Yes, that is a song lyric… so deal with it.

This is how I feel today, “that which doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger”. Its just been one of those days? Weeks? Months? Seasons? Years? Yes… years, it’s been one of those years for me and although I can see how I am getting better and stronger, there are still days where things are getting harder and coming faster. 

Oh such is life, after all…

So, what has been happening with me for the last… oh, what has it been, MONTH? Well… here’s a quick run down (in no particular order, of course). I have been:

Knitting socks, collecting wool, learning to use dpns, trying to organize my new home, working with my lawyer, working, visiting Serin, hanging out with my kids, adopting kittens, worrying about my car, being audited, travelling, stressing, working, unpacking, decluttering, decorating, moving, rearranging, more working, more stressing, tasting, breaking… 

But things are looking up. 

I no longer live with my parents, that in and of itself is something to be thankful for. I was kind of worried that I would be moving out and I had no direct court order that would ensure that STBX would be making child support payments to me. But I couldn’t live with my mother anymore. I just couldn’t. We have gotten along way better in this past year than we have during my previous time on this earth, but I still couldn’t help but feel like a child for the entire time that I was living with them. It was a soul crushing experience to be treated like a child after having been out on my own for over 14 years… to come crawling “home” and having to say to my parents that I have “failed” and that I need to retreat and lick my wounds and recover from the disaster of my marriage and “career” in the call center. 

But I survived. I survived my parents, I survived being fired. Yay! I’m stronger for that. I have a better appreciation for my parents and what they have done for my children and I in the past year, but I still don’t have the ability to pay them back for all they have done for us. 

I am on my own for the first time in over 15 years. And I am actually GLAD to be alone. I have realized through this past year that I don’t really need to have someone attached to me, I don’t always particularly enjoy having to be around people all the time. My job is such that I am with people and on the phone all day, working and making sure that things are completed and checked and rechecked. When my day is done I don’t really WANT to go out and do things, I don’t necessarily want someone around to watch movies with or do things with. Once in a while that’s fine, being with the kids is fine, but I find that I need the time after they go to bed to unwind – by myself.  I have thought that maybe there was something wrong with me, as right now I have really no desire to seek out permanent adult company, I’m happy enough to chat with people online, to hang out once in a while, but I still need quite a bit of consistent quiet alone time. 

And so, with that realization I have determined that I am not, at this time, ready for any form of romantic relationship… with anyone. Which meant that I had to sit down with K, whom I had previously tried to have the aforementioned type of relationship and try to convey that I no longer thought that that was something I wanted to pursue… it was very much a “its not you, it’s me” type conversation, because I am aware that although there are things that he does that bug me, they bug me because I am not really in the space to accept any kind of set, committed relationship from anyone. 

It has been a hard realization… at least for me, a woman who had been very much primed to grow up, go to university, get married, have kids and stay with the same man forever no matter what happened, no matter how bad things got. It was hard to realize that I didn’t want to be married, that I thought the situation had gone sour and I wasn’t going to accept this for the rest of my life. And, even more than that, to find that maybe I didn’t have to just jump into another relationship right away, that perhaps, just MAYBE, I could take some time out and decide what I wanted in a relationship, what I wanted in a mate, and that I could actually seek what I want out. 

It’s not that K isn’t a good guy. He’s been supremely wonderful to me in many ways, but in other ways he’s just not what I want/need right now, either. It’s hard to explain, even to myself, much less to him. It comes down to the fact that I think I jumped into something way too fast for myself, before I was in a good place emotionally, and as I have been figuring out who I am, what I want, and where I want to go, I have changed my ideas of what I might want for now, for a year from now… and ultimately I have decided that I want to take more time before I even decide I am “dating” someone, much less before I state that I am going to choose any one person as even a potential “life mate”. 

This has been VERY hard on K, who has been there for me since before I left STBX, who has watched me go through the feelings of being a failure and being weak and helpless, to becoming a person who is able to make her own decisions and start to set a course for herself and her children without fear. I know he was banking that we’d be a couple, get handfast, move into a home together with our three children (his 1, my 2) and have a child together… but I don’t think that that is entirely what I want. I need to decide what I want for myself, and then find a mate that is going in the same direction. And the direction I am going right now is inside.

So no more dating for me… at least for the foreseeable future. 

And I’m good with that, really I am. I think that I really need the time to figure out what will work and not work for me in the situation that I find myself in now – a (soon to be) divorced mother of 2, working full time, parenting part time (are you a single mother if your ex takes your kids half the time? I FEEL like a single mother, even when they aren’t living with me, so’ s you know) – very much starting up my life again from the beginning.

Is that wrong? Maybe. I know that a lot of people think that I should be moving on by now, but I’m not ready. I have been someone’s “girlfriend/fiancée/wife” since I was about 17, and now I want to be MY person for a bit – just a woman, a witch and a mother.  So when I am ready I know I will find a way to move on, and people to move on with.

So what am I doing to start to be my own person again? Well… a variety of things… again, in no particular order:

•    Tarot reading
•    Cooking
•    Writing
•    Trying out new pens
•    Buying books
•    Visiting Serin out in Toronto
•    Knitting
•    Journaling
•    Crafting
•    Cross stitch
•    Reading

I am still feeling very unsure about my place in the world here. I am dealing with the guilt associated with leaving a marriage, of being the one who made the decision to end the suffering (when it seems that huge number of marriages end when the HUSBAND makes the decision to quit, and the stereotype is a bereft woman who has been left for a younger woman, not a woman who is happy to leave). I feel like I failed, in a great way, and I have been dealing with quite a lot of the fallout of a failed relationship and losing the sense of who I am… 

So I have been doing a lot of writing lately. But most of that has been going into one or more of my faithful Moleskines or blank books. I have been trying to let go of the idea that I was supposed to submit to my husband, that I couldn’t be “feminine” enough to let go of my own thoughts and desires… and yet reclaiming a lot of my feelings of femininity. I want to start writing morning pages… 

As Serin noted, in his few entries on my trip to visit him this time, I explored my feminine side by buying and trying on sari’s… and poor Serin was dragged along for the ride. I spent time wearing dresses and makeup and dressing up a bit more than I usually do. He indulged me in letting me do a tarot reading for him, and allowed me to record that. He played along when I decided that we needed to test out all 40 pens I had brought with me, and decide which were the best instruments.

And I added 2 more members to my “family” – a tiny 7 week old black kitten (male) which my daughter has named “Arthur”, and a small 8 week old black and white kitten (female) which my son has named “Magik” – which were adopted from our local SPCA. These 2 little beings have been essential to me in learning to feel like this apartment of mine is “home”. 

And for the best news… I was granted a court order while I was in Toronto. It was agreed, between our lawyers, that for the interim (until a final divorce or the house was sold and the remaining assets were divided between STBX and I) STBX would start paying the table amount of child support starting in May 2008 and going forward… he agreed to pay this amount 2 payments per month (1st and 15th) to me. He was also told he was to pay his portion of child care expenses, again as of May 2008 and going forward, in the amount of 73% after taxes (calculated by his legal counsel)  — he was required to do this by July 31 (which he hasn’t dealt with the arrears as of July 30), and he is required to reimburse ME every month his portion. AND, he was ordered to continue paying my car payment and student loans in lieu of spousal support.

The house has yet to sell. I don’t know if he is purposely holding onto it, hoping that it will help him when he tries to declare bankruptcy (which he seems to be setting me up for, as he keeps telling me he’s running out of money and is in the red, and how he will have to decide what payments not to make)… until he can get me to agree to consider all or a portion of his ridiculous spending debts (Visa and line of credit) as marital debts and therefore can use any sale of the house to get rid of these debts (good luck). I am at the point where I am going to ask him, via my counsel, to get a realtor involved because I believe the house is a great house and could sell if there was assistance moving it.

So… that’s my life right now. Writing, kittens, loneliness, ink, pens, computers, coffee and tea, love, hugs, and learning to love ME again…