BENT AND BREAKING, BUT NOT BROKEN

I feel myself getting brittle.  I'm trying really, really hard to keep my head above it, and I've been told over and over that it will get worse before it gets better.  I know it, and I believe it, but I'm not looking forward to it one bit.

I'm facing the inevitable fact that I'm going to lose my house.  The house he said I could "have" if I paid the bills.  Funny.  The house I wanted to fix up and stay in until my knees refuse to let me climb the stairs anymore.  The house my kids call home.  The house I came to curse a few years ago when everything started falling apart and no one was able to afford to fix it up, either monetarily or emotionally.  But I told him one time his apathy of the house was a metaphor for how he felt about me.  He walked away from everything, thinking all he had to do was make the decision and his responsibilities evaporated in a puff of smoke.  Now there's no way, even with child support and a little spousal maintenance, that I will be able to pay for the house and the utilities, and everything else I need, like a car, gas, groceries, pet food, etc.  I will have to move out of the house I want and he doesn't.  I will have to give away my pets that I took in, promising to love them and provide homes for them for the rest of their lives.  This breaks my heart, and hurts even more than losing any house, because everyone knows I am an unfailing animal lover, and I keep my promises.  I can't imagine life without them.  But everything else about my life has been turned upside down and shaken violently, so why should this one thing be sacred?

I will have to declare bankruptcy.  My please-oh-please-soon-to-be ex has taken everything from me, from a secure future to a good credit score.  I don't even care about the future I once thought I had.  I've gladly kicked that dream out and I want to insert a new one.  It's not having a real job and apparently not having any real marketable skills or luck that kills me right now...but nothing more than the thought of losing my furry friends. 

And through all of this, he can take my financial security.  He can take my house.  He can essentially take my pets.  He can take my sense of self worth.  He can take my identity.  But he can't take my SPIRIT, and he can't take my FAITH or my HOPE.

THE FAMILY FAULT LINE

I think my son "gets" what's going on.  By that I mean I think he understands beyond the fact that his dad left, which I've decided I'm grateful for because even though he was out of town when it happened, he knows it was his dad who left us (I stress leaving ME, not THEM).  In a strange sort of vindictive way, I'm glad I'm not the bad guy in this part of the story, though I'm sure the ex would spin it that way.  I'm pretty sure I'm perpetually green, warty, and wearing a black pointy hat in his truly warped memory and mind.  Having caught glimpses of that disjointed, haphazard way of recalling past events during fights the last couple of years, that noncontextual area of his brain is a deep, dark, smelly place.

I started to say that I think my son understands the complexities involved in this deconstruction of our lives.  He seems to have compassion and empathy when something crops up that upsets me, and a strange reluctance when we find that he just needs his dad's help with something.  And even though the last couple of years were spent seriously lacking dad's presence around here (he was home, but never for long), it's even moreso now, and I think he feels it.  Sometimes I have to remind him he can call his dad for help with things.  I'm not sure if it doesn't occur to him, if he just doesn't want his help, or if he's maybe a little angry about the circumstances and just wants to come up with a dad-free solution.  I could be wrong on all those, I know, but that's what occurs to me.  Maybe they talk more than I know?  That wouldn't upset me.  I just wish it was ME who could help HIM more, but I can't really change my skill set, my lack of knowledge of the more manly things of the world, or my puny muscles and uncanny ability to hurt myself just looking at tools.  I'm not so arrogant as to think I know every time the two have had a discussion or placed a phone call.  He was never a terrible dad.  Just absent and mentally removed.  But I know my son and I can see in his face when he knows I'm hurt by something, and I'm pretty sure he can figure out the circumstances on his own.

My daughter, on the other hand, is all sweetness and light and singing and dancing with long, skinny, wavy arms, giggling about everything possible.  Except when she's slamming her door and telling me to stop telling her to do things, but that never lasts very long and secretly makes me happy because it means she'll probably be like me...able to express herself, get it out, and move on instead of stuffing her feelings.  She'll find the hardest part of expression is finding someone who doesn't call that weak and impulsive.  I'm not talking about raging at full volume and slamming vases against the wall (though I think I did that once as a teenager, and probably a couple times as an adult), but being able to raise her voice for a few minutes and actually say the words she's thinking.  Just 30 seconds of nonabusive saying how you feel about something or the way someone is treating you...it's not the end of the world!  And now I'm remembering back in college when a certain someone broke his hand punching a concrete wall, and then in 2003 put two giant holes in the bedroom door by punching and kicking through it--so you see where stuffing your feelings will get you:  A violent explosion of unpredictable force.  But I digress yet again.

I don't know how to make her understand I'm not interested in the "funny" things dad says or does.  He's her dad, I'm her mom, and I want it to be that way in her brain, but I think she's not separating the relationship of "mom and dad" very well.  There's enough divorce in the world for her to understand what it means on the surface, but this is her experience of it, and with everything being so much the same around here, I'm not sure she really and truly grasps that mom and dad are not mom & dad now, and aren't going to be ever again.  I figure the best I can do is the best I can do.  I can try to keep this house in whatever way I can, but in the end it'll come down to dad being the bad guy again and the three of us moving out to only God knows where, probably without the pets everyone currently knows, loves, and gets comfort from.  And that's going to be his fault too.  :)

NOT SO GLEEFUL SONG

The usual Tuesday night ritual of watching Glee with E, and I was totally blindsided and moved to tears by this song.  Posting it makes me feel a bit like a teenager, but there's no way a teenager wrote this song.
___________________________________________________________________
GET IT RIGHT

What have I done?
I wish I could run away from this ship going under
Just trying to help
Hurt everyone else
Now I feel the weight of the world is on my shoulders.

What can you do when your good isn't good enough
And all that you touch tumbles down?
'Cause my best intentions
Keep making a mess of things
I just wanna fix it somehow.
But how many times will it take?
How many times will it take for me
To get it right, to get it right?

Can I start again
with my faith shaken?
'Cause I can't go back and undo this.
I just have to stay
and face my mistakes.
But if I get stronger and wiser, I'll get through this.

What can you do when your good isn't good enough
and all that you touch tumbles down?
'Cause my best intentions
keep making a mess of things.
I just wanna fix it somehow.
But how many times will it take?
How many times will it take for me
to get it right?

So I throw up my fist
Throw a punch in the air
And accept the truth
That sometimes life isn't fair
I'll send out a wish and I'll send out a prayer
And finally someone will see
How much I care.

What can you do when your good isn't good enough
And all that you touch tumbles down?
'Cause my best intentions
Keep making a mess of things
I just wanna fix it somehow.
But how many times will it take?
How many times will it take to get it right,
To get it right?
___________________________________________________________________

That is all.

THANK GOD FOR FAMILY AND FUZZY FLEECE

My brother hugged me today.  I'm pretty sure it was the first time in my adult life, and I'm not sure if it was that or because I haven't been hugged by a man in a long time (don't be gross, he's my brother!), or because I was very upset at the time, but it was really nice.  Part of it was that he was wearing a fuzzy blue fleece half-zip shirt and it was nice and warm on my face.  I know it sounds silly, but these really are things I think about!

I won't go into all the issues behind what was upsetting me so much.  I felt them, I processed them, and while they won't be gone any time soon, I'm ready to file them away for future use, or gloating, whichever comes first.

So I'm going to focus on some realizations I've had recently.

1.  Boy, have I spent the last 20 years suppressing my true self.  There are a couple of things I can point toward for when and why.  I used to be a lot more daring and more...hmm...open?  Free?  Unsuppressed?  I can point to one instance that started it.  My art school had screenless windows and I can remember always leaning out the window trying to touch various shiny rocks stuck in the side of the building.  I kind of pushed it a little more than I should have done, and one day I leaned out really far to try to touch a particularly appealing rock.  I lost my balance and nearly fell out the window but managed to catch myself.  I remember pulling myself back into the room, thinking, "Wow, I am NEVER doing that again."  I can't remember who, but someone had seen what happened and was mirroring the big-eyed look on my face.  So there was the first time I reeled in my spirit.  Then once I had my son I remember driving around with him in the back in the rear-facing carseat, thinking just how vulnerable he is, and it made me feel like the responsibility was all too much and I had to reign everything in completely.  The process was gradual from the time I nearly fell out the window, to when I met my secure, sensible, quiet husband to be, but I totally lost all my drive and LIFE during that time.  It's not all his fault, though I will attribute some of it to him.  Everyone thought he was so reserved, and I always had to agree.  I can't count how many times my friends said they wondered why we were together because we're such opposites.  Guess they were onto something.  So yeah.  I need to get back to the secret me who used to only inhabit me during the time my husband was at work, and make her the real me again.  Because he ain't comin' home now and I don't mind!

2.  During today's altercation, I was actually a little surprised at the ballsiness of his texts.  Where was this guy who didn't know he could stand up for himself all these years?  I never wanted a peacekeeper.  I wanted real emotion and real thoughts and feelings no matter what.  I know he's said to me in the past that I shot him down and belittled him (if a store was out of something I wanted and he couldn't get it, my expression of frustration toward the store was "belittling" to him, somehow.  Or if I made a statement about the bed being made crooked, or something wasn't the way I'd hoped for--It was all misunderstood since he didn't ever want to express himself in any way), but you know what?  Freakin' stand up for yourself!  And what he thought was belittling was just me venting out whatever the frustration was and getting over it.  I'm not like him, never was, and never will be.  I don't suppress every feeling until I can't stand it anymore.  I get it out.  All I ever wanted from anyone was the ability to share emotions and if there was something to say, all he had to do was say it.  I've never, ever told anyone not to say what they think.  So at least maybe now he'll be able to say what he thinks whether I like it or not.  I probably won't, but he'll find out that's ok.

3.  Also regarding the altercation today, maybe a little bit, just a little, is because he's realized unequivocably that I do not want him back.  In the beginning I used to text him, saying I was so sad and so broken and had a weight crushing my chest nightly, etc.  But I stopped.  And I felt better when I stopped.  The reason I stopped was because one night I told him how painful the loneliness was, and how I felt so hopeless and destroyed, and didn't he ever feel it?  He said he knew it was difficult and that this was going to be hard on both of us, but he couldn't give me his heart because it wasn't his to give.  A huge lightbulb shot on above my head and I realized he thought I was saying these things because I wanted him back.  I sat up straight and texted, "I DO NOT WANT YOUR HEART.  I DO NOT WANT YOU BACK.  I'M NOT ASKING FOR YOUR HEART.  I'M TELLING YOU HOW I FEEL."  And that was that.  So maybe he's angry that I'm fine without him?  Angry, but essentially fine.

4.  This one has nothing much to do with anything other than realizing there are things in this world that make me feel good, and I wish I knew a way to turn them into a paying job.  The other day at the clinic I noticed a woman was coughing in one of the rooms so I took her a glass of water and some tissues, and a couple of mints.  It was nothing, really, but what I thought would be nice.  She appreciated it, and I appreciated the feeling of helping someone again.  Fast forward a week to an elderly woman at the end of our pew at church today.  The time came to "shake hands and offer a sign of our peace" (I always just want to flash a peace sign) and she sat still, not reaching for anyone.  I kissed E on the cheek and then turned to the woman.  She almost looked confused, then realized I was going to shake her hand.  I can't even explain it.  She looked sullen at first, but when she smiled at me, I felt like I'd done some fabulous deed, but all I was doing was shaking her hand and saying, "Peace be with you."  It felt extremely important for some reason, and I immediately thought of how great it would be to make people smile like that every day.  If I could get paid for walking around shaking hands, saying, "Peace be with you," I'd do it 24/7!!!

THAT LIMBO LULL

I'm in a patch of sun the last few days.  The sky is cloudy so I know it won't last, but the moment of sun is all that matters.  I'm not feeling the crushing weight descend upon me every evening quite as much as I did.  I get scared moments, but I try to push them aside.  I don't know how long it will last, and I'm sure it will keep cycling for a while, but I suppose the thing to be learned is to enjoy the better days when they're here.  I'd like to be able to seize the day instead of freezing up with fear of tomorrow, but I think that is probably a long way, and a secure job with a future, away.  Which is another reason why I think I'm "ok" right now--I've been in limbo so long that the limbo has gotten comfortable. 

I told him again to go file.  I'm not sure what's taking him so long, but I've said before that I have a "rip off the Band-Aid" philosophy to life and its troubles, so stop picking the edges and rip it already!  That was actually something we always butted heads over our entire marriage.  I jump in the water and feel around, making calculations and reconfiguring my course once I'm in there.  He always wanted to sit back, observe the waters, send a sample off for testing first, and wait so long before making a decision that the tide went out and it was too late.   I'm not saying I didn't write up a PRO and CON list or agonize over some details because I definitely did and do (should be obvious by now!), but I think quick, instinctual decisions can be good.

EDIT

Hmm.  I wrote my last post about the car and decided I should probably delete it.  Actually, if I was really shrewd (which I'm not), I'd probably delete this entire blog.  I'm badmouthing him in a way, I suppose.  I guess if someone wanted to be really picky, they could say I'm publicly ridiculing him.  I figure I would be completely beside myself if I found out he was publicly blogging about me (not that I'm doing anything wrong). I guess what I need to do is turn things inward again instead of just moaning about what he's done or is saying or doing.  I can't get sued for saying how I feel, but I suppose I could for some of the other stuff I've said.  Although how you get sued for telling the truth, I do not know.  But whatever.  Suffice it to say I was angry as hell and I got my feelings out as quickly as I could, and I probably shouldn't have.