I have some things I need to say, that I must get off my chest. And I already know, without a doubt, that saying them here, or saying them over the phone, or texting them, will not be enough. I won't sleep better, I won't feel the dead weight lifted off my heart, I won't walk lighter. Nothing will change. At all. But if I don't say these things, thrust them out of the neverending swirl in my head, I will surely break. I teeter, even when I am perfectly balanced.
-I blame you for all of this hurt. I don't want to accept any fault, any responsibility, for the broken mess that we became. I seeth with a fury I thought was long-forgotten when our girl cries about missing one of us when she's with the other one of us. I want you to ache, to yearn, to grieve, to teeter, just like she does, just like I do. I want your head to be overflowing at night with the possibilities of the future, with the stresses of tomorrow, with the sorrow of today. -While I say all of this, I feel guilty. Guilty that I don't want to forgive. Guilty that I still love. Guilty that I can't let the anger go yet. I want to take the high road, be a good example for our girl, show her that strength and hope and love do indeed outweigh all of the brutality of broken promises and divorce.
-I don't know what happened to some of the close friendships I had. I don't know why you and you and you all dropped out of my life...when I most needed someone to stand by me, support me, love me. I don't know what I did, or didn't do, to cause you to disappear during some of the darkest time in my life. I expected to lose friends that we had as a married couple, people I never felt sincerely liked me anyway, but I never expected you.
-I don't want to be played. I am too old for this. I don't want to wonder what you are doing, who you are really with, whether you are really interested or not. I don't want to play guessing games or 'let's pretend we don't really care' games. I trusted you as a friend. I opened up to you. I pushed through my anxiety about crossing that line from friendship to more, and this is what I got. It sounds ridiculously corny to say that I need you to be careful with my heart, but it is true. And sadly, I think I misjudged your intentions. I don't think you even wanted to get near my heart. Being friends is all we should do.
**** I do not feel better. I still feel full of all the wrong things, yet empty. I need to close my eyes and drift away.
It finally happened: I've fallen off the edge of the blogging world. I have dozens of drafts. My journal is full, and a new one is halfway there, with an unopened one waiting on the nightstand. I have dreamt things, seen things, felt things, yet I haven't shared them. I didn't mean to be gone so long.
While I was gone, so much changed.
My girl learned to read. Like, full sentences and chapter books, damn it.
My girl lost 3 teeth (with another to be pulled today because she totally looks like Nanny McPhee, and while she is super cute, and while I'm all for letting a kid be a kid, I cannot bear her Kindergarten graduation pictures to look like this:)
My Daisy dog got older and sicker and slower. But I took her to the vet, she was put on what I call doggy hospice, and she is doing better, even keeping food down!
I traded in my Jeep (wahhhhh!) and bought myself a red truck. Yes, I live in Texas. Yes, I might be a little bit country. I love my truck! It's fast and pretty and clean and fast and new and red and did I mention FAST?
I went a little crazy with the shopping. I bought 4 pairs of shoes, 7 dresses, unknown amounts of jewelry, and a TV. Yes, a TV.
I forgot how to cook. I stopped cooking in early March. I have no idea why. I think it was the time factor, but I also started focusing on other things. So today, I am cooking dinner.
I started looking at houses, to buy. I'm still a little shocked that I'm planning on buying a house....a house that I will pick, that will be just my style.
Oh, and I got divorced. Sigh. That's another post all together. Yet there really are no words. There are tears, sighs, lost time staring into space. But there are smiles, feelings of peace, laughs.
Yet, after all this time, I still cannot believe it. While I was gone, I changed.
