Monday, December 9, 2013

One full year...

A year ago today I left my home, my husband, my boys and moved into a small apartment...

I actually started this post about a week ago. Typing that one leading line caused me to go into a sobbing fit so I couldn't post a blog at all. Funny how that happens...

A song came on the radio this morning as I drove to work...I'm driving and singing along and suddenly I'm sobbing...

However, for the most part I'm good, stable, on an even keel. I'm growing and working out when I manage to go and walking and singing with the radio and working on myself spiritually and emotionally...

I had Michael and Sean over for Thanksgiving and it was good. Family and warmth and good food and great conversation. Then we took dessert to Jeremy and Tamara's and had more family and good food. We will repeat this ritual for Christmas.

Life will never be the same. And I've grown OK with this idea.  I still have moments when I miss him desperately, miss my house, my life, my boys...but I am building a new life with a new place for my boys and my boys and I are talking about finding a house and moving in together and that will rock, too. It will bring new challenges, but ones we can handle together. I'm looking forward to this.

My new job is exhausting and fulfilling in a strange way and compelling and moving. I touch people in little ways every single day and that touches my heart. And they touch me, by sharing tiny glimpses of who they are with me. Small joys and heartbreaks. The thing that makes customer service so fulfilling. I still have a LOT to learn at my new job, but I am confident that I will master this job to the best of my ability, given time.

I'm coming out of my cocoon and learning to flex my wings and fly...and that is a very good thing.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

November 19th, 2013: The Day of Divorce


Today obviously made more of an impact on me than it did on him...

I woke up at 7AM and bathed and got ready. I polished my nails and did my makeup. I chose my clothing with care, remembering the care I took getting ready for our marriage. I wore my blue silk blouse and my black jeans with sparkles.

He wore a brown shirt and jeans. His hair wasn't even brushed. As I struggled to fill out last minute papers, he played Bejeweled on his phone.

We pretty much approached life from radically different places and this was a clear example of that dichotomy.

It is finished...We are divorced...

I loved him unflinchingly, unfailingly and completely for 22 years and 11 months, from our first brief kiss at Mr. Gatti's in Austin, Texas.

He hugged me, I touched his face, we walked away. Sadness engulfed me.

~~~~~~~~~~

So, now I build a life for myself...Not that I thought we'd ever be together again & not that I haven't been "building" a life these past 11 months, because I have been...But today I am divorced...no longer married...single...my own person...free to be what I want to be, whatever that turns out to be.

Stand against "To Train Up A Child (In The Way They Should Go)" parenting books!!!!!

Muse Mama

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Silent stillness...


The pool of silence threatens me
Deep and black and still
Beckoning my soul to take a dip
In emotion cold and old
I stand frozen with longing
My heart burning with pain
And then I force myself to turn
To walk away again
Knowing that a better life
Cannot be found therein...

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Life...




Life has a tendency to go on…whether you want it to or not, whether you are ready or not, whether it hurts or not. And my life has gone on…

I have a rhythm…up at 6:30AM, work at 8:15, off at 5:15ish. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday I go to water aerobics…Saturdays I take the soon-to-be-ex the car. The way we are doing the car exchange pretty much guarantees I don’t get to go anywhere on my days off. This is frustrating to me but there seems to be nothing I can do to change it, which is a tad discouraging. 

I met a man at work. We went to coffee and he talked for about an hour and a half…I’m thinking we won’t work as a “dating couple”. 

There were a couple of really trivial things I didn’t like about him (he didn’t brush his hair before coming to coffee, he just put it back in a ponytail all matted on the side; he unbuttoned the top 3 buttons of his button-up shirt, showing his chest hair, which I consider icky, and one thing that really bothered me…He had a great job with the city and because they asked him to learn to use a computer for his inventory, he chose to retire early (from a job he stated he LOVED) rather than learn this new technology. To me that is an indication of a set-in-his-wayness that I don’t think I could handle. And, he down-talked his boys to a degree that made me uncomfortable.

One of my friends said, “Give him another chance, you might be wrong and “anything is better than being alone forever.” I was a tad floored by that comment. To “settle” for whatever because one might be alone indicates a fear of being alone that I do not share. I haven’t minded being alone, per se, although there is much about being in a couple that I miss…So I am not going to date someone simply because the alternative is my own company.

I am a tad spoiled, having been married to a vibrant man 20 years my junior that shared my love of sci-fi and technology. I know this will be an issue for some men my own age…Sigh. Not that he had a “young” body, per se…He was kind of soft and squishy…that isn’t what I desired, it was his essence, his spark, that which called me into passion. I am not sure I will ever experience that level of passion again. That is a thought that makes me a tad sad…but I’m not going to rule it out. It might be out there…Mostly I miss kissing…I miss it very, very much. But most men will not be content with just a kissing relationship…they will want more. And it is this “more” that I’m not sure I am ever going to be able to give again…

Saturday, September 14, 2013

WARNING: Geeky Blog Post


I just rewatched "The End of Time" episodes where Dr Who as David Tenant dies and regenerates to be Matt Smith...and I was just sobbing my guts out because this was OUR show and this was OUR doctor and, like him, our marriage suffered a fatal dose of radiation and it was like a shredding, ripping, wrenching death...but then I started thinking that, like The Doctor, I am regenerating, albeit more slowly than the Doctor...

And, like The Doctor, I don't know what I'll look like/be like on the other side...Allons-y!!!

Monday, September 9, 2013

9 months...


After declaring that I would not be involved in seeking or paying for a divorce I did not want and months of up and down, back and forth, in and out involvement with my husband, things finally came to a head last month...Almost against my will, on Monday, August 12th,  I went to the courthouse with him to seek a divorce waiver to help pay the cost of the divorce. He makes too much money, so I knew that I would have to face the judge and beg, and so I did...crying. The judge decided I made just over the poverty level so I was given a 90 day deferment instead of a waiver. I broke down 3 times just getting the waiver and had a small panic attack while leaving the courthouse.

Then on August 19th, I went alone to the courthouse to file the divorce papers. Although I cried again this time, I managed not to have any level of panic attack. They decreed the final hearing will be November 19th at 10:30AM. After I filed, I fled to the river to pray and cry and scream and journal.

I am continuing to survive. Some days I breeze through. This week has been rather emotional and trembly. There is something so very final about filing papers. That life, that 22 years you lived and loved and shared is so irrevocably gone when you walk out after filing papers. I stood, looking at my river, knowing I will truly never ever be the same again. I am profoundly changed. Profoundly bereft. Profoundly sad. I often feel like an utter failure. Somehow I was "not enough". A deep theme that runs through almost every relationship in my whole life. Humans fail. I fail. We all fail. It is a human condition. But it still hurts beyond belief...

Sunday, July 14, 2013

My daughter, Bethany and I were talking last night...


And we got on the subject of forgiveness and compassion and how we learn them. I told her I wasn't as compassionate in my teens as I am now and I told her that she and her siblings are a lot of the reason why. I taught them as a mother, but oh how they taught me as my children. And here is the email I sent her this morning:

It is only when you experience the absolute trust and love of a child that you love unconditionally, no matter what, that you really come to grasp the essence of GOD. Once you have a child in your life, you can no longer believe in a judgmental, angry, condemning GOD because if GOD is any kind of parent, it's a better parent than we are. And we can be pretty amazing parents.

Parents love and forgive their child of so many small and huge things. It is through this forgiving that I came back to being a Universalist, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is NOTHING you guys could ever do that would make me stop loving you and striving for you and praying for you and wanting you near me. I know parents with children on death row who visit and write and pray and send whatever gifts they are allowed to send. Parental love RARELY ever gives up.

And looking at punishment, my punishing you hurt me as much as it hurt you. I know that GOD could never endlessly torture people for simply "not having right beliefs" because that's simply ludicrous. An all-knowing/all-loving GOD would know the very depth of what a person has been through and would understand the break that leads them to do horrific wrongs. That's why I know that if there is a hell at all, it's redemptive. Like a kiln finishing the clay or a smelter burning off the dross from the gorgeous, precious metal, leaving the purity of soul on the other side. Only that kind of GOD is a parent GOD. All other concepts of judgements unto torture are our own puny minds putting human bitterness and resentment and "he'll get his"-ness onto our concept of GOD.

So that is why I said, you will lead him and he will lead you all and you all will be better, more compassionate people, for it.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

6 months...

I've been on my own for 6 months...half of a year. Wow. I am stunned and awed at this.

I've decided this will be the last monthly update I title by months. I'm no longer going to define my life by how many months I've been on my own, but will simply write blogs as I used to, by subject or thought or whatever catches my fancy at the moment.

When I began this particular blog post, I went in search of an image that seemed like "healing". What does healing look like? I almost chose a heart with band-aids all over it...but then I saw this picture and I thought, this, this is what healing looks like. All waves and curves and color and flowers. 

I still have days where I'm a puddle of goo, when I'm on the floor crying my guts out...but they are fewer and much farther in between. I have come to recognize the path my mind starts down that leads me to that place, and I've gotten better at catching myself as I begin the downward slide. 

It is still often 2 steps forward/1o steps back, but there are definitely steps forward. I still question myself, what I thought, what I believed, what I chose, why I chose it. But that, too, is becoming a lesser preoccupation because I know in my most rational being, that that is an utter waste of time. No matter what one WAS thinking, one cannot now unthink it/unchose it. One can, however, look at it and PERHAPS see things now that one didn't see then, and adjust their thinking in accordance. 

My goal is to paint a life canvas of love and compassion. To learn to trust myself again (if I ever really did). To fill my life with family and friends. And to spend more time in nature, nurturing the very core of my being. 

Thank you to all of you who have stood by me and watched me struggle through this, even those of you who never understood they whys. And for that one or two of you that truly DO understand the why, a special, special thank you. In a relationship where the world didn't understand, you are truly a blessing. 

Ok, then. On with my life. 




Thursday, May 9, 2013

5 months...


Five months ago I moved out of the house and fell into an emotional morass that threatened to engulf me. I've had some bad days...I've had some VERY bad days (the last one being April 17th when I cried for about 10 straight hours, had to leave work early because I totally fell apart, and eventually cried myself to sleep)...I've had some good days, I've had some VERY good days, the one that I think of most recently was Tuesday, May 7th, the first time I've thought that life was good in MONTHS. 

I'm coming through it, I'm surviving, and after survival comes thriving as I grow and adapt to my new life...as I create what I want my life to be on the blank canvas of my new life, starting with a new job that pays better and is a tad less stressful, which I begin on May 16th.

May it only get better...

Saturday, April 13, 2013

4 Months...



I've been on my own for 4 months now. Some things are going swimmingly. Some things are emotionally difficult to the max. Some days I stumble, some days I fall. I always claw my way back up, though, and stagger on. I know this will get easier...I know this with my rational brain. But my heart? My heart thinks I've died most days...

I repeat this litany: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Friday, March 8, 2013

Once upon a time...



I kissed a man...and my life was forever changed...

I had been married twice. I had loved, I thought, much. But this relationship unlocked a side of me I never realized I had. It was volcanic, passionate...It obstructed my ability to see much that I should have seen.

It was long lasting. We've been together 22 years through so much good and bad and pain and joy. And it endured. A volcanic flame of passion that defined me and molded me and focused me. 

Even after "the confession" the passion remained. We separated and the loneliness was so intense, I was sure I'd never survive the rest of my life without him. I cried a lot. I longed to go back, to go home. I thought of all the ways I could have "done/been" more. Different makeup/hair/clothing. More sexual/lose weight/talk more/talk less. On and on the endless litany in my head even though I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that none of those things would have made a smidgen of difference because his passion had waned many years ago. 

And then, the man made a deal with "the woman" in the South...and I was almost consumed with anger. For days the anger burned. For days I could not have looked him in the eyes...

And when the anger left me...I looked around and all I saw was ash. The ash of our life. The ash of my consuming "in love" for him. The ash of my passion. 

I was both bereft, and liberated. Don't get me wrong, I still love my husband and I probably always will. But that being in love passion that drove me for 22 years, didn't survive the inferno. I can look at him now and he's just a person. 

It's hard to explain this unless you've been in a relationship where the passion burned hot and long and always. I couldn't look at him without desiring him. I can now. That is why I am bereft. I feel I've lost the magical something that defined us...

But it's also liberating. Because NOW I can finally be OK with moving on. I can build a life without looking back in longing. Without crying every time we have contact and nothing emotional happens. 

I am free...

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Two months...


It's getting easier to be alone. I've learned to cope with the lack of noise and to create my own noise when I need it. I'm more comfortable in the apartment. I've come to grips with my inner noise, my struggle to understand myself, my relationship and my relational failure. Those are some interestingly intense inner conversations, often journaled out to keep me sane...


I brought home a second kitten to keep my Ms. Kitty company while I work 9 hour days (sometimes 10 hour days). After a life always with MooCow, she was kind of listless, so Maggie has joined our household.


My birthday is this week, and I'm having a gathering, an open house from noon to 9PM so that people I know can wander through on their way to/from places and share a cupcake and some tea. I haven't had a birthday "party" of any kind since I turned 40, and before that not much since I was 21. I picked out a tea party invitation that suited me and I have teacup and teapot cupcake toppers for the cupcakes. I wanted to throw a Tardis themed party, but I couldn't find enough Tardis themed party stuff to do so. I special ordered stamps with teapots on them!!! And they were blue!!! I was so elated! Ahh the little things...

Saturday, January 5, 2013


Four weeks...it's been four weeks. It feels like a lifetime.

The quiet no longer jangles my nerves as much as it did. I play a lot of music and the cat helps.

The apartment is coming along. Most of the big stuff has been figured out and I've combed thrift stores on and offline to supplement the furniture I brought with me so that I create a "homey" feel.

I look back at that picture of my kitchen table in the house that I loved and my heart aches...but I don't live there anymore...that kitchen table sits in a different room now, where I play games with family and friends when they come visit. I rarely eat there. Who wants to sit at a big table alone? Only when family/friends come to visit. Then the kitchen is full of the hustle/bustle of "family" and the table is where we all gather and talk and laugh. I like those times...

The cat is still twitchy. Not "every little noise" anymore and not the growling she did at first (I swear I thought I'd brought a puppy with me and I wish I'd recorded her growling it was so funny), but that every big move I make/every loud noise outside jumpy kind of twitchy. At the house she often slept on my hip, now she ALWAYS sleeps on my hip.

We are getting there, she and I...slowly but surely, whether we want to or not.