My AFFIRMATION

 Serin pointed out to me that in the past few weeks I could have managed to finish NaNoWriMo if I had put my effort to a story rather than blog entries. I am sure he’s right.

If you look at the sheer amount I have written and posted on both Open Diary and FrozenNowhere you will see this:

• I wrote almost every weekday.
• I posted at least 1 entry per day, usually more, sometimes posting on both in the same day
• each entry is over 1000 words, on average I think they have  been around 1800-2000 words
• so in 2 weeks, an average of 2 posts a day, 5 days a week, with about 2000 per entry and I likely have written 40,000 words…
• If I only had an idea, I could likely get 50,000 words done in less than a month
• each entry takes me about 10 minutes to write when I get time to write it, between other tasks at work…

1.  Wanting to find a way to avoid killing my neighbors (who were blissfully silent (but likely not even HOME) last night, thank the gods)
2. Feeling “stalked” by somoene on a dating site. I wrote about this date on my Open Diary, but lets just say the date itself was okay, but I decided after a few minutes alone with this man that I did not think that I wanted to spend MORE time alone with him. I have subsequently blocked him on both sites that I have used.
3.  Not wanting to deal with K at all lately. I have wanted space and time away from him, and yet the more I want to get away from him the more he seems to get desperate and grabby for more time. The biggest problem is that I do not feel like I want to spend more time with him, I seriously do not. I do not want him to email, phone or come over. I do not want him to stay over at all. I do not really care to hear about what failed or what he wanted in regards to our relationship. Seriously? I want it OVER and I want it done and I want the freedom to breathe without feeling guilty about what he did for me (of his OWN accord and free will). And I resent that he looks for reasons and excuses and things to give me to get time with me… I need space and he’s not giving it to me at all.
   •  I get emails from him.  The kind of things that I would write in my JOURNAL or Open Diary about, he sends TO me. I am extremely uncomfortable with this, and have said so, but that doesn’t seem to even stem the tide of emails coming in.
   •  he texts and phones me. If I don’t answer he seems to get frantic. I hate this, because I don’t like the smell of complete and utter desperation that I get from him.
   • I feel guilty every time I am around him. Its like an immediate dampering of my feelings. I can’t change him, its just the way he is. He can “try” all he wants, but he is wearing his hang-dog, kicked puppy feelings all over himself and I don’t believe that it is HEALTHY for me to keep trying to be his friend given that I end up feeling horrid about myself at every turn.
4. Excited about a new prospect on the dating front. I don’t want to write about it too much, in case that jinxes things.
5. Christmas is coming up, and I need to really deal with what the kids want as well as what I want.
   • I don’t like doing the “what I want” thing, because inevitably ANY time I say I want something I get told that I really do NOT want it, and that just annoys me. If I say I want something, dammit, I want it, it doesn’t mean that ANYONE needs to buy it for me. But I don’t see a point in giving my mother a list of things that I want, because she will never ever use it and get me little things that she finds at the Bargain Store anyway. I mean, what’s the point?
   • My kids are hard to deal with, because I want to keep it to a dull roar. I want to get them each one thing (they both want a Didj from LeapFrog and I approve of that) and that might be their “Santa” thing. I know that GirlChild wants a pretend computer (like a Barbie LapTop) and BoyChild wants DS Games and electronic toys like robots (which he has a zillion of and he NEVER plays with)… but I think that one “Santa” gift (and stocking stuffers) and 2 small gifts are enough. I don’t want to spend more than $200 per child
   • I am getting my parents a Dell. I have to order that.
   • I don’t know what to do with the friends
     • G I might just get a gift cert for, its the easiest
     • Serin… who knows, but I think the scarf will be part of it
     • and since K is not really someone I am considering a “friend” right now (and I know this will result in a few texts and emails saying it) I don’t think I will be buying things for him
     • I should get cards to send and give out at the office
     • the new guy? I don’t know… its hard this early on, since I’m not even sure that we have anything more than “dating” going on
6. Work is seriously nutty, but I am not stressing about it because it will get done… and its not the kind of thing where I will EVER have absolutely NOTHING to do. I do have to start considering what I want out of this, because although I am overwhelmed by the AMOUNT of work, I am not even slightly CHALLENGED by the type of work I am doing, and I know that there is no step above where I am now in my department so I have to decide if I am wanting to try and transition into a different role or start to work on more education and transition out of the company to something else.  I have been looking online for degree courses I can pick up at night… but the issue is still the impending divorce…
7. Or lack of MOVEMENT on the divorce. Yep, STBX’s lawyer can’t confirm that they will be able to make it to the 4 way meeting. I have suggested to my counsel that, in that case, we just proceed directly to a chambers meeting so that there is SOME possibility that I will eventually get a validated, SIGNED, and LEGAL SEPARATION AGREEMENT. I am NOT waiting another year…
   • I am well aware that the longer the house sits on the market the less likely it is that ANY funds will come out of it. I am also aware the EX likely has nothing in his Mutual Funds or RRSPs anymore due to the economy… which I am sure he sees as a good thing because its LESS for me. But I am also unwilling to take on his debts without proof of reason, and I am more than willing to pursue retro support and child care, and I might as well go for broke and seek a court issued order for that.

I have realized I am the Queen of Lists (along with the Soverign of Procrastination Nation) as lists tend to show up in a lot of my entries lately. I am embracing this. And so… for my own amusement I have decided that I am good with lists. Heck, I’m not giving you my “to do” list every day, or my grocery lists…because its not all that interesting as grocery lists go. I guess I would do a lot more graphs and charts and stuff if I could… I am big on those .

Even facing “death” can’t slow down my life too much, there is just too much going on, and although I mourn I move and grow and reclaim. At least the attempt at reconnection, rejection, acceptance, and reflection have done one thing for me — I have been able to reclaim one part of my past and reintegrate that shard of who “Pam” was into who “Pam” IS now…

As anyone who might be reading can tell, my writing has flourished in the past few days. It might be shocking to anyone who only knew me in the past 5 or so years to know, but this used to be a daily practice — NaNoWriMo would not have slowed me down too much just because for years and years I wrote an average of 5000 words a day between my website, journals, Open Diary, and emails. And I lost that feeling… it corresponded to the downfall of my marriage as well as the pressure I felt to get rid of that part of myself by getting rid of my friend. And there were months I didn’t write at all… nothing more than the notes of a bored housewife — lists of groceries, cheques, and reminders.

It’s a reclaimation for me. I have accepted the loss, I have accepted that it is my responsibility to become who I am. I no longer have the option to bounce my words off a trusted person, and that has forced me to seek that approval within myself. Its been a hard process to get through, and like all things I go through, I have now given myself permission to fail and get up again and dust myself off.

I have a feeling that I will need to rely on that promise to myself a lot. As an Aries I tend to jump first and think later — or I think and think about something, get someone ELSE involved and tend to walk away or get fired up for the NEXT project. But it also means that I hold myself to high standards, and that means that when I fail to live up to my high standards I tend to stop trying.

And that’s not good.

And because it is friday, I have decided that I will adopt a new “tradition” of reviewing my week for its goods and bads.

Good stuff:
-got an email address for my former friend. Gathered up my courage and emailed him an apology for the loss of his friendship (thankfully before I thought about it TOO much). 
-Recieved response email from the former friend. While it did not allow a renewal of our friendship or opportunity for openning a dialog between us again, it did offer forgiveness. And I was able to offer him forgiveness. 
- I finally mourned the friendship as a loss rather than something just on hold if I could reach out for it. Knowing is better than not knowing in my world. 
- Found my words again.
- went on dates
- knit up a storm on the scarf
- almost completed the socks, so they will be ready to mail out this week for my mother’s birthday
- went to the gym and really felt good about things for a while

Bad Stuff:
-being rejected by my former friend, even though I was completely expecting it and I know that I deserve it, that it has run its course and that it is a done deal.
- mourning
- feeling the confusion that comes from doing the dating thing
- dealing with K and his hurt, and not wanting to revisit my mistakes with the former friend by doing the same thing with K
- feeling pressed for time all the time
- not having a lot of time to clean my house, meaning that I have to do that all day Saturday because its one of those things that needs to be done
- waking up several nights worrying about death (oh the season of death)
- waking up several times with calf cramps
- trying to find a way to book hotel rooms, at this late of a date, for the company Christmas event that is Dec 4… and knowing that my manager’s promise to find rooms in Regina (since he lives there on weekends) didn’t happen and with a metric TON of work on my plate I can’t spend hours phoning around, especially since I do not even have a COUNT since the manager didn’t bother to hand out the Christmas event invitations to the guys this week! ARGH…
So that is that…

I have so much to deal with for this weekend… I’m sort of looking forward to somethings, and not to others.

I am not sure what my plans are for tonight. I seem to be double booked right now — I had been trying to meet up with someone for a few weeks and missed an email last night. I was hoping to meet up in the day on Saturday (thus avoiding having to do the cleaning thing) but he is booked that day… and so he asked about tonight. The only thing is that usually G and I go to a scrapbooking late night crop the friday nights I don’t have my kids.

What to do, what to do?

I am really kinda hoping that I get to see the one guy that I have started to become seriously interested in this weekend as well. He might not be able to get into the city, and I know that its not really possible for me to drive out there to meet with him because my car is not likely up for it until I fix my tires… and if I stayed late I would have to drive 45 mins back into the city in the dark on the highways. It is unlikely I will know until sometime Saturday (although I am hopeful).

I have to do some of my podcast… I will do that Saturday after I get back from the gym. I will clean my house, knit and do the podcast… and I will start making the christmas cookies. I also think that I should get my groceries and make a meal plan up. If I decide what kind of cookies we can make then I have something that the kids and I can do in the evenings after supper that is sneaky in incorporating math into their daily lives (laugh)…

And although I feel bad at having finally lost my friend for good… I know that in some ways it is HIS loss as well, because I am a great person again and he’ll lose out on that as much as I will be losing out on his friendship.

Its ALL good…