JUST ANOTHER DAY

This morning I called the lawyer.  I wasn't able to get an appointment yet, but my call is officially in, and he can't use him because I got there first.  Not that I'm actually winning any contests because of it.   I took down the box in my closet containing my yellowed, yucky, 20-year-old wedding dress.  I always meant to get it cleaned but it was too easy to forget about, so maybe I'll do that and have my mom keep it at her house.  The week after this happened I put my actual gold wedding ring and the white gold version we bought at an antique store into a small black bag for my mom to put in her lock box.  I figured each kid would end up with a ring that way.  When I think of all the "marriage" things I have around here that I have to go through, I get really sad, but I almost feel like I have to do it quickly.  Everything in my house is a physical manifestation of our life together and I have to figure out how to make dissolving it less painful.  I cried a tiny bit this morning when I was just curiously looking for area divorce support groups.  Only a tiny bit.  I felt the weight on my chest sporadically and briefly throughout the day, but I tried moving my treadmill workout to afternoon instead of mid morning so the endorphins would kick in later in the day.  I'm not sure if it helped or not, but it's 6:30 and I haven't felt the crushing weight that has usually had me sobbing from around 5 until 7 every evening.  I don't think I can put off the treadmill until afternoon every day, though.  I don't really enjoy waiting to shower until 5 p.m. 

After the treadmill, around 3:30, he showed up to get the car.  I had just sat down to study a little more, which is causing me trouble because every time I open that binder I get flooded with memories, good and bad.  I had fun there a few times (the middle was kinda crappy but the beginning and the end was fun). It was the last place where my life was still the same back home.  Anyway, he showed up and stood there looking around, seeming a little irritated that I wasn't being friendly.  I didn't want to look at him when he asked me a question.  I tried to focus on my book and my notes. Then when he walked down the stairs he said goodbye and I said nothing, and I felt the tension wafting back up the stairs toward me.  Get over it, buddy. You're not my friend right now.

HUH.

The heavy weight on my chest started early today.  It was the first family get together without him.  I thought at first it would help me to have somewhere to go and someone to be with, but it really just drove home the fact that I'm on my own now. 

So after filling out another online job application, which is so rough because I have to deal with things from my past and dates in the past and typing our last name over and over again, I headed for the bathroom and I ended up just standing there looking in the mirror.  I don't like the baggy-eyed, tired person looking back at me.  She needs sleep.  She needs peace.  She needs to get a grip. 

That being said, the biggest thing I admitted to myself while I looked in that mirror is that I'm at fault too.  I mean, I knew I was, but I have been so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself over having my husband leave me that I didn't really think about it.  I know I took him for granted and took advantage of him.  I've probably unwittingly taken advantage of his job all these years, dropping mine when money problems even out or because I just want to be home with my kids.  I really should have thought ahead and cultivated a career for myself, but I honestly didn't think we'd ever REALLY break up, or that if we did it would probably be my doing.  I should have been more self reliant, or at least more considerate of the fact that he could always be the one to leave me.  Looking back, I probably started worrying and nagging about our future--his need of life insurance and my need of a separate IRA (never happened) outside of the retirement he always said was for both of us--around the time when things really started going especially sour in our marriage a few years ago.  I would wake up at night thinking about it.  I pushed him to at least get SOME life insurance, and now I see his reluctance was probably because he knew he was going to leave me.  I completely and totally nagged him about his weight and apathy about the things he put into his body.  I nagged him about the amount of time he spent at work.  I think I ignored my intuition more than I should have, and maybe that will help me in the future.  If something doesn't seem right, do something about it from all angles, not just the obvious one. And now I have to figure out what to do about realizing I shouldn't have taken him for granted.  I feel kinda bad about that, but it won't change anything, huh?  Huh.

GOOD GRIEF

I started to write last night but I got sidetracked by the pain and started doing something else, and then suddenly I was exhausted and it was 10 p.m.  But I wrote the title above because it kept running through my head-- "good grief"--and the actual meaning of it.  I know it's just a silly expression, but I'll have to look up the origin.  I'm in two minds about it.  On the one hand, grief is painful and awful and lonely and hopeless, so there's nothing good about it.  But on the other hand, grief is something that gets you past the pain eventually.  I truly hope so, at least.  If I was talking to a friend who lost a loved one I would never in a million years tell them to stop dwelling on the grief and move on, so I don't know why I expect myself to stop dwelling on the death of my marriage and move on already.  But it hurts SO bad, and I am SO lonely, and already tired of all of the feelings related to it and I'm praying for a release all the time. 

I know a lot of it needs to be letting go of the bigger picture and trying to concentrate on small things, but that's never been my strong suit.  I want to know what's going on in all areas so my bigger picture makes sense.  I've driven across the country without knowing what hotel I'm stopping at each night, and even that made me incredibly nervous.  I wanted to get out the atlas every morning and find a reasonably sized town to stop in at the end of the day, which also meant knowing just how long to drive each day.  When navigating unending, winding miles in Montana, driving until I'm tired and stopping for the night just anywhere isn't really my cup of tea.  If I know it's 10 hours to Bozeman and it will be 9 p.m. in 10 hours, I'm fine.  So yeah...I'm not really currently one of those "simple joys on the road less traveled" sorts.  Happiness in the little things is great, and choosing alternate paths is great, but actual JOY in the small things?  I need to get back to that.

I've sort of deviated from my main theme, I guess, of whether or not I'm in the stage of experiencing good grief or just excessive self pity and pain, but I guess I've made a little progress in knowing that this isn't going to be as easy as I thought.  It's going to hurt.  A lot.  To risk sounding extremely melodramatic, there are times when I feel like my heart is actually being sucked out of my chest, and I need to put my hands over my heart to stop it.  If I don't check myself the tears well up in no time and I'm sobbing.  I can lie in bed literally writhing from the pain and the uncertainty. And then I tell myself this can't last forever, and that I'll get over it. It's those unknowns that sneak up and get me freaked out every time.

WELLER?

I suppose I feel a little better.  Not great, but better than yesterday.  The period finally showed up, so I think the emotional roller coaster might have leveled out a tiny bit.  Not that I can actually DO anything about it right now.  I took a tiny baby step toward "something for myself" by texting my friend that I would start working some Saturdays where I used to work.  I'd love to tell her I'd take ALL the Saturdays, but then I feel like I ruin Friday night AND Saturday by doing that.  But who am I kidding...I have no life, so what's another ruined Friday night? 

I've been trying to study but my brain is still so scattered and the pages in the manual seem to make so little sense.  I don't know if I'm getting anywhere with it or not.  I tried to find some more sleep labs in the area and I looked at the list 'he' sent me yesterday.  I have to laugh at some of it.  Lafayette and Jasper.  Really?  Would HE drive to Lafayette or Jasper to work?  No, so why would I?  I won't enjoy it, but I would drive an hour at the most, hopefully two days a week or less.  I can't imagine trying to drive that far home after working a 12 hour shift. 

The studying is making me miss a friend I made in Atlanta.   Big, ugly, gloppy, stupid, pitiful, annoying sigh.

A PITY PARTY CAR RANT

All that crap about feeling strong and positive absolutely flew out the window the last few days.  I'm trying, I really am, but sometimes I can feel myself slipping into that void where I'd love nothing more than downing an entire king-sized candy bar and sleeping as much of the day as possible.  I try to cook for my kids but not for myself so I'll be forced to eat salad.  I really don't want to start baking again.  It doesn't help that the weather is frigid and icy, which is exactly how my body feels.  I feel cold from the inside out.  My period is 16 days late and I'm 16 x more emotional.  I sent him a text last night, sarcastically thanking him for his home-and-marriage apathy over the last few years so that he could go stay at party central with his friend's family, with no real household responsibilities and built in company, leaving me alone to take care of everything here.

What's the female version of be emasculated?  I suppose it would be effeminated...so it really doesn't sound all that bad, actually.  Whatever the correct term for it, he forced me to be the one to take care of everything around here, even if sometimes its just the delegation of which kid does what, and he did it all while leaving me no car and no self esteem.  Everybody says I'll feel better once I get a job, but will I?  Will I feel better when I have to cry myself to sleep at night because I'm lonely after a day of working at a job that barely pays me anything, leaving me very little time to do anything with my kids or my deteriorating house, only to wake up the next day and get ready for it again, and probably have to beg a ride there from my estranged husband or my mother because I don't have a car?  I never thought I would care this much about a stupid car, but I do.  I NEED a car.  I NEED to be able to go do something when the mood strikes without having to arrange a ride.  I feel like a child when I have to beg for rides, and a prisoner in my house when I don't.  If he left me and the kids and the pets and the house behind, why does he get my car?

I know I sound awful.  I still have a sense of humor, really, but it's a little dormant right now.  I don't like that feeling because I ALWAYS have a stupid sense of humor and can make a pun or a joke of anything.  When I can't it means I'm depressed, and I don't want that.  I know it will get better.  I do.  But when it doesn't feel like it is or I don't know how it will or when, it's no fun.  Strength, courage, and peace.  Strength, courage, and peace.  String cheese, currants, and peas....

NO MORE COUNTING--JUST A BAD DAY

I cried in front of him today.  I really didn't want to, but once I started I couldn't stop. Circumstances collided to make me feel like I'm a premature member of the Red Hat Society.  I'm hoping my heightened emotion state means there are physical changes afoot, but only time will tell.  However, I'm feeling regional isolation, cut off from people I really want to talk with, like I will never meet someone worthwhile ever again (here), like it's a cruel joke that I was able to feel the easy comfort of being married for almost 20 years and it got ripped out from under me, and a little like things are all done for no reason at all.  I know it sounds cryptic, but I can't elaborate right now.  My brain feels too addled.  I thought I had a decent week, with a few good days there toward the end, but I sort of feel like every good thought was for nothing, and My Life will be spent amongst my pets and their expelled hair and my kids' dirty dishes.  I'm not ready for that.  I know toward the end of my marriage I really wasn't getting out much, but that wasn't my fault.  I'm extremely out of practice on how to behave in society now! Today I'm just feeling very old and sad.  It isn't a constant, but feeling it at all stinks.  It probably doesn't make a lot of sense to say this, but in a riddle-y way I was fine with doing things alone while I had a husband.  Now doing things alone makes me feel ALONE.

DAY 6 FINANCIAL WOES

My thoughts and feelings have run the gammut this week, and I'm ok with that.  They have to.  I'm trying to focus on studying and trying to stay on top of household chores, but I have trouble focusing on the studying.  It's hard to study when you can't remember what you're supposed to be studying and why, and I end up reading and looking up terms/abbreviations I've already forgotten most of the time.  Then I read job postings for polysomnography technicians and trainees (sleep techs) and my heart is in my throat because they want someone who has done a two-year respiratory course or at least 9 months of experience.  I'm caught in that age-old vicious circle:  Everyone wants someone with experience, but how do I get experience if no one will hire me?  So I'm still waiting on the call from the local hospital and hoping for the best, and next week I'll try to branch out and send my letter and resume to a few more places within a small radius.

I balanced my checkbook yesterday and wrote down all the bills I was going to pay.  I honestly, seriously, totally and completely do not understand where my "husband" thinks he will get money for another car and an apartment.  I mean, I may have $700 left over after bills today (which is really a LOT compared to normal), but that's not including gas, groceries, various household things like laundry soap and fabric softener, dance class and costume fees, the upcoming car insurance, and yeah, the makeup I need.  I know that sounds petty and vain, but dammit,  I need eyeliner and foundation and I have sensitive skin and can't just use cheap Cover Girl stuff from Walmart, and I refuse to walk around all splotchy and scarred because I can't afford any.  We have one tube of toothpaste for 3 people and the kids both need new toothbrushes (please tell me, WHEN did toothbrushes get so expensive??).  The car needs a tune up.  We need a new furnace filter.  So you see that the extra $700 is easily dwindled down to maybe $200, and that's not including whatever he will decide he thinks he can afford, like eating out and going to the movies, because that's what he always does.  So really, if that becomes the norm, he may realistically end up with $400 a month.  Unless he's planning to get an apartment and a car in 1972, he's screwed.