All you need is a little conviction.

If you've never gone through a divorce, there really isn't any way you could ever understand the emotional toll it takes, the way you feel battered and beaten to the core.  If you've never been cheated on, someone's explanation of such a thing doesn't carry the nausea, the confusion, the broken heart the moment you find out, and the lingering questions of how and why.  It takes time to move on, but it's possible.  Feelings are long gone, but the pain stings for awhile more, the fear and the 'what ifs' of future fuck ups.  I told myself the past can't control the present, but I'll be damned if that's not the hardest thing I face.  I've been through enough, the product of a cheating marriage and subsequent divorce, but my consternation holds me back from living forward.  I said I'd prove them all wrong, have the happy marriage from the example that was never set.  All wrong though, I was just like the others, incapable of sustaining a family.  I tried, and failed, and still, it stings.  If I'd been told years ago it'd all fall apart, I wouldn't have believed them, would have laughed in their faces.  Fear controls me now, and it's all but fair.  My past shouldn't have the power, but I'm having to learn, trial and error, how to allow a new love to blossom. 

In spite of it all, in spite of all the hurt I've faced, I am lucky.  I am loved, and I am lucky.  He is my hope, my breath of fresh air after such a long suffocation.  Through him, with him, I see love, and smiles, and laughs.  Just let it be, Hilary, just let it be.  Don't stifle happiness and that which is meant to be, with your unnerving fear of failure.  You know that feeling you get around him?  When you look in his eyes, and your heart starts pounding; all of the sudden, you feel like you're free falling, and your insides are stirring, wanting more.  Allow yourself to feel that, fears aside.  Believe in love.  Picture your life as you want it, and make your dreams come true.  Trust undeniably that good things can happen.  Love exists, but, Hilary, you've got to have a little faith.

Never enough.

Broken words

   and vows

   that scream.

Not enough,

   not ever enough.

Time ticks on,

   but the memory fades.

No more sorrow,

   no more pain.

Dusk draws closer,

   while dawn awaits.

My heart breathes hope,

    fueled by passion.

His touch brings warmth,

   to love, to life.

Enough, I said,

   I am enough.

The guy grabs the girl and gives her his hand...

And he took me away from that torturous land.

When I met Spencer, I was in such a strange spot.  I had not only been recently broken up with, but to really make things fun, I was just a month out from my divorce being finalized.  I remember seeing his pictures when he first messaged me on a dating website.  His profile didn't especially stick out to me, but I thought he was cute and seemed down to earth.  I wish, so much, that I could read those first messages back and forth between us now, to see what kind of sparks we had, what kind of things we talked about during those initial introductory messages.  I know the conversation must have gone well because we exchanged numbers fairly quickly, and began to text pretty much constantly.  We started talking on a Saturday morning because I remember him telling me "I better go, time to play Daddy for awhile, but I'll text you later on".  For some reason, it melted me a little bit.  He was a proud daddy, not afraid to let me know that his son came first.

We met in person within our first week of meeting online, and I can still remember the day very well.  We met at Carolina Ale House in downtown Greenville.  When I came up the stairs that day, he sat at the bar to my right, chatting with an acquaintance he'd run into.  I was nervous that day, afraid I wouldn't recognize him when I saw him in person, but I saw his smile immediately, and knew it was Spencer.  At the time, I never imagined he'd one day be my Spencer.  Our conversation was warm that night, with so much laughter, and so much chemistry.  We moved from upstairs to downstairs, and stayed for several hours.  When we left to walk to our cars, I remember wanting to kiss him so much.  The spark between us had been obvious, but my nerves kept me from leaning in for anything more than a hug.

Our texting conversations exploded from there.  I left for Louisiana within the next couple of days, and we talked our fingers off.  I swear we could have sent a thousand text messages for every day that I was away.  We grew close, despite the distance, and my heart made room for sweet Spencer.  For many weeks, we tested boundaries, and tried not to hurt each other.  We each had our own baggage, but we were two people who needed each other, whether it was for love or for friendship.

I don't know what made me recollect those memories, but they make me happy to think upon.  It's a bit unbelievable that I have fallen so hard in love with a man in so little time.  It's scary and wonderful and perfect.  He took my hand, and guided me away from a place where I didn't know what was up and what was down.  He wrapped me in his love, and he wiped away my fears.

Yesterday, he wrote a poem that turned my heart into a thousand little butterflies that floated up high into the stars.  It was perfect.  I feel like the luckiest lady on the planet with Spencer by my side.

Look for the stars as the sun goes down.

I truly had the best intentions of following up my last blog post with the rest of my MPFL surgery story, but... I just can't.  I planned to write it out, week by week, struggle by struggle by victory by victory, but I just can't convince myself to relive it right now.  I've come such a long way, and I am so proud of myself, but to be truly honest, that doesn't make the last three months of struggles and pain suck any less. :)

I had my brief moments of "why me?" when it comes to my injury and subsequent surgery, but they were short lived, as I just kept thinking about how absolutely minor this whole ordeal has been in comparison to what some people go through on a daily basis.  I just can't bring myself to play the self-pity game.  At least I have my health.  At least I have my legs.  At least I will be able to run again one day.  My situation could absolutely be so much worse.  But it's not, and I'm ever so grateful.

Speaking of self-pity... I've stepped away from doing that in the last several months, and I feel so much better for it.  I went through all the phases of "why did I have to face divorce?", "why did I have to get cheated on?", "why did I have to get broken up with?", "why did my kids have to move away?", yadda, yadda, yadda.  Finally, it was like something clicked, and I thought to myself, "Got it, Hilary, life sucked for awhile.  But look where you are because of it."  And you know, life is pretty damn good.  Granted, I'm a struggling single mother, full-time college student... but I won't always be.  I have an awesome best friend/boyfriend - all in one sweet, handsome package, two of the silliest, smartest, most clever children I could imagine, and the opportunity to do great things with my life via the college education I'm getting that so many people never have a fighting chance at getting.  I just can't look at those three things, and feel bad about my life. 

It's not always easy to skip the self loathing, woe-is-me route, but it's getting easier.  I started down that path this week when I realized that my kids are only getting one gift from me (well, Santa...).  But so what?  They don't care.  They'll still be getting gifts from their daddy, and their grandparents.  And even if that one gift was the only one they got, it's one gift more than a lot of children will be waking up to this year on Christmas morning.  And sometimes I start down that path when I think about how badly I want to throw off my brace and go for a run.  And then I remember the people who will never run again, for whatever reason they might have, and waiting three more months just doesn't seem like such a big deal.  Being a single mom sucks?  Yeah, until I think about the support system I have to make life so much easier.  A sister who watches my kids when I need to go to work or school without batting an eye.  A boyfriend who is so unbelievably good at understanding my daughter, and plays with my kids when I'm just trying so hard to finish dinner.

I look around at my life, and realize that I am such a lucky person.  This post is not in any way meant to be boastful, but just as a downright realization that it's high time to truly look at what I've got going on, and be so thankful for the all of the negatives I've faced to bring me to the positives I have right now.

Life moves forward.

I remember when I was a kid, and I envisioned what adulthood would look like.  Probably much like every little middle class kid does.  Or at least every little girl.  You know, white picket fence, flowery garden, pumpkins on the porch in the fall, Christmas lights during the holidays, the whole shebang.  When I was living in South Korea, in a 11th floor flat, I loved it as a newlywed, but I hated it as a soon to be mom.  It never felt homey enough to bring my baby girl home to, so I looked forward to moving back to America, hoping we could move into the perfect little house for our family.  As it turns out, we did move into the perfect little house in Louisiana.  It genuinely looked like it came out of a storybook, trees filling the shady backyard, and the most adorable little front stoop you can imagine.  As life would have it, we didn't get to stay in that house more than a couple weeks, and we moved, once again, this time back into an apartment on a military post.  We had noisy, rude neighbors above us, but some really great friends in the surrounding apartments around us that we eventually became good friends with.  We and our neighbors gathered every single night, our puppies chasing each other and one year old Cori, as we all talked and laughed until darkness covered the sky.  When our little monkey, Avery, came along, we realized we'd outgrown the tiny two bedroom apartment, and much to our luck, our housing company offered us a beautiful three bedroom townhouse to move into.  We moved in only two weeks after construction was completed, and it was modern, beautiful, and roomy.  I loved looking down from our upstairs bedroom into the backyard and seeing Cori and Avery's playset, and the way the evening light shined through the dining room windows when I was cooking dinner every night.  It felt more like home than my little family had ever felt. 

But life fell apart in that home.  My marriage crumbled, and my perfect family vanished.  I don't know if I'll ever forget the night that I left through that front door for the last time, with my belongings shoved into the trunk of my sister-in-law's car.  I buckled into the backseat, beside my sleeping 15 month old Avery, and I cried my way back to South Carolina.  I had lost the family I'd been envisioning my whole life, and I feared, for the next year of my life, that I'd never get it back.  It was a pretty dark spot for me, and I bounced around with what felt like no direction towards a solid future.  Even when I felt ready to date, I got into a relationship that I knew, deep down, would never progress to what I truly desired, the family I truly desired.  After all, nobody envisions the perfect family as a single mom and her two kids. And I feared marrying a man who wouldn't show love for my own kids as if they were his very own. I loved being married, and I love being a mom.  I was terrified that I'd never have the perfect little family that I'd once had and will always desire to have again.  I felt like I wore a badge of shame for a long time, both for the actions I'd chosen for myself, and the fact that I'd been the wife that was cheated on by her husband.  I felt sadness at the broken homes my children would forever bear as their upbringing.  Shameful. 

But I'm okay now.  Somehow, I made it through the last year.  Somehow, I made it into the arms of a man that I think could one day actually fit into that imperfectly perfect little family unit that I want to have so badly.  I see the way he loves his son, and it awakens my heart and warms me throughout.  My children are moving home this week.  There won't be any more kisses via video chat, and heartbreaking goodbye hugs.  My babies are moving home.  Several times a week, every week, my kids will be all mine.  I can, for the first time in a very long time, picture happiness and completion in my not so far off future.  I see myself cooking dinner for my family, and waking up to a full house on the weekend.  I don't feel so shameful anymore because even the worst things have a funny way of making sense.  Life does move forward, you see. Somehow, life moves forward.

MPFL Reconstruction, Part 1

August 19, 2013 was the first day of class for the Fall semester, which also happened to be the day my injury happened.  It was a rainy morning, and when I went in to my first class, I stepped onto a weather mat, which happened to be soaking wet.  Since it was so saturated, my left leg slipped to the left, which resulted in my left patella dislocating to nearly the backside of my leg.  It was excruciating pain, the absolute worst I’ve ever been in, to include the natural child birth I went through.  Somehow, I suppose from the adrenaline rush of such pain, I manually pushed my knee cap back into place through screams.  At that point, a couple of teachers from the Charter High School next door were able to get me to call my mom, and get me into a wheelchair.  My mom and I were off to the doctor.

Here, you can see how swollen my left leg was:

 After four hours of no pain meds and the worst experience with a terrible tech trying to get X-rays, I finally was able to get a shot of pain killers in my hip.  They hardly touched the pain, but I was told no more could be ordered until after I met with the orthopedic surgeon.  So, off I went, back into my mom’s vehicle, which was brutal, by the way, and to the doctor’s office.  I sat in the waiting room, crying my eyes out, begging the receptionist to just let me go back and see the doctor.  Apparently, it worked because back we went.  My surgeon, Dr. L (top notch guy, by the way) checked out my knee and noted the pain that I was in.  He then was able to pull over 100cc of blood off of the injury.  Disgusting.  However, my pain level dropped dramatically once that fluid was pulled off.  An MRI was ordered for a week later when the swelling would further go down, as well as pain meds, a knee brace, ace bandage wrapping, and crutches until then.

Here’s the fluid that was drained from the injury… gross:

This was about the happiest face I could squeak out by the end of that first day:

But within a few days, I was back to my normal self:

So fast forward a little, I had the MRI about a week later, my divorce was finalized the next day, effectively ending my insurance coverage, and about a week after that, my MRI was scheduled to be read.  It was determined that I had broken my patella, bits of which were “floating around” in my knee, and destroyed my medial patellar femoral ligament (MPFL), which would need to be replaced with donor tissue in a surgery.  The surgery was scheduled for two weeks outs, on September 19^th.  

When the 19^th rolled around, I checked into Greer Memorial Hospital and was scheduled to have surgery around 12pm.  I was put under temporarily when my femoral nerve blocker was put in, and then later put under completely for the surgery.  I believe the surgery took an hour or so, but really, I have no recollection between being wheeled into the OR and waking up in recovery.  When I spoke to my surgeon after surgery, he told me that the damage was much more extensive than he had been able to see on the MRI.  He had removed the pieces of the patella that had chipped off, replaced my MPFL completely, and shaved down the cartilage on the underside of kneecap.  My pain level was astronomical, even with IV and oral pain medication.  I also had an ice pump wrapped around my injured leg, and an air pump attached to my other leg, to help circulation. I was doped up, sleepy, and couldn’t even use the bathroom without the help of at least two people.

Pre-surgery, I was flying high:

Here’s the get up I had to wear after surgery:

I stayed in the hospital overnight, and it was a rough one.  My pain levels bounced around, but never dropped below a 6 or 7 on a 10 scale.  I am one lucky girl though.  My mom stayed in the hospital with me overnight, and my amazing boyfriend, Spencer, brought me flowers that night to cheer me up.  When I was discharged from the hospital the next day, I headed straight to my first session of physical therapy.  Here was where I got to see my knee for the first time since the surgery.  I also realized just how long of a road my recovery was going to be, as I tried to not only strengthen my deadened quadriceps muscles, but stretch out my knee muscles and ligaments to get mobility back into my knee joint.  It was bound to be a brutal recovery, and my initial fears pretty much spelled out reality.

Taken from the hospital bed, this smile was meant for his:

At my first therapy session, I met this guy for the first time, a machine called Game Time, which ices and compresses my leg, after intense therapy:

Here’s what the initial incision points looked like:

That brings me to when I finally made it home after the surgery.  I’ll end it here for now, and pick up with the rest of my recovery just as soon as I can.  I don’t think I realized how long it’d take to get it all out into words until I started writing it, but I’ll account for the last 6 weeks soon!

Divorce: Part Neverending

This past week, I had an incredible surprise in the middle of the night, when, at 3am, I heard a very loud banging on my front door.  I stumbled out of bed, quickly trying to unhook the ice machine on my leg that I have to sleep in, and hobbled to the door.  I think about twenty different terrible case scenarios shot through my head, but as soon as I got to the door, I heard the sound of little giggles on the other side.  I threw open the door, and my beautiful babies were grinning and laughing back at me, saying "Mommy!!!!"  My ex husband had taken it upon himself to drive the 12 hours straight through from when he got off of work to bring them home to me as a surprise the weekend before my birthday.  Pretty awesome, huh?  I thanked him profusely, and even posted my admiration for his kindheartedness on Facebook. If not for him bringing them, I don't know when I would have been able to see my kids next, since, thanks to my knee injury, I'm unable to drive long distances.

We spent about an hour talking to the kids, and then Jesse went to sleep on the couch, while I had Avery and Cori hop into bed with me.  As I mentioned before, I'm hooked up to a machine that keeps cold ice flowing across my knee injury all night long.  When paired with the general pain of much movement, I have to keep pretty immobile while I'm sleeping.  So, as much as I loved waking up next to my sweet sleepy headed beauties a couple of hours later, I was absolutely feeling the pain in my leg from being kicked, rolled over, and climbed across, while my little movers slept.  I let my ex husband know that it probably wasn't going to be possible for them to stay with me overnight alone, and he was very understanding.  Things went on swimmingly throughout the day, and I was impressed by how friendly my ex husband was being when he picked them up that evening.

Fast forward to the next day, and he was completely opposite from the day before.  He barely spoke to me, was short in responses to questions I asked, and just generally pretty rude.  That behavior carried on throughout the weekend, and when I asked him today why he acted that way, he told me he was upset that I wouldn't let them stay with me at night. I explained, once again, that I have a one bedroom apartment, and two children who are still very much co-sleepers a lot of the time.  I reiterated how I was unable to sleep with them in bed with me and how much my leg hurt throughout the weekend from the beating it took for the 4 hours they did sleep in my bed on Friday morning.

Anyway, it's very frustrating to me, this whole ex husband, ex wife dynamic.  I like to pretend that we get on great, that we have a wonderful post-divorce relationship, but I think that's clearly false.  We text each other throughout the week, me asking about the kids, and him sharing stories about work, or his running, or a funny story.  That part is nice.  I mean, I did love this guy for eight years, so maintaining a friendship should be easy, right?  Not so.  Our friendly conversations are sprinkled with anger, bitterness, and constant drudging up of past mistakes.  I don't pin all of the blame on him, by any means.  Loving each other for eight years and being married for five means that we both know exactly how to get under each others' skin.  We know exactly what to say to piss each other off, and it's easy to hurt one another.

It's frustrating, to say the least  I wonder how long this will go on.  I think it's obvious that my ex husband still has feelings for me, and I hate that, not for me, but for him.  I want so much for him to move on, to find love again, and maybe even one day get married and have kids again.  He claims again and again that he doesn't want to find love again, for reasons I won't get into on a public forum, but it makes me sad for him.  Of course our marriage didn't work out; we weren't meant to be.  But that doesn't mean I want unhappiness for him.

I've said before, and still absolutely believe that there is nothing wrong with each of us moving on, finding love, remarrying, and maybe having more children one day.  The way I see it, when we allow new love into our lives, we are allowing new love into our children's lives.  I can't think of a way that that could be a bad thing, albeit hard at first.  I would never, ever want to replace my children's father.  He is wonderful to them, and I hope their relationship will always flourish, but I think that it is possible to have stepparents without ever feeling like the parents are being replaced.  It's what I wish for one day for my kids: to have two loving stepparents, and maybe new siblings that they can grew up with, be it step-siblings or half.

I just hope that a day will come when I won't have to bite my tongue at triggering comments and I can feel a genuine friendship with my ex husband.  I'm tired of wondering when the nice will fade and the anger set in, or when the bitterness will subside, and friendly is back again. I don't know how we'll ever successfully co-parent and raise two happy, healthy, stable children without a solid friendship between us.