Kicked Myself in the Ass

I knew it was time for me to do something because I couldn't linger in my sadness anymore.  I couldn't stand myself and I knew other people couldn't stand me either.  So, along with my list of things that I needed to actively do to get myself going again like settle my divorce, go back to school and exercise there were also many, many mental things that coincided with that list.

I took my usual seat on my lanai one night after the girls had gone to bed in late January and compiled another list:

 things I needed to give up in order to be happy

1.  Excuses - I had an excuse for everything. And, I refused to let go of anything.  I had a reason for hanging on and digging my nails in.  I had an excuse and I was ready to pounce and fight and argue if someone was to challenge me on it.

2.  Doing Nothing - I was basically like a hamster running around in its wheel.  It might have looked like I was doing something but I really was just going around in circles.  It was exhausting.  I had to decide to change my perspective.  Change my mind from negative to positive thinking.  I had to stop being filled with insecurity and doubt.  I had to realize that I needed to take an active part in my life.

3.  Over thinking and Worrying about EVERYTHING - I was good at this.  In fact, I was the best.  My fears had me looking too deep into things, it created problems, it didn't fix them.  I would think and think and think, and thought myself right out of happiness a thousand times over, and never once into it.  Worrying didn't take away tomorrow’s troubles, it took away today’s peace and potential for me.

4. Not Giving the People Around me a Chance - I regret this every day.  I still regret it even after I have had months to learn from all the things I should have been paying attention to months and months ago.  But, when you know better you do better.  I know better now.  I will do better and I have opened my ears and everything that was said was right.

5.  My Pride - “A proud person is always looking down on things and other people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something beautiful that is above you.” CS Lewis.  Or maybe instead of "pride" I could just say "being an absolute bitch".  Either way, I knew I needed to give up my pride.  I wasn't going to be able to stay in my home.  I wasn't going to be able to keep my car.  I wasn't going to be able to maintain the lifestyle I had and oh well. My happiness and The Marbles happiness was more important.  Once I came to that conclusion, I felt lighter and I seemed nicer.

So, I noticed that when I stopped doing all the wrong things I gave the right things a chance to start.  It hasn't been easy and it's something that I have had to be conscious of every day.  But, I also have little reminders here and there that I am doing good.  I take the time to tell myself that I am proud of the accomplishments that I have made.  They might not be big ones, but to me they're huge.

My Marathon

These last few weeks have felt like the end of a marathon.  TGIM and I have communicated effectively on so many levels that it amazes me that we weren't able to do this years ago.  The dynamic that we shared as a married couple to get things done re-emerged with the negotiations of the settlement agreement and it was almost like old times yet we were on opposite teams this time.

It's lonely standing on the sidelines without your Head Coach.  It's hard staring across the field and seeing him standing on the other side with his own game plan and not having a clue what his strategy is but knowing you have to be one step ahead and two steps faster to beat him at the game.  Unfortunately, that is what the end of this divorce turned into was a game of who could out negotiate the other.  If you know me and you know my debating skills, you can bet I won.

However, as He and I went back and forth with four revisions of the Marital Settlement and close to fifteen revisions to the Parenting Plan, I have to admit that neither one of us yelled, cursed, talked over, put down, degraded, argued loudly or fought about what the other wanted.  It was as if we both decided to just lay down our swords.  Me more so than him.

So, when it was all said and done, I finally signed the last of my divorce papers on Friday.  It was the final chapter in this long drawn out process.  The secretary at my lawyers office asked me how I felt about it and I told her I was glad it's over.  I guess I don't really have any more feeling toward it because TGIM and I have been living apart for two years now and it feels like we have been unmarried for that long anyway.  It was just a piece of paper that was legally keeping us married and several financial decisions that needed to be decided.  I guess it was just the decision making process of being on separate teams that struck me as being sad.  But, frankly, the fact that my marriage is over and in just a couple weeks when the judge signs the final judgement and I will no longer be married to him has no positive or negative feelings on me. 

Up until about a week ago I felt that I needed to say a lot of things to both TGIM and C to clean the slate and bring closure to the part of my life where I maybe didn't handle relationships all that well.  I have spent a lot of time over the last several months determining what it is that makes me happy and how I need to apply those things to my life.  I laid the groundwork for how I need to treat myself, my children and other people so I can be a happy, productive person.  I need to show up in my life every day and participate in it in a positive way.  That is something I am fully aware that for many years I never did.  I don't think if I said that I was sorry to TGIM and that I was completely absent for several years of our marriage it would matter because what is done is done. I can't go back and change the past and as much as I would like to know then what I know now, I only can learn from those past experiences and choose not to do them again with anyone else.  Unfortunately, when I met C that realization had not come yet and he didn't quite stand a chance with me.  With him, I wasn't ready to move on in a relationship and I have a lot to say to him about that.  He has let me know that he has no interest in hearing any of what I have to say, and that's fine.  I have made peace with the fact that I was a different person who had some unresolved issues and misdirected anger. I have dealt with those things and will not let them define me anymore.  I don't have to apologize or explain myself anymore to two people whom I loved to complete this process in my life.

I am closing this book.  I putting it on the shelf.  I am never going to read it again.
I am different now.  I am neither defined my by marriage nor my break-ups.  I am stronger because of what I have gone through.  I am divorced.  

The Clearing.....

I was told that I have been carrying a sack of rocks uphill for months now and that I will continue to carry that sack for another six to nine months.  That was a good analogy because the weight of the stress I have been carrying does feel that heavy.  I was also told that there is a light ahead and that I should be able to see it.  And, I can.  It's there.  I'm optimistic I will reach the clearing in fewer than six months and drop the sack of rocks and be free from the burdens that have weighed me down for the past few years.

About two years ago, I wrote here about the five stages of grief.  Divorce takes you through those stages in almost textbook fashion. I came out of the grief a different person.  I was so angry.  I was mean.  I was hostile.  I was ready to fight at the drop of a hat.  I didn't take anyone's feelings into consideration.  I completely blocked off my heart from letting any ounce of compassion out or in.  While doing that I lost the person that I was.  I allowed myself to get involved in situations that weren't beneficial to me.  I was irresponsible at times financially.  I got caught up in relationships that were unproductive and hurtful.  I lost sight of my purpose and my place on this planet.

Then one night about a month ago I was sitting out on my lanai where I do all my thinking and I had this huge realization.  I was sitting on the same spot on the couch that I had sat two years prior staring down the street after He left me hoping His red truck would turn down the road to come home, but it never did.  I was sitting on the same couch where I had cried to my Mom, my sister, Autumn, myself because my life had fallen apart and all I wanted to do was magically put it back together.  And, in that moment I realized that being angry and bitter and sad and upset these last two years has taken me to the same place - that couch.  I was right where I was two years ago.  Only nothing better had happened to me, in fact things had only gotten worse.  My house was now in foreclosure, I had not one failed relationship but two because the person I had started dating didn't work out with either, my divorce was ugly and expensive and deadlocked, my children were living in flux, I was broke, I had no other skills to better my life past the skills I had that day.  So, I just decided I was done.  That was it. 

I wrote down a list of the things that I needed to change.  There were many choices I needed to make, however the one choice that was going to dictate how the rest of that list played out was my choice to be happy.  All along I thought that a house is what made me happy, or money, or a nice car, or a solid marriage, or a boyfriend that took me places.  Then I realized I had lost all of that and I had three girls relying on me to toughen up and figure shit out. 

The next morning I drafted a settlement offer to Him that was fair and that I knew would quickly resolve this divorce.  He and I talked on the phone, minus lawyers, like we had always been able to do and negotiated between each other until we were able to reach a deal that we felt we could bring to the table and discuss with our lawyers and agree to.  Neither one of us came out winning, but in the end I got what I wanted.  I pleaded my case with Him on why I felt I was entitled to the things I was asking for.  I think he finally realized what I was saying and over the many, many years that Him and I were together the one thing we were always able to do was talk and figure shit out.  I wish we could have done that years ago.

Once the settlement was done and getting fine tuned, I contacted Florida Gulf Coast University because it was time for me to go back to college.  It's been time for a while, but I needed to do this.  FGCU gave me some good pointers about their admission process and because I haven't been in school for a long time, they advised me to start at Edison State College and finish up my prereq's before starting back into a degree program.  I am all registered at Edison and I am just waiting on my residency to be approved and my financial aid.  I will go meet with an adviser and next thing you know, I will be a college student!  Exciting!

Also on my list was to make sure I didn't spend another minute moping around in front of my Marble's and what a difference that made.  My demeanor changed a million percent and then their demeanor changed.  The laughter in my house is awesome.  I love being with my girls.  Now, I look forward to being home with them when before, I didn't have the energy to do anything with them.

And finally, I am doing stuff for me.  I have to.  I have neglected myself for far too long.  My hope is that I am going to see someone a year from now and they are going to look at me and remember the sad, miserable, uptight, wrapped around the axle Bridget they once knew and be happy for me that I chose to finally get off the porch and start living again.

Sifting Through the Rubble

Some days I can see the big picture and I know that at some point my life will pan out and things will be ok.  But most days I live in the narrow scope of what my reality is:  financial stress, heart ache from divorce, turmoil of relationships, guilt of motherhood and wondering when busting my ass at work will bring me any sort of success.  I live every day wondering how the fuck I'm going to do this?  How am I going to pay for that?  What are my Marbles or me going to go without this week so I can pay whatever was past due last week?  I realize that this is going to be my life for the long term.  I don't see it getting better any time soon.  In fact, I see it being just this stagnant for quite some time. 

With two years creeping up since I filed for divorce there is so much that needs to be heard before a judge it's hard to even keep straight.  The most important thing to me is that when I look back at the settlement years from now, I don't regret that I didn't do something.  I want to make sure that I have dotted every "i" and crossed every "t", but there always seems to be more shit that gets added to his already Mt. Rushmore size heaping pile of divorce shit that sifting through it makes me cringe all too often.

The latest saga in the never-ending divorce battle is my decision to stop paying the mortgage that He never brought current per the court order and now him deciding to no longer pay child support and alimony to me.  This makes my blood boil.  I don't understand why He thinks he makes the rules and calls the shots?  Maybe it's because he hasn't been held accountable for anything therefore since he hasn't been forced by the court to do anything, then why should he *have* to do anything.

I feel like I am still stuck in neutral because nothing with this divorce is going anywhere.  I am still living in flux.  How does one move on or start fresh or get off the porch when they're being weighed on by the reality of what their life is today?  Where am I supposed to muster the strength to throw a thumbs up, slap on a smile and press on when I'm wiping the tears from my eyes as I'm pulling into the parking lot of work on a Monday morning? 

I bet employers don't even realize that their very own employees call out sick not because they're ill but because they can't afford the gas to drive in to work.  I bet employers don't know that their very own people that they hand a gun and a badge to and say, "Go protect our County" go home at night and eat a can of green beans because that's all they have in the house to eat and payday isn't for another two days.  No one realized the other day when I had to pay the last of the money I had for my water pump that I didn't eat dinner the next day because I had no money for food.  I lied to the Marble's and told them I had a big lunch when in fact, I had not eaten lunch either.  I fear my life will be like this for longer than I can handle it and I wonder if throwing in the towel will seem like the best option and I will just let Him have the win.

Two Zero One Three

Another year has gone by and the divorce has continued to move through 2013 and will enter into 2014 just as unresolved as it was when He sat on the lanai in November of 2011 and told me he was leaving.  There is no resolution to the assets, no resolution to the debts, only an oral agreement with the "Shared Parenting Responsibility" and I feel like everything in my life has been thrown up in the air and is still just hanging there above my head in limbo.

My friends and family tell me that I don't know how strong I am and they're right I don't because I don't feel strong.  I feel like I just go through the motions of doing what I have to do to manage what I have to manage at the time it needs to be managed.  It's not strength.  It's muddling through the mucky waters because that's the path I'm on and what other choice do I have but just keep wading through it?

This past year was less about the shock of HIM leaving and more about the process to figure out how I was going to move on instead of hold on.  I had to let go. 

I had to let go of the anger that was eating away at me.

    The anger was a security blanket for me.  I felt I was entitled to the anger because look what He did to me.  Look what He did to us.  I had a right to be angry.  I let it consume me to the point where being angry trickled into my work, my attitude, my body language, my driving, the way I handled my Marble's.  I was mean to everyone.  I directed my anger at people and things that I had no business directing anger at.  Once, I was able to just let it go and choose not be so mad, living my daily life got a tad bit easier.  Don't get me wrong, the anger still lingers around, but it's not at the forefront of every emotion.  When Pink Marble asks to babysit Her kids my first reaction isn't to say no just because I hate the bitch for meddling in my marriage.  I realized that was my anger thinking for me and instead I understand that Pink Marble just wants to babysit and in the end it's not a big deal and I let it happen.  It wasn't worth it anymore.

 I had to let go of the insurmountable sadness that kept me in bed for days at a time unable to see past the next minute of my life.

   Oh the sadness.  The crying so hard I couldn't even breathe sometimes.  I'd sit on the tile floor in my bathroom and hold a towel to my face so my sobs would be muffled and the Mable's wouldn't hear me.  Those days I thought for sure I would never have a day that I didn't cry.  Today, I don't cry as much about what took Him away.   I cry about the life we should have had and that the one that I truly miss living.  I'm sad now for my Marble's because they're the ones who have suffered the biggest loss. The tears now are from my mistakes and how I should have been able to recognize them and make changes.  Those realizations still bring about sadness.

And with those realizations, I had to let go of the blame and take responsibility for my part in how I ended up at this point in my life. 

   This part wasn't easy.  In fact, it was one of those things were you end up taking a hard look at who you really are and conclude that there are some things about yourself that you need to change because they're just not working out they way you're doing them.  It took me meeting someone over the summer and having some pretty in-your-face discussions for me to reflect back on myself and be able to take ownership for my part in the marriage.  I spent a lot of time the last half of this year talking about who I am: my flaws, my weaknesses, my inability to "do".  What I took away from these conversations gave me some insight into how I handled things, not only in my marriage but also in my other relationship with people in my life. And how, moving forward, I will handle things differently when presented with circumstances which would have provoked me to use other behaviors. 
  
I think maybe I needed this year to have experiences I did so I could take what I learned and apply them to what I will encounter in 2014. 

Speak My Language

I'm really good at blaming myself for everything.  And, it doesn't help that I've had some pretty awesome men in my life that take to pointing the finger at me and strip me of my self esteem to where I feel like I haven't much mastered the art of knowing who I am much less how to love myself or anyone else for that matter.

 I am not a touchy-feely person.  For months leading up to Him leaving, I'd tell my girl friends, "I just don't want to be touched."  The thought of someone putting their arms around me made my skin feel like I was being poked with needles.  The Marbles would want to cuddle with me and for a few seconds I would be a big pile of goo holding them in my arms, then that moment would fade and all I could think was when they would be ready to get off me.  So, as you can imagine the not wanting to be touched trickled down to other intimate parts of my life and BAM....He found himself someone who did want to be touched and now here I am.  I have my Yellow Marble next to be in bed snoring and I'm alone.  But, I asked for this right?  I didn't want to be touched.  Therefore, no one is touching me.

I am still not one that feels comfortable being affectionate and I have realized perhaps it's just part of my personality.  While in a therapy session with the Marble's the therapist was talking about our different Love Languages.  There are five Love Languages:  Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time and Physical Touch.  I knew immediately what Love Language I didn't speak-Physical Touch.  I also knew immediately which one I screamed from the rooftops of every house I lived in - "AHHHHH ACCCTTTS of SSSSERRRRRVVVICCEEEE".  Please let me show you how much I love you by doing your laundry, washing your floors, painting your house, cleaning your kitchen, vacuuming your floors, running your errands, driving you to the airport even if it's in the complete opposite direction I am going, writing your college essays for you, paying the bills on time, grocery shopping, making the bed and arranging all the decorative pillows so they look like it's out of a magazine.  You get the idea?  It's no wonder I speak this Love Language because it would explain my personality type and why I feel like I can't ever relax because I feel so much love for those around me that I always have to be doing stuff for them.  See, it all makes sense.  It's just He never realized it.  He never saw that when he came home and he had clean underwear and freshly washed sheets to sleep on and a clean floor to walk on and a shiny table to eat off of that it was oozing love.  That was my gigantic hug to him. 

I Think I Swallowed a Boulder

There has been this heaviness in my gut for more than a year.  Some days I feel like maybe I have been able to briefly shake it, but eventually it creeps up again and there it looms.  It's a heaviness that keeps me from ever feeling like I can just relax.  And, I'm ready for that feeling to go away.

I spent about a year and a half alone without someone to fill the emptiness of my time once He left.  Then, out of nowhere, I met someone who made that heaviness in my gut subside and the smile on my face reappear.  But, there was work to do.  I had realized during the year and half that I was alone why He had left and what part I played in his departure and I accepted responsibility for that.  Something else I realized was I'm a difficult person to love and it's just who I am.

Who am I?

I am hard working and I like for things to be organized.  When things are not organized, I am the person to get them organized.

I have a hard time relaxing and I constantly have to be doing something because I always have something to do.

I am good at taking care of the day-to-day practical necessities.

I can be very funny, straight forward and honest.

I am a problem solver.  My mentality is, "Let's fix it."

I am fast-paced.  I walk fast, drive fast, eat fast, talk fast, work fast. 

I don't like to be alone.  I need people I can depend on. 

I can be extremely judgmental.

I am often stubborn, inflexible, unreasonable, and overly rigid.

I can be materialistic.
   
I tend to believe I'm always right and have a hard time listening to other people's opinions.

I can be insensitive and inadvertently hurt others so I have become really good at saying, "I'm sorry."
   
I am very uncomfortable with change.

I take my commitments in relationships very seriously and I look for lifelong relationships.

I dislike repeated mistakes.

I go the extra mile and put a great deal of effort into everything I do.

I found that both in my marriage and in the new relationship both men found that a lot of these things about me were my downfalls. Some of these things about me for years I were told are my greatest enemies have actually been my loyal servants.  It is because of them that I am who I am.