Long time, no write

So, it’s now November. I was ‘released’ from employment back in July; I’ve been on disability ever since. I spend my days bored as shit, feeling like a useless nothing that is contributing nothing to the world. My doctor thinks I won’t be released from disability until Christmas.

So why haven’t I been writing? This blog used to be my almost daily release, my catalyst. I guess I have been so incredibly BLAH that I cant’ bring myself to say I have nothing worthwhile to say. I keep trying to convince myself I’m ready to go back to work, and then I spend 30 minutes standing in a department store while my husband shops for shirts and I feel like I’m going to die. I’m doing the treadmill, the recumbant bike… and I still feel like shit.

I haven’t seen or spoken to my daughter since March. Occasionally I can get her to reply to an email, but usually with attitude and we just aren’t getting anywhere. At this point it looks like there is no way she is graduating High School, and it doesn’t seem like her or her dad think it’s even an issue. It makes me crazy that trying to care and reach and help her seems to only give her ammunition against me. I can’t imagine what she thinks she is going to do with her life.

My marriage is doing great. I don’t know why, but I feel incredibly guilty about that. I feel like my husband should be so angry at me at this point for still being so helpless, but he’s been better than anyone else at understanding what I don’t even understand. I apply for jobs I know I’m not ready for, and I’m crushed when nothing works out. Sometimes I feel like there is no future for me now. That’s a really fucking depressing feeling.

So why haven’t I been writing? I don’t know. I guess that’s just how dead I feel inside. It really sucks.

Well this has been a roaring success. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow. Or the next day. Or maybe I won’t. I guess we’ll see.

So Long, 2008…

 

Well, this has been one of the most bizarre years of my adult life.

I entered it in a stable marriage, a secure job, a comfortable house, and good financial status.

I am leaving it in a state of separation, a job I worry about keeping, a cold basement apartment, and never enough cash to stretch from one pay day to the next.

It’s been interesting.

In between there have been lost loves, internet relationships, and plenty of heartache and heartbreak. It has been tough learning to be on my own, but I really think I am making progress. It’s hard, and it’s lonely, but if there’s one resolution I make for 2009, it will be that I refuse to sacrifice my self, my personality, my happiness, to appease a man. I have rediscovered what it’s like to really be able to just be me… and I like me.

My husband and I are getting along well, spending some time together, and will start counseling in January. But I have been very clear that I have made no promises, aloud or inferred, that I will be returning home. It seems I like him as a friend, but as a husband? I still have no idea if we’ll ever get back to that point. Much change is needed.

My kids will return from my parent’s place in Southern Utah on Sunday; I have missed them and can’t wait to see their little faces again (reminding myself they’re just not so little anymore). School starts up again Monday, and life resumes as normal again for everyone… well, as normal as it can be right now.

So what will 2009 bring? Hard to imagine. So many things in the air right now, I can’t possibly predict what might happen next… but stay tuned,  faithful readers, it’s sure to be entertaining!

Magpye’s ‘Life Sucks’ Poem

 

 

Stumbling blind

Reaching wildly

Finding no purchase

The sound of dark, smell of cold

I am enveloped in lonliness

I see

But I do not see

I feel

But feeling is excrutiating

I fight

But the struggle pulls me further under

Until I cannot breathe

Voices around me

As if from underwater

Unreal, distorted

Time is a sharp wire that winds ever tighter around me

I scream

But no one wants to hear

I am truly alone

Relationship Confusion

So… these are the things I am dealing with. My husband and I are considering reconciling. I know he wants to, and there are parts of me telling me I want to. But I have to be so, so careful about making sure they are the right parts of me, and they want to for the right reasons… there are a million reasons why my life would be so much easier if I went back home. Life on my own has been extremely hard, much harder than I ever expected, and at times brutally depressing. Not to mention that financially I have never been more challenged, ever.

But after all I have been through, the things I have learned about myself, the me I have discovered since I have had the freedom to be this me, I worry that all that is for nothing if I just turn around and go back home. Granted, I would not be considering it if I did not still have deep feelings for my husband, but I can’t forget that I spent years being deeply unhappy there. Maybe it sounds shallow, but I don’t want to give up my Captain’s Quarters, my pirate flags, my pirate bathroom… those things are ME, and I know I would lose those if I went back. I like those parts of me. He never understood it.

I feel like he really wants to rush back into a relationship, and as much as it is nice to have some closeness with him again, I really worry about taking things too fast. I was kind of glad that we couldn’t get in with the counselor until January, I felt like that put a little mandatory waiting time in place. I don’t know if he really understands the level of commitment to change I will require before I consider giving up my independent life, hard as it is, to come back. I know right now he feels motivated and willing to change, but he has made so many promises in the past, and never kept any of them. Work always comes first, then the boys, then the gym, then sleep, then hunting, then… what ever else he might be forgetting. Helloooo?

I know if we are going to move forward, IF, then my main responsibility is putting those grudges behind me. It’s just hard to trust again. I want to… but it’s hard, I so don’t want to be hurt again, it’s so demoralizing to practically live for someone who tends to forget you exist. It’s taken me these many months to start building back my sense of self-value, and that has been one of the best things to come of this separation for me. I don’t want to lose that.

I hope being around more and opening the lines of communication isn’t giving him the idea that we are automatically getting back together, he has already suggested I move back home first and then we start counseling, and I was like, ‘no way!’ Maybe I need to discuss that with him openly to make sure there are no misunderstandings about where we stand.

Communication….. isn’t that always what it comes down to in the end??

Can someone please just kill me now?

Seriously. I would really appreciate it – it would be such  nice reprieve from the ups and downs, highs and lows, good and bads that are completely wearing me out. R and I are quits, and it ended badly – very badly. R is a manic depressive and went manic all over me in a public chatroom while all our friends and acquaintances sat back and watched. It was awful, humiliating, and devastating. Everything I have tried to do to help him he threw in my face as being controlling and pushy, told me how stupid I was for expecting I could “fix him just by being the wonder that is me”. OUCH. I never wanted to fix the guy… I just wanted to love him. It goes on from there, but I really don’t want to go over it all again. Needless to say, the meeting is off. The worst part is that he accused me of never accepting him for who he was… that really frosts my ass, you know? I knew exactly who he was, and I was willing to roll up my sleeves and deal with it, and he tells me I never accepted him. Dammit. He knew right where to hit where it hurts. I agonized over his pain, all I wanted to do was try to make it better. Shame on me.

SSDD

I am so freaking depressed.

I try so hard to keep my chin up and keep smiling, and I just don’t know what I’m doing it for, or who I think I’m fooling.

I have to take my dog back in to see the vet tomorrow. She is concerned that there is something wrong with him that he is acting MORE aggressive since being fixed, and she’s talking about the possibility of him needing to be ‘medicated’.  I just can’t afford that.

I know Mike has to be home from his trip by now, but he won’t answer my calls or emails. Obviously that doesn’t bode well for our relationship. Damn.

I get paid Friday, and half that check is already gone for bills and such. I feel like I will never get caught up, let alone ahead. How will I ever get to where I can afford to retain an attorney for my divorce? Which apparently I need to complete for Mike to take me seriously? If there’s even a chance left, that is, which I don’t know, because he’s nonexistent at the moment.

I feel like I am walking a tightrope in a high wind, and there’s no net. How the Hell did I get up here?

Oh yeah … I believed.

What Happened?

What happened?

That’s all I want to know, it’s what I need to understand

What happened?

You were there, things were good, nobody was twisting your arm

Then all of a sudden, *POOF*!

It all changed and I just don’t know why or how

What happened?

You said you’d never lied

But you couldn’t tell me the truth for weeks

Avoidance, the whole disappearing act

What happened?

Did I do something? Say something?

Why are you punishing me like this?

You accuse me of jumping from one to the next

You say this is all some rebound plot

What the Hell happened?

I’m the same person I was when you wanted to be with me

I’m the same person I was when you were happy to be here

I’m the same person YOU said you’d never let go

I didn’t make you say that, I didn’t ask you to

But now “people you trust” are telling you to run away…

“People you trust”, does that not include me? Really?

Ouch. You don’t know what that feels like.

I’ve never hidden anything from you

I’ve never played games

I’ve never, never tried to manipulate you in any way.

What have I done? Really, what? I need to know

Because nothing makes any sense any more

And I don’t think you understand what you’re doing to me.

WHAT HAPPENED?

After all we’ve lost, you’d toss it all aside again? Really?

You can’t possibly know how that breaks my heart.

You can’t possibly know how stupid I feel.

I believed.

Raw and bleeding

I shouldn’t be allowed to be around people when I’m this growly. I don’t trust myself. I swear if my co-worker mentions one more time what a beautiful day it is, I’m going to see just how far down her throat my fist will go before I feel something rupture.

He won’t return my texts. He won’t answer my calls. Why do you leave someone a comment on their blog saying you love them so very much and would do anything for them, and then cut them off completely? Is this some new form of torture?

He leaves for a diving vacation tomorrow, gone for ten days. Can I even hope He’ll take that time to work out some feelings and come back ready to talk?

Look at me, I’m a complete wreck. This isn’t me, Goddamnit. No man has ever reduced me to this. But no other man has ever been Mike, and therein lies the rub, as they say.

I can’t believe there are people in his life telling him to stay away from me. How dare they. What do they think, I’ll go running back to my ex the first time there’s trouble? I’M NOT GOING BACK. Not now. Not ever. I can’t imagine surrendering to the life I had, and you couldn’t pay me to give up the stress and financial uncertainty that I can now call my own freedom. I have rediscovered the me that I used to be proud to be, not ashamed because he looked down on everything that made me happy. How can people be telling him to stay away, and how can he be listening?

I can’t work, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. All I can do is stare at my phone and pray for that which I know won’t happen. I hurt all over, and there’s only one thing that can fix it.

Dammit.

Mike, where are you?

And just like that – it’s over

Well, this has been a sucky day. I started the morning by sending this email:

“Well, I think this is it.

Mike, I don’t want to end this, that’s the last thing I want, and believe me, this is not the first email like this I have written, but I have not been able to make myself send any of them before now. I hope I can see this through today.

I love you. More than I think you understand. But there comes a time when I have to come to terms with the fact that I deserve better. I deserve better than one phone call in two weeks, I deserve better than 5 weeks without any time with you. Slammed or not, if you wanted to see me, really wanted to, you’d find a way, and apparently you just really don’t want to that bad. I know all about your job. Your son. Your trip. Your ex. Your racing. Tell me Mike, do you know anything about what’s going on with me? What my stressors are? What I’m dealing with? I don’t think you do. Because comparatively speaking, it’s not on the same level of importance, is it? 

I’m not angry, Mike, nor am I trying to make you angry. I’m just trying to make you understand why I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live in limbo and give you all the power to decide when I’m worthy of your presence. It makes me feel like dirt. I’ve been there and I’ve done that, and even my asshole husband could pick up the phone once a day, no matter what country he was in.

I thought we were going to be something, really something. I never wanted to own you, I had no preconceived ideas of what our relationship would be, I was in no hurry. I just know that being with you made me feel like I was on top of the world, and I loved that. I thought you did too. But when you can’t even give me an idea of what to expect without suddenly coming down with clam chowder poisoning, that pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
I don’t want to ever lose you. But it seems I already have.

Please don’t email me back with all the stuff about how you understand and you’re just so slammed right now, it carries no weight with me anymore – words, words, words.

I wish you the best – and if the wind carries you back to me someday, then lucky me.

I will always, always love you.”

And so ends that. All the hope, the promise, all gone. I feel broken. Response? Yeah, Right. Don’t hold your breath. I think this is what he wanted all along.

My Mountain is Burning

Fuck. I am so pissed off. It’s bad enough that my parents sold the ranch I wanted to inherit two years ago this week; now the Porcupine Ranch fire is eating up all that land I loved and roamed for over a decade. My kids spent their summers hiking through that scrub, they (and I) learned to ride four-wheelers through that beautiful desert. Our place is less than half a mile from the fire and miraculously hasn’t been touched, but all that beautiful land surrounding it is torched. Miner’s Basin and the historical structures there, Pinhook, the site of the epic cowboy/indian battle, it’s all gone. And more places dear to my heart – Warner Lake, Oowah – are threatened. Why? God, I apologize for every wildfire I have seen on the news and just thought, “wow, bummer”. Now I know what it feels like to have that land mean something. Natural selection? Bullshit, this should never have happened. I don’t care. My heart is fucking broken. I chewed my dad out on the phone today. I told him I blamed him for robbing us all of the last two years we could have had there; how rotten is that? Gas prices my ass. God I am so pissed. I know I’m wrong, and I’m being a complete brat, and I’ll deal with that soon enough, I promise. Tonight, I’m just pissed. I’m cracking that bottle of wine, going out on the porch, and having a damn good cry for every damn juniper tree and scrub oak that gave up the ghost this weekend. FUCK.