Has it truly been 6 months?

6 months! Where has the time gone? At first, the milestones were so small. He’s been home 3 days. He’s been home a week. He’s been home a month. Now, he’s been home 6 months. He’s now been home almost as long as he was gone.

Remember when I posted this? “The Nightmare is over”was my homecoming post for Mr. Nascar. He’d been home 3 wonderful days at that point. I didn’t even realize we were at the 6 month mark until I logged into my profile at a prison support website that I still patronize and looked at my ticker. It said “6 months since he came home”. Wow. It feels like maybe we should celebrate this milestone.

We’ve done a lot of things this year that we didn’t get to do last year because he was in lock up. We celebrated Bert©’s 6th birthday together. We took her to her first day of 1st grade together. We all went and spent an entire day at the Tennessee Valley Fair together. We vacationed together. We’ve fought together. We’ve discussed issues together as a family. We’ve been through the death of my step-father. Mr. Nascar’s two surgeries, and about 7 subsequent hospital visits to deal with his infections. We’ve laughed together, held each other as we’ve cried. We’ve fixed Bert©’s umpteen boo-boos together.

We still have so much to look forward to. This year will be our first to celebrate Christmas as a family. I think that’s really important to Mr. Nascar as it has been so long since he’s had a family of his own to celebrate things with.

We’ve talked about getting married and even about trying to have a child together. I’m apprehensive about that, based on previous experiences with TheEx. It’s not fair for me to compare TheEx to Mr. Nascar, but that’s my own lack of self-assurance speaking.

We’re talking about, and actually looking for a house to purchase together.

Life is actually pretty good for us right now. He tells me that I’m stuck with him, that he’s not going anywhere. The past 6 months have been challenging and wonderful at the same time. I wonder what the next 6 months will be like.

Thank you all for being there during my journey, and for being so supportive!

The nightmare is over

I can hardly believe that I’m about to post this…but Mr. Nascar is HOME!

He was release from prison at 11:30 AM on Monday March 23, 2009. What a great day indeed. It was the first time in 8 months that I saw him in street clothes, and boy did he look fine.

I took Tuesday off to spend with him, and we pulled Bert© out of school. The weather was beautiful and we drove up to Gatlinburg and spent 3 hours at the Ripley’s Aquarium up there. We drove into the Smoky Mountain National forest for a little bit, and climbed down to the river to put our feet in the cold water. It was awesome just to spend time together, just the 3 of us. We could be as loud or as quiet as we wanted to be. We could kiss and hug for 30 minutes if we felt like it. We didn’t have to eat out of a vending machine.

We’re getting used to each other again. It has been very different actually living with him. He said he feels a little bit like a fish out of water. He hasn’t been sleeping well. He described it as almost feeling like if he truly did go to sleep, that he might wake up and it would all be taken away from him again, as if all of this was just a dream. Poor guy.

Anyway, I’ll try and update in a few days…and they have posted a challenge here at work where we can blog about one of the products we sell. I’m considering making a post about it, even if it would let all my lovely readers know exactly which company MyCompany™ actually is!

Why did I start blogging?

That was the question posed on Sleepyjane’s blog. I seem to be turning to her for inspiration with my writing lately. She wanted to get to know her fellow bloggers a little better and posed 6 random questions that people could choose to write about. I thought I would write about why I started blogging. Some of you might already know the backstory behind that, but for any “new” or potential readers, I thought I’d spell it all out again.

In 2007, there was some interesting stuff going on in my life. I have to pause here, because I’m astounded by the fact that I have been blogging for nearly 2 years now. Wow.

Anyway. Way back in 2007 I was involved heavily in a relationship with a married man. I got entangled with him quite by accident, he answered a personal ad I took out and we went for dinner one night. We had a fabulous time and he talked very candidly about loosing his fiancee in a car accident and how it had taken him nearly a year to get over it. Now, please keep in mind that I was newly separated from TheEx and hindsight tells me that I was incredibly vulnerable and naive. I believed him, I ate every word of his story up. We were together 3 months before I wised up and figure out he was married. You would think that little revelation would have been enough to make me walk away, but OH NO, I wasn’t quite done making a fool of myself.

I found out as much about his wife as I could and I literally started virtually stalking her. I searched out any profile I could for her and read as much about her as I could. I was a woman obsessed. I think I wanted to see what their relationship was from her point of view. From what he had said, they had been having problems for a long time and they both were staying married because they couldn’t afford to split up. I voraciously read every word of hers that I could put my beady little eyes upon.

Eventually I discovered that she had a blog. I felt like perhaps I had struck gold. I finally felt like I might understand what made her, and more importantly their relationship tick. I wanted him to be with me, and only me more than I had wanted anything in a long time but I would never ever have asked, demanded, or manipulated things to head in my favor. I was content, happy even, to enjoy the time that we spent together and then to let him go home to her. That didn’t stop me from being a complete and total psychotic cyber stalker. Her blog was so, normal. I was almost disappointed. I wanted to read about them having fights and arguments, and all the things that drove her crazy about him…but there were none.  In time, I actually grew to enjoy the way she wrote. She is a very well spoken, articulate person, and for some God-awful reason I thought I should reach out to her.

I remember clearly the day that I left an anonymous comment on her blog. I thought I would have a heart attack I was so anxious and scared. I thought for sure she would know who it was. I was waiting, with baited breath for the man to call me and ream me out for contacting his wife. I waited in vain, for that call never did come. As time went on, I got more brazen and bold. I thought well maybe if I blogged too, we could become “virtual” friends.

I want to pause here, to smack my hand against my forehead and say: “Webmiss, what the hell were you thinking??” I am ashamed of having an affair with a married man. I am ashamed that my wonderful outlet of blogging started with such an ugly, dark secret.

So, I created a blog, and a fictitious person to go with it. I figured if we were going to be webbuddies I should at least know something about my pseudo-self. I had a gave my persona a new name, and I had out lined some background for myself. I started writing about some of the real life happenings at work, and in my family life, but I changed details like having a brother when in real life I have a sister.

I started reading other blogs, besides hers. I started commenting and actually beginning friendships with some of the people currently on my blog roll. I became so involved, that some of my true personality was coming forth and I was beginning to loose track of the deceitful details. Then, one day it all came to a head. Someone had sent me a real Christmas card, addressed to my pseudo-self but to my real address and it came back to them. I decided then and there that I couldn’t lie anymore. I outed myself on my own blog. People were shocked and angry. I lost a lot of blog-friends that I really, really liked. I had hoped that once the pretense was gone, and I could just be myself everything would be ok. But, I was wrong.

More than not, people were very supportive and understanding of why I did what I did. I have developed a kinship with these friends and continue to be active on their blogs and them on mine. I treasure those friendships because in spite of my devious actions, they saw through to the real me and chose to remain friends.

I ultimately ended the relationship with MarriedMan. It was probably the best decision I ever made. I’m happier and healthier for it. I don’t know what he’s doing, I don’t know if he’s even still married, and you know what? I don’t want to know. I never ended up becoming friends with his wife through her blog, and really that was probably best as it was a messed up idea from the beginning. I have lived to learn a lesson from that.

Rest assured, since that episode in my life I have been blogging, perhaps not as regularly as I should, but everything you read is ME, the real me. I don’t reveal the true name of the company that I work for, as I’m afraid of them coming across this blog. My daughter, really is 5, and her name is not Bert©, that is just a cool nickname Maxxy gave her. My name is not really Webmiss, but those closest to me do know what it is. Mr.Nascar, is aptly named as he is a Nascar fan, is really in prison. We have managed to travel along out 13-14 month long relationship with him comfortably incarcerated for the last 7 months all the way across the state.

And yes, damnit, I do live in Tennessee. Although you wouldn’t know it to talk to me.

That is why I started blogging. As screwed up as my logic seems now, it appeared to be a fine idea at the time. I’m 2 years older now, but much more wiser than my age belies.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank each of you that stayed with me in spite of all the lies and deceit. To the new people that are reading me, well…now you know my dirty little secret.

Is that your final answer?

I woke up this morning and when I plugged Mr. Nascar’s name and number into the website to check status on an inmate, I saw the glorious sight outlined above in red. PAROLE…it says PAROLE!

I swear I almost fell out of my chair. It was 7am when I saw that, so I wasn’t able to call anyone at that indecent hour to spread the good news. I can’t call Mr. Nascar, I have to wait for him to call me, so as of this point he doesn’t even know the good news. When I checked him last night it still said pending. He was very disappointed as he was hoping for the final decision to come back by Friday. It has been 10 days since his parole hearing. This is the news we have been waiting for. Now he has to finish his pre-release class (03/12), there is supposed to be a home visit with his parole officer, and then we just wait for the final paperwork and a release date. At this rate, he very well could be home by the end of the month.

I’m so excited I am shaking and am having a heck of a time typing. Somebody pinch me. What a GREAT way to start off my day. I even printed a copy of the website because I was afraid that if I blinked it might change, or maybe I typed in his ID number wrong and was looking at someone else.

HE’S COMING HOME!!!

Like a thief in the night…

So I was tinkering around on the internet, and I ran across a particular post that my lovely friend Sleepyjane wrote entitled: “Relationships stink sometimes”. I read it and I thought to myself…Oh my gosh, my relationship stinks too! Not so much in the literal sense that SJ was meaning (eww morning breath) but in a sense of some of the “stinky” things that have happened to me & Mr. Nascar lately.

So I bring you Top Ten Thursday…told you I was a thief!

The top 10 reasons my relationship stinks: 

1. I am dating a prisoner

2. I have been without sex for 7+ months. That’s a HUGE dry spell!

3. I am dating a convicted felon

4. I am dating someone that is housed 355 miles from me. It’s 12 hours round trip to drive out and see him.

5. Mr. Nascar snores!

6. He is a total bed hog.

7. He adores my child and will promptly commence spoiling her rotten the minute he gets released

8. He loves American Idol, Football, and Nascar. I do not. Need I say more?

9. He’s never been married, and I’m terrified that he’s going to ask me one day.

and the #10 reason that my relationship sucks…is because we are separated, and have been separated for 7 very long months. I miss him, with all my heart, and pray each night that this is all over with and finished soon.

 

And I think to myself…What a wonderful world

Well, as I’m sure you all know, Mr. Nascar’s parole hearing was today. As it’s late tonight, I’m not going to go into too many details. Suffice it to say, he was recommended for parole. Now we play the waiting game with the TDOC. The recommendation needs to be approved by the BOPP (Board of Probation and Parole) in Nashville. We should know something within 10 business days. We could actually be within 3 weeks of this whole thing being over with!

Thank you all for your prayers and kind, encouraging words. I felt you all there with me today and I want you to know that I appreciate it. I’d say Mr. Nascar appreciates it too, but I haven’t dropped the bomb yet that I blog openly LOL

T’was the night before Christmas.

Well not exactly Christmas, but it is the night before Mr. Nascar’s parole hearing. I am sitting in a hotel 40 miles from anywhere, but just down the road from the prison. It is 3:48am and although I am yawning like a lazy cat, I can’t sleep any longer.

I don’t know how to describe it. I have such a mix of emotions going through my heart right now. My mind is racing and I don’t know how to stop it. I figured that maybe if I wrote about it, I might be able to process some of the information and I can maybe go back to sleep for at least an hour or two before it’s time.

A small part of me is excited. We have waited for this day for 7 long months. I prepared an entire parole packet, in addition to the letter that I personally wrote. When I finally mailed it in, I sent Mr. Nascar a copy of just the paperwork, not the pretty bound and colorful edition that I sent to the board. He showed it to Mr. P who is the facilitator of the Pre-Release class that Mr. Nascar is in. Mr. P said he was impressed with what I had put together and asked for my permission to use a copy of it as part of his class. He is going to use it as an example of what can be done to prepare and get organized before the parole hearing, and to show that a little initiative can go a long way. Like Mr. Nascar says: “No matter what happens, we’ll go up there and know that we did everything possible.” Maybe, just maybe, what I’ve been able to put together will show the parole board that I am a good person, and that Mr. Nascar now has 2 very positive people in his life who care about him very much. That moral support is very important in keeping recidivism down.

I’m excited about the possibility that we might be in the final stretch of all this. He could be home by the end of March, beginning of April if things go the right way. It will take 10 days for the final decision to come back, then a parole officer will need to come to the house to check out his “home plan” and to the place where he is going to be working to check out his “job plan”. After that it would be about another week for them to get his paperwork together, and then my next trip out here would be to come and get him from this horrible place.

On the other hand, part of me is so scared that he’s going to be denied today. I dreamt the other night that they put him off for a year. They would have any number of reasons making such a decision. I think the most logical might be that they don’t feel he has served enough time yet to learn a lesson from all this. They might grant him parole but tell him he has to wait 6 months before he can be released. If that is the case it would be the end of August and he would have been gone more than a year at that point. They could deny him out right and tell him to come back in a year. They could deny him and tell him to come back in 6 months. They could recommend him for parole and then it gets over turned when the final decision comes back from Nashville. There are just too many variables in this situation for my liking.

I’m also scared about the possibility of him coming home. I have gotten used to being independent again. I have my house and I have it set up MY way. When he was out, we were talking about moving in together, but we were looking for a place to live. That would have been neutral ground, it would have been a melange of his stuff and my stuff. I wasn’t able to get a lot of his stuff from his old house before his sorry @ss roommate called good will and told them to take whatever they can carry. I’m worried that he’s going to feel displaced when he gets home. I’m worried that I’m not going to be any good at sharing now. I’m worried that we’re not going to be able to stand each other when he comes home, and that it’s not going to take us long to destroy our relationship. Because of all the BS that TheEx is pulling lately, I’m worried that Mr. Nascar has just been taking me for a ride. Part of me thinks, well if TheEx was able to take advantage of me so easily, maybe my judgement isn’t sound and Mr. Nascar was able just to step right in and say the right words, pull the right strings, and voila here I am making a fool of myself again.

I talked to him tonight before I went to bed. He said he’s excited about today and there’s no doubt in my mind that right now he is also sitting up in his bunk with a million thoughts streaming through his head. He has been a complete basket case for the last two weeks, he even admits to it. I told him the other night that I’m going to need to buy some pom-poms if I need to keep up the cheer leading. I’m happy to do it though, as it keeps my mind off things, but the drive here yesterday was nothing but blank time for my mind to roam free with worry and fear.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m going to start getting ready at 6:30 which is about 2 hours from now. I really need to lay back down and try to go to sleep. I just need to keep reminding myself that God is with us, and all of this is in His hands now. Whatever happens is meant to happen.

This just in…breaking news

 

I can hardly believe it. We finally have a date for Mr. Nascar’s parole hearing.

02-25-2009

I’m so scared, and yet at the same time it is such a relief to know…something, anything. I have finished his parole packet. I am just waiting on some letters that I sent out to be signed and returned to me.

Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for us!

Opinions please

I need to see if you all could do me a favor. Proof read the support letter that I will be sending in on Mr. Nascar’s behalf and please give me your honest opinion. I have not mailed it out yet, so I still have time for revisions.

Ms. Webmiss

My new house

Somewhere in East TN

December 19, 2008

RE: Parole Hearing of  Mr. Nascar

Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole
Address to some strange building
Nashville, TN

 
Honorable Members of the Parole Board:

My name is Webmiss, and I am the fiancée of Mr. Nascar,  inmate # 123456. I am writing today to show my support for a favorable decision in the matter of his parole hearing.

Mr. Nascar has been incarcerated since July 2008 for a technical violation of probation. Prior to this he had been thriving as a productive member of society. While on community corrections, Mr. Nascar was able to accomplish something that not many men with a felony conviction are able to do, he started his own business, Mr.Nascar’s Special Service. Mr. Nascar’s Special Service  is partnered with www.somewebsite.com, a division of SomeCompany. Through this partnership, Mr.Nascar’s business is referred clients who are doing business related things, that Mr.Nascar assists them with.

The remainder of his business comes from proactively marketing his services through online market places such as Craigslist.org and from referrals from Mr. Nascar’s satisfied customers. The business has thrived under Mr. Nascar’s ownership and management. Mr. Nascar wasn’t content just to sit back and supervise, he was present on nearly every job. His attention to detail and his friendly rapport with his customers garnered him a very positive reputation within the industry. For your reference, I have enclosed the (professional references). Those two documents will highlight the number of jobs that were scheduled with Mr. Nascar’s Special Service for those two months. Also, I have provided print offs from Mr. Nascar last customer reviews and as you can see, the customers were very satisfied with the services Mr. Nascar provided them. Even though Mr. Nascar has been incarcerated 5 months at the time of this letter, his phone continues to ring daily with job requests from people who have been referred to his company. Unfortunately we have had to shut down the business and turn those potential customers away.

In addition to his own business, Mr. Nascar was employed full-time by (name and company information removed). On most weekends he could also be found at different sporting events around the county, contracted by companies such as ESPN, Fox Sports, NASCAR and Raycom Sports to set up their audio and visual equipment.

Mr. Nascar has not been idle with his time on Community Corrections. He has actively sought to grow his business, and in doing so has employed men who were going through treatment at E. M. Jellinek Center in Knoxville. Mr. Nascar could empathize with them and understood that part of their successful introduction back into society was having someone believe in them and give them a chance. Mr. Nascar was that someone. He was able to train these men and provide them with an opportunity to learn a useful skill and get back on their feet, reducing the likelihood that they would turn back to their addiction and be at risk to re-offend. Mr. Nascar has also been faithful to his community service. Weekly he collected aluminum cans, turning them in for money and then donating that money to the Ronald McDonald house.

Mr. Nascar is a good person who unfortunately made poor choices in his past that have continued to negatively impact his life. Since his original sentencing, Mr. Nascar has come a very long way. With the help of his friends and loved ones he has been able to find purpose in his life, and turn away from the road he had been traveling. Consequently, Mr. Nascar has been making better, more positive choices in his life.

While his technical violation of his probation is indeed a setback, it is not an insurmountable one. I believe that together, Mr. Nascar and I have a plan to ensure his continued success as a member of society. We have thought long and hard about where we both want our lives to go and I am positive that our mutual goals will propel us toward a happier, healthier future. I believe in Mr. Nascar, and I believe in the two of us. I feel confident that I will be able to provide a safe, supportive, and loving atmosphere in which we will both be able to thrive. I am willing to attend the Celebrate Recovery classes at Cokesbury together with him, as well as take whatever steps are necessary to love and support him.

Honorable Board Members, I implore you to please take the time to consider the information that I have provided in this packet before making your final judgment. I sincerely hope that you will see the steps that Mr. Nascar has taken to right the wrongs of his past and that you will give him, and us, another chance.

I appreciate your time and attention in this matter.

Respectfully yours,

 Webmiss

Gosh it’s hard trying to type this out and remain mostly anonymous. I hope you were able to get the gist of what I was trying to say. Please be brutally honest, I want to ensure that I have made the most of my letter and that it will be as helpful as possible to Mr. Nascar.

Thanks ladies & gents.