School's starting in a week

I jump up at 6:06 am on the button, anxious as a cat landing on both feet at a run.  I don't know why except its the in between babysitter coverage time and I am trying to set up my new sitter and hoping no sitter for a couple of days will be okay.  He hasnt paid for childcare in two months, one more month to go at this rate..and I'm not sure what to do.  Kids needed new backpacks, clothes.  My house needs attention fast.

I no longer can laugh off not having a workable stove, I need one really fast.  My trees need to come down and I cant afford to put up the rest of the replacement trees that the Town tells me I have to.  Meanwhile, my neighbor's husband just leased her a new car; my friends just came back from a "fabulous cruise"...  Wah wah wah.

I don't know who that bully is anymore.  The one who had a week to spend with the kids during which the weather was gorgeous- and kept them in his apartment for the bulk of it.  He is still angry and crazy-making; passive aggressive in refusing to answer the simplest questions or agreeing to the simplest requests, while demanding those things which are his "rights as a father", without regard to the wishes of his kids.  Trying to steer towards some sense of normalcy, and some days, I just can't.

I wanted my time to take the kids out to celebrate my sons confirmation,  and sent him that email a couple of weeks ago.  No response, and if I want to invite people for that day I have to do it soon. So I send a hopefully "friendly" email "just to confirm its okay" and get this response:

"Dont automatically assume its ok with me... Its not your Sacriment"

Okay, so does the fool not realize that:

1). I have been the one taking our kids to church these last few years to his TWO times; as well as talking to them about what the services meant, what needed to be done to meet the confirmation sacrament requirements?

2) That MARRIAGE, in the Catholic Church, is a sacrament too whereas adultery is viewed as a sin?

3) That the word is spelled, "S-A-C-R-A-M-E-N-T"?  If you are going to try to treat me as a spiritual outcast, at least spell it correctly.

I sent my attorney another email yesterday with double trepidation and fear; because she hasnt responded to my two other emails of whether she finally filed (apparently hadn't these past three months??) and if I am finally able to get childcare from him in the summer because he decided that I'm not entitled to it, despite what the stipulation agreement says. And because I guess, I still have fear at what this means, what he might do, what will happen to me and the kids.  Its a heavy, heavy load to bear and I feel like it's crushing.

I would love to find a partner who could lift my burden, if only to be the partner that I would like to be in return.  It is so much easier with two than one, even when that one was crazy apparently (was he always so crazy? I wonder that everyday now...did I miss something over the past 28 years?).  Yet I wait, for a piece of paper it feels like the world is avante garde about- but it matters to me.  I feel myself reverting to that immature state; I want my mama, for real, I really miss her.  I want it to be easier again, and to not have someone in the world out there HATING who I am, to their very core. Its kind of scary, to know that- esecially when it is my husband (a term that is only on paper now, and perhaps in the eyes of God) of 24 years. Soon to be not.  And that is good, I know.  Absolutely no lamenting about that, because I am done..done finally.  But I still carry that fear with me.  Can anyone really get it unless they are in it?

Another milestone

one more night, then the kids come home.  (relief, love, sorrow)

One more day, where I have mastered the art of being single again.

One more night,feeling alone, but not necessarily lonely (compared to what I was before).  Still...

One more life moment, of finding out who I am...and its not all bad (and maybe not all good..but that's okay too).  Letting it go...

I don't know what love is (a la Forrest Gump).  I don't know what a "real" relationship is, or if the path to that dream life of commitment is in the cards for me.  I'd like to think it is but I won't really know. Can anyone?  I do know what I want though:  commitment of trust, caring, kindness, connection based on emotional, intellectual, as well as physical.  Sexual attraction is wonderful and necessary but after a while, you realize, you must be able to have something to say, to communicate as friends..or it falls short.  And to not fall into the habit of taking something special for granted. Ever.

I am pulling things together.  My life, my home, my job, my relationship with the kids...my friends for whom I now try to rally for, as they have rallied for me these past few years.  my kids and their needs, my responsibility to them to be sure they grow to responsible young adults. Stability.

Off the crazy rollercoaster that someone asked I ride. The crying, the drama.  Still waiting for the finality of it,  now I welcome it, with anticipation.  So many years since the beginning of the end.  No contact (pretty much) for almost two years).   Goodbye.

I am special.  I am kind.  I am good.  I am loved.

Its after midnight and i sit in front of the computer screen, in front of the tv...and its okay, albeit wishing I had the company of some cute guy with a great personality and decency (I will admit).

Let there be good karma flow through...  

Uhhhh

Missing my kids.  Really.  Wishing they were home.  Soul feels parblanched; acid boiled because my babies (who are not babies except to me!) are at his apartment for the week. He picked them up, and I had to talk to him again, the asswipe, who acted like nothing was wrong and how he would be so accomodating for whatever the kids needed ("I can pick them up whenever it works for the kids").  He was texting son NOT me to ask when he should pick them up, again clueless that perhaps he should be communicating with their mom.  Btw, I have to work, so I really need to know what time you are picking them up....

So he came and got them yesterday, for which kids spent the day in his apartment playing on their electronics. Kids texted me they were bored.  His gf must have been at work, for otherwise I am sure he would have left it up to her as to what "their" plans would be.  Yechhhh.

 Its yet another challenging, unwanted experience that is stretching me beyond my limits. Feeling empty, I purposefully loaded up my week with work stuff, but now wishing I hadnt. I know what I need to do. Just don't want to do it.

Meditation be damned. Good thoughts be damned. The loneliness is sucking my spirit.


It will get better today, but my waking up without my loves...quite frankly, sucks.

Summer days

The days of my need to write, scribbling furiously with all my strength, stress, fear...seems to be spreading farther and farther apart. And thats a good thing.  Is it desensitization of the shock of what I can now acknowledge and accept has come to pass: the ultimate decimation of my 24, yes TWENTY-FOUR year marriage.  Though, truth be told, at the 20 year mark, he told me our anniversaries meant nothing to him, even as we still celebrated up until our 22nd.  It meant something to me. Still does, truth be told.  And as the death knoll in concert with  the ticking clock in the judge's chambers somewhere in the town of M**** chimes on, I am acutely aware that, yes, we are still married.  No spirit, no relationship. No marital love anymore.  But the commitment still exists and to me, that means something.  And perhaps to God, and my kids as well.

Yet, its okay, strangely, that our lives have moved on... He is planning his next marriage, his next home, his next life.  His Hell (and Heaven) he brings with him..and he is welcome to it.  And I guess,  I am readying to move on too. Though I am trying to respect the laws and closure process that I know is necessary for healthy healing, I am ready now for it to be completely over.  A day I never thought would happen. And yet, the caveat is that I know, at the very least that the tenuous and thready ties that formed over the years are still there. The ties and history of seeing his siblings marry and have kids.  My parents, and his, grow older.  My parents, uncle, cousin all passing to heaven way too soon.  My love for "mom and dad", my in-laws.  My love for the many nieces and nephews, and their kids- all on his side.  It was history in the making, and that can not be erased.  It is not meant to be.  As my therapist once told me, its even okay to still love him- just do it from afar.   Indeed.

Omar Khayyam wrote, "the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.  And not all the words shall cancel half a line, nor all the tears wash out a single word of it." And that is okay, I think.  I even can smile now at the fear and the craziness that may still be roiled up..while setting up as much of my protective boundaries against those who would hurt me.  Against him.  And that too is good.  It is a lesson that was a long time in the making, and at last, I think it is sinking in.  I must nurture myself in the forefront, even as I continue to nurture my babies (soon to be not).

I have my own separate life in the making.  My kids, with my special relationship with them.  My job, fluorishing and validating.  My friends, who feel like family...or at least an authentic support net.  My sister, with whom I am closer than I was before.

And me.  My relationship with myself that I did not know I was missing.  I'm having fun lately, doing stuff I have never done or at least in a long time done.  Playing dress up.  Buying expensive underwear so that I can look hot and sexy.  FOR ME. To not have to ask forgiveness for not meeting the standards of people I felt the need to get approval from (and never really getting).

Complete and unconditional reconciliation with myself.  It is tentative, almost prissy, little baby steps that I take forward...but with each movement, it feels so good.  So right.