The Seed's Been Sown

So our marriage counselor replied to my email this evening. She was very supportive and understanding and is going to help me plan how to give W a letter I wrote to him months ago but haven't been able to actually hand to him.

I've tried telling him the things in the letter during discussions, but I've never been able to actually say them to him. I start. He rebuts. We digress. We argue. We agree to make one more try. We lather. We rinse. We repeat. I explained all of this to her in my email and given what she knows about me and my background she understands some of the underlying history that makes all of this so difficult for me.

So it is really going to happen. I am going to be completely free one of these days. I can't tell you the sigh of relief this brings to me.

In the meantime, K and I are working on setting up our next date. He's busy through this weekend, but hopefully early next week I can go work off some of my frustrations and help him work off some of his.

And I'm starting to think about the kind of person with whom I'd like to develop a long term serious relationship. The ideas are just starting to take shape in my head for right now. Maybe a future blog post will feature some of those thoughts once they're coherent. I'm thinking local and from my generation would be a good start. I'm also thinking that I won't be looking for that person for another year or so to give myself a chance to get through the grieving process over the end of the marriage and the end of my relationship with BJ.

Anybody wanna take bets on how many times I'll add to this post today? Given how early I'm starting it I'm thinking at least three. LOL

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[1:03 a.m.]
Okay, didn't take long for me to add to this post. What can I say? Can't sleep. I've read all my regular blogs and then some. What's left but to dump every random thought from my head to the screen? So here I am.

Latest thought: Am I nuts?!? I'm not only going to go through a breakup with BJ but also with W all at the same time. What am I, a masochist? On the other hand, in some ways one pain almost distracts me from the other pain. Not to mention that when I get teary eyed W thinks it is over my emotions over the marital problems so I don't have to try to explain the tears away. Then again, I am putting myself into a position I have spent my entire life fearing and avoiding -- complete singleness and having to be self reliant. Scary, very scary. How will I ever take care of myself?

I'm also thinking that maybe I ought not to keep the house. Maybe in the divorce we should sell it, split the proceeds, and each get different places instead of me buying out his share of the equity. Maybe the feelings will lessen over time, but I can't help but think of BJ in this house. He walked through it with me last year, and sat in the sun room and had a picnic with me. Everyday since I moved in I've imagined BJ here with me, in this house. I've had so many plans in my mind. Now it just hurts to walk through the house and think about those plans. No decisions for now though. I don't want to make rash decisions. It is definitely something I want to think about seriously though.

Okay, going to go try going to bed and see if I can get some sleep.

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[7:00 a.m.]
Many local schools have canceled classes today. That in and of itself isn't that unusual in winter, but usually it's for snow. Today it's just because it's cold. I don't ever remember school being canceled because of it being cold when I was young. We just bundled up and went. I don't get it. Is this supposedly a safety issue or what? I don't get it.

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[7:15 p.m.]
Over the course of the day I wrote two more installments to today's post, but due to a crackdown on internet usage at work I had to wait until now to post them.

I wrote this before lunch:
I have moments where I feel:
I have this under control. I am moving on with my life, making strides in becoming an independent person, taking ownership of my life and finding ways to make this work for me so that I can finally be truly happy for a change. This is going to be okay.

Then I have these moments:
OMG, what am I doing?!? Why do I think I can live life without some man to lean on? What am I going to do? Aack!

Sometimes I alternate between these two types of moments multiple times an hour, even multiple times in a minute on occasion. I am a grown up. I can handle this. Breathe. Just breathe.

I started to think this thing through. Whatever was it about BJ leaving me that would cause me to immediately turn around and end my marriage? It seems counterintuitive to me in large part because I would have expected me to turn around and cling to the marriage out of fear of being alone. Then I realized that one lesson I learned from my relationship with BJ is that if/when I do meet the person I want to spend the rest of my life with I need to be free to pursue that relationship. At no time in the time I was with BJ was I really free to have a real relationship with him, although I could pretend it was so for a time last year when I was on my own in LNJ before W and N moved to join me. Anyway, if I turn back to the remnants of my marriage without seeing the prospect that it is ever going to be measurably better than it is now that leaves me in the awful position of (1) living an unhappy life, filled with yearning for something else and (2) unable to pursue any other serious relationships because I know with some certainty that they would be doomed just as surely as BJ’s and mine was. When I think of what I want in my life I want to find a man who will be a loving and intimate companion to me and a good role model for N. I can’t possibly find that as long as I leave myself tethered in a marriage that has become less marriage and more prison. I have made peace with this decision to pursue a divorce at this time. It is not a rash act. It is not a reactionary move. It is simply the best decision that can be made under the circumstances given the parameters I have laid out for myself. Another thing BJ taught me is that sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling. That’s what I did here, went with my gut feeling and then figured out why later. That’s very different for me, to trust my gut feelings without analyzing and overanalyzing everything to death.

Okay, so I’m writing this in one of those first kinds of moments I talked about up there. The good news, I think, is that I’m working towards more of those kinds of moments than the second kind of moments. I had one of those earlier when I used a multitude of tissues as I sat very quietly sobbing at my desk while I composed an email reply to the counselor answering questions she asked me in her email to me last night.

Then in the middle of the afternoon this sprang forth:
The other day about a million years agolast weekend, N got a serious look on his face and asked me this question: “Do you ever get so stressed that you think it would just be better if you weren’t here, if you were already in heaven and didn’t have to hurt anymore?”

At that time my biggest concern personally was the healing of my foot. I was feeling good about my relationship with BJ. I knew I was on the brink of getting rid of W. After all, I’d been planning that talk for the night I got run over. So all in all, it was pretty easy for me to answer his question rather philosophically without undo angst over my answer.

“N,” I said, “I know those kinds of times. We all have them. One thing I can tell you without a doubt is that no matter how bad it seems sometimes and no matter how bad we feel there is a better day in the future, and if we didn’t live to see that better day we would have missed out on something good. Sometimes it seems like dying and going to heaven would be a great escape, but God doesn’t want us in heaven until we’ve spent our time on Earth learning the lessons He has for us to learn. Then when we’ve accomplished on Earth what He intended and He is ready to welcome us to heaven then death will come to us. It isn’t up to us to decide when death comes but God.” He and I then discussed his specific issues du jour and spent some time working on solutions to them.

I have thought back on those words I spoke the last few days many times. I’m sure many could have said it better, more eloquently, with more accuracy and attention to scriptural reference, but then again N didn’t ask for a sermon just my thoughts. I gave them to him as they came to me, and I have thought back on them over and over each time the thought flashes through my mind that this pain in my heart is unbearable. No it isn’t. It feels like it sometimes, but there is a brighter day waiting for me in my future. I just have to be patient, let the grieving process occur and wait for that brighter day to dawn. It’s out there. I know it is. In the meantime, I try to learn what lessons God can teach me out of my current situation, and seek His guidance as I move forward. I know there are those that disagree mightily with me and think I haven’t any right, as an adulteress, a liar, a soon-to-be divorcee, to invoke God’s name in this way, and that it isn’t right for me to turn to God as I am. I am grateful, mighty grateful, that God’s grace is there for even me. If your god isn’t big enough to repeatedly forgive, chasten, and love even the wretched like me then your god isn’t my God.

Some that read my blog may wonder why I get so wordy when the times are tough. It’s all about the jumble of thoughts running through my head. I get so overwhelmed sometimes by all the thoughts. If I can get a few of those thoughts down in writing then I can stop thinking about them so much because I know I can go back and read them anytime. I don’t have to remember them. It helps also to quell the tears and bring back peace to my soul. When I started writing this piece I was an absolute wreck, sitting teary-eyed, unable to focus on the task at hand. By taking a few minutes to throw lo these many words into written form, it has calmed me, allowing those thoughts their freedom and allowing my mind to return where it is needed, that being to finish the monthly reports. And with that, I will close here and head back to those reports with renewed concentration.