An open love letter to my ex-husband

The entire time I was in the hospital with ketoacidosis, everyone called you Mr. Powell, assuming you were my husband. I don't even know if we had been dating a month at that point (time has made all those memories fuzzy). I was 18 years old. I fell in like with you because you were funny, clever and weren't afraid to dance around in a kilt. I fell in love with you because you were honest, kind and always tried to do right by me. Our relationship from beginning to end certainly gets an A for effort, if nothing else.

Our time together seems like a different world to me. I didn't think I was really old enough to have lived multiple lives, but I hardly recognize the people I see in photos of us. We always had music playing in the living room, but the TV was in another part of the house to keep distractions at a minimum. The other day I had a flashback of patching the crotch in your jeans because we were too poor to buy you new ones when they wore out. I don't know that anyone has seen your upper lip since you were a teenager and could grow that luxuriously long red beard over it, but I remember that you had the softest lips ever. We cooked and ate many meals together, grilling even in the snow, and I have fond memories of sitting across a table from you over our plates and having your full attention.

As we spent more time together, I met more of your friends and family. I found more and more wonderful people who thought the world of you and only wanted the best for you. You have a great PR campaign of compassionate people surrounding you. Everyone was on Team Jeremy, trying to help you catch a break. It seemed like a great team and one I wanted to be on too.

You were a good player on Team Genie as well. I changed jobs and we moved across the state to a town you knew nothing about and hardly anyone there. From the moment we moved into the house, I was gone on the road, spending more nights in hotel rooms across the country than in our bed. You stayed home to tend the fires there, caring for our neurotic dogs and grumpy cats. There are lots of men who would have balked at my game plan and stubbornly stood in the way.

But you never stood in the way. You never yelled. You wouldn't even really fight with me, sitting stoically on the sofa while I stomped and ranted and worried the pets. And up to the very end, you never lied to me. No matter how many times we had a conversation about breaking the proverbial lamp, you always admitted any fault and were genuine about it. I always knew what I was getting from you. Unfortunately, it turned out to be not enough for me.

We went through more beat up old cars and W-2 tax forms each year than I'd care to remember. Together we got you a bachelors degree, almost all of a graduate degree and your first full time job with benefits.

You are a good man with a good heart. I always tried to get others to see what I did - that even if you were a bear who happened to enjoy dancing, you were much more than a dancing bear. A friend told me as our marriage was falling apart, though, I changed over the years but you never did. I think I changed into a person who could no longer be on Team Jeremy. But you never stood in my way.

Love, Genie

Living Out Loud volume 12: To all the girls/guys I've loved before

My mother was at the house the other day relating some story of the early days of parenthood with my oldest brother Doug and something annoying that her ex-husband Lee had done. I interrupted to ask her, "did Lee have any good qualities?" I think the question caught her off guard. "Good qualities?" she said incredulously. "Yeah. You had to have married him for some reason. No one held a gun to your head." She laughed a little in surprise and relented, "well he had a few I guess, but not when it came to parenting" and continued on her story, undeterred. It got me to thinking that just because people end a relationship, it doesn't make either party 100% horrible. Sure, there usually is a person who did something a little bit more obnoxious or even reprehensible than the other, but very rarely is a person all bad.

Rich has a saying I'm fond of that "there are very few Hitlers in the world." There are very few people who are completely evil or worthless. There are a lot more people who try to do the right thing and occasionally make really poor decisions. A friend of mine used to call one of her ex-boyfriends her "favorite mistake", as the Sheryl Crow song describes. She recognized that they were horrible for each other but could still remember fondly some good memories they had.

This brings me to the theme for this month's Living Out Loud project. Tell me something nice about one or more of your exes. Maybe they wooed you with their love of music (and later turned you off with their inattention to hygiene or paying bills on time). Maybe they were good at organizing events (even if that meant they would flip out if something went outside that plan). This is your opportunity to focus on the good without getting into all the reasons he or she is an ex versus a current. They couldn't have been all bad, and if they were you might need to create a search committee to approve any future relationships you enter.

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each issue above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I'm just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don't email me, I'm likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, January 3rd (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

Interestingly, when I pitched this idea to Rich the other day he didn't like it. "What if someone read it?" Hearing that only further convinced me it should be our theme this month. Isn't that sort of the whole point of living out loud? So as we close out of first year of this project, I encourage you to go out on a limb and say something nice. It's all part of the holiday spirit and turning over new leaves in the new year.

Recap of 11th Living Out Loud project: Tis the gift to be simple

It's 19 days before Christmas and I haven't bought a single gift. Rich has bought two on my Amazon Prime account, but those don't count. As someone on Facebook remarked the other day, "you mean they sell Christmas presents before the 24th?" So I thought this would be a good topic to bring up as we all struggle with the idea of what "perfect" things to get each other. I've been treated yet again to a great selection of Living Out Loud entries this month of everyone's thoughts on the matter. I admit to spending these last moments before the 5pm deadline reading everyone else's entries and marveling at how great they were while lamenting that my own entry could not compare. I hope you enjoy them all as much as I did. Gina's Gifts This pleases me to no end that my compilation CD means so much to Gina. I'm always happy to find someone else who gets as excited about music as I do and after our chat I knew she would understand. Obviously, she understands more than I ever could have known.

Janet's Holiday Happiness When I read "You need a ride, you listen to Christmas carols" I literally laughed out loud. Janet shows how all those Christmas items taking over and turning it into HallowGivingsMas might not all be about commercialism. I should be a little less last minute and bah humbug and do a little more humming myself.

Deb's Tis better to give Deb's entry is one I could have written as well. I suck at receiving gifts and spend way more effort on the giving. Sometimes I wonder if people really know what I want or who I am. Rich says I think to much about these things. And I would totally love power tools wrapped up with a bow.

SuziCate's Please Don't Let It Be Underwater! All her examples are great, but the gifts from her husband are winners! Rich and I were discussing a driveway as our Christmas present this year (I have driveway envy with all our neighbors getting new ones), but I like the idea of having a little something you weren't expecting from someone you love.

Megan's Mix Tapes Again, music is something near and dear to me so it's great to hear about all the heartfelt items Megan has received over the years. My brother is not the romantic type so I could imagine his gifts would be similar but just as personal.

Kim's Two Gifts That Kind of Broke Me I had forgotten about both of these gifts from all those years ago but hearing about them brought it all back. More and more I lean towards the idea of no gift giving that she and Jack have but I'm not sure Rich would stand for it. And the line that cracked me up the most was "Also, we lived in a giant, unassailable castle of dorkitude." because I can hear Kim's voice saying that much like Morgan Freeman might discuss penguins.

And my own Trying to change someone else's tune

I had such a hard time picking a winner this month that we had to go out for Mexican food before I could decide. The chicken enchiladas inspired me to pick Kim as our winner. Her entry had a unique voice that really entertained me while staying true to the spirit of sharing on the Internet. Since there were several entries this month with the theme of music and Kim is a music lover herself, I'm making her prize a $25 gift card to Amazon.com so she can purchase DRM free music for her collection.

Everyone kicked ass this month and you should all pat yourselves on the back for your writing. Really this project is the best present I could receive for the holidays. You all inspire me.

I already know the theme for the next Living Out Loud and it's a tough one, but I know you can rise to the challenge. Details will be posted soon. Let's finish out the year strong! Go team!