D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Well, friends, it finally happened. On Thursday, a Judge issued an Order that ended my marriage. This isn't really a happy post, though I know some people who were quite happy when their divorces finally came through. I guess it's more of a reflective post. It's also one of the more serious posts on this blog. So, if you don't like reflective, or you don't like serious, you might want to skip it.

Life is interesting. It's like one of those "choose your own adventure" stories or the Frost poem The Road Not Taken (take your pick). I know growing up, you always want to be something different every week. One week you say you are going to be a teacher, the next week a doctor. It's easy to change your mind because when your ten, it doesn't really matter. However, when you are a grown up, the choices you make in life are a lot more meaningful. When I was 21, I knew it all. I knew how to be a good friend, a good companion, and a good wife. At 24, I was no longer sure I knew how to be any of those things. I had grown up and matured, at least some, and I learned how much I had to learn about life. Marriage doesn't work just because your parents are happily married. Marriage doesn't work just because you are in love. Marriage takes a lot of work from both people in order to actually make it work. You are both going to screw up. Alot. You are both going to get mad, you are going to stress, you are going to argue. My marriage had all of those components. We got mad, we stressed, we argued, and most of all, we screwed up. The part that made it not work was that we didn't communicate. We didn't talk about the stress. We didn't talk about the screw ups. We went on, like everything was perfect, when things were really coming apart at the seams. I don't think either of us are to blame exclusively. I think that we both contributed to the demise of the relationship.

After two years, looking back, I feel like I can more clearly see what went wrong. We didn't have the perfect marriage, but who does? It takes work and it takes mistakes. My parents didn't have a perfect marriage at the beginning. There are bumps along the way and you have to work together to get over the bumps. It makes you a stronger team. I certainly don't have all the answers, but I feel like I've learned something. I hope that I am stronger and better equipped in the event that I get married again.

James and I are both doing so well now, in our separate lives. To use a worn out cliche, we took the lemons that life threw us and we made lemonade. I think we have both grown up alot and have both learned from our mistakes. There are hard days and there are easier days, but experience has made us wiser. I know that the future will be bright for him, and I hope it will be for me, regardless of the fact that the future for us is no longer a shared future. What we do have that we share are the memories that we created together, and those will last a lifetime, even if we didn't.

Performing without a net

We thought we would go for a nice hike this weekend, so we went to the Maryland side of Great Falls. Someone at REI said that we should hike the Billy Goat Trail up there. When we got there, we saw that there were three Billy Goat Trails, so we did the one that was closest to us, Billy Goat Trail A. It said it was difficult, but we figured it just meant that it was a little rocky, maybe some tree roots, possibly a change in elevation. Yeah, this is what part of the trail looked like:



And this is what I looked like on that trail:



Crazy, huh??? Needless to say, it was a little more difficult than we had imagined. But, we did it, all 1.7 miles of it (we actually walked about 4 miles total, but I think the totally ridiculous part was 1.7 miles). Today, I can barely walk up and down steps. Robbie says we had fun and it was a good accomplishment, and we plan to go back. I guess we'll just have to see about that.

Pretty in pink

Robbie and I went down to DC today to see the Cherry Blossoms. It was just us...and about a million other people. It was crazy the number of people that were down there. But, it was a beautiful day along the Potomac and the trees were really pretty.


Cherry Blossoms


The Potomac River


Cherry Blossoms against a backdrop of the Potomac


The Jefferson Memorial surrounded by Cherry Blossoms (and people!)

Give ME a break

I think it is really amusing how people get completely bent out of shape regarding what people write on their blogs. Since a blog is just somewhere for someone to vent about what's going on in their lives, be it personal, work, or whatever, it would seem to me that the reader would understand that the writing is just that - venting. It should never be taken too seriously. Obviously, some readers get quite upset about things that I write (and I would have thought that reader would have been a cool person considering it is one of my friend's other friends). But, if you don't like what I have to say, click the X in the top right hand corner and close the window. It's that simple.

That will cost you...

I was in Court this morning with a new judge (new to me). The child's attorney, which is known as the Guardian ad litem (GAL), was more than 30 minutes late. This, in turn, made the caregiver's attorney late for another hearing. This also made my attorney, the Assistant Attorney General (cool title, eh?) late for another hearing. The GAL was concerned that our judge was going to fine her for being late. She has fined my agency for court reports being turned in late. The caregiver's attorney was concerned that the judge that he was late for was going to fine him for being late. What kind of craziness is that? "You got stuck in traffic so I'm going to fine you a hundred dollars." WTF?? Maybe that's better than being held in contempt of court? I don't know. These judges, that are actually Magistrate Judges, are all on power trips. There's one judge that most social workers and attorneys despise. My supervisor remembers when that judge was not a judge, but just a lowly attorney, more specifically an educational advocate. And, he was bad at that job! So, now that he is a Magistrate Judge, is he trying to make up for his poor attorney skills by being anal and micromanaging every case that comes before him? I just don't know. I think there is a prerequisite when you apply for the Judge job that you must forget your roots and be condescending to all social workers and most attorneys. Where do I sign up?

Is it hot enough for you?

It's been cold in DC. It's been in the 40s and 50s. That's not warm weather. It's not good for Cherry Blossoms. It's not good for skin. It's not good for sunbathing. BUT...Yesterday it was like 70-something degrees out! Today, it is currently 84 degrees out! This is top-down weather! This is good weather for the Cherry Blossoms to finally burst forth from their buds! It's even sunbathing weather! I'm ecstatic, as most Washingtonians should be! So, I go to a meeting, with people who apparently have recently come inside from the gorgeous weather. The first thing they all say is "It's hot outside!" OMG, gimme a break! This is the kind of weather we all want! In the middle of cold yucky winter, we all wish for warm weather. When we have a break from the icky weather and have an 84 degree day, it's TOO HOT. Next time it gets cold, which it undoubtedly will get cold again before it stays warm, nay hot, I'm going to remind people how it was TOO HOT when it got warm outside. Maybe we should all wish for warm weather, not to exceed 78 degrees.

Blasphemy?

The world is following the viewing and funeral of Pope John Paul II, as perhaps we should. But, would you like to put a wager on who the next Pope will be, or what his name will be?? According to this article in the Washington Post:

[I]n addition to wagering on the meaning of Britney Spears's bump, or the color of the bonus ball in the Irish National Lottery, gamblers around the world can log onto paddypower.com, click on the Novelties section and put their money on Dionigi Tettamanzi, who is rating 11 to 4 odds in the race for the papacy. Or they can take their chances on Father Dougal Maguire of Craggy Island, Ireland, a long shot at 1,000 to 1.

That just doesn't seem kosher to me.