He used to tell me that we have taken the "D" word right out of our marriage. That "D" word being DIVORCE. When my friends would have marital problems I would tell them about our solution to remove divorce from the equation entirely and then you are forced to work things out. You can imagine my disbelief when the D word made its way not only into my marriage but into my life.
When you have been told something for years and you believe it with everything that you are, it's absolutely devastating to then one day watch it slip away from you. When I questioned him about his rule to take the D word out of a marriage he told me, "Things change." Yes, things change. Things like the weather, the leaves on a tree in Fall, our bodies after 12 years of marriage, our financial stability, the tide from day to night, your career....yes, things do change but THIS!!!! I didn't realize we were in need of such a big change??
Betrayed doesn't even begin to describe the way I feel about this whole situation. Betrayed doesn't have enough letters or syllables or oomph to even put a finger on just how awful it is to be told that your husband is in love with someone else. I feel like my whole marriage was a lie.
Everyone keeps telling me it will get better. And that's great! But when? When will it get better? And how do I deal with the right now when it's not better? No one is telling me how I am supposed to get through this crap of feeling like shit everysinglefuckingdayoftheweek. No one is telling me how to cope with being completely blindsided and then constantly having this affair thrown into my face and suffocating me until I am choking and gagging. I realize that someday it will be better. I realize the people telling me this probably have no idea what else to say to me at this point. I realize that those words are fillers for a whole slew of people who have no idea what it's like to go through this or know what it's like but have come through it and see the light. I want to know how I am supposed to handle the right now. The this minute. I want to know how I am supposed to believe anything anyone says to me when he was telling me shit for years and obviously it meant nothing. He watched as his family members behaved in the exact same way that he behaved and he would say, "That's not going to be us. Those poor kids have to go through that." Then he did just what he was lamenting about not ever doing! Who does that?
Who fucking does that? Apparently he does.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The Five Stages
One of the requirements to get divorced in Florida is to take an online parenting class. Apparently, some big whig in some big office somewhere thinks divorcing couples will benefit from a "four hour", $40 class that you can basically skim through in about 45 minutes. What I didn't need to learn about how to co-parent the class made up for in talking about how adults handle the divorce.
What I found most fitting to my situation was the Five Stages of Grief. Much like how I had talked about the other day that this divorce feels like a death, people who are divorcing often grieve the same way someone would who has lost a loved one. I guess I am normal in the way I am dealing with this. I have gone through the first three stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining and I am stuck on the fourth: Depression and I haven't even gotten close to reaching the fifth: Acceptance.
The first stage is Denial. I was in denial for several months and sometimes I still feel like I am in denial. The course said that it is ok to be going through a couple of the grief stages at the same time so, again, I am normal. When I first found out that he wanted to get divorced and that he was "in love" with someone else I kept thinking that it wasn't true. I thought that he was just confused or upset with me and he needed to cool off and he'd come back. My friend kept telling me that I needed to realize that he wasn't coming back and I would say to her, "I just can't believe this is happening." She would tell me that I had to believe it. But I couldn't. None of it seemed real to me because I was so invested in my marriage that I never thought he would do anything remotely close to what he did. As I tried to sort out all these feeling I had I eventually found myself moving into the next phase of grief which is Anger.
Once the reality of him not coming back home settled in I got pissed. How could he do this to us? How could he just walk out on his family for someone else? How could he look into the face of his little girls and say that they aren't important enough to be with and just take off leaving us alone? I felt an enormous amount of guilt which triggered my anger even more. I'd scream at him so loud while standing in my garage that I was sure the neighbors were going to call the police on me. I was enraged at the sight of him because all I could think about was what he was doing with some other woman. He was sharing things with another person that he should be sharing with me. He couldn't resist the temptation and instead acted upon his weakness and in doing so destroyed a wonderful family. So, while I had all this anger I'd see him and stage three Bargaining would happen. Or what I like to call "Being Pathetic".
I think I have been pathetic more than any other thing during this whole process. If I wasn't bargaining with him, then I was bargaining with God, myself, deceased relatives, anyone that I could think of that could help me get through the most horrible time in my life. The "What if's" played out in my head constantly. I still think that what if I had been a better wife? What if I didn't work nights? What if I listened more or talked less? ...would he had stayed. Then there are the "If Only's". These ones fuck me up all the time when they start rummaging through my head. If Only I had given him more sex. If only I had lost more weight? If only I had seen the lapse in communication and tackled it instead of withdrawing into myself and succumbing to my own issues. There were days he'd come to the house and I'd beg him to come back. I'd cry so heavily that I'd feel like I was going to be physically ill. "I will do anything." I'd tell him. "Anything. Just please give me another chance. I promise I will make it better." Make what better I have no idea. But, whatever it was that took him away, I was willing to mend to bring him back. I would have done anything too. I would have bargained for whatever he wanted to have him back with me. It didn't work. I am still alone. He is there in his condo and I am here in our bed, alone.
So, now I've reached stage four Depression. I recognize that I am depressed. I look at myself in the mirror every day and I feel like I am a walking blob. Some days I feel like if someone would just give me a hug, I'd feel better. And, most days the Marble's are there to hug on me and it's comforting but a hug from your child and a hug from your spouse are two entirely different things and when one type of hug is missing you search it out in other people. I go into work and hope that someone will hug me there. I see my friends and hope that they will hug me. Then I wonder if I am holding onto that hug for longer than I should. Some days, i want to hug someone and never let go. I want them to just pick me up and move me like six months into the future so I don't have to go through this anymore. The depression is awful. It consumes every part of who I am and makes me completely miserable. I worry that because he left me that my friends will tire of me and leave me too. I worry that I am too much to handle right now and if the person who I thought would stand by me for better or worse would leave me then why wouldn't my friends just leave me too.
The depression is noticeable at work. People ask me why I am so quiet yet I still can't say it out loud without crying. I can't say that I'm getting divorced because i will break down. So I just say that I'm tired as I am fighting back tears. I was asked today what diet I am on because I look like I'm losing more weight. It's the Depression Diet. The diet that I hope no one ever has to go on. I am stuck in this stage and I can't move from it. It actually feels like this is my normal right now. Feeling like shit is the new normal for me. I can't see myself being happy if all these changes are going to happen. I see myself being stuck in this depression for quite some time so being able to move onto the fifth step is nearly impossible to even think about right now. That fifth step being Acceptance. I haven't even really accepted that I am getting divorced let alone accept anything else that comes along with it. At some point maybe I can write a blog post about Acceptance and how I finally reached that milestone. Until then, the weight on my chest remains. The tears in my eyes keep coming down and the ache in my heart is profound.
What I found most fitting to my situation was the Five Stages of Grief. Much like how I had talked about the other day that this divorce feels like a death, people who are divorcing often grieve the same way someone would who has lost a loved one. I guess I am normal in the way I am dealing with this. I have gone through the first three stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining and I am stuck on the fourth: Depression and I haven't even gotten close to reaching the fifth: Acceptance.
The first stage is Denial. I was in denial for several months and sometimes I still feel like I am in denial. The course said that it is ok to be going through a couple of the grief stages at the same time so, again, I am normal. When I first found out that he wanted to get divorced and that he was "in love" with someone else I kept thinking that it wasn't true. I thought that he was just confused or upset with me and he needed to cool off and he'd come back. My friend kept telling me that I needed to realize that he wasn't coming back and I would say to her, "I just can't believe this is happening." She would tell me that I had to believe it. But I couldn't. None of it seemed real to me because I was so invested in my marriage that I never thought he would do anything remotely close to what he did. As I tried to sort out all these feeling I had I eventually found myself moving into the next phase of grief which is Anger.
Once the reality of him not coming back home settled in I got pissed. How could he do this to us? How could he just walk out on his family for someone else? How could he look into the face of his little girls and say that they aren't important enough to be with and just take off leaving us alone? I felt an enormous amount of guilt which triggered my anger even more. I'd scream at him so loud while standing in my garage that I was sure the neighbors were going to call the police on me. I was enraged at the sight of him because all I could think about was what he was doing with some other woman. He was sharing things with another person that he should be sharing with me. He couldn't resist the temptation and instead acted upon his weakness and in doing so destroyed a wonderful family. So, while I had all this anger I'd see him and stage three Bargaining would happen. Or what I like to call "Being Pathetic".
I think I have been pathetic more than any other thing during this whole process. If I wasn't bargaining with him, then I was bargaining with God, myself, deceased relatives, anyone that I could think of that could help me get through the most horrible time in my life. The "What if's" played out in my head constantly. I still think that what if I had been a better wife? What if I didn't work nights? What if I listened more or talked less? ...would he had stayed. Then there are the "If Only's". These ones fuck me up all the time when they start rummaging through my head. If Only I had given him more sex. If only I had lost more weight? If only I had seen the lapse in communication and tackled it instead of withdrawing into myself and succumbing to my own issues. There were days he'd come to the house and I'd beg him to come back. I'd cry so heavily that I'd feel like I was going to be physically ill. "I will do anything." I'd tell him. "Anything. Just please give me another chance. I promise I will make it better." Make what better I have no idea. But, whatever it was that took him away, I was willing to mend to bring him back. I would have done anything too. I would have bargained for whatever he wanted to have him back with me. It didn't work. I am still alone. He is there in his condo and I am here in our bed, alone.
So, now I've reached stage four Depression. I recognize that I am depressed. I look at myself in the mirror every day and I feel like I am a walking blob. Some days I feel like if someone would just give me a hug, I'd feel better. And, most days the Marble's are there to hug on me and it's comforting but a hug from your child and a hug from your spouse are two entirely different things and when one type of hug is missing you search it out in other people. I go into work and hope that someone will hug me there. I see my friends and hope that they will hug me. Then I wonder if I am holding onto that hug for longer than I should. Some days, i want to hug someone and never let go. I want them to just pick me up and move me like six months into the future so I don't have to go through this anymore. The depression is awful. It consumes every part of who I am and makes me completely miserable. I worry that because he left me that my friends will tire of me and leave me too. I worry that I am too much to handle right now and if the person who I thought would stand by me for better or worse would leave me then why wouldn't my friends just leave me too.
The depression is noticeable at work. People ask me why I am so quiet yet I still can't say it out loud without crying. I can't say that I'm getting divorced because i will break down. So I just say that I'm tired as I am fighting back tears. I was asked today what diet I am on because I look like I'm losing more weight. It's the Depression Diet. The diet that I hope no one ever has to go on. I am stuck in this stage and I can't move from it. It actually feels like this is my normal right now. Feeling like shit is the new normal for me. I can't see myself being happy if all these changes are going to happen. I see myself being stuck in this depression for quite some time so being able to move onto the fifth step is nearly impossible to even think about right now. That fifth step being Acceptance. I haven't even really accepted that I am getting divorced let alone accept anything else that comes along with it. At some point maybe I can write a blog post about Acceptance and how I finally reached that milestone. Until then, the weight on my chest remains. The tears in my eyes keep coming down and the ache in my heart is profound.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Brick Wall
The hardest times for me are at night. After I put the Marble's to bed I lay in my room and think about how much there were things still left that I wanted to do in my married life. As a family, we moved to Florida almost six years ago to build a life for our children that we weren't able to provide while living in Michigan. I sat back and watched as he moved up in the company and eventually was given the opportunity to further his education and become part owner which was his ultimate goal. While that was all happening, I worked nights so the Marble's didn't have to be in daycare and it allowed me the ability to be there for them during the day even if that meant I went to their school functions in a zombie state because I had been up all night. The important thing was that I was there.
When the time came that we were able to buy a house I was excited. Even though we hired a realtor, I did all the searching. I knew exactly what I wanted and when the house came on the market that had everything I had wished for we were the first inside to see it and the first to make an offer on it. To me buying a house meant being in Florida was official. We had planted our roots and our Marble's had a home, not just some house we were renting. Buying our own home meant no more moving year after year. It meant we had a little piece of Florida that was ours for us to build memories in that a landlord couldn't take away from us. I was my happiest in my house because we had worked so hard to walk through that front door of a place that was finally ours.
Over the year and half that we lived in the house together we were happy. At least I thought we were happy. Everyone else thought we were happy too. There was a sense of accomplishment that I felt and I thought that he felt it too. We set out to do a series of things and the last one was buying a house and we did it and now it was time to set goals for the next several years of our life. We talked about traveling with the kids to the Grand Canyon or the two of us going to the Caribbean. He would joke that I hated the beach and I would tell him if we went to the beach on a vacation I'd enjoy it. We discussed college for the Marble's and how one day we'd like to live on the water so he could have his boat behind the house and fish off the dock. I wanted those things for us. I saw a future of us babysitting our grandkids and he being just as an amazing grandpa as he was a father. Then suddenly it all came to a screeching halt. It stopped so fast I didn't even have time say "wait, hold on...there's still more to do." It felt like I was running full steam right into a brick wall.
So, now I feel like I am standing at that brick wall just staring at it. I stare at it every day and wonder why it's there. What did I do to deserve it to be in my way? Why won't it crumble so I can move on with the journey that I was on? While I am still standing there staring at it, he has already found a way around it and is swiftly moving forward with the life he found on the other side of that wall.
I constantly think about what's going to happen if the Marble's and I have to leave the security of our house. The one thing I want more than anything is for us to be able to stay here because this is home. The Marble's have moved around way too much and with all that is going on the last thing I want for them is to have to leave the memories and comfort of their house. I feel angry that he left us here without him. I feel sadness when the Marble's say, "Mom, can I sleep on Dad's side of the bed tonight?" Then they pause and correct themselves by saying, "I mean the side you don't sleep on." I tell them they can still call it "Dad's side". Because for 12 years it was his side. That was the side that they laid with him on his chest when they were babies and slept soundly. That was the side that they snuggled up with him at night when they couldn't sleep. That was the side of the bed they knew to go to at night when they were scared and needed comfort. It will always be his side. I still look at that empty spot and think of it as his side.
All the uncertainty and lack of closure is frightening. The not knowing triggers enormous amounts of anxiety and prevents me from sleeping or being able to relax. I just want my normal back. I want that life back that I loved living with the person I loved living it with. But, he changed it for me in a way that I could never be able to go back to and instead I am left to find a new normal by myself without the one person who always held my hand when things got rocky. It's a lonely, depressing place. Sometimes I think standing at that brick wall is safer than trying to see what's on the other side.
When the time came that we were able to buy a house I was excited. Even though we hired a realtor, I did all the searching. I knew exactly what I wanted and when the house came on the market that had everything I had wished for we were the first inside to see it and the first to make an offer on it. To me buying a house meant being in Florida was official. We had planted our roots and our Marble's had a home, not just some house we were renting. Buying our own home meant no more moving year after year. It meant we had a little piece of Florida that was ours for us to build memories in that a landlord couldn't take away from us. I was my happiest in my house because we had worked so hard to walk through that front door of a place that was finally ours.
Over the year and half that we lived in the house together we were happy. At least I thought we were happy. Everyone else thought we were happy too. There was a sense of accomplishment that I felt and I thought that he felt it too. We set out to do a series of things and the last one was buying a house and we did it and now it was time to set goals for the next several years of our life. We talked about traveling with the kids to the Grand Canyon or the two of us going to the Caribbean. He would joke that I hated the beach and I would tell him if we went to the beach on a vacation I'd enjoy it. We discussed college for the Marble's and how one day we'd like to live on the water so he could have his boat behind the house and fish off the dock. I wanted those things for us. I saw a future of us babysitting our grandkids and he being just as an amazing grandpa as he was a father. Then suddenly it all came to a screeching halt. It stopped so fast I didn't even have time say "wait, hold on...there's still more to do." It felt like I was running full steam right into a brick wall.
So, now I feel like I am standing at that brick wall just staring at it. I stare at it every day and wonder why it's there. What did I do to deserve it to be in my way? Why won't it crumble so I can move on with the journey that I was on? While I am still standing there staring at it, he has already found a way around it and is swiftly moving forward with the life he found on the other side of that wall.
I constantly think about what's going to happen if the Marble's and I have to leave the security of our house. The one thing I want more than anything is for us to be able to stay here because this is home. The Marble's have moved around way too much and with all that is going on the last thing I want for them is to have to leave the memories and comfort of their house. I feel angry that he left us here without him. I feel sadness when the Marble's say, "Mom, can I sleep on Dad's side of the bed tonight?" Then they pause and correct themselves by saying, "I mean the side you don't sleep on." I tell them they can still call it "Dad's side". Because for 12 years it was his side. That was the side that they laid with him on his chest when they were babies and slept soundly. That was the side that they snuggled up with him at night when they couldn't sleep. That was the side of the bed they knew to go to at night when they were scared and needed comfort. It will always be his side. I still look at that empty spot and think of it as his side.
All the uncertainty and lack of closure is frightening. The not knowing triggers enormous amounts of anxiety and prevents me from sleeping or being able to relax. I just want my normal back. I want that life back that I loved living with the person I loved living it with. But, he changed it for me in a way that I could never be able to go back to and instead I am left to find a new normal by myself without the one person who always held my hand when things got rocky. It's a lonely, depressing place. Sometimes I think standing at that brick wall is safer than trying to see what's on the other side.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The Beginning
To understand what I have been going through, one must understand where I've been. This situation stretches back several months all of which have consumed me with tears each and every day. I actually can't recall the last time I didn't cry. I had to have been sometime before Thanksgiving of last year. Think it's impossible for someone not to cry for that many months in a row? Well it's not.
It started in November with him telling me he wanted the big D word. He said it and I laughed. I was sitting on the lanai and he was across from me on the wicker couch and he said Divorce and it didn't register. He's just mad at me because I went out the other night. He is stressed out at work. He doesn't want to really get divorced because there is nothing wrong in our marriage. Why would he possibly not want to be married to me anymore? We are the best team?!
That night with my anxiety brimming and oozing out of me, I highjacked his cell phone and found the evidence that knocked me completely off kilter. The photo of a girl on his phone. It was late when I found it and I shook him from his sleep. I asked him to explain the picture to me and he wouldn't. That night started months of lies from a man who never once uttered a single lie about anything to me. When I realized our trust had been compromised I stopped at nothing to try to scoop it all up and put it neatly back together. But, it always fell from my arms.
The night I found the picture on his phone, I took a picture of it on my phone and went to work the next night and stared at the girl in the photo. She looked familiar. She was someone I had met before. But who? It didn't take more than a day to figure it out. When I confronted him it was another lie. And then the lies continued for months after months after months. I don't know if he thought I was really believing his lies and he was really fooling me or if he was just buying time to figure out what his next move was and he didn't really care how bizarre his lies were. Either way, I saw right through it yet I wasn't sure how to handle the information that was coming in. I knew everything about what he was doing, yet I didn't have the strength to admit that what I knew was going to change everything I knew to be normal for the past twelve years.
Finally, after therapy and arguments and tears from both of us thing erupted into an all out war that ended with the love of my life, the world's greatest dad I had ever known grabbing a little gray suitcase and walking out of our home we worked so hard to obtain. And, in his departure he took my heart and ripped it from my chest and so carelessly tossed aside. My feelings meant nothing anymore, though I doubt they meant anything leading up to that point. The affair was in full swing and out in the open and I was left looking around wondering what the fuck just happened.
He blamed me for his actions but I didn't need him to blame me because I was already blaming myself. I still blame myself. I am that woman whose husband runs off with another woman and then wonders what they could have done to kept him at home. I can't even think right now of what I could have done because thinking about any of this causes that old friend Anxiety to creep up and completely consume me to where I can't even muster the strength to get out of bed or it causes me to delve into a cleaning frenzy where I am so zoned out even the Marble's know to just let me have my time on my hands and knees with a Magic Eraser cleaning the tops of the baseboards.
I have been dealing with this now for five months. He has been involved with her for probably longer. I don't ask. I don't want to know. To know the details of his affair will only cause me to more pain. I know some people would want to know everything. I know some people would want every single detail. But, I want to know nothing. He was sneaking around and being secretive about the things he was doing. He was lying about where he was and who he was talking to on his phone. He put a passcode on his phone and changed his email and facebook passwords. All things that indicated to me that there was something going on he didn't want me to know about. So fine, I don't want to know.
Where am I today? The same place I was five months ago when he said Divorce. The same place I was the weekend he left. The same place I was over easter weekend when his girlfriend was here hanging out with my Marble's and our divorce papers weren't even filed yet. The same place I was last night when I had to stand next to him at our Marble's school function and act like there wasn't this huge wedge between us.
Twelve years of marriage can be broken with one person coming back into a persons life and not having the decency to realize the marriage is fragile and back off when asked to do so. Twelve years of happiness with the man who was my everything; my security, my friend, my teammate, my cheerleader can be ripped away from you because he can't resist the temptation and he wasn't strong enough to come to me and figure out how to fix it. In that time, he moved on. He move away from the marriage, the family, the life that we had built in Florida that I was so proud of and left for a fantasy. I can't compete with fantasy. So, I live in reality. And my God this reality sucks. It totally fucking sucks.
It started in November with him telling me he wanted the big D word. He said it and I laughed. I was sitting on the lanai and he was across from me on the wicker couch and he said Divorce and it didn't register. He's just mad at me because I went out the other night. He is stressed out at work. He doesn't want to really get divorced because there is nothing wrong in our marriage. Why would he possibly not want to be married to me anymore? We are the best team?!
That night with my anxiety brimming and oozing out of me, I highjacked his cell phone and found the evidence that knocked me completely off kilter. The photo of a girl on his phone. It was late when I found it and I shook him from his sleep. I asked him to explain the picture to me and he wouldn't. That night started months of lies from a man who never once uttered a single lie about anything to me. When I realized our trust had been compromised I stopped at nothing to try to scoop it all up and put it neatly back together. But, it always fell from my arms.
The night I found the picture on his phone, I took a picture of it on my phone and went to work the next night and stared at the girl in the photo. She looked familiar. She was someone I had met before. But who? It didn't take more than a day to figure it out. When I confronted him it was another lie. And then the lies continued for months after months after months. I don't know if he thought I was really believing his lies and he was really fooling me or if he was just buying time to figure out what his next move was and he didn't really care how bizarre his lies were. Either way, I saw right through it yet I wasn't sure how to handle the information that was coming in. I knew everything about what he was doing, yet I didn't have the strength to admit that what I knew was going to change everything I knew to be normal for the past twelve years.
Finally, after therapy and arguments and tears from both of us thing erupted into an all out war that ended with the love of my life, the world's greatest dad I had ever known grabbing a little gray suitcase and walking out of our home we worked so hard to obtain. And, in his departure he took my heart and ripped it from my chest and so carelessly tossed aside. My feelings meant nothing anymore, though I doubt they meant anything leading up to that point. The affair was in full swing and out in the open and I was left looking around wondering what the fuck just happened.
He blamed me for his actions but I didn't need him to blame me because I was already blaming myself. I still blame myself. I am that woman whose husband runs off with another woman and then wonders what they could have done to kept him at home. I can't even think right now of what I could have done because thinking about any of this causes that old friend Anxiety to creep up and completely consume me to where I can't even muster the strength to get out of bed or it causes me to delve into a cleaning frenzy where I am so zoned out even the Marble's know to just let me have my time on my hands and knees with a Magic Eraser cleaning the tops of the baseboards.
I have been dealing with this now for five months. He has been involved with her for probably longer. I don't ask. I don't want to know. To know the details of his affair will only cause me to more pain. I know some people would want to know everything. I know some people would want every single detail. But, I want to know nothing. He was sneaking around and being secretive about the things he was doing. He was lying about where he was and who he was talking to on his phone. He put a passcode on his phone and changed his email and facebook passwords. All things that indicated to me that there was something going on he didn't want me to know about. So fine, I don't want to know.
Where am I today? The same place I was five months ago when he said Divorce. The same place I was the weekend he left. The same place I was over easter weekend when his girlfriend was here hanging out with my Marble's and our divorce papers weren't even filed yet. The same place I was last night when I had to stand next to him at our Marble's school function and act like there wasn't this huge wedge between us.
Twelve years of marriage can be broken with one person coming back into a persons life and not having the decency to realize the marriage is fragile and back off when asked to do so. Twelve years of happiness with the man who was my everything; my security, my friend, my teammate, my cheerleader can be ripped away from you because he can't resist the temptation and he wasn't strong enough to come to me and figure out how to fix it. In that time, he moved on. He move away from the marriage, the family, the life that we had built in Florida that I was so proud of and left for a fantasy. I can't compete with fantasy. So, I live in reality. And my God this reality sucks. It totally fucking sucks.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Strength
At one point in my life I thought I was strong enough to handle anything. I thought that I had everything I could have ever wanted and then some. Never in my life did I think that I would be writing a blog entry about where my life has taken me these last few months.
I am not even strong enough to write the words. I don't think I have the ability to speak them yet without my eyes welling up with tears. I remain silent when people talk about the great things they have going on in their lives because right now I have found that living among the muck of the earth is where I have been residing.
I am not strong right now. I am not able to do much more than care for my Marbles, go to work, occasionally clean my house and sometimes wash my hair. Things that I once enjoyed, like running, have become meaningless to me. The future that I once looked to the horizon for has been shrouded in darkness. I can't see past the next minute of my life. I can't live one day at a time like people tell me to do, because I feel like I can't breathe for longer than a second. I try to live minute-to-minute. If I can get past this one minute without crying or falling into a daze then I'm good. On to the next minute... and the routine goes on.
Everything has changed for me, yet nothing has changed. I look around my house and it's all the same. Except one huge thing that is missing. It's missing from the house. It's missing from my heart. It's missing from security of the Marble's. It's just gone. And, it left so quickly. I felt the breeze of it whip past me and in a moment it never returned. What I knew to be normal suddenly was not normal anymore. What I felt was love, immediately turned to pain. The change that has come over the course of these past few months has been a change that I can only liken to a death. Only, it's not a death. It's very much alive and each day something new happens, or is revealed, or changes and I am reminded that death might have been easier than this. At least in a death, you have closure. The why's are usually answered and the huge gaping hole that has been left in your heart fills with warm, vivid memories that you can carry with you where ever you go. But not this. This grief I carry is not filled with anything more than betrayal and gut retching sadness. A sadness that you can physically feel in your stomach, in your head and in your chest.
I sometimes sit on my lanai and stare down the street hoping that I will see something that will bring me peace. There is only one thing that I want to see -the headlights on a red truck coming home. But, I don't see them. So, I walk inside my house where I once felt the most happiness and I fall into my empty bed and I pray that tonight will be the night that I will be able to fall asleep without tears stinging my eyes. It doesn't happen. I medicate. It's all I have right now. It's the only thing that will give me the rest that I fight each night because I don't want to wake up to the same pain that I will be falling asleep to.
I am alone. It's what I asked for I suppose. I uttered the words a lot over the course of 2011 because I was dealing with too many things at once and I thought that being alone and dealing with it silently would somehow remedy the problem. But, it didn't. Instead it only made things worse. I had shit going on at work. I had a the sickness of my grandma, the drama with my father that accompanied that and then my grandma's passing which hit me harder than I thought it was going to. I was still battling my weight issues and body issues. I was working a night shift that was grueling and stressful and developed a black heart that made me oblivious to what others were feeling around me. I just wanted to be alone. Well, here I am. Alone. I never noticed just how quiet "alone" is.
People tell me I need to be strong. At this point, I am not sure I even know what that means. I feel like I have collapsed and I have no desire to pull myself up. It feels like lying there helpless is easier than trying to muster the strength to get up and face this head on. Maybe if I try to say the words it will seem more real because I found that I can't say it. I feel like if I say it out loud that it's really going to happen even though it's already happening.
I'm getting divorced.
I am not even strong enough to write the words. I don't think I have the ability to speak them yet without my eyes welling up with tears. I remain silent when people talk about the great things they have going on in their lives because right now I have found that living among the muck of the earth is where I have been residing.
I am not strong right now. I am not able to do much more than care for my Marbles, go to work, occasionally clean my house and sometimes wash my hair. Things that I once enjoyed, like running, have become meaningless to me. The future that I once looked to the horizon for has been shrouded in darkness. I can't see past the next minute of my life. I can't live one day at a time like people tell me to do, because I feel like I can't breathe for longer than a second. I try to live minute-to-minute. If I can get past this one minute without crying or falling into a daze then I'm good. On to the next minute... and the routine goes on.
Everything has changed for me, yet nothing has changed. I look around my house and it's all the same. Except one huge thing that is missing. It's missing from the house. It's missing from my heart. It's missing from security of the Marble's. It's just gone. And, it left so quickly. I felt the breeze of it whip past me and in a moment it never returned. What I knew to be normal suddenly was not normal anymore. What I felt was love, immediately turned to pain. The change that has come over the course of these past few months has been a change that I can only liken to a death. Only, it's not a death. It's very much alive and each day something new happens, or is revealed, or changes and I am reminded that death might have been easier than this. At least in a death, you have closure. The why's are usually answered and the huge gaping hole that has been left in your heart fills with warm, vivid memories that you can carry with you where ever you go. But not this. This grief I carry is not filled with anything more than betrayal and gut retching sadness. A sadness that you can physically feel in your stomach, in your head and in your chest.
I sometimes sit on my lanai and stare down the street hoping that I will see something that will bring me peace. There is only one thing that I want to see -the headlights on a red truck coming home. But, I don't see them. So, I walk inside my house where I once felt the most happiness and I fall into my empty bed and I pray that tonight will be the night that I will be able to fall asleep without tears stinging my eyes. It doesn't happen. I medicate. It's all I have right now. It's the only thing that will give me the rest that I fight each night because I don't want to wake up to the same pain that I will be falling asleep to.
I am alone. It's what I asked for I suppose. I uttered the words a lot over the course of 2011 because I was dealing with too many things at once and I thought that being alone and dealing with it silently would somehow remedy the problem. But, it didn't. Instead it only made things worse. I had shit going on at work. I had a the sickness of my grandma, the drama with my father that accompanied that and then my grandma's passing which hit me harder than I thought it was going to. I was still battling my weight issues and body issues. I was working a night shift that was grueling and stressful and developed a black heart that made me oblivious to what others were feeling around me. I just wanted to be alone. Well, here I am. Alone. I never noticed just how quiet "alone" is.
People tell me I need to be strong. At this point, I am not sure I even know what that means. I feel like I have collapsed and I have no desire to pull myself up. It feels like lying there helpless is easier than trying to muster the strength to get up and face this head on. Maybe if I try to say the words it will seem more real because I found that I can't say it. I feel like if I say it out loud that it's really going to happen even though it's already happening.
I'm getting divorced.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)