hi!!!

I haven’t written in a while, and just got totally called out on it by one of my loyal readers. So here I am.

Life keeps going on, and it’s moving at a breakneck pace these days. I am happier then I have maybe been ever in my entire life these days.

I am still not 100% sure of my decision to leave J, but I am most certainly 75% sure. I figure that for an intense life decision like this 75% is awfully good. My conflicting emotions on the subject though have recently led to some pretty bad decision-making on my part. I started sleeping with J again, which is obviously a mistake.

See, our sex life has always been a big issue in our relationship, what with the fact that he thought I wasn’t interested in having sex with him, and (to a certain extent) I simply wasn’t, because I found him untrustworthy. I am one of those girls who really needs to trust someone to have a full sexual relationship with them. I show the classic signs of someone who was sexually abused in the past and has no memory of it, and without a completely trustworthy partner, I simply shut down. With J I always felt belittled and rejected, in a way that didn’t make me trust him. Ugh. it’s a whole big ball o’ wax … a much longer story than I actually have time for here.

So sleeping with him has been good in that it’s helped me get over some of my issues (feeling freer to express or not express my sexual desire), and it’s been bad in that I really need some separation from him in order to figure all these issues out. But my best friend does make the point that it’s not fair for me to be toying with him the way I am now, that if I actually don’t want to be married to him that I’m fucking with his emotions.

In the meantime though, it’s awfully nice to be getting along with him at the moment.

School is going along swimmingly. I’m not doing as well as I could, because I am having a very hard time committing myself completely to an educational institution that isn’t really challenging me. I could very easily be getting A’s in all of my classes, but it’s as if I feel like I don’t need to exert any effort because the payoff is so minimal.

I have though, chosen a major, which is a big deal for me. I am going to be getting a degree in history, my friends. I come by it naturally, since my biological father has a degree in history. For right now I’m thinking I’ll focus on American history, since I find it to be so incredible, but that’s not set in stone. And my long-term plan, as it stands now, is to take my degree in history and go on to law school. I don’t want to be a lawyer, but I am interested in going into politics, so a law degree seems like a pretty useful thing.

Darwin is the joy of my life these days. He was pretty angry with me for a while, after I moved out of J’s house. That combined with the terrible twos made him kind of a jerk to me for a while there. But he’s definitely coming out of that phase and making his way into the sponge phase, where all he wants is to learn new things. The other day we we discussed the difference between a doctor’s appointment and a doctor’s office, what a wreath is, the term African-American, the concept of irony, what a vaccine does, and like four other things that I can’t remember right now … all in one day! It’s awesome!

And that’s about all that’s going on. I’m crafting like a maniac right now, with Christmas coming up and all. I’m trying to make as many presents as I can this year, so that I feel like I’ve actually accomplished something instead of simply buying everything. I’m also working on a baby quilt for some of my best friends, who are due in March. Let’s just say that they’ll be lucky if they get it before the kid turns 1. Quilting is hard as hell, but it’s going to look so cool when it’s done.

The only thing plaguing me these days is my damn weight. I am simply too lazy to be doing anything about it, which is such a fucking cop-out. Every single time I look in the mirror I’m unhappy, but it’s almost as if I’m too unhappy to put any effort into fixing it. It’s like it’s easier to simply give up and admit defeat. Any tips, people? Any way I can actually start changing this thing that I hate so much?

And I love you all, near or far, people who I interact with daily or those who I’ve never met. It’s nice knowing that you’re out there, listening to my trials and tribulations, and giving me support when I need it.

Happy holidays. XOXOXO

Sometimes my heart aches with sadness so much that I can’t believe I’m still able to breathe. I spent more than a third of my life believing that this man was the best one for me, in spite of everything that anyone said, and all the evidence to the contrary.

I want my family. I want the family I had envisioned, sunshine and roses and hard work and fun times and bad times and shared goals and working together and growing in unison. I want to find someone who makes me want to work on improving our relationship. And someone who will do the same in return.

Sigh. I’m just sad, and lonely. Most days it’s not so bad. Right now it’s hurting more than usual.

update

I feel like everybody has a million questions for me these days … how I’m doing and what my plan is and what the future holds and what I’m feeling and how I’m holding up.

I’m fine. I’m not great, I’m not terrible, I’m fine. I have been dealing with the symptoms of a breaking heart for years now, so now that I’m here it’s not like there’s anything particularly new happening. The only different thing is that now some action has been taken, some real change has been made.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m lonely. But it’s simply that I’m missing another person, not that I’m missing J. And, of course, even that isn’t true. It’s just that I was so unhappy for so long with J that it felt like I’d be missing him for years already. To now have him gone means that I am still missing him, not that I’ve just begun to miss him. In a lot of ways that makes it infinitely easier.

And it’s strange to all of a sudden discover that some of the things I’d been blaming J for are actually things I’ve been doing to myself. Here I am in my new life and I’m not doing all the things that I necessarily wanted to do. I have a million different plans for how to overcome my laziness and start living the life I’ve been wanting for the last couple years. Now to just enact those plans …

disappointment

I am flabbergasted, astounded, stupefied, and pissed as all holy hell.

When discussing our split, J was incredibly insistent that he and I needed to share equal time with Darwin. His idea was to trade back and forth every single day. I managed to convince him that that arrangement would be much too confusing for the little one, but he still wanted to make sure that the time was split as equally as possible. We came up with a 3/4 split … 3 days for J and 4 for me.

Of course, we also knew that flexibility was key in trying to create a custody arrangement that actually worked.

Unfortunately though, J’s definition of flexibility seems to be that I take Darwin on days that are not mine, put in more effort, and still do all the work whenever there’s anything that has anything to do with our child.

And the worst part is that I’m surprised. The worst part is that I actually thought that bringing this extreme change of circumstances into the marriage would shock J into figuring out how to be a good, loyal, attentive, participating father. Shows how much I know, and that I’m still a complete idiot when it comes to believing him.

confirmation

For a while I couldn’t help but be impressed. I left and he started taking responsibility, doing the things he said he would do, turning into a real parent … all the things that drove me so far away from him. And so I started questioning whether or not I had made the right decision. I started seeing a different person than the one I had become so accustomed to and fed up with.

But now I see. Now it has become clear that this was simply a temporary change. This new person, this improved and impressive man that I thought I was seeing, was just a facade. He still expects me to take the same role even if we are no longer a couple. I am still going to be the person who does the majority of the work, the person who handles everything and makes the decisions, the only one who ever deals with backlash or repercussions of any kind.

Now I see. Now I understand. And now I know what I did was right.

padding

It’s the middle of the night and I’m not sleeping. I drank a cup of what was supposed to be decaf espresso at 5pm tonight. Now it’s 11:30pm and I just got up after 45 minutes of rolling around in bed attmepting to fall asleep. It became quite obvious that it wasn’t going to happen, so I just got up. And now I’m going to go for the classic can’t sleep combo of drinking water and watching bad TV.

Did I already tell you guys that I went on antidepressants? I decided a couple weeks ago that it would be a good idea for me to preemptively strike and go on them before I actually moved out. That way I’d be prepared when I started to sink into the depths of the inevitable depression. It’s just a little bit of cushioning.

But now here I am and I’m finding that I am not mourning what I’ve lost. The question is am I not mourning because I’ve been mourning for years now? Or is it because of this cushioning that I gave myself? And either way, should I worry that I will sometime soon find myself in a shitstorm of angst? Or should I simply let this all take its own course and not worry about the results?

It’s getting harder. I’m feeling sadder. Here’s the thing … Darwin is splitting his time between us and not seeing him for 3 days in a row is incredibly hard for me. Also when he is here I think he’s sad because he’s so much more accustomed to being at J’s house. To him that feels like home. I’ve been trying to make this place feel like home too, but it’ll obviously take some time. Sigh.

And J has made it quite clear that for him this is the end of any relationship between us at all. He’s says he’s done … can’t even imagine trying to retain any kind of friendship. I guess he’s willing to write the entire last decade off. For me it’s not that easy.

I know it’ll get easier and harder and better and worse. I know it’s a process, and I’m trying not to fight any part of it.

home

So it’s done. I am officially single and living on my own for what is basically the first time in my life. And when I say alone, I of course mean with my little one.

My apartment is wonderful. It’s big (living room, dining room, and two full bedrooms), conveniently located to everywhere I need to go, and beautiful. I’ve been working hard on setting everything up, settling in, and making it feel like home. It is well on its way. Darwin has his own bedroom with a bed and everything and he’s so excited that it’s just amazing. He loves the fact that he has his very own bed to jump on. It’s awesome.

You’d think that I’d be an emotional disaster right now, but I’m not. I am sitting in wait for the sadness to come, but it sure as hell isn’t here yet. For right now I am nothing but pleased. I am not lonely, I am relieved. I am not sad, I am content. It’s kind of an amazing place to be, after so long being in turmoil.

I do have to admit that I am also a little embarrassed. For some reason I feel like all my friends are going to judge me harshly, even though they all voiced their support for this move beforehand. For some reason I feel like they’re going to treat me as if in theory it was a good idea but in practice it’ll simply strain everything with everyone I know. For this reason I asked for almost no help moving, and haven’t really talked to anybody in the last week. Perhaps I should give everybody the benefit of the doubt and actually call them.

Come and visit. Come see my new house. I’ll cook you dinner and keep you entertained.

news!

Yesterday I signed a lease. Yup, you heard me right. I found this amazing apartment that I love. It’s got a dishwasher, and laundry, and a linen closet, and a frickin’ fireplace! And it’s mine, my friends. It’s going to be empty as hell, but who cares? I’m going to be able to burn incense, and hang up tapestries, and arrange furniture the way I want to, and buy nothing but organic food, and play Ani DiFranco 24 hours a day. Why? Because I will no longer have to ask permission from anyone else to do this shit. My place. My life.

I’m terrified and exhilarated and overwhelmed.

It’s going to be awesome.

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”

Look what happens with
A love like that -
It lights the Whole Sky.

-Hafiz