OMG...even my hair follicles are swollen. I am typing this while eating left over sweet potatoes because I just read they can debloat you. I'll get to that in a moment.

First, I just want to announce that the only thing I will strangely be grateful for these next few days is early darkness.

Darkness makes bloated people look more attractive.

Allow me to point out there is a marked post-holiday difference between swollen divorced women and swollen married women.

That being, that married women usually have a matching swollen spouse.

Single divorced women feel swollen alone and have little desire to attempt to get dressed attractively and socialize with the opposite sex.

Bloating for us is a lonely sport.

Post-holiday emotional and physical exhaustion when you wing a holiday without a wingman usually leads at some point to thumbing lazily through women's magazines you've been meaning to read searching for tips to lose weight.

On page 23 of the December issue of First Magazine I found the sweet potato flat-belly connection.

It said, "Each of these tasty tubers contains 950 mg of potassium — nearly twice the amount in a banana.

This electrolyte enhances the kidneys ability to eliminate retained fluids, banishing bloat in as little as 24 hours.

Plus sweet potatoes' betaine clears fatty deposits from the liver, accelerating the organs breakdown of belly fat for fuel."

Okay, if they say so.

I must not have eaten enough of them during Thanksgiving dinner to offset the other 20 dishes.

The ones I am eating now still have baby marshmallows attached.

I am not sure if that's a deal breaker. I'll let you know if I am still unable to get dressed in 24 hours.

Attitude Is Everything!
Debbie

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I feel like putting on my feetie pajamas at 5 o'clock. I know this happens every year when it begins getting dark early, but this year I can't take it any more. I am fighting back! Anything not to be on the couch for hours in between hustling back and forth to the refrigerator.

I need to suck up the daylight whenever I can so I have been forcing myself to get out. Mostly I try and make it to the gym because someone shrunk all the clothes in my closet.

To amuse myself I have been taking all the different kinds of classes they offer. Spin, pilates, kickboxing, body conditioning, etc. Monday night was boxing. I didn't notice I was the oldest person there until about half-way through. My chest was heaving and I was wondering if anyone in the gym had medical knowledge. What the heck was I thinking? After jumping rope, doing pushups on a hard wood floor, and completely flattening my manicure inside my boxing gloves on a punching bag, I had no idea if I would ever see darkness again...I was praying I could get back outside to the dark parking lot.

Too proud to flee, and with raccoon mascara eyes, I really hoped I wouldn't become a casualty. What's too much for a woman my age? Is there an age limit on boxing? Anyway, I made it through, high fived the 20 year olds on the way out and will continue to fight (box) getting SAD this year. SAD being Seasonal Affective Disorder. Lack of sunlight causes serious depression in many people. Figure out how to fight back at it if you are one of them. Maybe you should be the gloved one next?

Speaking of personal growth, here we go. Rob and I are heading to the Kripalu Center in western Massachusetts for a weekend of yoga and meditation. While I wasn't willing to do a workshop specifically for couples, our time there will no doubt bring transformation of some sort. Everyone who goes comes back changed.

I'm already dreading it, which is weird, because I'm a yogi who usually welcomes the opportunity to study with new teachers. I love how the steadiness and equanimity cultivated on the yoga mat make meeting life's challenges off the mat easier, and how each teacher brings unique insight to that process. 

But I have big resistance toward growth with Rob. I guess that's what I was getting at in my last post. If you can muster enough compassion and forgiveness for a difficult or mismatched partner to get over your most serious conflicts, does that mean you have rendered moot the reasons you should not be together, end of story? 

Can you forgive your way out of marital strife and into martial bliss? 

Sure, but my question is: Is that the ONLY path? It's the only one any therapist has seen fit to send me down, and that has been bugging me. How about forgiving but still breaking up anyway? What about those couples who are like best friends and divorce without an ounce of acrimony? (Forget Date my Ex: Jo and Slade. There really are couples like this out there, right?)

That seems more like the path before me, though readers of my blog know I'm dragging my feet, too attached to my cozy life, fearful of separation.

I'll be back next week. Hopefully the Kripalu Center will be fantastic. I'll take the advice of a friend who said to have fun, just don't drink the Kool-Aid. 

I have back problems that sometimes spread up into my neck, and it gets really painful. I have two young children who I can't lift and a bunch of housework that doesn't get done because it hurts to lift stuff. Thank God I have a job I can do while sitting and not moving.

Luckily for me, the pain comes and goes and with the help of my chiropractor/massage therapist/sleepy meds I muddle through. I don't spend all my time in pain, but when it does hit I'm pretty useless.

My back pain was in full force the other day, so I was happy to finally make it to the evening and lay down to go to sleep. My husband was already in bed so we chatted a little. He asked me how my back was feeling (code for "Can we have sex?") and I replied that it hurt pretty bad (code for "Please don't make me do that right now").

"You know," I said, "maybe I should get a pillow like yours." He has one of those pillows to keep the back and neck aligned. The thought occurs to me that maybe we can switch pillows for the night and in the morning I can go buy my own. He doesn't have back problems, and it would be great to try something — anything — to make my back feel better.

Before I can propose the idea he replies with, "Yeah, maybe you should get one," and then rolls over on his side to go to sleep. He's done with me. I can't offer him what he wants, so that's that.

Years ago he would have thought about switching pillows long before I did. He would have gone to great lengths to help me get comfortable. I laid there thinking about what a different man he is now, but then the thought occurred to me that maybe he was thinking the same thing; after all, when I was 25 years old I didn't have back problems and didn't have to deny sex because of my aches and pains.

Two months into the school year and every week Roxie's homework is due on Friday. She gets these four-page packets on Monday, has all week to work them. This is the routine. It does not change.

Ten-word spelling list, journal page, math page, reading log, and a page to practice her 10 spelling words. Never mind that I think this is a ridiculous amount of work for a first grader.

Never mind that Roxie has visual processing stuff — like everyone in my family has processing stuff — and it makes writing a bear for her. This week she did so much by Tuesday, I gave her Wednesday afternoon off.

Plenty of time, and not much to finish with Sam Thursday night.

Accept they didn't.

Maybe this should not infuriate me. We do this every single week, this homework routine. It does not change.

Sam and I work with her 50-50. I told him Wednesday exactly what needed to be done Thursday. I get home late Thursday night, kids are in bed and it still needs to be done.

I want to be furious with him, but I remember something. Sam has an auditory processing disorder. He does not learn by ear and he does not retain information given verbally — he does not think this is true. But it is.

Most of his family is this way. I've never sat at a quieter dinner table.

And here's impact of learning/processing differences on a relationship — my relationship. Because me, I'm just the opposite. Just like Roxie. My ears are everything.

How I understand the world is conversation and I need lots of it to thrive. Reading is tedious, I'm slow and remember almost nothing.

Sam knows the world with his eyes, it's all visual. The way I get little from a book and don't remember it anyway, that's what conversation is for Sam.

I know these things. If I don't write it down for Sam he will not remember. It's completely counter intuitive to me though, so I forget. And I'm not angry with him, but...

Drinking to the point of poisoning while playing computer games — that's Rob's weapon of choice. He wounds himself and points the finger at me. I don't pay enough attention, he told our therapist. And she has all the sympathy in the world for him. How nice.

After a whopping near-death episode last spring he stopped drinking for two months to examine his relationship to alcohol, and when he started again he put rules in place: He'd have no more than two drinks per day, and do that no more than two times per week.

That went really well for him. His memory and response time in conversation improved, and he seemed more confident. Then I went out to the Madonna concert last week and he retaliated. (It always happens when I go out with friends or leave town on business for a day or so, leaving him alone.)

Our therapist agreed with my hastily developed strategy to react to his recent setback with no reaction. I shouldn't admonish him, but I also can't take blame or be the one to make him feel better after he acts out.

Soon I leave again for upstate NY to take care of my ailing father for a few days. (Rob didn't think coming with me was worth sacrificing a few days of vacation time. Huh. Noted.)

I wonder what Rob will do while I'm away? Will he get drunk and play video games? If he did, it would put me closer to the door, that's for sure. I'm just not attracted to that behavior. Blame me? And our bond isn't strong enough for it to be worth putting up with.

But if I'm not supposed to discuss his drinking drama with him, how do I make clear to him those consequences? Any advice?

I am past the age of being excited about baring it all in a bathing suit, or less. Statistics show I'm not alone.  

Four out of five American women say they're dissatisfied with the way they look.

On any given day, almost half of the women in the United States are on a diet. The average American woman is 5 foot 4 inches and weighs 140 pounds. Seen that on TV lately?

Tonight I'm going to be in a situation where I will be watching myself, on camera, at the preview of the film Momz Hot Rocks about the origins of the mom rock movement. It's a special sneak preview, with limited access, but still, my friends and neighbors will be there, and I'm hoping there won't be a sneak preview of my derrière.

I haven't seen the rockumentary yet, so I don't know what filmmaker Kate Perotti snuck in there. She did follow me and the other women in Housewives on Prozac for the better part of two years. I seem to remember a few indiscreet moments on camera, but all I can do is hope the lighting was bad.

Oh, and did I mention this? My new boyfriend's coming to the preview. So far I've managed to keep most of my flesh under wraps and in the dark. Hey, that's the way I like it. We're still getting to know each other and a little sense of mystery goes a long way.

Besides, I don't want that romping in the hay thing at this point in my life. I want loving, steady, sweet, kind and respectful.

In the process of growing up and growing older, I have become a softer, rounder, fuller version of myself. Learning to like the new me is a lot like learning to like the old me; fraught with pitfalls. Basically, it's not that easy to just "like" yourself.

I have one black hair that grows on my neck. Whenever I notice it coming in I pluck it using tweezers, but it always comes back. It annoys me to no end. I would go get electrolysis if it wasn't just one stinking hair.

Sometimes I forget to check for the hair, but then I'll be sitting there minding my own business and my hand will land on my neck and there's the hair again. It's my recurring reminder that I'm not the same gal in my early twenties who snared a husband and had my whole life ahead of me. No, I'm in my mid-thirties with two kids, a mortgage, and a marriage that runs hot and cold. Wait, no, scratch that...a marriage that runs lukewarm and cold. 

After all, this neck hair was nowhere to be found when I was younger. I never had to tweeze neck hair before heading out to dance clubs with my friends. When I bought my first car I'm pretty sure there wasn't a black hair residing on my neck. When my husband and I went out on our first date there sure as heck wasn't a dark hair nestled under my turtleneck.

I'm a different woman now. I can't go back to how things were before I got married or before I had kids. It's not like my contemplating divorce has anything to do with wanting to reclaim my past life — sans unattractive neck hair — but instead it has more to do with reclaiming myself. I want to feel sure about where I am in life. I want to live a day without wondering if my relationship is the thing that makes me feel so incredibly uncomfortable and helpless.

Yeah, I'm older now than when I was last single. I'm in a completely different stage of life. The younger, no-hair-on-the-neck me would probably think that the present version of me is pretty lame. Hey, if you aren't happy in a relationship, you just move on, right? 

Hours after I returned home with the so-called simple agreement forms for my divorce from Edgar, my doctor called. Turns out, there is a reason other than stress why I'm so tired — and it's not that I'm having one of those female heart attacks with the weird symptoms, as I had feared.

My hemoglobin is low. The doctor said he suspects I'm bleeding internally.

"This is not an emergency," he said. When I return next week from visiting my parents I'm to go see him for tests. Oh, okay.

And then I realized: Had this happened after I get my divorce, I probably wouldn't know there was a problem, much less be planning to check it out. When Ed is really gone, so is my health insurance.

Tired? Take more vitamins, get more rest and exercise. When my leg falls off or blood starts running from my ears, then I will afford, somehow, to see a doctor, in the emergency room, because it is an emergency.

Millions of people are doing it. It's the American way.

I've been delightfully spoiled for many years, insured and able to make co-payments so I can see a doctor whenever I think I need to. I am afraid of giving that up.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

I've heard versions of that quote, attributed to Ambrose Redmoon, for years. Especially since I came into AA, where we talk about feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Ed has been out of the house for a year. I've done a lot of life reconstruction since then, with much more to come, and some of it is already scaring me. But old Ambrose's words are wise.

Apprehensive as I am, I'm also unwilling to let concerns about health insurance stop me from ending this bad marriage.

Who knows? Maybe once the divorce is final, my relief will be so great I'll be struck perfectly healthy. 

My husband and I try to trade off parenting duties on weekend mornings to sleep in, since neither one of us gets to sleep past 6:00 or so during the week.

I'll take one day and he'll take the other, so one of us will get up with the kids while the other will sleep until 8:00 or 8:30. It's not the "sleeping in" we did before kids came along, but it's better than nothing.

Friday night I asked my husband, "Do you want to sleep in tomorrow or Sunday?"

He said, "It doesn't matter to me."

I say, "Okay, I'll take tomorrow and you can take Sunday." He agreed, I headed to bed, and then morning came. Our son is calling, "Daddy! Daddy!" and I remember thinking to myself about how fortunate it was that he was calling for Daddy since it was my turn to sleep in.

It isn't long, though, before I wake back up because my husband is scolding my son. He's telling him something about how he better not go into the living room just to lay back down on the couch because if he wants to sleep he can stay in his bed.

I think to myself, "Okay, fair enough I guess..." but seeing as my son isn't even out of bed yet I don't really understand the pre-scolding.

Ten minutes later I hear my husband call to my son, "Breakfast!" My son, down in the playroom, replies that he's going to finish looking at his book. My husband shouts, "Get up here now!" and I hear him stomp down the stairs to collect our son.

This is the point when I got out of bed (our daughter did too because Daddy's shouting woke her up) and as I walked into the hallway my husband was carrying our son up the stairs. My son was squirming and crying, and my husband had a look on his face like he's ready to lose it.