I am starting to panic

No, seriously, I’m not sure if I can “get ‘er done” and get everything moved.  It feels like there is SO much to do and I don’t know if I can get it all completed in time.

This is the first time I will be moving on my own with minimal help.

The first time without a “partner” to assist in packing and cleaning and arranging things (although I did all the logistics)

The first time without family assistance

The first time I need to deal with 2 homes at once – moving stuff out , doing repairs, and cleaning the old place while painting and setting up a new place.

The first time I will OWN a place on my own

And I haven’t even started packing

You heard me, I haven’t started packing yet.

I intended to do a bunch of it this past weekend… but things didn’t work out that way. Friday found me exhausted from being kept awake late by the neighbors and then woken up AGAIN by same neighbors at 4am when they decided to turn their music UP… I was a walking zombie Friday at work.

Added to that, the stress seemed to finally catch up with me and I ended up with the beginning of a UTI. I plain didn’t feel like trying to find boxes and drag everything out and pack it up.

And then I had to run out to the Scout camp on Saturday night to go to campfire for my BoyChild because his father had only agreed to let BoyChild GO if he didn’t have to do anything other than drop him off and pick him up (and BoyChild wanted to go and for some reason hoped his father would care enough to come and participate with all the other parents at the campfire event… he doesn’t know his father very well, does he?). So in order to not make BoyChild feel like no one cared about him, I trucked my sorry (and SORE) ass out in the snow to the middle of nowhere to be there for my kid.

That’s how I roll, yo!

And Sunday… well… I wanted to REST because I hadn’t slept well and I hadn’t felt well…. I just wanted downtime.

I should have booked myself off from all other obligations and found boxes and packed. But I didn’t.

So I have to find a way to find boxes between my full time job, evening activities and obligations, housework, and parenting this week. Which I am thinking won’t be easy to do because this week I have something each evening – Scouts, Dance,  counseling appointment, support group, kids – so unless boxes fall from the sky or I purchase banker boxes I will have to wait until the weekend to start packing…

And that’s not ALL I have to do, I still have to:

• Change my address for all my accounts and things
• Get my satellite service moved
• Get internet hooked up in my house
• Choose paint colours
• Figure out when people can bring deliveries
• Disassemble things which can’t fit out the doors of the old place
• Fix doors and paint issues in the old place

And OMG taxes need to be done… and things need to be dealt with.

I don’t feel qualified to do this stuff on my own. I don’t feel like I should be solitary, but I am. I feel like I need family,  I need care and love and being part of a group that will actually work with me. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I realize that I am truly alone in a world that is dark and scary. Where I thought I would have someone to have and to hold, I have cats who only want to be fed or to trip me in the dark.

I am glad to be single right now, don’t get me wrong. The alternatives would be theEx (abusive and distant), the Stalker (hoarder and clingy, also live the cycle of abuse), or Reg (totally tuned out of life), and I am happier without any of them. I am happier without being told what to do or think or say or be or eat or feel. I am happier doing my crafty things and being active (when its not too cold out) than sitting around gaining weight and watching tv. I am happier spending my time and energy on my children, rather than on being the perfect little wifey . I am happy with my mild clutter and clean spaces rather than facing the potential of dealing with a hoarder on a daily basis.

I look forward to having a home of my own and having MY tastes and style front and center. I want to explore who I am and what I am, and have that show in my space.

But sometimes, late at night, I wish I had someone to hug. I wish I had someone to help haul crap with me.  I wish that there was someone out there who could accept me for me…

I wish it didn’t feel “too late” for a 35 year old mother of 2… sometimes its just 2am inside my mind.

In the light of day I know it will all be okay. Not because I am stronger than I think (I am) or because there will be something magical that happens to pull it off at the last minute (there might be)… but because it has to be.

I just can’t seem to slow down time to give me more space …

Some days are hard

 Last week, knowing my current relationship was in the toilet, realizing that I would have to have “the talk” I found my stomach in knots and my self esteem tanking. I was avoiding his calls, I was not at all interested in talking to him online or in person, and I was finding myself RELIEVED that he had found something better to do than waste my time by deciding that he and his daughters would come and stay with me.  I was soundly in denial about how BADLY this relationship went and why I allowed it to continue on for SO freaking LONG…

Last week, I was feeling alone and unwanted… and more than a bit scared to admit to myself that  I wanted OUT of my relationship. I am a 35 year old single mother! I work full time hours! I volunteer ! I take classes! I write! I am a great person!! Why was I so afraid to start over and try to find someone worth my time, energy, and my warm generous nature?

Last week I was GLAD that R “manned up” and told me he didn’t want to see me anymore (not in so many words, mind you it was more like “we’ve been drifting and… you know where this is going”) after me asking him, after me asking him for 6 months just to be honest with me about whether he was still interested or not. For the record, I knew that he lost interest in me almost the day he first said “I love you” to me… his actions spoke of neglect and fear from that point on, making me feel confused and insecure.  But he would never tell me that he wasn’t interested in a relationship anymore.

A week ago I found relief in the fact that R finally admitted that to him this had been “casual”… and that the feelings that I had been denying for so long had been RIGHT if I had only listened to them a year ago!

Still the hard won out that night, the feeling of relief was washed away by the sting of FINALLY knowing the truth of the situation. I felt lied to. I felt deceived. I felt… USED. I felt like once more I had allowed a man to walk all over me for acceptance and companionship. And to realize that, in reality, I had not gotten even the most basic companionship with R, he had only stayed with me for what he thought he could get out of me:

• he gave things only grudgingly out of obligation
• In a year we went on maybe 4 dates, tops.  
• I was a hotel and daycare centre for him.
• He rarely contributed.
• He rarely showed any thought about my feelings.
• He freely took from me and never gave in return

Why did I stay with someone who used me as a hotel and daycare service? Who only called when he wanted me to do something for him? Who never complimented me? Who ignored me constantly? Who never once did something nice for me, just to let me know they cared??? What the HELL was I thinking?

I excused his thoughtless behavior over and over – he was stressed about his ex-wife wanting custody of HER children back; he was stressed because he didn’t have as much money as he wanted to have; he was stressed because he wasn’t getting child support; he was stressed because he was going through a hard divorce; he was stressed because his daughters are horribly behaved – and I took his word that he never meant to be thoughtless it just never occurred to him to that he was not doing right by me.

Until the night he told me that, this whole fucking year of my life HE considered our relationship “just casual”…

 I didn’t MISS him, because there hadn’t been anything to miss!

There was remarkably LITTLE change in my life. There were no mementos to throw away. There was no jewelry or trinkets to remind me that R had shared this period of my life and very few pictures of us together. And I knew that he had even LESS to remember me by! I felt that he had missed out on a great person, but that neither of us was in the ideal situation to create a relationship on our own.

He had given all indications that he wanted to be left alone… and now he would be.

I had heard it from his friends, I had witnessed it in the way he acted to his friends, his children and to me. I just refused to acknowledge it.  Didn’t matter who the person was, he didn’t want to deal with anyone other than himself. He preferred to spend huge swaths of time tuned out watch tv or sleep while his kids were gods-only-knew where doing gods-only-knew what, and he was perfectly happy to do that no matter what anyone else thought about it.

 That night that all the turmoil, all the fight, all the RESPECT I had for this man whom I thought was “doing the best he could given the stress he was under”  just washed away and I saw just how little RESPECT he had granted to ME.

 And I sat in the dark, and I thought about these things. I thought about how I had seen the relationship and how I had tried to be there for not only R but his children. I thought about all the times I reached out to help him, but he didn’t return the favour. I thought about how often I asked for just the bare minimum, but that was too much. And I thought about all that I had given up (financially, physically, emotionally) to build a relationship with someone who saw me pretty much as a “place to stay and girl to fuck” and nothing more.

The realizations POURED out of me, the bitterness I had held back within myself for so long;  I was ANGRY about how I was treated!!!  And GODDAMMIT, I DESERVED TO FEEL ANGRY!! For once, not really caring about how other people would label my feelings, I felt ANGRY at R, I felt USED, I was BITTER, I believed I DESERVED BETTER!!

All the feelings that “good girls” don’t admit to coursed through me and out, cleansing me of this relationship.

Within 24 hours I realized how LUCKY I was. I took his numbers off my phone. I deleted him from my MSN. I took “I’m in a relationship” off FaceBook. And I still wasn’t sad.

 By Friday I was feeling like a NEW PERSON.

I dropped my kids off with theEx for his two weeks and I went out and bought myself a bottle of white wine. I came home and I cooked myself a meal that I wanted to try, with new ingredients and a bunch of new flavours. I poured myself a nice glass of cold white wine, put in a movie *I* wanted to watch, and ate my supper.  I made myself a cup of tea, ran a bath, and read a book. I wore my favourite pj’s, I watched another movie, wrote in my journal and chatted with a few friends. I went to bed when I wanted to, feeling SO happy with my life! I got up and had a shower and PUT ON MAKEUP!! I went out and purchased things for my new home. I went out for lunch and socializing with a writing group. I did my needlework. I took care of myself.

 I DID MY OWN THING

 For the first time in a year I wasn’t thinking about R or if he would call or when I would see him again, I knew he was out of my life! I didn’t care if he would disapprove of me drinking, because he no longer had the privilege of having an opinion in my life. I acknowledged my bitterness and anger about the way he handled my heart, but vowed only to be more aware and cautious “next time” I put myself out there.

 I spent time being HAPPY with myself, indulging MYSELF with the things that made my happy:

• My favourite movies
• Writing
• Reading
• Needlework
• Having a bath
• A cup of tea/ a glass of wine
• A tarot reading

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!!!

Last night my relationship with R ended.

I knew it was coming, I had felt it and fought against it for months, hoping that something could miraculously change and I wouldn’t have to start again.

ALONE

It ended over IM. A sad state of affairs, but in a few key strokes it was over, by mutual agreement that things were NOT working, that too much was going on in our lives (for me– kids, divorce, ex, legal issues, child support fight, buying a house; for him—kids, cross border divorce, custody, child support fight, financial difficulties, depression) for us to see a future together.  He realized how bad it was, finally, only after I had given up on asking him to show some interest.

So, through type, the way the relationship started, it ended. With a whimper, not a bang. There was no fighting, no tears, no harsh words or recriminations. It just wasn’t anymore and we both knew it hadn’t BEEN for months. 

ALONE again

There were no tears. I didn’t expect any. After all, he hadn’t called much, he had stopped texting me months ago. I was feeling used and unwanted and I knew I had to end it. And yet, at the point of ending, when it truly hit home that he didn’t have any interest in fighting to stay with me? It hurt… a lot.

I sat, alone, on my couch staring at the closed computer, wishing desperately that I could run off and be supported by a friend or two.  But there is not one friend out there I knew I could call to ease the pain.

Not one.

Not one person who would listen and hold me.

Not one person I could call on the phone.

Not one person who would even be mildly supportive via text.

 The dark thoughts started to take over:

I am utterly and completely alone in this world now. I mean, I have my cats, and I have my kids… but I have to be strong for THEM, I am their support network they are not there to be mine. That makes the feeling of emptiness all the harder to face, somehow. I can’t crumble, because there won’t be anyone there to help pick up the pieces, and my kids NEED me. Without them I might as well not exist anymore… and that really is the truth of the matter now.

Not one person, besides my children, would miss me if something bad happened to me. It could be 2 weeks before anyone cared to seek me out, if anything happened. I’d bet that my cats would just happily chew on me… after all, my daughter tells me I am made of meat.

Only a few days ago there was someone who might have pretended to care. I know he didn’t, not really, not anymore… but the illusion was there

There is no illusion anymore.  

R is no longer someone who would care for me, who I could call. He no longer wanted me. And there was emptiness in my soul, there was a pain in my heart, there was gloom. There was utter and complete loneliness in the darkness and quiet in my house. Sitting in the dark and quiet feeling desperate to talk to SOMEONE, realizing that there was no one I could think of that I could lean against right now.

I felt disconnected from everyone.

I know that this is my own fault, not knowing quite how to make friends with new people, not knowing how to connect to people, how to stay connected… for being so introverted and hidden and afraid that now I am alone in a big, wide, TERRIFYING world, when what I need is support and caring and to be touched and connected to again.

My loneliness is MY fault

I don’t know how to change any faster than I am! I am unhappy feeling friendless. I am unhappy being disconnected from the larger community… and I know this feeling is motivating me to CHANGE how I approach social situations.

I can’t hide so much. So much of my life has been lived in fear – afraid of being punished, afraid of being “bad”, afraid to rock the boat, afraid to speak up, afraid to reach out, afraid to be rejected – and it has been very hard to overcome my natural desire to hide who I really AM. I’ve been trying so hard to figure out what everyone ELSE wants from me that my own MEness has been pushed aside in hopes that THIS time I’m doing it right.

But you know what? I’m okay the way I am.  Sure there are things I want to change, ways I want to grow… but I’m a good person and maybe, just maybe, if I let people see ME they might like me.  And if they don’t like me, then they aren’t my RIGHT PEOPLE (thanks Havi).

I don’t have to be a teetotaler to be “good enough” or “spiritual enough” (thanks Pace!), it only matters WHY I choose to drink or not drink

If I want a tattoo I can get one, there is nothing wrong with being a “freak”… freaks are some of the greatest people I have met so far (and just having a tattoo doesn’t make one a freak…) (Thanks Pace AND Kyeli).

If I want to write, who cares if I suck? If I am silly sometimes does that mean I can never be serious? If I get hurt, if I cry, if I am terrified… is that really such a bad thing? Can’t I reach out when I feel this low without worrying that asking for help will be annoying or bothersome to someone? And if it is, do I really want people like that in my life?

I just don’t know where to START!!

• I write, but I don’t know if anyone reads (is anyone OUT THERE?? And if you are, do you know how to get my analytics to work? Or how to upgrade my WordPress since it keeps nagging me to do it?)
•  I try to comment on other blogs, although for the most part I am a lurker mostly because I read on RSS feed rather than visiting blogs.
• I am involved in Boy Scouts,
• I’m taking a dance class,
• I joined a support group (Beyond Abuse),
•  I think I got talked into a local writer’s group.

Any other ideas of how to build relationships (both online and offline) that are flexible and inexpensive?

I cannot survive ALONE anymore. I am a social creature…