I missed doing a Check-in last week because, well… things were crazy (and I was crazy exhausted because my neighbors woke me up SUPER early (4am) and I wasn’t well (UTI))… anyway here I am again…

The Bad Stuff

Still Exhausted

Just plain exhausted.  It seems that no matter how early I go to bed at night (I try to be in bed by 10pm, which is “early” since I get home from whatever activity I had that night at 8:30pm or 9:30pm and then I usually need to wash dishes and sweep floors and do some housekeeping) I don’t seem to be able to get a RESTFUL sleep.  With my anxiety over everything right now, and worrying that at any minute something unexpected will catch me off guard, I tend to wake up 4-6 times during the night.

Too Much to do

While I know I will get it done (I really have no choice with this) I am also keenly aware that this time I am completely on my own.  This is the first time in my life that I haven’t had either a partner OR family to help me move. And its freaking SCARY, because I feel like I am leaping out there and risking everything without any support. And I know that even when I was married I didn’t have support. And I know that I didn’t have support from R at all. But it FEELS different not having anyone at the end of the day… you know?

I just HAVE to get everything out of the old place in order to clean the place completely for the landlord. I might not like the way he treated me, or the fact that he never did any upkeep of the property once he left, but it is basic respect to leave the place clean…

I will do what I can to get it done. That’s all I can do.

Hard times in my head

I have been attending a group for women who have been involved in domestic violence situations AND have started seeing a counselor as well this week. This has been bringing up a lot of feelings that I had stuffed down for so long. I have been feeling LESS safe in my suite, with the partying going on over my head at all hours of the night, strangers coming and going and slamming doors, and having to call the police several times a week to get the neighbors above me to turn their music down so it doesn’t rattle the windows and pictures. I have been remembering all sorts of nastiness with theEx, theStalker, and ColdBlood that I thought that I had forgotten – outbursts, feelings of intimidation, fearful feelings – and it hasn’t really made it easy for me to deal with a lot of the things that I have going on in my life.  I have it on good authority, though, that I am, in fact, NOT crazy to have felt that these men treated my badly and that I DO have the right to have distanced myself from them.

Still… I think it’s gonna take time.

Haven’t been doing the journaling/tarot thing

I sorta dropped the ball this past weekend when the UTI and exhaustion caught me off guard, and the stress took over when I got LESS done than I wanted to (because of the feeling of ICK)… and the overwhelm took over when I got overscheduled and realized that I had only 3 weeks left. What that has meant is that I seemed to have dropped the 5 minute journaling/tarot card pull from my daily routine.  And I have realized I have felt… um… less grounded lately too. Although that COULD be that there is a deadline  or two or three bearing down on me right now…

I think maybe cutting the reading before bed by 5-10 minutes and putting this back into my routine might not be a bad idea.

The GOOD Stuff

Almost FREE

Although the stress is likely to do me in this next 3 weeks… I am almost free from the daily stress and pressure of living in a shared dwelling with people who do not know how to respect differences and needs of others. Maybe it’s wrong of me to expect them to have some sort of idea of how to respectfully SHARE space and do things like:

• Clean up after their dog when she messes in the laundry room
• Clean up the yard after she deposits dog-logs all over EVERYTHING
• Not leave garbage on the back step where their dog will rip it open and SHRED it all over the yard
• Remove their laundry from the laundry room when they are done
• Turn their music down when asked politely, or by 11pm as per the general noise ordinance
• NOT slam the doors when they go in and out
• NOT allow their friends to try to get into my suite (or not DARE their friends to do that)
• NOT smoke drugs (or actually ANYTHING) in the house

Anyway… it’s just a matter of DAYS before I get away from having to live with them and they become someone ELSE’s problem.

ALMOST DIVORCED!

After 2.5 years away from theEx, I have FINALLY signed the affidavit for dissolution of marriage. According to the MoronLawyer, now it goes to HIS lawyer and then to the Court of Queen’s Bench. Depending on how busy the courts are, and how many holidays fall in the middle of the process, it could be anywhere from 4-6 more weeks before I am finally granted the certificate of divorce.

It was an expensive milestone, but I needed to be free from ties to him.

My own STYLE

With my own home comes the ability to decorate in my OWN style. Sure it will be a while before I will be able to afford to replace my living room furniture, but over time I will be making my new home MINE.

This is the first time in my life that I will have a space that I don’t need to get permission to do what I want to my own space. I don’t have to be accountable to my parents, a boyfriend, a husband or a landlord!! I can (and will) paint the walls whatever colour I want. I can put down whatever kinds of rugs I want! I can hang up my needlework and my degrees. I get to decide what I want to do, and I get to make it happen… WITHOUT ANYONE ELSE SAYING I CAN’T!

I can (and will) put up an altar. I can do a house blessing. I don’t have to account for ANYONE if I want bright colours or dark colours or even WHITE all over the place. It will be MY place.

It’s the first part of my independence!

Making my friend Sunil come to visit

Yes, I totally intend to make my friend Sunil visit… and help paint things garish colours (and likely help pack a few things, and do a house blessing ) and you know why? Because I have a house!! And because he totally needs to visit and celebrate with me! HOUSE!! YAY!! DIVORCE (almost)!! YAY!! BEING SINGLE !! YAY!!!

Yes, I like to make up events to make Sunil visit – like throwing myself a baby shower when I had GirlChild and throwing myself a birthday party when I turned 35 – maybe its kinda sad that I throw so many parties FOR myself??

 Whatever.

Being SINGLE and LOVING it!!

It has been about 3 weeks since the breakup with R and I feel like I have really blossomed as a single woman.  Other times when I was single I was looking for ways to get into another relationship. Yes, there are certain benefits to being in a relationship (*ahem* you know what they are… but also having someone to lift heavy stuff for you or get things off the top of things is good… and killing big bugs), but I am starting to realize that I am fine alone.

I am actually LESS lonely now than I was when I was with R. And that is how I know that the relationship wasn’t really meant to go any farther than it did.

More amazing to me is that I am not really that interested in trolling more dating websites and trying to find “Mr Right” through online chat sessions. Not right now, anyway. I might go back to wanting to find someone to go on dates with or talk to on the phone, or to share special events with… but that’s a someday kinda thing. Because when I seek again I will be looking for someone who gets ME and who will treat me RIGHT and not just whomever will take me without too much whining complaints.

I am happy to be alone right now. I can make a mess doing my scrapbooking thing if I want to. I can spend hours doing needlework WITHOUT having to watch football. I can try out new recipes. I can WRITE. I can explore my spirituality. I can learn to love the ME that is ME.

And I am gonna give MYSELF and MY KIDS a special valentine’s day – I’m gonna make chocolate pancakes with strawberries (for them, because, dudes I can’t do chocolate before NOON) and maybe we’ll go see a movie after dance class (well… after SUPPER after dance class, because I don’t want to fill them up with junk ALL day)…  I am hoping we get some packing and cleaning done as well… but I think that this is something WE need to do as a family.

I know that when I do start to seek love again I will have a MUCH different attitude about how I want to be treated and a MUCH lower threshold for “men behaving badly”…

CHANGE IS GOOD

I think if I keep saying this to myself I might come to believe it (laugh). But I know that this time it is true… this change will be for the better and the stress will be totally worth it, if I can just keep it together for another few weeks.  

I will be getting my OWN internet (connection) and a home phone (part of a deal to try it out for 3 months) and that will be different. I haven’t had a home phone system for 2.5 years… and I have gotten used to not being able to call anyone outside of my city. And to have a (sorta) phone line for even 3 months with UNLIMITED long distance will feel SO good! I can CALL people and not worry that my cell bill will be astronomical… Don’t know if I will KEEP it though.

Part of the plan is also a free 3 month trial of cable tv. Which is odd because I am also keeping my satellite tv system (rather than paying $200 to cancel it with a month remaining) and a PVR rental system. I have 3 months to see which system I prefer, satellite or cable, and then cancel the other… and make any changes to my existing internet and phone systems as well…  

But I will need a phone handset AND a wireless router.

Oh, and curtains

That is all

So… here we are at the end of the week.

Let’s recap how this week went:

The Bad Stuff

Officially breaking off my relationship with R.
 SOOO much harder than I expected, given that I was pretty much “girding my loins” (snicker) to do just this for the last few weeks as I realized that we
1) viewed our relationship very differently,
2) were going in pretty much OPPOSITE directions, and
3) I was almost CERTAIN that R had been seeking out another relationship behind my back for a few months and I DIDN’T CARE.

But losing the “girlfriend” status also meant being officially “single” again, which is something that I am not entirely comfortable being.  AND… all the things that he had agreed to help me with for my move, not gonna happen.

Anxiety, Nightmares and living in a situation that constantly triggers me.  
Like many people who have overcome abusive situations, I have things that can trigger anxiety in me. One of my BIGGEST triggers is being around MALE people who are under the influence of something (drugs or alcohol)… especially if I don’t KNOW the men in question. So imagine how hard it is for someone like me to live in a house where the people living ABOVE me party almost EVERY night!  Yes, my upstairs neighbors have friends over almost EVERY night and they always drink. The drunks like to invade common areas – the hallway between our suites, the laundry room, the back yard – and play ‘games’ such as writing rude things on my car, deflating my tires, and trying to open the door to my suite. I don’t know these people at all, and I don’t appreciate feeling like someone is going to walk in on me at any time, so my level of anxiety has been SUPER high lately, leading to panic attacks, headaches, and nightmares.

GENERAL ACK stuff

Divorce STILL not done
Yep, I am still waiting on my lawyer to finish this up. I am to sign the official affidavit on Monday, though. Then theEx has to sign it and it goes to the court. Or at least that is what I was told the last time. This is ack-some because:

1. theEx has been allowed to continue to intimidate me and use money to control me through out this process, with my lawyer doing nothing to stop it other than to say “document it” (I have been, thanks, you didn’t TAKE my documentation!!)
2. I want to pay off the debt that my lawyer has caused, but I only want to have to do it ONCE so I am waiting on final billing, which won’t happen until the divorce papers come back.
3. I can see theEx trying to play douche-bag games with me over child support, since he’s trying to do it NOW, and forcing me to incur MORE legal debt

So, yeah, ACK.

MOVING STUFF
Like I said before, R had agreed to help me do a few things around my current place to help me get ready to move, and they aren’t really things I know how to do on my own. And I don’t own necessary TOOLS to do these things either. So, between having to hire someone to help me repair a doorframe, and likely having to beg more people to help me paint and move big heavy things, this move is looking a little more stressful than it was before.

I have SO much to pack and declutter, I have to pick out colours for rooms, I have to pick out a washer/dryer set and a few pieces of furniture I don’t have… just a list of a bunch of stuff…

Kids going to their Fathers for 2 weeks
 While this DOES give me time to get some cleaning, decluttering and packing done, I really HATE when they are with him. Since he’s an abusive, self-centred person I can’t imagine him as a very good father (he wasn’t involved when we were together), and he’s on the shared custody kick only to punish me and to minimize the amount of child support he pays. He also refuses to let them call me when they are there, which makes the ache that they are gone worse…

The GOOD STUFF

The Being Single Again
Yes, the being single again is part of the un-joyous suck part of this week… but it is also a HUGE RELIEF. Since I had become aware that things were not good with R (about a month ago) there were a lot of things that I realized I needed to decide FOR MYSELF.  Being with R meant:

• Not being able to go out for a nice meal that wasn’t a hamburger or pizza (the only 2 meals the man eats)
• Becoming a teetotaler  – I’m not a big drinker, but having the OPTION once in a while without being made to feel like I was clubbing baby seals would have been nice
• Being stressed about disciplinary issues with his kids – whether  it was my children feeling ignored or his kids hitting or R threatening the children with spankings, there was a lot of stress surrounding the parental roles
• Never having a mature relationship

Being single again means being MYSELF for ME, and learning to be me instead of trying to impress some man. Maybe I’m late to the party, but I finally figured it out : If I have to pretend to be someone else to have a man like me, then he’s not someone I want to be with.

Being single means not having to think about what someone ELSE might need in my house. Being single means I can play MY music and do my writing and MY hobbies and not have to worry about entertaining someone else all the time.  It means making MYSELF feel good about things and not always second guessing what someone else wants.

Good Bye “R”… have a good life…

New Practices!!

• Yoga! I have been checking out yoga videos from the library and trying them out. I still haven’t found consistent time to do them, and I am working on that, but I’m trying. Even my cat is getting into yoga!
• Reading before bed! For the last few years reading was a luxury for vacations without the kids. But now that the kids are getting older, there seems to be a lot more time for reading. I bought a $6 lamp from Walmart a few weeks ago, and since then I have reinstated the reading before going to sleep ritual that I had practiced for most of my life (but left behind when I left theEx).
• Nightly Tarot draw! Okay, so there are times, especially this week, when I have forgotten to pull a card, but since January 1 I have been pulling one to three cards from my deck and reading up on the symbols and meanings. Interestingly enough the last card I pulled (Weds night) was the Death card!! If you know about the Tarot, and Paganism, you know that this isn’t necessarily a bad omen… and it really spoke about what I needed right then.
• Soulful awareness! I am starting to slow down and really think about what resonates with me – from what I want to eat to what I want to read to what colours to choose for my new home, being aware of how things affect me and the effects they have on energy around me is really profound.
• Journaling! Not as much as I want, but I’m getting better with at least writing down 5 to 6 lines per night. Someday I will want to know how I felt about this period in my life, and how I got to be so spiritually aware…
• Meditation! Every night before I go to sleep I have been using guided meditations to oven myself to self-love and balancing my chakras!
• Trying new recipes! The weeks that I don’t have the kids (and some that I do) I try out new recipes that I think *I* will like! Being sick of burgers, chicken fingers, and other “kid” foods, I have started to try new tastes and flavours!

Realizing that I am NOT alone
For years I had lived the belief that theEx had every right, as a husband, to treat me the way he did, and that it was my PERCEPTION of the normal husband role that caused me to fail in our marriage. I had several counselors through my marriage (including my marriage counselor) and after assure me that what I went through was abusive, that even though theEx will tell everyone in the universe that I was a horrible wife, mother, and woman, the truth of the matter is that I had every right to decide that enough abuse was enough and to walk away instead of induring it.

To that end I found a group in the city that provides a support group for women who have gone through ALL KINDS of domestic violence. While it is sad to note that there are that many of us living this way, it is nice to know that I am not crazy, that I’m not just a whiner for leaving someone who controlled and ignored the needs of his family.

It’s also nice to know that there are bloggy people out there who care about someone they have never met! When I posted about feeling alone the night that my relationship officially dissolved, I got quite a few people mention the blog community. While I am still very new, and I don’t have much reach, it is nice to know that there are SOME people out there. And then when I was feeling low, I got assistance from a Twitter pal: @Fabeku, who shared with me some wonderful and healing sacred sound recordings that I can’t wait to try out tonight!!

Tonight I am going to make the most of the fact that I have the night off  (even though I miss the kids). I am going to clean my kitchen, then make myself a lovely chickpea and greens stir fry with couscous for supper,  maybe I’ll pick up a nice white wine and have a glass, light a candle, and have a bath…

Have a good weekend… whoever you are out there!!!

• The kids and I have recently become involved with the Boy Scouts of Canada. GirlChild is a Beaver, BoyChild is a Cub, and I am a Beaver Leader (Nickname: Rainbow). Through the Boy Scouts of Canada we have started to make new friends and connections… we are getting involved in the neighborhood in which the kids go to school, even though we don’t live in that area.
• I have started taking an Irish Dance class at the Queen Maeve School of Irish Dance, the same dance school that my daughter has been taking Irish Dance for 2 years. I am making friends with some of the women in my class (although the class enrollment has dwindled from 8 to 4 as of Dec 1). I might not be perfect at it, but I like it, and I am gonna keep going!
•  I have a blog. While at first that wouldn’t seem to be anything that would reduce loneliness, I have to say that about half of my good friends do not live anywhere (even remotely) near me. Yes, that makes it very difficult to go out for coffee or to a movie together. Because for so many years I was a stay-at-home parent 100% of the time, when I wanted to talk to people without spending a lot on babysitters, I reached out online… I met a lot of perfectly wonderful people online, and I continue to do so. And while my blog(s) do not have a steady and solid readership yet, I still write in hopes of finding more connections and weaving a stronger web of friendships out “There”…
• I’m looking into classes and courses to keep myself LEARNING. So far the roadblock that I have come across is my reluctance to give up precious time with my kids (and not having to pay babysitters all the time). I’m looking into Yoga and maybe another dance type thing?
• I am trying to find support type groups in my city– ones that either have child care or are flexible in allowing people to attend when they can. So far it hasn’t been easy to find. I am hopeful, though, that in the new year I will be able to schedule into a group for women escaping abusive relationships. If nothing else I will be entering into counselling for myself as well as my son (who started last week) so we can heal the wounds of abuse, and so I can become a better mother.
• Joining groups — single parent groups? Pagan groups? Unitarian Church? Book Club? ANYTHING that I can fit into my schudule AND I can afford

• With the help of my kids I hope to re-learn how to create without worrying what others think
• to doing yoga in the living room and not worrying about if we’re doing it right
• meditating
• journaling on my journey out of abuse and into love
• teaching my kids to skate
• teaching my kids to BAKE
• being part of the community — finding a FAMILY FRIENDLY organization that we can volunteer with
• Allowing my kids to give back to others
• Making messes without worrying about the “state of the house”, because eventually someone will clean it up
• Writing down the stories of MY CHILDREN for them (oh the joys of being able to type fast) and myself

• 
  
  I do not considered myself married to theEx anymore (even though I am not divorced)


• 
  
  I do not want to be assumed to be his wife (again, I am hoping this will eventually not be the case)


• 
  
  I am worried that the kids will not understand my name being different than theirs


• 
  
  I am worried that theEx will use it as a way to distance the kids (since he sees them as HIS and not OURS) from me with regards to schools and events


• 
  
  I am completely overwhelmed trying to figure out WHAT organizations I need to contact to get this stuff dealt with