3 months?

That's not so bad, right?
So much stuff flying through my head, so I'm just going to get some of it down now and worry about the rest later...

I signed both boys up for soccer. During the school year. Right at the end of September if you're keeping track of when my posts stopped. If you've ever done this before then you know exactly where this went sideways, but if you haven't then please allow me to explain...
After work every day I had just enough time to change clothes, pick up the kids, and drive to the other side of ton during rush hour for soccer practice. Usually we were a bit late. Luckily, the boys had staggered days of practice, so I only had to do this 4 days a week. Homework and dinner took a serious turn for the worse during this time. Then, the Boys and Girls Club neglected to mention that they had decided to give the kids double headers every Saturday so that they'd get more games. Suddenly I had two different boys to get to two different locations at 4 different times on Saturday morning! I spent more time running between games checking on kids than I did actually WATCHING them play. After 2 weeks my boyfriend started shuttling one kid and I took the other and we switched off the next weekend , etc so I got to see each kids' games every other week, which was distinctly better than the previous system. Thank goodness that ended. Two months of pure torment. Suffice to say I have learned my lesson and won't be doing that again any time soon.

The ex has taken to calling the kids every two or three weeks. Usually this leads to another bout of toileting problems with my 5 year old and it's just a ton of fun. I understand that he's at a training academy and is quite busy studying, but if you have time to drive to Orlando for an NBA game or to go to Universal Studios, then you can certainly find time to pick up a frakkin phone. I never in a million years thought this was the kind of father he'd be if we split. It's hard to believe this is the guy who said he wanted the kids full time. After we split, he didn't contact the kids for almost 3 months. He used to tell me he didn't have the time or money to drive from his parent's to see them. Then I found out he was driving PAST our house to go see his secret girlfriend and, well, my sympathy for his situation became much harder to find.

I've been emotionally involved with someone for a while now. We were attracted to each other while I was still married, and I was honest with my ex about it. When we split I began spending more time with this person, but I was as respectful as possible towards my ex about it. I kept things firmly in the friend zone, and we spent time with the kids to help keep us honest. Then I found out one day that while I was taking care of my ex's budget and making sure his bills got paid and doing all necessary paperwork for him, he was sleeping with a female soldier from his unit. I had been ripping myself to shreds and allowing him to tell me how horrible I was when the whole time he was using that carefully budgeted money to buy Mother's Day flowers and other goodies for his girlfriend. Oh hell no.

It took almost 6 months for him to agree to sign divorce paperwork. Hey, why get divorced when you have a girlfriend for fun and a wife to take care of your responsibilities? It took another 6 months for everything to be finalized. Because he decided to change jobs right before our final paperwork was submitted I had to make changes in a mad rush and missed some things, so the judge sent it back for us to change and sign. Ex, of course, is in Georgia for work and I once again had to wait on him for everything to be submitted and mailed. Still, I have kept my mouth shut and preserved his reputation with his family and willingly been cast aside by certain members of his family. It serves no purpose to reveal his treatment of me, other than making me feel good for a little while.

The reason I share this is because in June, when I found out about the girlfriend, I moved my friend out of the friend zone. He has been joining our family for dinner almost every night, we have had several family activities with his children, and he has become a regular part of my kids' lives, filling their need for a steady male influence. When I had to work Christmas Eve day he took the day off to watch the kids for me. While I was at work he sat the kids down for a little talk. He explained to the kids that he loves me very much, and that as he's spent time with all of us he has come to love them very much as well. He told them he wants to be a part of our family, and then he asked them if it was okay to ask me to marry him. Apparently they all responded in the affirmative, because that night, after everyone had opened their Christmas Eve pajamas, he asked if I would marry him. I looked to the kids and asked their thoughts, and there was an enthusiastic "YES" from the ranks.

We're planning to get married just a few months from now. Since we both had Justice of the Peace weddings the first time around we want to have a real celebration of the joy we've found. I'm finally being accepted for me, not in spite of me. I'm in an honest and respectful relationship, where disagreement isn't a failing on my part, just a difference of opinion. I'm with someone who will voluntarily start cleaning my house, just because it needs to be done. It's a partnership, and we both give as much as we take. When I need to lean on him for strength while I cry, I do. And when he needs to lean on me when life gets hard to handle, he does. It's a perfect type of balance that I thought was made up, there was no possible way it could exist...until it suddenly did. This honest commitment to someone as an equal is what love is about. After so many years of being told I'm nuts for hoping for more from my relationship, I've finally out I'm not crazy, there really is something more out there. I'm reminded of when our marriage counselor pulled me aside to tell me "He's never going to get it, he doesn't even want to understand what you're saying. Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you still here"?  It took almost a year to understand what she meant, but now I get it...

Time to exhale

  You know, every time I think I have found my bearings, some new emotion creeps to the surface that I am unprepared for. I have worked through the majority of the anger phase, though it crept in here and there for far longer than I thought it would. A great deal of my time lately is spent feeling a sort of pity for someone who has destroyed their relationship with others and who is still completely clueless as to how any of it could possibly even the slightest bit their fault. I generally experience short but extremely intense bouts of worry and fear, but I think that's too be expected given the situation. Some mild loneliness slithers through from time to time, exceedingly rare though.
  It's like looking back on the you of a decade ago and all you thought you knew. You realize how much you've learned and grown and have to give a chuckle at just how developed you believed yourself to be at the time. As happens with most major life events, I can chart these changes over a matter of months rather than decades. Hard to believe that only a year ago things started to unravel rapidly. Hard to believe I was such a hollow, beaten woman then. Harder still to believe that the majority of my emotional battery came from within, the punishment I administered to myself in response to perceived failures and the criticisms of other.
  For the most part, I am beyond that. Light years beyond actually, and any moments of self-flagellation are nothing but ghosts of days long passed. I think these shades are familiar and comfortable in their own weird way, but as soon as I try to wrap them around me my better sense kicks in and hurries them away towards an eventual final departure.
  I have long roads yet to travel. Really, look at all the life left before me. I have managed to kick my leg over the top of that wall after a long dirty struggle upwards, I pulled myself over the edge, dropped back to earth, and I'm moving on towards the horizon. Sometimes I find myself at mile markers I hadn't realized were in front of me, and they give me pause long enough to turn around and see that me that was standing in front of that wall a year ago.
  Today, after a not disastrous trip to the fair (your shock mirrors mine), I was mowing my incredibly shaggy lawn. My friend was visiting, and my children were surveying the plum tree in the side yard. I took a short break from my much needed workout (fair food, seriously, tons of it went in my belly today) and looked to where my children played. There, mostly hidden by the branches of the tree, stood my friend. He was lifting a bowl towards my boys, perched in the tree, collecting the plums as they plucked them from the branches. My daughter stood at his side, pulling plums of her own from the lower branches she could reach. The breeze brought me bits of their chatter and laughter flowed freely.
  Suddenly I realized I had let out the breath I wasn't aware I was holding. We'll be okay. Maybe not right now, and I'm sure there's tough stuff yet to come, but we'll be okay. I can still preserve my children's happiness and security, I can still make sure they know they are loved and safe. Life goes on. I am not the woman I was a year ago. And for that I am thankful...she'd have never made it through all this

Clearly

I had a rough few days with the X.
I just want to strangle the people who say divorce is an easy out for people who don't want to do the work of being married. Divorce is hard. Always.
It's hard and it's painful in a way I could never begin to describe. Even knowing it was the right choice I believe that I will always hate myself a little for making the decision. I have moved on but still carry the scars that come from doing hard things and enduring the struggles.

I have to be honest for a minute... If you are moving to a far off place where you are guaranteed to not see your kids for at LEAST 6 months, and I have to beg you, beg, to say goodbye to your kids in person rather than over the phone, I seriously wonder what type of person you are. I cannot fathom NOT doing everything in my power to see my children every possible moment I could before I left, even if it meant long drives and sleepless nights. I just don't get it...

Realization

Knowing that someone is selfish and cruel and that it's still the right thing to protect their relationship with their family and children even if you end up being shunned is one thing. Actually being on the receiving end of the shunning while they have a hunky dory life is another thing entirely.

Frankly, I'm terrified

The Con was an amazing success. The week flew by and I honestly can't imagine that Heathen and I have ever had more fun. Her husband is trying to get stationed near here and I hope beyond hope that it will happen because I miss her like crazy. Sometimes we even freak ourselves out with how similar our minds work. By similar I mean EXACTLY THE SAME.

Ex got a new job. It pays way less than his old one and will take him to the middle of nowhere. I hope he truly enjoys his new career path. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Anyhow, he's going to announce his move on facebook soon, so to head off some of the uncomfortable questions I sent a private message to about 50 people announcing that we separated in January and have since dissolved our marriage. Now I'm sitting here waiting for the backlash.

I think I just may get slaughtered in the court of public opinion on this one. The woman usually does, especially if she's the one who files. Yes, I "quit", I "gave up", I was "selfish". I know what people say, I'm just hoping I've braced myself well enough for it...

Con fever

Not to be confused with Con Flu...

For those of you not in the know, Con Flu is the creeping cruds you get after spending an entire weekend amongst the, generally unwashed, masses at a comic convention, or Comic Con.  That sour musky smell you detect when entering a con is referred to as Con Funk and is a mixture of desperation, obliviousness, and a complete inability to grasp social convention.
For those who knew me "before" you may recall that last year we went to the first female centric Comic Con, Geek Girl Con. "We" being my bestie Heathen and I. Are you keeping up here? Anyhow, there are a lot of things that are wacky in the real world which are perfectly normal in the Con world. Like walking around in a costume all frakkin weekend in the middle of an average to large size city where only a small portion of other homo sapiens are doing the same. This is called cosplay. (San Diego Comic Con doesn't count for this example, since pretty much the whole city is overrun by geeks and nerds for Comic Con and everyone looks like a crazy person) Moving on...
Costumes run from cardboard to professional, well known characters and pop culture references to the obscure. Another phenomenon is crossplay, where someone dresses up as a character of the opposite gender. Heathen and I have created our own version of crossplay, where we take male characters and sort of craft them into feminine versions of the same persona. I have spent hours pouring over con pics and there aren't a ton of other people doing this yet, so it's exciting to see how it develops in the years to come. Maybe it will become a phenomenon of its own, with a catchy moniker and everything. Last year we were characters from "Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog", a delightful Joss Whedon number that we both love, and this year we are going to be characters from "Firefly", another Joss Whedon (read: GENIUS) franchise that we are total fangirls for.
The con sold out last year, which was quite the feat for a first year, niche audience con. We had a thoroughly lovely time and I am all too stoked to see it in action in a larger space this year. It's super awesome to be surrounded with ladies of my ilk and especially to spend time with the best bestie the universe has to offer, Heathen.
So hopefully I will update with pics from our shenaniganizing and you will love them. But we'll have a good time even if I don't post pics, so there's that...

Life goes on. Divorce is expensive btw, even if you file together and agree on everything. My state has a 90 day waiting period before they finalize so I'm basically sitting that out now. If I had filed on my own and we had gone through the whole court ordeal I could have been done by now, but I think it was worth the wait to make sure we both felt like we had a fair shake in the final agreement. It has been almost 8 months of separation and things have mostly evened out. Ex is harboring some sort of unrealistic hope that I will change my mind and come running back with open arms, but that is SO not happening. Even my mother noted that I sound much happier when I spoke with her a few days ago, and though this is hard in ways I couldn't begin to describe, I feel that I am finally closer to being a complete functioning healthy person than I was previously. I like myself again, I feel good enough again, and frankly, that is worth more than I could ever convey in words.

I've met someone. Not really met, as it's a coworker I knew before, but I am getting to know them on a more personal level than before. His kid and my kids have hung out together and my kids seem to like him a lot, so that's a plus. A lot of my opinion of you as a person is based on how you treat my kids, so this bodes well. He even came over and mowed my lawn while I was running errands last week, just to make my life a little easier, I'm not really sure what to say about that. It's an extremely scary place to be, a whole new world one might say. It's nice to know, though, that it doesn't really matter what happens here because I'm happy on my own and don't need someone else to make me complete. That's a very liberating realization.

Have you ever noticed how things can seem so complicated but so simple at the same time? Just asking...

(I would like to note that Blogger has tried to spell check every single geek related term in this post. Get with the times Blogger, Whedon ain't going anywhere)

Time warp

How long has it been since my last post? Two weeks? Three? It seems like a lifetime ago to be honest. I don't think there are words to explain the tornado of emotion in my life, and even if there was I don't know that it's possible to untangle everything and identify individual, specific feelings.

I feel a certain sense of relief. Knowing that I'm moving forward, letting go of some heavy, rusty chains that have been holding me down for a while. I don't mean to say my marriage was holding me down, just that there was some baggage, personal and otherwise. I came to believe certain things about myself that couldn't be more false, and I let someone else determine my worth. Nobody can have a healthy relationship with that kind of dynamic.

I've been trying not to talk about my ex all the time. It makes me feel like he still has ownership of my life and I'm torn between venting and allowing him the free rent in my head. I can talk about devastation and sadness and self respect and growth and sorrow and confusion and liberation and all those other things without mentioning him. It's not all about him. It's about me. It's about standing up, brushing yourself off, steadying your quivering bottom lip and deciding to take a step. And another step. And another.

Wake up. Breathe in. Breathe out. Make it to the end of the day. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There are things I know to be true now, unequivocally. I know that if someone tells you repeatedly all the things that make you a terrible parent, friend and spouse, and then says they want you in their life...one of those things isn't true (and chances are you already knew that). I know that eventually you have to realize that all the "I'm sorry, it won't happen again" in the world doesn't heal wounds and you have only yourself to blame for choosing to believe it in the face of all logic and reason. I know that allowing someone to push your buttons and guilt you into doing what they want doesn't mean you're devoted, it means you refuse to be devoted to yourself. If someone wants to have their cake and eat it too, I refuse to be the extra slice waiting in the wings. If you're sticking your fork in another piece, I'm obviously not that important to you.

Conversely, I've learned that good people sometimes do stupid things. It doesn't make them bad people, it just makes them people. I know that things not turning out like you planned doesn't make the Gospel any less true, it just makes you reassess what "true" and "eternal perspective" really mean. I have learned that reality will eventually sort out truths, the things that others try to say about you will eventually come out in the wash, and sometimes the best defense is to just shut your mouth and move on. I've learned that you have to fix yourself before you can try to fix someone else. I know that people who set strict rules for you that they can't even follow themselves aren't in a place to tell you who you are and what you're worth. When you realize what you're worth, don't let anyone talk you out of it. Life isn't black and white. If you think you've got it all figured out, you better buckle up because you are going to be thrown for a loop, probably sooner than you think and it'll probably be a doozy.

I know that, in the end, we're all the same imperfect person. We may manifest it differently, but we're all going to make mistakes and fall. You will fail horribly at some point in your life. Most likely several points in your life. But there will always, ALWAYS, be people who love you, who want the best for you, and who will support you. Even if it's not exactly what you want, it may be exactly what you need...