb my way out of. When you don’t have faith, you become depressed, and depression leads to anxiety, which leads to us being paralyzed from our own fear of life. When we let this fear take over, we are unable to lead our lives and continue on the right path. That is when drugs, alcohol, suicide, and neglect of our lives kicks in and ruins us.
I have been brought back from the brink of falling off the earth many times. Each time, I have gotten back on the bike and followed the path, but what if there was no one to pick me up and tell me to snap out of it, or help me financially or mentally? Would I be strong enough to pull my own boot straps up? Now, I would; 10 years ago, no, I would have been someone that fell off the bike and stayed on the side of the road waiting to be run over by life. If you know anyone that needs to be picked up, brushed off, and given $10, give it to them. Or maybe, they just need a shoulder to cry on, so let them cry on your shoulder, you can always change your shirt to a dry one.
. . .
The biggest misconception about suburbia and stay at home moms is that we are all so happy going to the gym in the morning and picking up the kids at 2:45. What I have found is there are way too many bored woman that have nothing better to do than gossip. I wonder if women have always ripped women throughout the ages. The morning pow wows after the 8:15 aerobics class are the worst. Have I partaken in rip sessions of some other poor mom that is just trying to raise her family, yes, but it turns out that other poor mom is also a venomous snake biting the bums of every other mom in the PTA. The worst part about it is none of us really know what is going on behind the door of the Smith’s on 123 Perfect Street, Utopia, USA. I can say with one hundred percent conviction there are things going on in that house that the rest of Utopia is blind to until one day, Mrs. Johnson at 1234 Perfect Street doesn’t like Mrs. Smith anymore, and then watch out, the whole community will know Mrs. Smith’s deepest, darkest secrets in a PTA minute.
. . .
Our family and my dwindling marriage moved into Crystyl Ranch in June of 2002. I loved my house! I spent the next four years doing nothing but decorating it to suburban perfection. That would mean a house full of Pottery Barn and Crate-N-Barrel furniture and accessories. I had custom painting done and spent hours searching for the perfect mirror, candle, or silk flower. In between decorating, I lifted weights, ran, attended to my kids, and argued with Jason, which did involve throwing some soup cans, and spewing venomous phrases at him, while he passively aggressively attacked me.
Sometimes I believe that my mother’s death at the age of twenty-six saved her from the jealous eye of Sally Smith down the road, or the marriage that is cracking under pressure in a world that everything is supposed to be hunky dory. I sound jaded at times, but truly I am not. I love my life now, and have learned how to really just be in the moment and happy with what I have.
Our marriage really started to dwindle when we moved to Crystyl Ranch, although, Jason will tell you that I told him I had never been happier. I did say this, at times, thinking that was the way I was supposed to feel. What was not to love? I had a thirty six hundred square foot house in an upscale track home community, three beautiful kids, great cars, vacations to Maui every year, and a closet, as big as some people’s bedrooms filled with beautiful clothing. But, deep down, I was still that sad little girl that felt trapped with no way to get out, and eventually, my closet became my refuge. The only thing that fed the lonely little girl in me was neimanmarcus.com, and my closet would prove it! Prada became my best friend, Juicy was the friend next store who I relied on daily for a quick, cute pick me up, and Manoholo Blahnik was my enemy, I couldn’t afford him.
Jason and I had dinner parties often, and were constantly social with a group of four other families. All of our kids were the same ages. I liked most of the women. The rest of the group was the husbands that I analyzed at why they were with who they were with. Marriage is a funny thing, I think the ones that have a great one and really made the right decision do reap the benefits of the latest studies that married people live longer, because they are truly happy; the ones that have a bad marriage, especially a closet bad marriage, really reap the benefits of early death to save them from their annoying spouse. If you think about it, each group benefits from this study. You want to live a long happy life with the one you love. But if you ended up with a mate that you dislike so much that at times Campbell’s Chunky New England Clam Chowder is flying through the air, early death seems like a great way out.
By now Jason was making a lot of money. We had a cleaning lady weekly and never tried to repair anything ourselves. It was always pay someone to do it. Well, we really could not afford to pay someone to do it, since I was shopping neimanmarcus.com and Jason was buying skis and dirt bikes like people buy bottled water. Call Mike, the sprinkler guy, and pay him $500 to tell us that someone had just turned the water valve off.
I am not going to bore you with all of the details of what went wrong, instead, I will clue you into a few big events that led to our talk in our bathroom, with him sitting on the tub and me crying my eyes out.
