Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi you`re my only hope!

Found another new Star Wars Mash-Up today, with the Dukes of Hazzard! Gotta love these!

Star Wars A-Team

Star Wars Dukes of Hazzard

Han Solo P.I.

Star Wars MacGyver

Star Wars Dallas

Airwolf Rebels       

AirWolf Imperial

Ok, I might as well give George Lucas all of my paychecks as they are written. Another new find at Star Wars.com, new Potato heads. I am still busy collecting a few I havent gotten yet from before, and now he has released all new ones. I need a third job just for Star Wars toys.

http://www.starwars.com/vault/collecting/20090619b.html

Another gem I found while doing my daily Star Wars search through the world of the Internet. This one is just too funny and whats worse is I probably watched this live when it was on, I loved this show.

I think I have finally found something harder to watch than the Star Wars Holiday Special. I should have watched this stoned!

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/22/donny-and-marie-do-s.html

Found this on the internet and loved it, thought I would pass it along to all of you.

http://www.doubleviking.com/the-top-15-han-solo-quotes-you-need-to-use-in-regular-conversation-5215-p.html

So often on this site I joke that only Obi-Wan Kenobi can help me. This time, I don’t think even his special brand of the force will be able to see me through this unexpected throw of the dice. But, for safeties sake in case it actually does work when I ask him…Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi…my life is in deep shit.

So sorry I haven’t been on in a little while, my life took a most unexpected turn, one of those curve balls that comes out of nowhere and makes you wonder why you can’t just have a normal simple life. As you may know from some of the dark side posts I have made, I have recently gone through some rather bad years of my marriage that ended when my husband walked out and disappeared. He had many problems, most of which stemmed from drug use and a dysfunctional childhood and depression over whom he was and where he had ended up in life. Needless to say, it has been an entire year since we have seen or heard from him, and by we I mean me, my daughter and my son, ages 20 and 14 respectively.

So I was quite taken by surprise and that is the understatement of the year by the way, when my co-worker turned to me at the beginning of this week and said, “Kevin is on the phone.” After I got over my initial shock, and amusement as my boss who heard what my co-worker had said flung herself out of her chair so fast to run into the center of the office with her mouth gaping open that the chair fell over and into the desk behind her, I walked into the conference room and picked up the phone. I have to say I was even shocked at myself when I picked it up and instead of hurling a fuck you and the horse you finally ran in on and slamming the receiver down, said instead, “hello”, to which he replied, “Hi it’s me”, as if I wouldn’t recognize his voice after 17 years and two children together.

Later on as I told my co-workers, best friends, parents, children and taken an ad out in the NY Times (or at least that is how it felt) most questioned me on my quiet put together attitude and questioned why I was so calm and nice to him. First off, no one, no matter how close they are to me knows everything that was between us, and knows everything that I feel about my husband and the situation surrounding him.

Second of all what was yelling and getting angry going to get me? I tried that route throughout the drug and lying, con-man years, begging him to get help, find himself and try to fix what he was destroying before it was too late so we could salvage our family. Now he had been gone for a year, my kids and I had moved on without him whether we had wanted to or not, he didn’t exactly leave us a choice, so why start yelling now. For better or for worse, we are better off than we had been the last five years he had lived with us and made us live through a hell I can’t even describe to you. We watched as the man we slowly knew as husband and daddy turned into a monster we didn’t know and didn’t want to know, and were powerless to stop it.

Whether I begged or pleaded or whether I screamed and yelled or talked calmly and logically nothing got through, and as much as he was killing us and hurting the family I did not have the strength to kick him out, always holding out hope that the good man I married, the one I loved was still buried in there somewhere and if I just waited it out and took his shit, he would find his way back to himself and to us. That isn’t the way it went down, and maybe it is better this way I don’t know. Although if given the choice, I would have liked to decide for myself where my life and marriage were going, instead of having it all decided for me.

Anyway, so I picked up the phone and for the first time in a year spoke to the husband I had honestly never thought I would hear from again. I told many people later I think it would have been easier if the prick, the monster he had become had been on the other end of that phone, but it wasn’t, instead I heard for the first time in almost five years the man I once loved, maybe still love, the man I thought had been dead and buried years ago.

We spoke for nearly three hours the totality of which I couldn’t even begin to tell you, it all felt surreal, as many times inside my head I stopped and asked myself if I was actually talking to who I thought I was talking to. For the first hour, I felt like I was in a bad rehab movie, where the wronged family member gets the phone call from the 12 stepper who is now contrite and humble and apologizes and tries to explain their actions, and admits their wrongs. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to hear it, but these were things I would have rather heard before he destroyed everything we had and taken away every memory of my life from the last 17 years as if they had been his alone to take away.

As he mentioned that he is trying to fix himself and do the right thing, sign divorce papers, giving me anything I asked for including full custody (of which I obviously already have), of our son, no visitation (because my son refuses to have anything to do with him) and no claim on marital assets which he knows he has no claim to anyway because everything was mine and paid for by me or my family, I listened quietly, wondering what planet I had woken up on, how I got there and when could I get off.

This contrite, calm man was one I honestly never thought I would hear from again, the one I loved and married, the one I had children with and raised a family with and had a life with. The one I buried, knowing full well once he disappeared that he had been lost forever. Now here he was on the phone with me, and for the first time in a year, I was given the chance to say a few things that were robbed of me when he walked away and disappeared. I admit it was a release and a draining one at that, even though it wasn’t one third of what I needed to say, and needed to hear, but it was something, finally, so I guess I should be grateful for that. But, as he tried to explain he wanted to sign the papers and get it over with asap so me and the kids could move on and get on with our lives with some closure, I told him we had already done that.

We had moved on, we are happy, peaceful, and more financially stable than we had been in years. We had gotten beyond the hole he created, patched up what ruins he left behind for me to take care of on my own and had moved on to a nice life that all three of us are happy in. A piece of paper matters not to me, and certainly won’t give me closure. Closure would be an all out mentally and physically draining conversation about everything, answers to it all, maybe even some thank you`s for picking up the pieces he so cruelly left behind and I fixed for the kids, taking care of them and making sure they didn’t follow in his dysfunctional footsteps. Maybe some acceptance of what he did to all of us, what he left me alone to take care of without a look back, and what he left me with ahead of me that is changed and scarred forever.

I am not asking for him to get on his hands and knees and beg for my forgiveness or take all the blame for everything in the world on his own shoulders. But a little sample, maybe a little more than he gave me on the phone the other day, of the things he knows he did and always denied, the things he caused between us, the fact that all he ever had to do for one second during that time was realize I loved him and would have done anything for him if he had just reached out and asked for it. I obviously would have done anything for him I stayed while he treated me like shit, made every day at the end a living hell you could not wake up from. Perhaps maybe as I just read that sentence, perhaps what I need to hear is that he knows what his behavior did to me, to us and that if he could take it back he would, that this isn’t what he wanted either, that it hurts him to know what we had was destroyed that where we now have ended up pains him as much as it pains me.

I wonder if he knows what that feels like. He may tell me he is hurting too, but I wonder if for one second he ever tried to put himself in our shoes and realize the absolute pain and helplessness you feel when you watch someone you love destroy themselves before your eyes. It is a pain I cannot even begin to describe to you, and one you do not get over…ever.

That maybe just maybe he wishes he could have been different, things could have gone a different way that he weeps for what was as much as I do. Even if he said these things how could I believe him, after all even he admitted on the phone he was a con-man, conned me and everyone around him on a moments whim. That he rebelled against me like I was his mother not his wife and that he doesn’t know why. How am I now supposed to know what is sincere and what is self-pity and thinly veiled lies once again? And do I even want to know what is the truth and a lie, maybe at this point just hearing it and not asking the big is it true questions is enough, humor myself.

Maybe that would give me closure, who knows, maybe in situations like this there is no closure. I think that is why in the beginning I said it would have been easier if I heard from the monster and not the man I still love but thought was dead. What was, was and now we are stuck in a place no one ever wanted to be in, doesn’t feel good, and truly has no chance of ever giving either of us what we truly wanted from our lives. There is no closure, closure is just acceptance of what you have to live with in life in order to get up each day and live.

The first thing my father said to me was don’t you dare think about getting back together with him. As if I was. I wasn’t, and I am not, and even if I wanted to how could I? Who would let me? He handled things so poorly, did so many things many think are unforgivable, that I would be hunted down and shot by my friends, co-workers, parents and children if I even gave the smallest notion that I wanted to be with him again. So once again, my decisions are being made for me, and I have no control or choice. Just as he left me no choice when he left, he has once again left me no choice in how I feel now that he is back, thanks to him once again I am powerless in my own life, and that I think is the one thing out of everything I could never forgive him for.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an actress, now that I am older, lately I see I probably would have been pretty damn good at it. I spend my life acting now, although not in front of the cameras, but in real life. Outside I put on a pretty good impression of me, I laugh with friends, chat and joke with my fellow employees at work, smile at family functions and join in the fun, but inside its another picture entirely. I was always what you would call a private person. Not shy, private. I have never been one to pour my heart and soul out to those around me, they were given little pieces here and there, but I have always played it very close to the vest, and ever since the recent turmoil in my life, I have done so even more.

The aloofness, many over the years have called a family trait from my father’s side; some have even described it as cold. It’s not cold, those who know me would tell you with my children even in the public I am a doting over affectionate mother, who would and does do anything for her children. I sang them lullabies, rocked them to sleep, and played with them constantly. It isn’t cold, it is an exterior of calm, cool  and collected, of steel, of being the one who is in control, can take care of things, handle them, help the others who are panicking and in need.

I always loved that trait, I liked being tough, in control, a rock. But, lately I have seen how it has severe disadvantages; such as no one knows you can feel anything. I mean, the people who know me, know I love my kids more than my life, but other than that, they don’t see much, I don’t let them.

It’s funny, I was always outgoing, loud, and eager to get out there and meet people, talk to them, have fun, flirt. Now, people scare me, I hate crowds, I don’t like being around people I don’t know, not even for a minute, it scares me; they scare me. I have cocooned myself in a bubble, my family, close friends and family, and no one else, everyone else isn’t allowed in, and I don’t want them to be. I put on a good face, I`m always polite and smile offer the usual platitudes, but inside all I want to do is get out of where I am, out of the public, and home in my bubble where it is safe from those around me who are just waiting to fool me, betray me, hurt me, scar me, whatever.

My girlfriends keep trying to get me to come out, go to a bar, set me up on dates, and I cringe at the thought. I have nothing left to give, and all that could be taken from me, has already been taken. I am damaged, broken, a half a person, there is nothing there to share with someone, and even if there was, I don’t think I could ever possibly give it; I can’t go through that again…ever. Friends say it will change over time, I tell them, and things like this, things so fundamental don’t change. I spent 17 years of my life with one man, building a life, for better or for worse, and believe me there was a lot of worse, but that doesn’t matter, you can’t just snap your fingers and make that all go away like it never existed, it doesn’t work that way.

It doesn’t bother me per se. I mean, yes I miss intimacy and I miss sex and being with someone I can share my day and life with, I miss that a lot and fantasize about it often, but fantasies and real life are two different things. In my fantasies it is safe, out there it is not, and I am unable and unwilling to try to build something like that again. I don’t have it in me, what I had he took, and I am never getting it back, I wish the people around me would just realize that. This isn’t the flu, you don’t just “get over it” there is nothing to get over, he was a part of my life, my soul, my mind, and although I know I am better off without him, especially after he became something I did not want or love, that doesn’t matter, it doesn’t change the facts.

I laugh it off when my friends say I have no life outside my work and children, but I know they are right, but it’s ok, this is life, you adapt and do what you have to do or give up, and although I may not have what my friends call a life, at least I haven’t given up. Yes, I spend my time going from work to home, being with my kids, cleaning, writing, reading and going online and that is about it. Occasionally I am talked into venturing out into the world without my kids and see some friends, and I have fun, truly I do, but I`m not comfortable, not anymore.

When you’re young with your life ahead of you, dating different people, breaking up, moving on, is normal; it’s easy and part of what you are supposed to do to mature. But I am grown up, almost forty, already matured. Going out to bars, meeting different men, sleeping around doesn’t have an appeal to it anymore. I am not going out there looking for someone to build my life with, like when I was younger, I would be going out there to find someone to adapt my life to, and that just isn’t something I am remotely interested in. I know I`m babbling, but as I said these are diary entries, feelings from my darkest moments, I like getting them out, it feels good, and since I do not like to, or am not capable of telling people I know, or maybe because at this stage in my life, they aren’t comfortable hearing things like this from me that are so out of character, I spill it all to you instead. Maybe after years of being the rock, the one they talk to about things, maybe they aren’t comfortable with listening to me gut out my soul.

Part of me wishes it could be different, I could be different, but the other part, the one with the brain reminds me of what he put me through, the lies, the betrayals, the abuse, the distrust, how could I possibly be foolish enough to ever let myself go through that again? Sometimes I feel like crying for the life that was and is now gone, the life no one around me seems to understand is dead and my body just stayed around after the funeral. Sometimes I want to scream, yell, rant, throw something, but I put my head down, or write these entries until it passes and move on, get up another day go to work, pay the bills, take care of my children and do what must be done. That is life after all, or at least the one I am left with.

Is it horrible of me that sometimes when and I look at photos of couples just starting out, or happy and together for awhile that I just wonder when will it happen to them, when will the big fuck you betrayal happen, the smiles never last for long. Never mind it is horrible of me, cynical too, but from my experience true. I have lots of pictures of us as a family together happy, smiling, laughing and then poof one day you wake up and it is all gone, never to be remembered in the same way again. All your moments, memories, everything you ever did, gone and tainted, it never meant what you thought it did, and even if it did at the time, it doesn’t now, and all it does is make you want to scream and cry and forget it all ever happened. I always liked the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, now I wish I could live it, it really would be easier, because even your good times disappear in the end, at least if it ends like mine did.

What really sucks is I wouldn’t want him back for all the tea in china, but I didn’t want it to end, and I would have stuck it out through even more shit than I did, if I had been given the choice. I would have stayed, for better or for worse and found a way to deal with it. At least then I still had some of what we once were and my memories and moments were still mine to have and think back on. Now he`s gone, we`re gone and all of our past is gone, and I am left with nothing, like I woke up from a coma after 17 years and have no memories to cling to. And yes, like friends say you can go out and build new memories, but why, so they can come crumbling down again as well, I am strong, but I am not that strong. I can’t live through that again and even begin to think I could keep my sanity, I barely kept it this time around.

Sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t for my kids, without them to grab onto, hold on to and love and fight for, what I would do. Would I even bother anymore? Or would years of being unwilling to give in just keep me going no matter or perhaps in spite of how desperately alone and defeated I feel?

I have erected my armor carefully, having only a meaningful relationship with my children, my writing, a few close friends and star wars, everything else although some things get close, nothing gets through. Except sometimes alone in my thoughts, something from the day, whatever will remind me of what I once was, what I once had and then this mood over takes me.  As long as I am the only one who can chink my own armor at least it is still safe. As long as I don’t allow another that power as well. And I will never allow another that power over me again.

Maybe if I had given that power to another, one who was strong enough to wield it and love it at the same time I wouldn’t be here, maybe if I had been strong enough I wouldn’t be here? Who’s to blame, does their always have to be someone to blame? Does that make it easier? He never knew how to get to me, under the armor for things like love, and passion and real intimacy, in the beginning maybe but he learned quickly instead how to close it, how to use it to create anger and hatred and pain and loneliness, used it against me to hurt me instead of to empower me, love me and comfort me.

The only men I have ever and could ever depend on were family, one created me, one created the mother that created me and one I created. My father and my son would do anything and everything if I asked them to, would stop harm from coming to me, protect me and allow me to be me, to chink the armor for them. My son especially; we may many heart to hearts where he sees what many others are not allowed. Because of my height I used to joke to people that the only way I could get a man who was taller than me was to make one, so I did. Although my second husband was taller than me as well (although he was one of the only men I dated that were), turns out the only way I could get a man who I could trust, depend on and love fully was to create him as well. Ironic.

I am not the girl I used to be, she is long ago dead and buried, I don’t even see her anymore, sometimes can’t even remember her. Wonder what the old boyfriends would think? Where did that out going, ready for anything, fun loving sex fiend, drink and curse with the boys girl go? How and who could have taken her down and out. I miss her sometimes, but then again she is the one who got me in the place I am now, so I am not exactly sad to see her go, a little mad at her if you ask me. She had armor too, but used it in a different way, still had fun, loved the boys but kept the feelings at arms length unless she saw it was truly something they wanted, of course the husband made her think that and look where it got her, so the judgment was a little off I guess, bringing me back to why she is long dead and buried.

 It’s embarrassing to admit I let a man do what he did to me, break me, tear me down to the bone, but I did, big tough in your face never let the man win get the better of you me let the man destroy me, no wonder I don’t talk about this, how could I ever admit that in public and why would I want to?

I think about things like our routines things we set up. Traditions as a family putting like the decorations on the tree, did he never enjoy it, was it all an act, or did he really just wake up one morning as Mr. Hyde, without a warning to everyone including himself? Was it all pretend, a game to make us all think he was who he said he was, and if so why, what was the point? And how could I ever bring someone else into those traditions things that are intrinsically his, entwined with him? How hard it was to open that box this year and throw away the ornaments with his name on them, with our name and wedding date on them, it broke my heart all over again.

Don’t worry I don’t get in these moods often, it is just sometimes the show really wears me out and I just need to wallow in the shit for awhile, actually feel no matter how bad it feels, than I snap out of it and on with life I go. Lucky you, I choose to have my little break downs for you. But like I said don’t worry they don’t last long, soon the stony face of determination and a good actress will appear on my face and the walls will be back up in place and working fine..until the next time.