Hide and Seek

So there's a button on blogger that lets you "hide" your blog listing. And apparently I accidentally pushed that button sometime since my last post.

I've been going crazy this morning trying to track down the access point to this blog, with very little success. It doesn't help that my connection has been getting progressively slower over the last three months, either. All that logging in and out and in and out took time. grrrrrr

Until I finally and for no reason I can fathom decided I must have "hidden" that blog. Then it took me another little while to figure out how to UNHIDE it. And that term does not appear in the google/blogger help directory. So don't bother.

The good news is that there's a little button down at the bottom of the page that says "show all blogs," and when I finally found that button, and selected it, all was again right with my world.

Why are there always prologues to my stories??

Also, apparently due to the amazing levels of unexpected and prolonged gorgeous snow in December, the gas bill was an estimate. Based on earlier times when my housemate didn't actually have the heat on. So this month, we received a bill for what didn't show up last month, and this month's expense. And I guess we have to turn the heat back off now. Because I can't afford to pay her $150 a month to have heat.

So I guess I'll be closing the bedroom door and turning on my space heater. A lot. Because I suspect that the overage I'll pay for the electricity I use is NOTHING compared to this bill. Which actually scares me. A lot.

Besides hunting around for a way to access my own blog, how did I spend the morning? So glad you asked.

I spent this morning writing about my early attempts at marriage counseling, and the last pre-deployment briefing I attended before my X left for Iraq back in 2004. Oh, Joy. That gas bill was really NOT the cap I'd have chosen for my morning of woe.

It was interesting to remember back to the hole in the bedroom door, the Argmy Chaplain who first appeared angry on my behalf, and then when he actually met my X, was angry at me for not doing a better job of supporting such a fine outstanding and upstanding soldgier. It was interesting to remember both the hope I suddenly felt to have an authority figure on my side in my attempts to get marriage counseling and salvage our relationship-- and the utter desolation and isolation that ultimately came of the attempt.

Interesting to remember how life had to keep on keeping on around all that personal pain. We went out to dinner, we said how our day went, we acted like nothing was wrong when other people were around, and I worried about his well-being as he geared up for that deplogyment. And yet, looking back, I realize how absolutely everything had already fallen apart. Long before I actually was ready or willing or able to walk away.

I'm so glad to be here, and not there, now. Even with frozen fingers and a dwindling bank account and a crick in my neck from sitting at the computer too long. I think my story is an important one to tell-- the family side of Argmy Life, but more than that. I'm also telling how-- maybe eventually even WHY-- a marriage can fall apart, and a wife can decide to stay long past all reason. And, hopefully, I can tell a little bit of how to get out of a marriage like that.

I am hopeful. Hopeful for my own life, and for the lives of other women-- argmy or civilian, happy or desperate, married or divorced-- and for the possibility for positive change in every situation. Hopefully, telling my story will make a difference, too.

So I keep writing, and forcing myself to remember those painful, fearful, uncertain times. Times when I hid, or wanted to hide. Times I really don't want to remember anymore. And, hopefully, when it's all done, the results will be worth the journey I took to get them.

In the meantime, anybody know a good (and fairly recently published) memoir I should read? I'm looking for a good editor, and a well-written book might just be the place to start.