A Reason to hold on...

False Alarm

I'm trying to put this thing to bed
I drugged it in it's sleep
There isn't many memories I'm comfortable to keep
This ball keeps rolling on
It's heading for the street

Keep expecting you to send for me
The invitation never comes
Each time I turn around
There's nothing there at all
So tell me why I feel likeI'm up against a wall

But maybe it's a false alarm
And every answer sounds the same
Just colours bleeding into one that hasn't got a name
Maybe I can't seeMaybe it's just me

Another curtains coming up
The audience is stillI'm struggling to cater for
The space I'm meant to fill
And distance doesn't care
No distance doesn't care

Each time I turn around
There's nothing there at all
So tell me why I feel likeI'm up against a wall
But maybe it's a false alarmAnd every answer sounds the same
Just colours bleeding into one that hasn't got a name
Maybe I can't see
Maybe it's just me

I'm trying to put this thing to bed
I drugged it in it's sleep
Remember what you said.
Are you comfortable to keep it?
Keep it?
-kt tunstall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy_NoRA5z0E&eurl=http://www.lyrics.com/index.php/artists/lyric/kt-tunstall-lyrics-false-alarm-t-8644316


(create)

Love from the Hardware Store

Day 3 3/4

Love can come in strange and unexpected ways.
Often it's hard to remember that it's in our every day life, the little things we forget to pay attention to.
Today I struggled to see much of anything in my life but pain and hurt until a small package reminded me what love is.
Today I took about fifteen steps forward, afraid of every one, but I'm headed for happiness and living my truth.

I told three different people that I was getting divorced. Saying it out loud was tremendously important for me. Enlisting other people in my truth is equally as important.

And then there was the call to my attorney. He told me to keep breathing and to do the next thing and that he would take care of the rest. And so it goes......

Today was a day when I felt like someone was sitting on my chest, disallowing air to move freely through my body. Today was a day when my stomach felt like it was on "that ride" and there was uncertainty running through me.

Today was a day i found myself on the verge of tears about everything, my emotions so used to being in check and not showing fear or weakness. Tears aren't allowed in my world and today felt like they were walking the high wire without a net. I feared breakdown at every turn.

I wanted to cry when the UPS delivery guy asked me how i was doing.
"How am i doing?," i wanted to shout. "How am i doing?"
"Fantastic, Jim. Just fucking fantastic," but of course, i smiled and just signed for the package.

I wanted to cry when Rosie the mail carrier came in with the daily lot telling me to have a good day. I sifted through the bad election mail, the coupons, the junk mail, the bills and then i noticed the puffy yellow envelope addressed to me.
Big suck in of air as i see the return address is from him. It's him. My heart drops.

Him.

Something protrudes visibly from the package. What the hell is this, I wonder. What could he have sent me? Something of mine he has and needed to return? Something to tell me he misses me? i flip it over and set it on the desk and go on about my day....for five minutes.
and then i cut open the top and take another deep breath.

When I finally figure out what i've pulled from the envelope, the tears come quickly.
It's a simple little plug for my electrical outlet. He'd noticed I needed one when i saw him last and told me to get one at the hardware store. It's dangerous he warned, I nodded and said yes i'd get one.
I'd forgotten.

He did not.
So today I found love in a puffy yellow envelope, delivered by Rosie, reminding me that it's the smallest of things. Love is in the details.

Love is in a mid-west town buying plugs for my outlets.

Who knows what tomorrow brings...



(djd)

Tickets, Please

Day 3

Let me off the ride.
This gut wrenching/ heart wrenching feeling continues. I actually dreamed I was on a roller coaster last night, that stomach dropping feeling as we climbed to the top and plunged down ridiculous grades. And then there was that song.
The song he sent me that I've been playing over and over that ran through my head like it was on repeat, through most of my sleep.
I admit that i'm a mess.
I border on vomitting, crying and/or screaming at the top of my lungs. The fight with "barely hanging on" husband took it out of me last night.

Then it was a phone call with my mother this morning. Did i know what i was doing? Was this the right thing to do? Fuck!!!!!!!!

Are you kidding me, mom? I can't figure out if I put on the right boots with my dress this morning. I've spared her the asshole that is her son-in-law for 10 years, protecting her from the shitty things he's said about her and my family.

Forget what he has done to me, her daughter. I protected her from that, thinking that i would need her to be kind at Christmas dinners, birthday parties, etc. I didn't want her to hate him.
Now I think that might be helpful.

My neck is so tight with tension I can't turn my head. Or maybe it's from the air mattress i'm calling a bed the last four weeks that is on the basement floor since he won't leave the bedroom.
And then there's the other him. 87 more days of no contact.
Wondering what is happening with him, wondering how is feeling, what's he thinking. Is he okay? Does he miss me as much as I miss him? Does he remember my touch, my kiss, my love? God, it's only been three days since we last touched, but it feels like a world away, a lifetime away.

I'm wondering if i use a lifeline or if it's too soon. We've already cheated once. Trying to be strong, trying to respect what we both need to do. Hoping there is life on the other side for him and I. Hoping this reprieve gives us a chance to deal with our situations, separately of one another, so we can find each other when it's said and done.
My therapist told me it's good, that the other him and I need to do this, although he thinks it's very difficult. He doubts our strength to follow through on the 90 days. The doubt makes me determined to do this.
I tell therapist I want a better me. I tell him I want to get "down and dirty" with me, my bullshit, my baggage. I want to spend the next couple of months in therapy understanding what i've done here, what i've lived through and what is left of me when the smoke clears.
Therapist offers insight into my weekend with "other him".
I tell him about how the other him takes care of me, is chivalrous and romantic. He actually tells me this is good, given my practicality and disbelief of romantic love the last decade.

"This balance of romantic love and practical love might be a really good thing for you," he says of the other him. I actually take that as endorsement of "him" and smile. My therapist thinks he'd be good for me.
Sigh.

I feel like a fish, removed from its tank. Left to flip and flip, flounder and falter, this way and that.......would some one please put me back in the water?

(no.9)

Torture

Day Two & 3/4....

This is painful.

I realize now how hard this is going to be and why.

Just stepped away from knock down drag out with "hanging on by a thread" husband and he's back to his old ways. At the first sign of my wanting out and wanting to leave, he promised change, turned over a new leaf, apologized, cried, begged, etc, etc. Several months later, he's pissed that i won't try, pissed i can't get over what's been said or done.

Tonight in his typical verbal abuse/masked as converational tone sarcasm, I felt myself floundering, feeling the need to defend myself. Feeling the need to argue with him, feeling the need for him to understand that I'm not what he says I am.

Once I find myself in that place, it's easy to let the anger flow. A decade of abuse comes flooding back and I feel justified in my rage, almost as though I owe him this. For all the shit I've taken over the years, he can sit there and listen to the hurt and the pain come spewing out of me in the form of anger.

It leaves me hollering and him goading me into more, questioning my mental stability, my family, my mothering skills.
I won't lie, it stings, even still. Somehow I lose my footing and I start to slip off the path of "i know better" and "you don't need his approval".

This is when I would reach for the other him, -this loving man who has been there to kiss the boo-boos, wipe away the tears, put the band-aid on the skinned knees.


He would remind me that he's wrong, he would remind me not to be invested in what he thinks of me anymore. He would remind me that I am good. And he would tell me he loves me. This i know undeniably.

But as he told me last night, it's time to break that pattern. I've done it for him, too. Coached him through the words to say when his abuser/wife tears him down. Reminded him that he is loving and is a good dad. But now, we can no longer look to each other for this survival skill.


I need to do it on my own. I need to step forward into my decision and not look back. I need to make this okay for my child and I need to make this okay for me.

I no longer need to accept this torture as my fate. I don't have to love this man I've called my husband even though he didn't love me. I don't have to be willing to take what little love he would give and call it enough. I don't owe him anymore of myself.

The debt is with myself.

Somewhere I will find me and there will be courage to take that next step.

Tomorrow I will pick up the phone, take a deep breath, and jump into the waters of starting my life without him.
Or him.

why i love e.e. cummings.......

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) -e.e. cummings

Chocolate Cake

We cheated.

See, as i explained to him, this is like a diet. We have both agreed to this ridiculous arrangement to not have contact for three months so we can get ourselves "in shape" for the other.

Our "barely breathing" marriages should have long ago ended. We both need to figure out why we were there so long to begin with, why we let the horror continue. Abusive situations for each of us that left us shattered and broken, in different ways. He's actually filed papers. I'm still needing to file mine. There is work to be done here.

But we want this life together and 90 days gives us a jump on not making our departures from our marriages about each other. This isn't about leaving for him. I know that deep in my heart. I would have loved to have seen the happy ending in my own marriage, but verbal abuse cuts deep and it's too far gone for salvage.

And so this "hiatus" is a bit like a diet. A self imposed restrictive "diet" where we are limited in our "caloric contact" with each other. A phone call is as bad as three Big Macs, large fries, coke, to go, please. No emails, no texts, no hot sex.....sigh.

So how's it going two days in?

We cheated. That's how it's going.

I couldn't stand it. I had to reach him and I had a relatively legitimate reason why, concerning something I thought i'd left around that would give us away. Once we had figured out he had the incriminating evidence, contact should have ended. But we couldn't stop talking......

So we ate the cake. The whole fucking thing. We chatted for several hours and I indulged in every last bite. Funny though, we never did talk about sex, one of our favorite topics.

He felt more remorse than I. He really wants to do this and be loyal to the process. I was giving us more room for error because on the heels of our amazing two days together, we had managed to not call or text each other all day yesterday. That was progress, right?

I was seriously questioning our decision because timing-wise, we just set ourselves up to make this so hard.....I mean two days together, non-stop "us" and then boom! Cold Turkey?

Shit it's like detox after a two day bender.

I have to be good. I have to stop looking at the chocolate cake. I have to stick to the diet and do what i said i would, honor the process. Keep looking at his beautiful picture, though. Damn.

I have a session with my "trainer" tonight....otherwise known as therapy. He is going to help me kick this habit for 90 days and remind me why i need to do this. And i'll complain the whole time, I'm certain. Eye on the prize, just keep your eye on the prize.

But, damn that was good cake.

88 days.....but who's counting?

(89-09-J/B)