Chapter 1 I Cant's Stir The Sauce!

Having spent a lot of time sitting in court rooms over the last several years, I decided early on I would use my time wisely by writing a book. Here's Chapter 1: "I Can't Stir the Sauce"

As I write this, I'm sitting in a courtroom waiting for my divorce trail to commence. It September 2005 and this proceeding has lasted 7 months already. Beside me is my soon-to-be ex-husband. I can't even look at him. He is no longer someone I recognize, but has become to me someone I hate. Meanwhile, my fate, and the fate of my children is being decided by people who have no idea who we are, or what my life has been like. I wish they'd let me talk. I finally am ready to tell the story that is now my past. Why doesn't anyone listen, because, if they would, this is what I would say:

I probably could have lasted forever. I could have lived my life in relative peace and been contently unhappy forever. God knows I tried to do just that for at least 8 years of my marriage.

I had stopped worrying about my needs and feeling. I had stopped voicing opinions or making decisions. I had given up the person I once was. Instead, I became someone who was a stranger to me. Someone who the "old Ann" would have called weak and ridiculous.

Sadly, I was fine with the knowledge that whatever happiness came into my life came from my kids, my family and the friends who could stand to watch this metamorphose of me. It was okay with me that I would find no level of happiness from my marriage. My life was my kids. Their joys became my joys; their disappointments became my disappointments. And, if, at the end of the day, I crawled into bed with a stranger, as my husband had become, so be it!

Looking back, I wish I could pinpoint the moment, the day, the month or the year that lead to the beginning of the end of the person I once was. I can't do that because it happened so slowly, insidiously, tediously day after day, month after month, year after year. I guess you could compare it to a rock becoming grains of sand over a long period of time from being washed on by the ocean's waves.

If there was a pivotal moment I could look to it was the day I realized I had changed. We were supposed to attend a Christmas party given by one of Mike's colleagues. I hated those things. I hated the "fakeness" of it all. All these people trying to show each other how wonderful they were: who had the most money, gave his wife the biggest diamonds, or most expensive fur coat. I didn't want to go. I would have rather stayed home with my kids, playing games, painting pictures, making cookies. But. like the dutiful wife I was (Stepford wife comes to mind) I had no choice.

Before we left for the party, Mike gave me his usually fashion advice: "You're not going to wear that are you?;" "You look fat in that dress." And, of course, he would have to inspect the jewelry I was wearing. "Why aren't you wearing my tennis bracelet;" "Where is the diamond necklace I gave you."

So once this Barbie doll was dressed and accessorised adequately, despite my obvious shortcomings, off to the party we went. It wasn't long before I started to feeling uncomfortable and out of sorts. Mike, of course, ditched me to talk to the boys and I was left with a group of women who's only interests were the Lord and Taylor sales, or the latest vacation they took. What did I have to offer to the conversation, other than something funny that one of my kids did that day. My latest vacation had occurred a week before, when the kids and I had "Beach Day." That was a fun wintertime event where we'd put the sand box in the living room, make palm trees from newspapers, dress in our swimsuits and drink virgin Pina Coladas. Of course, I couldn't tell Mike about that. He'd be pissed that I had brought sand into the house and raised the thermostat to 75!

So here I was, unable, or maybe unwilling, to interact, make small talk, socialize. I remember going to the bathroom and looking at my reflection in the mirror. For the first time, I didn't recognize the person staring back at me. I guess that was it: the beginning of the end of my marriage.

So whats "Sauce" got to do with any of this? Well maybe you've got to be Italian to understand it completely, but suffice it to say that I was no long able to function. I could no longer handle the day to day living of my life. What followed was years of migraines, stomach problems the worse of which was vomiting, as my body tried desperately to make my mind understand my unhappiness.

The "Sauce" line actually comes from my cousin. I called her at the beginning of my evolution towards divorce and she relaid her own experience to me.

She said her "pivotal moment" came one day while making spaghetti sauce. She said she realized that she was unable to complete her task. She had no idea what she was putting into her sauce. She recalls that she calming turned off the stove, called her doctor and said, "Some thing's wrong with me. I can't stir the sauce."