This week, as I rolled up to the one year anniversary of writing this blog, I thought about ending the blog today.
Some of you have been trying to contact me through AOL. I have let my account suspend as I try and figure out exactly what I wish to do next. So... for right now you can post comments and read my blog, but ims and email are not coming through. I am not ignoring you...
Trace, my dearest friend from Minnesota is ending her AOL account as she has FINALLY upgraded from dial-up to DSL. She is one of the reasons I stayed with AOL for all these years.
In the final year of my marriage I was given a laptop at work. I was asked to load all the software loan officers were using and test for conflicts with Loansoft. Many LO's had AOL accounts, so I was able to load and test AOL. Thus marking my introduction to the world of AOL sometime in 1997.
In the evenings, not wanting to engage with my husband I would search the Internet for information on Ireland. One night back in 1997 I discovered a chat room called, "Irish Heritage" where this bright, funny engaging large group of people gathered to discuss Irish politics, women's issues, and the state of Ireland today. I was hooked.
Get a bunch of Irish together telling stories (interrupting each other) and it is one hilarious show. One of the funniest, was this rather quiet screen name "Tgreengirl." When she would finally type a response or comment on something, 50 people would stop typing and start laughing. She embodied my kind of humor. Her name ... is Tracie (I call her 'Trace').
Over time we began instant messaging each other and creating funny stories about different screen names in the room. A deep friendship was born. She could make me laugh out loud so hard that the cats would come see what I was up to in the kitchen. We became best online friends.
Eventually I poured out my heart to her about how done I was with my marriage. I was broken and defeated. There is nothing like working to save a marriage that is doomed. The heartache is almost unbearable ... days and nights run together like one long prison sentence. In time, she confided that she was living on her couch and was in the same sad situation. I was also sleeping separately from Brian's father. We shared a common life across the country. The states between us faded. It was like she lived next door.
Trace worked graveyard at a medical facility and began calling me in the middle of the night. I would take the portable house phone and go sit in my backyard to talk and laugh for hours. We were both contemplating affairs with other men. I had promised myself that I would never cheat on anyone, but sadness and loneliness is a slippery road.
I ultimately packed my x's bags and told him to get out - I was done. The process made me sick to my stomach. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. Trace called me every night during this time. She always calmed me down and said the one thing we women always want to hear, "Everything is going to be just fine."
One day while at work, I allowed my x husband to come into the house to remove the belongings we separated and agreed to split up. He ended up stripping the house. I had to call and threaten him with the police to get my things back. He brought the items back and the house remained like someone had moved into the place in a hurry.
Then one morning Tracie calls me in a panic. Things had been escalating with her husband. I was worried I was going to see on national news that she was found dead - murdered by her husband. She was breathing fast on the phone, her husband had held a knife to her throat, tired of her living on the couch. She kneed him in the balls, causing him to almost cut off his own thumb and he ran off to the hospital. He was at the hospital when she called me.
Panicking that he would come back and kill her, she asked me what to do. "How much money do you have in the bank?" I asked. She replied, and I knew it was plenty for her to 'take a vacation' to California. So I said, "Pack a bag, grab your kids - go to the airport and catch the first flight you can find to California. I'll pick you up at the airport and you can come visit me." She thought I was kidding, but I was never more serious in my life.
So she packed bags, grabbed her kids and left the state of Minnesota for the very first time in her life.
Now mind you, I had never even seen a photo of her and I drove to the airport to pick her up. Some might think we were crazy, but it was my destiny to befriend this girl from Minnesota who made me laugh until my sides hurt. I was to meet her in baggage claim and walking into the claim area, I recognized her at first sight, even though I had never laid eyes on her before. She smiled at me and we embraced in hugs that ended up in sobbing tears.
Like long lost sisters separated by several lifetimes we stood in the SF Airport baggage claim crying, laughing and hugging. She was with her son, and the most beautiful, little precious girl named Mary (Hi Mary :-)). I packed them in my car and drove out of the airport into our grand adventure. They never left Minnesota, so this was their first time in California - and there before them in all it's night time glory was the San Francisco skyline.
All firsts...first time across the Golden Gate Bridge, first time seeing the Pacific ocean, first time through Marin County, first time on the 101, and first time to Santa Rosa California.
When she walked into my house and saw all the picture and paintings against the wall and things laid about, she comments, "Well this is too fuc*ing sad and we have to do something about it while I am here! Let's get the kids to bed, put on some coffee and open the wine and talk." I smiled as she was exactly the same as she was online and over the phone.
It was like having a sister come for a visit. I didn't realize how lonely I had been, or how depressed.
I would leave for work in the morning and she would have coffee made and breakfast going. The first night I came home from work, the smell of something wonderful greeted me as I walked through the door. It was the smell of dinner - how I missed this. She walks out of the kitchen handing me a glass of wine, as she smiles and says "Welcome home honey!" I laaugh. There in my kitched is Brian, bathed and in his jammies (he was two), her two kids and a set table with dinner. I never knew how much I needed this .
I walked into my bedroom. My bed was made, my laundry folded on my bed, and everything was in it's right place. I put on my sweats as she yells to come eat. She informs me that we will rearrange my living room and set it right after the kids are fast asleep. She walked around Santa Rosa that day and to the grocery store. She reminded me that I still needed to create a home for Brian. She was an angel.
She stayed a week and went on to Seattle to stay with friends there. When she boarded the airporter with her children I waved goodbye and began to cry. I wanted her to stay and for us to get a bigger place. I wanted to raise our kids under one roof and date men, laugh (like the TV show Late and Allie) and enjoy life. But she had to go back home, and get herself divorced. I wished that life just once would do what I wanted it to do.
I hoped she could come back and try living in California, but she ended up meeting Dennis and ultimately marrying again. Oddly, Minnesota became one of my training regions and I was able to fly and stay at her home. She lives in some pretty country...and collects a whole lot of rocks.
Last year she found she had an Aunt on her father's side whom she has never met. Turns out ... this Aunt's latest address is in Santa Rosa. She has lived here for many years and was a local school secretary. While staying with me, Trace walked by her house without realizing. Holy crap.
I knew it was destiny.
And now... she is leaving this place where we met. I am having trouble finding a reason to stay on AOL as I have Comcast myself. I can move the blog to another host, and start over....year two.
I'll keep you posted.
Until next time-
C
http://journals.aol.com/rapieress/Aweekinthelife/
http://www.aweekinthelifeofaredhead.com
