Anger

I spit anger every time I open my mouth. I hate that I can't talk about anything without feeling like I'm spitting bottles of liquid fire. Tonight at dinner we were talking about church. A safe topic, a source of hope and peace typically. But we were talking about the lacking skill of our student pastor's ability to "care for his flock" so to speak. I bitched about the fact that not once, not once has he asked or said "I hope you are ok. Let me know if there is anything I can do." Not once. And I feel slighted, pissed.

Yes, yes I know. I have definitely given off a "don't ask. don't tell." vibe. I get it. I do. so then why am I so angry. Why can I turn so angry all of a sudden. It's like this tsunami of demons approaching me. I see it. I hear it. I feel it. And yet I'm helpless to stop. I do the self-talk, "it's not real" "you are ok" "it's ok" "this is normal" "this too shall pass" "just one foot in front of the other". All of it and it does nothing. The demons laugh and devour the words as fast as I can spill them out.

I'm exhausted. I feel like this freak in the corner that hasn't washed her hair in 3 months. My face covered in dirt from neglect. People try so hard to understand and I so love them for that. But I feel like a freak every time I open my mouth. All I'm going to do is be angry and I'm so tired of being angry. All I'm going to do is be self-involved and I'm so tired of being focused on me. truly, so tired of it.

so I write. hoping to find a way.

this all began again spending yesterday evening with the social worker and my ex. Having to talk about us, what happened, hearing about him moving on so easily. Part of me is happy and ok with it. But part of me isn't. Why does he even tell me? He is visiting her for Easter. It was my weekend any way and Easter isn't a holiday for him. It's good. I'm going home to LA the following week. It's fair. He bought her Corinthian bells for her birthday. It's sweet. It's nice. It's thoughtful. And the money that was meant for our mutual tax debt is slowly being eaten away by these purchases. Meanwhile, we could have put more to the tax debt and maybe just maybe I could have gotten some form of a return this year. Something that would benefit me. But not likely.

hearing the last 4 months summarized in 15 minutes was hard. I feel the guilt again and then I wonder why. There was a time when I should have felt guilty. Guilty for what I'm not sure. Guilty for hurting someone who loved me. Guilty for ending a marriage that should have been a friendship. But my sense of how much I was hurting him was off. So now I feel shame that I feel guilty and that I'm still wrapped up in the emotions of this and he isn't. Just fuck.

so all of this rolls around my head. then I'm around other humans and I have nothing but fear and guilt and anger rolled into a ball. this is so hard to get out off. none of my coping mechanisms are working. i'm actually growing tired of peanuts and pepsi. i'm tired of being upset. i'm tired of feeling so much over something that doesn't deserve it.

sigh. so my anger melts into self-loathing and I turn it inward. further proof of me being a failure. this all being my fault. sigh. but it's not. it's not proof. it's not anything but anger over a situation that I never expected. fuck.

Spew

Some days I wish I could just spew out every thought in my brain. But I don't. I'm constantly thinking of protecting others. But yet I don't think about me. Over and over again. Today I am having such a moment but I need advice. I don't know what to do. My ex and I are trying to be ok with each, but the same rules of communicating and not communicating still apply. Today he spoke with our social worker, fairly important no? but he chose not to tell me about the conversation even though I asked if I could call to discuss and he said yes. But then I call and our mutual couple best friends are there and he needs to go, without telling me anything, not one thing about the conversation. I'm pissed. It's a power play. Maybe it's not, I don't know. Regardless, I text him saying that in the future please let me know about conversations related to the adoption of our child and don't treat these as private friend conversations that I have no business knowing. He's pissed and shared with our couple best friends his anger. He's shared a lot of anger with them. And with them, I rarely speak to the husband, he texts me or FB me. The wife and I had dinner and emailed a few times recently. Later tonight we talk, I'm still pissed. If the damn ring tone that I assigned to him didn't scare me I would probably not have answered. We argue. The social worker conversation took 10 seconds to tell me and then he proceeds to say how I don't "make the effort" with the best couple friends.

Sigh. Really? Is this your opinion or the friends' opinions? And why oh why do I have to hear this over and over again? It's this power trip move that makes no sense? Or it's the passive aggressive tendencies of my friends and my ex coming through loud and clear? Or it's the double-sided nature of people? It's inevitable. People take sides. And these people are so like my ex in temperament and nature that how could they not? And here I am stewing. Pissed. Not knowing what to do with the anger.

The core is that I want everyone to get along and for everything to be ok. But it's not. And not everyone gets along. Frankly, not everyone likes me. See I always bring it back to me. Like there is something wrong with ME if someone doesn't like me. That I'M the flawed. That it's MY fault. But it's not. Isn't it? I kid that people were friends with us to be friends with my ex, I was just a part of the package. This divorce has showed me how true that is. How utterly rude people can be and how hurtful people can be without even realizing it? FUCK!!!

Can't we just fast forward 10 years. Please. I'm tired of the roller coaster. I'm tired ok. I'm one human. One flawed human and I've had enough. Ok. Universe. Are you listening to me? I've had enough. This is the direction now and help me move forward with it without looking back. Help me to speak my truth and not be afraid. Help me to know that in the end I will not be alone and that those that truly love me will remain, no matter what.

It all comes back to loss of love doesn't it?

This moment

It's all weird. I am depressed. Yeah like that's big news to anyone. I've been depressed for months now. Some days and weeks more than others! But it's settled into this slow fade, this trickle of sleeping every chance I can get and fading into just feeling these emotions.

Tonight I dropped my son with my ex. It was the first time to see him since he got back. I didn't want to cry. I didn't want to show emotion, because I don't understand really what I'm crying about. Loss. I feel like I have loss everything and indeed I have. It isn't an illusion that I'm losing my marriage, my house, my car, my son 50% of the time, my income, the security of the life I knew. Those are not illusions. That's reality. And to feel that reality is sad.

I feel discombobulated. I knocked slightly on the door of my former house. I mean what are you suppose to do in that situation. I mean I have a key to the house. Shouldn't I just walk in? That's why I did the courtesy knock, right? I mean is there protocol some where. I don't know but it was weird. My son was there in front of his favorite speaker. My ex stood up. I didn't know what to do. So I put on the brave face and I put his clothes back that had been packed, give him the Valentine's Day cards and the radio. He follows me. And then I cry. We both cry. We both hug. My friend. This friend that has hurt me. And I've hurt too.

We both cry. For different reasons probably but the same core. The mourning of our loss of the life we had. The fear of building a new separate life. That we are in this situation. That we are now here. Even though here is exactly where we need to be. He tells me that he is sorry he hurt me. I say nothing or I say "it's ok." isn't it? It kinda has to be. True to my form I am unable to hold a grudge, to stay angry. I am still hurt. He tells me about meeting her and he glows. I'm not jealous, I'm not anything. I just know that I don't want to hear it. I don't want to know. I don't need to know. The boundaries of our separate yet joint lives has begun.

I walk out the door after a bit and realize ... I'm not a mom right now. It's not like when I left the house before. When we are apart we parent as single parents, unless it's an emergency and well then that's different. So I drive off into my first night of singlehood. And I feel lost. I wasn't good at being single in my 20s, why would I be now?

I manage as usual. The mundane tasks of getting dinner. I go to visit my mom at work, to look at the couches. I feel like I'm stuck in house planning mode. This need to nest and protect and create a home. I don't feel single. I don't feel like I can do whatever I want. I'm stuck. I buy a spatula and tongs along with a Hawaiian Punch. Drive to my grandma's to watch Law & Order (good one btw) and then come home. And here I am.

I no longer hang out in the living room like I did for years when I was married. Now I go to my bedroom. This little sanctuary that I feel safe in. It's funny in that I want to buy things for my bedroom - pretty shams, a bed skirt. I want to make it feel like mine. But the rest of the house ... it's still half-packed, nothing put away and it doesn't bother me. Its' different to me that my life has become this bedroom.

But in the safety of it, with my cat curled next to me, I just feel. This will pass. I will move forward but for now I rest in feeling sad and quiet. Knowing that I have told my ex that there is something about his life I don't want to know about. The first of many things I'm sure. But it's weird to think that this person who I shared everything with now has a part of him that I don't know about. And I guess there is a part of me that he doesn't know about either. I laugh though because well guess what, I write. Everything. And he reads. Everything. But to not have to discuss what I've written with him makes me feel the separation. And that's good.

It's safe to be here now. It's where I need to be. Quiet.

What it Means in the End

It's all done. He stopped loving me a long time ago, months ago. Time where we were "working on things" we weren't. Or maybe we were and the other part of us was preparing for the inevitable. I'm shocked. I'm hurt. I'm stupid for not realizing it sooner. And I don't know what to do now. I don't know what to think or even how to process this. It's hurtful and painful.

Here I was being blamed for throwing it away and not working on things when he wasn't either. Does this happen to everyone that goes through a divorce? Is every relationship an illusion until the end? Then you realize that it was a lie for longer than you ever imagined.

He has no guilt. And that is proof that he doesn't love me any more. But it's over and I guess he shouldn't love me any more. So what do I do now? I am swimming in rapids when I thought I was floating in shark-infested waters. Two totally different techniques in surviving.

Survival is what it is in the end, isn't it? I deserve more. I will have more. I just have to keep moving forward. I have to keep swimming. Keep swimming. Just learn the truth. See the truth. This is what it is. There is nothing I can do to change it now. I have no control. The person that I thought I married isn't that person. We have each changed. Or maybe we were always these people. Maybe we always had this relationship. But I will never know. It is what it is and it's really over. And it is so over that 12 years of love can be forgotten in less than 2 months.

Time will tell if yet again the one after is the one for my ex. My history shows that to be the case. But it is more serious than a one night stand. It's more meaningful. Sigh. I'm not jealous. That's not the emotion. I don't even think I'm angry. Or if I'm angry I'm not angry that he has moved on. I am angry that he didn't love me enough to mourn for longer than a few months. 12 years. I mean I wanted this divorce. I pulled the trigger. I pushed the ball over the cliff. And despite all of that I am still mourning the dream of our love. I am mourning the loss of my lover and best friend of 12 years. And now I'm angry that he could discard it so easily.

But that is who we are. When the world is gray to you as it is to my ex I think it taints you. Things don't mean as much. You don't feel as deeply. You don't know the depths of sorrow but you also don't know the ecstasy of love. So connections, changes are easier. You move on. It's quick, simple and relatively easy. But I think those that feel the world need more time. I have felt depression greater than I would wish on my enemy but I have also felt an amazing joy and ecstasy of moments, lovely moments. So when something ends, I mourn for awhile. I question whether love will ever exist again. If indeed life will resume and spring will come.

And there in as simple of terms as I can put it is the difference. The irreconcilable differences that have always existed between us. And it is no surprise that in the end those differences would present themselves again. He said today that I will eventually move on and be able to be friends. I tried to say no that's impossible. I want to be angry forever. I want to hate him for being able to disregard me so easily. But I know that I can't. I can't be angry forever. It's not my way. And right now stupid me wishes that it was. I wish that I could be angry forever. I wish I could hate someone forever. I could hold a grudge and never forget. But I've learned that I'm just not that way. So I will forgive him. I will find love and understanding and peace again. I will figure out how to not be angry. I will realize that just because he can let go and move on so much quicker it doesn't mean that I'm less lovable. It doesn't mean there is something WRONG with ME. And it doesn't mean there is anything wrong with him.

I wonder if I'm the only one in the world one has reacted this way. I doubt it.

Fuck Him

I am so fucking pissed off right now I am spitting nails. I am a fool. Truly a fool I have spent 3 months dealing with the anger and resentment of my soon to be ex-husband. I have been yelled at and told that I am throwing away 12 years. Told that I am neurotic and insane and confused and so many other fucking horrible things and I took it. I took every word. I took every fucking grain of it and I rarely pushed back. I just swallowed it. I didn't argue back. I even spent Christmas with him and his family that has HATED me for 12 years in a trailer park in Florida serving as the baby sitter so they could talk shit about me and our divorce. I took that. Oh and I'm not being paranoid, it happened. I got the play by play of the conversation. I stayed and tried to help him through it, help myself through it. I knew he had a right to be angry. So I was there for him. I listened. I took it over and over again. But the whole time I'm going through it to.... alone. a lot by choice. I didn't have to. I chose to go through it alone. .... I thought we could keep a friendship. This concept of a two-parent family without being married. ... I'm an idiot. Because I have been so disrespected by him and he doesn't give a flying fuck. He doesn't care.

He has spent a week away, fucking some other girl. Not sleeping because he is fucking. And not just fucking some stranger or some sweet girl that he can have a relationship with. No, he's fucking a girl from Canada that his best friend was fucking. They discussed it, his best friend and him and decided it was ok. Oh, and she's married. It's an open marriage so she's not cheating but whatever. I didn't know he was going on a swingers trip.

But you know what is worse, I wrote about this in private mode. I gave the password to 5 people, none of which are close friends with my ex. Why because I didn't want anyone to think badly my ex. I knew this was a private thing. ... yada yada ... and also because we share a few common friends. Some of those people read this. So I wasn't going to out what my ex had done. I thought he might feel shame fucking some stranger 3 days after completing mediation. I thought he might feel I don't know bad that he is fucking someone after basically torturing me and calling me the bitch for 3 months. I thought he might not want everyone one to know. But I was wrong. He has told probably every person that he's talked to and sadly some of these people are mutual friends. What does this make me look like to them? Do you think anyone said ... hey, isn't that a little soon? Or how about we try, wow, I wonder how she will feel about this? No yet again I'm the one that is disrespected and who's emotions are disregarded. Yet again. And this time he made sure that our friends knew about it too. I don't know maybe he wanted the congratulatory pat on the back of having fucked someone so quickly. I doubt he got it. Regardless he didn't think of protecting me. Frankly, he doesn't really care about that any more.

I'm so tired of being nice. Of taking the higher road of thinking of what HE feels, what HE needs, what HE wants. Just fuck it because it doesn't do any good. He will not think of anyone outside of himself in this situation. It's all about him now, well, it was always about him. But I tried to make sure that even though it was inconvenient for him and he didn't really want to be a father any more, well, he still has a son to think about. That we need to be civil for our son. But then again he doesn't even really give a FUCK about him either. I mean 7 days he has been gone now and he calls once to talk to his son. Just once. I guess he was too busy fucking. So now my lovely ex fucking selfish prick of a husband can't bother to help me make OUR son feel comfortable in our house.

You see he is too tired from staying up late and he was going to stay up all night tonight too so the fact that our son is struggling with sleeping in a new place doesn't matter. He'll call me when he's back in Denver. Yeah, fuck that. Don't call. Don't call unless you have my son and it's an emergency. I even suggested that after a week of being gone that maybe he would like to take our son for a few days. No. Not really. He said let's start the visitation cycle. It would give him time to recover. Who cares if he hasn't seen or talked to his little boy. Just so you know, he doesn't see him until Wednesday. So that will basically be about 10 days with 1 moment of contact.

Yet the world sees my ex as the perfect dad, the logical one, the one that makes the good decisions, the kind one, the good one. And me, I'm the neurotic, emotional, confused, fly by the seat of my pants mom. But you know what fuck it, I'm done hiding the way my ex really is.  I'm done.

People have asked me why I didn't react with more venom when I found out the news of my ex's fuck vacation. The comment got my panties in a bunch but you know what they are right. I've allowed myself to become a doormat. And my ex is so used to wiping his feet on me that why stop now. I am too forgiving of those I care about. But fuck him now. Fuck him.

And before anyone thinks that I'm upset about this because I thought there was hope for us reconciling, you're wrong. I'm upset because the man that I spent 12 years of my life with, was FAITHFUL to for 12 years basically threw me away in 3 days. Yet I'm the one that threw our marriage away. And another thing, I know that he has a right to do this, we aren't married any more (well, technically, we are) but if you were a good person, would you do this? And the last thing, I know we joked about this happening. But never in a million years did I think it would come true. But the silver lining, at least he got it over with quick. Yeah, that is a silver lining. The other silver lining, I'm pissed. I'm not a door mat. And I forgot that I wasn't. But I'm not forgetting any more.

First Night

It's weird. I've avoided moving all week but it's time now and there were no more excuses. My son is with his grandma as I have to work tomorrow AM and it's quiet. Nothing is familiar. It doesn't even smell like my house. I had to buy new hand soap today. And make my new queen size bed. Thinking about where I'm going to put the trash can and the cat food. It's all surreal.

I wish I could pinpoint the emotions. I looked at the air conditioning as I watched my first tv show in the new place. I thought, "I'll be here for the summer." That's weird. The summer. That's in the future. Wow. This is real. I filled up my CPAP machine tonight, typically a task the ex would do. It was weird as I decided to store the water in the bedroom here. I didn't have to tell anyone. I realized I didn't have an alarm clock. How was I going to wake up in the morning? Thank God for my iphone. I took a bath because I forgot to by a curtain rod. It was smaller than my tub. I guess this is the new tub now.

I don't think I feel overwhelming sadness. It's more hmmm, ok. I guess this is the way it is now. I remember feeling this way before when I lived briefly on my own. It was a hmmm, ok this is weird feeling. I feel the need to run out and find a new boyfriend to live with me. A distraction. An unneeded distraction. Maybe I should be able to come home and feel "ah, home." I wonder if I'll ever feel that.

It's interesting to me the concept of home. I've never. ...yup, never, settled into a place that I lived. You know unpack the boxes, hang the pictures, make your space reflect you. Never. I do it half ass. Even in my house that we bought and were going to live in forever, I didn't settle. Looking back I wonder if my subconscious was telling me something even then. But for the first time I want to now. I need to now. I need to have a place that is safe. That I can see a reflection of me.

I panicked in looking at a couch today. I panic a lot. I hyper ventilate. I can't make a decision. I'm afraid of making the wrong decision. I know that's normal, fear of making the wrong decision. But since when did buy a couch involve a wrong decision? I used to have and still do have panic attacks at the grocery store. I'm overwhelmed, incapable of deciding what to eat. Even with a list. I think the list is wrong. And I search my brain thinking I had to have forgotten something from the list. I had to have. And I stand there, paralyzed. That's not normal. Perhaps needless to say I didn't buy a couch. I did see two couches I liked under $300. I could probably swing it. But did I buy it no. What if I bought the wrong couch?

I don't have anything to hide behind any more. I am living away from my house that I bought. The illusion is now shattered. And I can't figure out how to buy a couch. So what will I do? I'll go to my friends and say 'hey, help me buy a couch.' They will be there. They will help me not get stuck for too long.

I wrote awhile back that no one ever wants to come in and take over your life when you can't make a decision to save your life. They don't want to get involved when you are depressed and sinking. It's too messy. But I was wrong. People do help you. People do become your think tank. The right people. I've had some right people take over my to-do list, my long-term goal list, my decorating list, my health routine, my eating routine, my packing committee, my moving team. People have saved me from my self. I am grateful. The universe gives you the people that you need at the time that you need them. And that's what I'm thinking about this first night in my queen size bed.

Because although I'm scared and overwhelmed and excited and cautious and healing, I know that there is a group of people whether visible or not who will ensure that I don't drown. I may fling my arms and swallow some sea water but in the end there will be an arm to grab me from the storm.

What a first night.

It's all over now ... baby blue

I have no idea what to say. I knew it was going to happen. Life goes on. The big wheel keeps on turnin'. All of that. I just didn't expect it so fast.

I've been careful to not talk specifics. I want to protect my husband (or well now my ex-husband). But I'm upset. He went away this week on a vacation. The week I am moving from my house to an apartment. The week that has made us "officially" separated. He is enjoying a break skiing and I'm at home, packing, getting my life back in order and trying to remember that indeed I wanted this.

I had begun to spin the tale of our relationship. The gloss over of the main issues, the irreconcilable differences, the fact that we have tried (hard) and failed (miserably). All of that was fading away as I remember the positives of our relationship. I was sad to talk to him from vacation. It's hard this separation from someone that I have spent pretty much every day with for the last 12 years. And it hit me, hard. Not enough to make me doubt the rightness of our decision but enough to make me pause and mourn the lost.

In saying good night to our son tonight we talked briefly. We had joked about him hooking up with someone on this trip. There was a possibility, I knew there would be, he knew there would be. But somehow I thought not yet, it's too soon. I was wrong. I doubt it's love or a long term relationship. I mean who knows, maybe it is. But it is most certainly a fuck. He said we have been separated for a long time. I don't think 3 months is a long time ... do you?

Maybe I'm naive. I am. I admit it. I always think of people long past when they have ceased to think of me. Every major relationship I have had that ended they moved on before I did, even when I was the one who did the break up. Even worse, every one, except one, married the one after me. What does that say about me? What does that say about my ability to hold a relationship? How valuable am I to the men that I've chosen to share my love with? It all makes me feel useless and replaceable. I always think of "When Harry Met Sally." Sally tells Harry with tears in her eyes, "It's not that he didn't want to get married, he didn't want to marry me."

My ex isn't telling me this. I mean I too will have the transition fuck. I'll move on and figure out how to be desirable again. I don't know. I did that so much in my 20s that frankly I don't want to have a meaningless fuck. I don't want to discard someone as if they are irrelevant to me, insignificant to me on the path of life. I've been that insignificant person too many times and I remember the pain of what that feels like.

Sigh. This is hard. Divorce is hard. It's like you don't realize how intertwined you are until you're not. This would all be easier if I didn't still care about my ex-husband, if I hated him. But I don't. I want him to meet a good person. I want him to marry again some day. I want us to create a multi parent family based on love and the connections of friendship and family. But tonight, tonight I'm upset and sad.

It's over. It's truly over.