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Started with a little bit scratchy throat yesterday afternoon, and now it's full-on scratchy with a ton of congestion. Yay. No fever, tho, so it looks like it will just be an annoyance and nothing major. I felt like crap last weekend with suspected strep (got results back Tuesday that it wasn't), but since I was kid free, I got to lay around, sleep and recover pretty quickly. Since I'm on mommy duty this weekend, there's no rest for the weary.
It's funny how when I'm alone and feeling somewhat rough, I'll veg out in jammies and not leave the house. When the girls are here, I'm dragged out of bed before 6:00 and forced into cheerful conversations and outings no matter how bad I feel. I'd love to be sleeping now, and then sacking out on the couch for a day of football, but I know that's as likely to happen as me suddenly being paid what I'm worth :)
I've been hurting a bit lately. Not sure why, tho the fact that I'm obviously very easy to replace and it's yet another holiday season alone isn't helping at all. While he's doing serious relationship #2, I'm still sitting here trying to come to terms with how to make love stay and how not to be played for a fool again.
I still don't understand how and why my marriage had to end, and since I'm the kind of person who really likes to understand things fully and to learn lessons, it's very hard for me not to dwell. Marriage isn't supposed to be easy or blissful all the time, it isn't supposed to be "oh, things aren't the way I thought they'd be, so I'll just look for a greener pasture", but with 50% of marriages ending in divorce, it's obvious that a lot of folks aren't making the effort that marriage requires. And it scares me and makes me feel so vulnerable, because I never want to go through any of this again.
And since someone who promised to love and honor me forever, someone who I really believed understood that forever meant forever, could throw me away like garbage when things got hard, how can I ever make that promise or believe that promise again? What's the point? It feels like it would be easier and safer to just never risk all that again. Because going through that much pain again is not something I can deal with.
Ah, yeah. That took a 180-degree turn from just not feeling well. I get a little faklempt when I'm sick ... kinda maudlin and emotional. Makes things that I'm still working on inside percolate just a little too close to the surface. Going through a divorce as a mom of young kids means you don't get to spend time just wallowing and submerging yourself in everything you feel; you have to hold back and compartmentalize, and for me that seems to have led to prolonged processing. Instead of being able to rip the bandaid off, I've had to pick away at it.
I couldn't cry and rant in front of the girls, couldn't say what I wanted to say, or even really feel what I wanted to feel, because I was and am too focused on making it as easy on them as possible. So I have to smile and nod and engage while Bean talks about the girlfriends and their kids, while he just goes ahead and smashes my kids' lives into whatever relationship he's working on. Because I can't just say "I am so friggin' SICK of hearing about so-and-so and her kids!" or scream when Bean says for the hundredth time that weekend: "Kid so-and-so this, Miss so-and-so that. I went hiking with Miss so-and-so; I want to be just like kid so-and-so."
Ugh. That all sounds so bitter, and that's why I've been holding back on posting. I want to talk about this stuff, but I also don't want to sound like I'm all man-hating and bitter. I'm not, I don't think. I don't want any of this to still be bothering me or to still be hurting ... When you loved somebody as much as I loved him, and believed in your life as much as I did, I guess it's hard to look forward and say "I could risk all that again." I date, but I hold myself back. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to let myself go again.
I'll close with a Beanism. Just to lighten the mood a little, because I hate to be all Debbie Downer. She and I were watching a big cat show on Animal Planet, and she was a little down about having watched cheetah cubs take out a Thompson's gazelle fawn. As she watched a group of cheetah take down an Grant's gazelle, she cheered herself up and said "Oh rock on! They just killed a male gazelle. They know they shouldn't kill mommy or big sister gazelles because they are more lovable."
Oh yes she did.
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6 comments:
Bean is awesome. Every so often you've got to just let it all out, get a good cry, and if you need me to bring over a big bottle of vino one night when you don't have the girls, I don't mind listening. I do see you running around, sewing up the emotional fringes that the girls have from all this, but you rarely stop to mend your own wounds. So no, you're not being a Debbie Downer or a bitter man-hater, and even if you were, we'd all understand that you're still going through the healing process.
Vick, I just gotta say you're gonna be healing for a long time and I think you're doing so much better than I would be in your shoes. Shoot. I'm still healing from a dating relationship from 15 years ago and that was only a 6 month fling. You take all the time you need and you rant all you want on your blog. We're here for you. I know I don't know you as well as Julia, but I'd do the same thing for you in a heartbeat.
Vick,
I'm behind on blog reading, but I clicked past the preview on this post since I'm having that same no-fever-like-crap, sneezy sore throat thing, too.(BTW, why do I only get a preview of your posts on google reader and not the whole post? I will check into that further someday.)
But, yeah, like your other friends here said, this is a healing process. I assume the whole grief process, just as with a death, since this was the death of your marriage, will apply. And the holidays are the suckiest time of the year for grief. Thinking of you!
blogland is a good place to feel it all, express it all...and then do whatever you need to do! it does take a long time to heal, and it comes in waves...and then looking back some fine day it might seem like a flash of light. really. been there.
YOU WILL learn to love, and "promise" again. It takes time - Shit (forgive the french, but it's certainly warranted here)..... Look at me, and how long it took!! 9 freaking years!!!
If it's meant to be, it will be. In the time being, the girls are so lucky to have 'just you'.
I heart Beanisms!!! :)
Not quite the same circumstances as you, but my first wife died 12 years ago.
I eventually headed back out into the world with that same "What's the point" attitude, and actually vowed that I would stay single for ever, would never allow myself to be hurt again, or listen to another marriage vow.
I was lucky. I managed to meet the love of my life for the second time. We were married within the year, and have been so happy for the last eight years.
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