I have one black hair that grows on my neck. Whenever I notice it coming in I pluck it using tweezers, but it always comes back. It annoys me to no end. I would go get electrolysis if it wasn't just one stinking hair.

Sometimes I forget to check for the hair, but then I'll be sitting there minding my own business and my hand will land on my neck and there's the hair again. It's my recurring reminder that I'm not the same gal in my early twenties who snared a husband and had my whole life ahead of me. No, I'm in my mid-thirties with two kids, a mortgage, and a marriage that runs hot and cold. Wait, no, scratch that...a marriage that runs lukewarm and cold. 

After all, this neck hair was nowhere to be found when I was younger. I never had to tweeze neck hair before heading out to dance clubs with my friends. When I bought my first car I'm pretty sure there wasn't a black hair residing on my neck. When my husband and I went out on our first date there sure as heck wasn't a dark hair nestled under my turtleneck.

I'm a different woman now. I can't go back to how things were before I got married or before I had kids. It's not like my contemplating divorce has anything to do with wanting to reclaim my past life — sans unattractive neck hair — but instead it has more to do with reclaiming myself. I want to feel sure about where I am in life. I want to live a day without wondering if my relationship is the thing that makes me feel so incredibly uncomfortable and helpless.

Yeah, I'm older now than when I was last single. I'm in a completely different stage of life. The younger, no-hair-on-the-neck me would probably think that the present version of me is pretty lame. Hey, if you aren't happy in a relationship, you just move on, right? 

My husband and I try to trade off parenting duties on weekend mornings to sleep in, since neither one of us gets to sleep past 6:00 or so during the week.

I'll take one day and he'll take the other, so one of us will get up with the kids while the other will sleep until 8:00 or 8:30. It's not the "sleeping in" we did before kids came along, but it's better than nothing.

Friday night I asked my husband, "Do you want to sleep in tomorrow or Sunday?"

He said, "It doesn't matter to me."

I say, "Okay, I'll take tomorrow and you can take Sunday." He agreed, I headed to bed, and then morning came. Our son is calling, "Daddy! Daddy!" and I remember thinking to myself about how fortunate it was that he was calling for Daddy since it was my turn to sleep in.

It isn't long, though, before I wake back up because my husband is scolding my son. He's telling him something about how he better not go into the living room just to lay back down on the couch because if he wants to sleep he can stay in his bed.

I think to myself, "Okay, fair enough I guess..." but seeing as my son isn't even out of bed yet I don't really understand the pre-scolding.

Ten minutes later I hear my husband call to my son, "Breakfast!" My son, down in the playroom, replies that he's going to finish looking at his book. My husband shouts, "Get up here now!" and I hear him stomp down the stairs to collect our son.

This is the point when I got out of bed (our daughter did too because Daddy's shouting woke her up) and as I walked into the hallway my husband was carrying our son up the stairs. My son was squirming and crying, and my husband had a look on his face like he's ready to lose it.

If life is a journey, it's no weekend jaunt to the beach. It's an around-the-world expedition riddled with dangerous passages and course corrections.

My marriage is a journey, unfortunately quite a rough one of late. My relationship to my ailing father and my siblings who also help take care of him is always under construction.

Like many people, I also grapple with work-life balance: how much of myself do I put into my job or even any given project, and how much do I hold in reserve?

I've added another journey. Crazy, right? But stick with me...this one might be worth the added trouble.

I've embarked on a six-month yoga teacher training, and it's intense. The amount and level of physical, academic, and emotional study only seems to grow, week to week. At one point early on I said to a classmate that this might not have been the right time to engage in such a difficult program. Then we started our course of yogic philosophy.

Now I'm chartering more twists and turns in my mind than on the mat. While the training is physically challenging, this journey goes within, and the steadiness of mind I'm building benefits every part of my life.

So this one's a staycation. And there couldn't be a better time for it.

It's 4 AM and the pillow wrapped half-way around my head is insulation from the snores across the bed. Every night together is like this and I just want it to stop. Steals my nights, that noise.

Sharing a bed again, a room, with someone takes big recalibration. We're not living in one house together yet, but half the week Sam and I stay in one place.

I try to fall asleep first, get deep into REM before the rumbling starts because I remember something now. It's not easy to share my sleeping space. Sam's snores engine-loud; you can hear it down the hall.

I used to wonder why a married couple would ever want separate bedrooms. It seemed to me like sleeping separately was a tell tale sign of T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

We're sold a packaged picture of how happily ever after should look, and it never has more than one bed.

Why is it no one ever tells you about the importance of space before a first marriage? Nobody ever says while you are busy building a life together, don't forget to develop an equally sound life of your own so you maintain a strong sense of self.

These nights together are good practice, just the way sitting in a therapist's office every week hashing out the "how's this going to work" is good practice. Going back into this marriage a second time after two years on my own is, I guess, like preparing for any second marriage. You have the benefit of practice and wisdom and experience that were impossible the first go around.

You have the perspective of age and knowing yourself and your expectations and your limits in way that only comes with years. Lessons hard won and learned slow.

And after two years apart I know this: I like sleeping in my own bed by my own self without a pillow wrapped around my head to dull the snoring. Sex is one thing, but sleep? That's another, and I don't get much of it sharing a bed.

Every time Sam and I walk into a potential rental house, the muscles in my body clench. Instant tension under my skin. And I'm aware of this.

There's that saying: The body doesn't lie. And a friend once told me the body is the brain, you can't separate them out. I spun for months on that one, trying dissect the paradox of its truth.

But I get it.

When I have a rough day with my kids, when my patience is short and every touch torture, it's my body making life so hard. When my body is tense it has a strangle hold on my brain. My mood is short and ugly. When I'm relaxed, anything goes and I can go with anything.

Maybe it's the kids that trigger these house hunting freeze-ups. The way an empty house brings on instant off-the-wall insanity and they're moving loud and fast and relentlessly.

It was like that when I looked at my little post-separation apartment with Lila, too. My mellow 22-month-old ran screaming around the hardwoods. The moment we walked out my sweet quiet baby was back.

Could be the kids I'm reacting to, too. Could be the reinvention of my marriage with Sam.

Right now my biggest fear is this big thinking brain of mine with its fat-mouth ego could have an agenda totally at odds with the rest of me. The whole of me. And if I'm not careful I'll make a wrong turn back into oblivion.

After 10 years of marriage and another two of separation, it seems like this whole stay-or-go thing should be clear. Especially since I've agreed to stay.

My brain says nobody loves you like he does, baby. And nobody will ever love your kids that way either. When I'm quiet I can hear my soul whisper in agreement.

So why is it that my shoulder is rock-knotted and I can't turn my head?

A year ago I was on my way out the door, ready to end a relationship that had deteriorated into more of a roommate situation than a happy marriage.

A year ago I was, shall we say, a few pounds lighter. I realized this just the other day when I could no longer ignore how tight my clothes were feeling lately. I worked up the courage to weigh myself and yep...I had packed on 20 pounds.

I guess I could see this coming. My work schedule has been really hectic so I can't make it to the gym as much as I would like, but 20 pounds? Yikes! I already needed to lose a little, but now I have to lose a few — plus 20. That's no fun.

It was a big wakeup call. I don't take care of myself like I should, or at least I haven't been in this last year since I made the attempt to leave my husband and then wound up staying. Maybe I'm sabotaging myself, or maybe I just don't think I'm worth the effort anymore.

By the way, in case you're wondering, yes...I do analyze everything.

There's a theory that people gain weight intentionally — yet subconsciously — because they are trying to distance themselves from other people. I guess this makes sense. I stayed, but we certainly aren't as close as we once were. I still think about leaving every day. Maybe my weight gain is my subconscious effort to distance myself further from him. Maybe I'm trying to make him leave me.

Or maybe I just need to go the gym more.

I've written about Rob's proclivity for binge drinking and playing computer games when I'm out with friends or away for the weekend. It's both a cry for attention, and my punishment for leaving him alone.

That he does it when I leave belies a fear of abandonment, which is sad, but after trying to help him for years to no avail, I can't support this unhealthy response to his problems much longer.

And the pattern has taken a dark turn. Rob recently binged to the point of terrible sickness. Looking back, we realize he had poisoned himself and needed medical attention.

I was away for only a few hours, during which he drank heavily. Soon after I returned he was heaving in a strange way. I asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital, and all he could do was sway and try to focus his eyes on me, and say "no" weakly.

We both abided the sickness, waiting out the vomiting. I cringe to think what could have happened, and I wonder why I asked a devastatingly impaired person if the hospital was in order and did not proactively seek help for him myself?

What a complete lack of judgment on my part. Our marriage may be on the rocks, back and forth one way to the other as we try decide our ultimate path, but hopefully in the meantime we can commit to better health and safety for him and for me. Starting immediately.

I had a pretty bad case of the so-called baby blues after my son was born. My daughter wasn't even 2 years old yet, my husband's work schedule had him going out of town quite a bit, and I didn't get much help at all, since both our families live in other states. From what I've heard, my mom dealt with post-partum depression to the point where she felt suicidal, so I knew that when I started to have the feelings of depression it was no joke. I figured I better tell my husband and we could figure out a solution together.

"I think I have some post-partum depression," I told him.

"Oh yeah?" he asked.

I didn't think he was getting it, so I let him in on an embarrassing fact. "Sometimes I fantasize about getting into a car accident just so I can spend some time in a hospital recovering. Maybe then I could get some rest and a little time to myself, as weird as that may sound."

He gave me a concerned look, and we made an appointment with my doctor. She agreed that I had some PPD and we decided together that I would combat it with exercise and wait it out to see if my hormones would stabilize.

The thing is this: After I intimated to my husband that I was so desperate for some time off from the kids that I was hoping for a debilitating injury, he still didn't step up any efforts to help me. I still got up every time the baby cried in the middle of the night. I still woke up every morning with the kids. My husband didn't offer to take the kids so I could get a nap once in a while. He never jumped in and took over some chores. In other words, the only thing that changed was that I had an actual diagnosis.

I eventually bounced back from my depression, but my marriage took a huge hit. It really opened my eyes as to what my husband assumed my role was, as well as his. I felt more alone during that time of my life than any other, and it shouldn't have been that way.

When I finally bottomed out on feeling crappy last week, I came back around to the same old thing I've always known. It's time to take care of myself and take responsibility for my outlook.

If I see it getting better, it gets better. If I see it getting worse, it gets worse.

When I take care of myself, my outlook improves, my attitude improves, my energy improves, my parenting improves, my work improves, my income improves.

So this week, I'm recommitted to the gym, been there three days in a row and I know the everyday thing won't last, but as long as I keep going, I'll keep going.

I'm eating three meals a day, drinking lots of water and trying to sleep normal hours.

Sounds like basic stuff, huh? Eating meals seems so simple it's hardly worth mentioning, until I realize I'm not eating regularly. It's that spiral where I make my kids a hot breakfast with sides of juice and fruit, eat the unwanted PB&J crusts while packing their lunches and call it good.

Darkness, depression, bad relationships: They're all the same that way — hard to see the depth of it for what it is when you're in it.

If you'll excuse me, please, I'm off to the gym for my date with the elliptical.

I thought I knew what I was doing here. "Here" meaning here in my life, not here on this blog. Though they feel like one in the same these days and I just want to strip myself all the way to honest.

The closer I come to reconstructing my relationship with Sam, the further I want to run from it. He's been doing almost everything right these days, comes to my rescue anytime I call.

Paid my Internet bill last weekend when the WiFi was disconnected, even though he can't pay his own bills this month. And I let him. And I hate myself for it.

Took care of me and my 102 degree fever on his birthday when I'd been sick and broke all week. I showed up at his house with nothing, didn't have a dollar to buy him a card or the strength to make one.

Next morning he gave me flowers for Roxie's birthday, like he does. Always gives me a gift on the girls' birthdays. I couldn't get out of bed that day, but it was only half flu — the other half equal parts depression and self-loathing.

When I finally fully awakened, all I really wanted was to go home. When I got home all I really wanted was to go back to his house. Followed that misguided instinct right back across town.

Just keep circling round, restless and running on a fuel tank of indecision. Thing is, my decision's made, been made for years, and I keep refusing it. I just keep trying to one day wake up content.