30 days of letters

I’ve now seen this on both Britni’s blog and They Belong to Us, and Essinem and I’ve chosen to participate in honor of a new month and such. Basically, the gist is that you write a letter a day for 30 days. It’s part self-awareness/reflection, part writing prompt, part free therapy. This might be good for me to have something to write about and also work out some of those there... feelings....

I'm gonna do my best.... Come back and check!!

Day 1 — Your Best Friend

Day 2 — Your Crush/ Partner(s)

Day 3 — Your parents

Day 4 — Your sibling (or closest relative)

Day 5 — Your dreams

Day 6 — A stranger

Day 7 — Your Ex-partner/love/crush

Day 8 — Your favorite internet friend

Day 9 — Someone you wish you could meet

Day 10 — Someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to

Day 11 — A Deceased person you wish you could talk to

Day 12 — The person you hate most/caused you a lot of pain

Day 13 — Someone you wish could forgive you

Day 14 — Someone you’ve drifted away from

Day 15 — The person you miss the most

Day 16 — Someone that’s not in your state/country

Day 17 — Someone from your childhood

Day 18 — The person that you wish you could be

Day 19 — Someone that pesters your mind—good or bad

Day 20 — The one that broke your heart the hardest

Day 21 — Someone you judged by their first impression

Day 22 — Someone you want to give a second chance to

Day 23 — The last person you kissed

Day 24 — The person that gave you your favorite memory

Day 25 — The person you know that is going through the worst of times

Day 26 — The last person you made a pinky promise to

Day 27 — The friendliest person you knew for only one day

Day 28 — Someone that changed your life

Day 29 — The person that you want tell everything to, but too afraid to

Day 30 — Your reflection in the mirror

Not afraid... maybe

I'm afraid of heights. Deathly afraid.

I'm thinking of taking Rock Climbing lessons.

Anyone wanna join me??

If you scream into cyberspace and nobody is logged on, does it make a sound?

The problem with being a blogger/ twitterer/ attention whore is that everything is public. The internet is a perfect platform for me to BE an attention whore without having to annoy the people around me. People can CHOSE to tune in to my blog or my twitter stream and watch the magic (ie: the trainwreck). They can do it with interest, disdain or pure voyeristic delight.

I say that it's a problem though, because I feel compelled to do most things in public. Changes in my life, in my relationships, issues with my kids, my family- it's all out there. There are few things I consider off limits. (usually regarding negativity towards people I love but maybe I'm annoyed with at the moment) However when it comes to ME and my ongoings- there are some who know all I divulge, and that is usually a LOT.

Besides all the drama with my husband, my current relationship is going through a moment of upheaval. It's exhausting and sad. So what do I do? I blog about it. I blog about the break up- the stress, the emotions. I twitter my sad state of being and am comforted by the outpour of friendship and support from my 'friends'.

I've been warned about living my life on line. Having relationships in public. It makes it harder when things go wrong- but in some ways it makes me more aware of how I behave. I refuse to slam my loved ones but I also refuse to stay quiet and hurting. Grieving outloud is how I do it. I don't have a local group of girlfriends who meet for lunch and or congregate on my bed for a heartfelt chat over wine. This is NOT Sex and the City.

More like Sex and Social Media.

So I grieve outloud. I reach out for my friends who return my call with virtual hugs, text messages, IM's, DM's and naked pictures (ok, I haven't gotten any naked pictures YET...). I put my heart out there to my world and I'm ever grateful that people are listening.

If I'm not going to break down on line, why break down at all??

Blow me, bitch.

"You're a pain in my ass. Stop being that!"

Ahh thank you Mel. Only rage can deliver such a clear message.

mental days

I'm taking a few days off of work. My original plan was to spend it with 'the boyfriend' who is in town but that hasn't worked out as I'd hoped. However I see that I do need a few days of peace and quiet to get my head together and get caught up on a few things that have slipped thru the cracks.

My Homework: I am currently failing my Operations Class? Why- cause I just can't get my damn homework done and/or turned in on time? Why? Cause I really just feel overwhelmed and depressed.

My Apartment: I was on a good run in starting to clean it- but I stopped doing the daily maintenance and hid in my room for several nights. Why? Cause I really just feel overwhelmed and depressed.

My Job: Ok, well it doesn't make sense that I would take time off if I need to get back on track at work, however- if I don't just take a few days to unwind, by myself without the kids screaming in my ears, my husband on the phone and the other relationship issues I'm having- well I think I'm just gonna do shitty work. I really DO care about my job more than that.

My life has gotten away from me again. Somewhere, I lost my basket. I lost sight of what is important to me and fell into the scary trap that says, "I'm not good for anyone or anything so maybe I'll just drink and take these pills and then mope for several days on end." My kids are seeing me fall apart. Alex doesn't even want to BE HERE right now. No- this is not good and I just have to get myself together. Put on my big girl panties and pull it together.

How? I have no idea.

I have a hard enough time getting out of bed in the morning, and a harder time getting out of the house. Yesterday I called my girlfriend, just sobbing, crying. Mostly because of the boyfriend, but somewhat because I just felt that I couldn't move. My chest felt like it was about to explode and I wanted to scream and kick and cry. I was terrified and I just couldn't make a step. I expected a nervous breakdown to be something really dramatic, like going to bed for days and days until someone shows up and throws you in a shower, clothes on. No- this breakdown is like the end of a slow speed police chase. I knew the cops were after me, but I figured since I was already going, I may as well go until the engine runs out.

My engine has officially run out. I give up.

My life is unmanageable because I simply don't know what to do with myself. My feelings made no sense, I know they are not true. I am NOT stupid, incapable, or unworthy. I am NOT unstable, unlovable OR unfuckable.

I am not disposable.

However, I feel that I am all those things- and these are feelings that seem to burrow deep under the surface of my skin and like a thin splinter, it's just not gonna come out all that easily. I can't stop myself from falling apart, it's already happening and it simply needs to happen. However, I have to set parameters that are within normal limits for my kids to feel secure. Everytime Gabriel sees me cry, he has a set back. The circle is vicious and nobody is gonna stop it if I don't.

So what's next? Well I'll tell you- I'm not sure. It looks a little like soothing my soul with comfort food. Talking out some issues with the boyfriend in hopes for some relationship aftercare. and who knows, maybe some laundry.

cause I'm a cowboy....

I went out for drinks and dinner with a friend of mine. This guy is an old friend from HS that I kissed at graduation but over the years we connected on MySpace, then again on FB, and at the HS reunion. Great guy. Hot guy.

We just drank and at and laughed and threw out all sort of sexual innuendo. It was fun. I needed it. Depression is hitting me hard. The end of my marriage has me feeling a bit more out of sorts than I was expecting- and my current relationship is hitting some uncharted waters. So life feels a bit heavy and my arms are pretty tired lately.

The best part of the night was when my friend decided to get up and sing Karaoke. It was a pretty dead night and the Karaoke DJ was doing his best to try to 'pump up the crowd'. I've been to this restaurant on Karaoke night before. Years before with my SIL and it was a really fun place. The DJ now is kind of 'wedding singer' cheesy- I miss the days when the sexy girl with the Russian name sang for us.

So my friend gets up there to sing some Bon Jovi and I gotta tell ya, he's singing like a rock star- until the chorus comes up. And he goes into it- with gusto and conviction. but wait, whats that... I see it- just to the right. The DJ- he's stepping up- he's raising the mic... oh nooo... don't do it...

"waaaaanted...."

he did it.

OMG- he's standing in as Richie Sambora!!! He's singing backup Karaoke!! I almost pee'd. Partially because of the hilarity, but because the look on my friends face. It was as if someone came up and pinched his ass as they walked by. It was a BonJovi WIN.

So DJ Sambora continued the sing backup with my friend while I eyeballed him like a slutty groupy. It ruled.

Great night.

a thousand peices

I got an email tonight from one of my husbands old flames. I knew some of the story about them- his version which I'm pretty sure is skewed beyond recognition of the truth. Without giving too much away- there were a few things said that absolutely shook me to my very core...

He's the main reason I left the state...

...loving him was going to kill me...

...disbelief that he did this, again and this time it is so much worse...

...care about someone and have it just eat at you till it rots you to the core...

Part of me just wants to scream. Why? Why tell me this? Why now? Hello wound, have some salt!! But I know this person meant no malice. None at all.

So here I am. Overwrought with guilt over the decision I made to put him out. Thinking back on 10, 11, 13 years of this- for what? It was all a lie. I thought it was when I got pregnant with my youngest that really sent him over the edge. He was a drinker before- and a bad one- but he was getting better. Define "better" -I know. But when you are on the edge, better is better. Drunk 2 nights a week is better than 3 and much better than 7- right? So yes it was better for about 9 months. When I got pregnant with Danny- he sunk. I remember him sitting down in the middle of the living room like his legs had been taken out from under him when I told him I was pregnant. Things were never the same, and I carried with me a torch of guilt about that. I got pregnant and it pushed him over the edge. It only got worse, and while there were moments of 'less bad' it never got 'good'- or even 'better'. Moments of clarity, patience and better than average parenting skills of a sometimes functional addict still don't make it better.

I took on so much guilt. When he went of 'the deep end' before Danny was born, I even considered adoption for him. Thinking I could not take care of a new baby on my own- and well, I was quite suicidal anyway. I have lived with a lot of guilt for 'pushing more on him than he could handle'. I wanted what I wanted- I refused an abortion even though I considered it.

I have spent the last 10 plus years trying to figure out how I could do it all. How I could make it better. One of the first things I learned in Al-Anon was that there was no amount of caring, enabling, or screaming I could do to make him get better. I couldn't even make him WANT to get better. There was no amount of love I could give him to make him better. I knew this.

Didn't I?

The truth is- I didn't. I said I did. I knew it- but yet I thought that if I helped this one last time. If I was indifferent. If I was loving. If we had dates. If we had a good holiday. If we had more money. If I gave him what he wanted. If if if. I thought I could love him enough. I thought I could help him and that my love and our family, and the children were enough to make him WANT to take the help. It was enough to make him WANT to get better. All he really needed was the DESIRE to get better. The desire strong enough to try. He never wanted it, he never tried.

I have no idea if he is trying now. I fear that he isn't.

Now, I have this letter. This letter could not have come at a worse or a better time really. This letter tells me that my life was a lie. That my marriage was dishonest from the beginning. That his drinking problem did not PROGRESS- it was ALWAYS bad. He just hid it- and made it look like it was 'getting bad'. Looking back, what I see as 'the start' of it- was just when I started paying attention. The spiral was a good excuse to blame me for it all. I never stood a chance.

Never. He was long gone before I showed up.

What a spectacular lie. What an amazing waste of 13 years of my life. I have been fighting a losing battle. I have told so many lies. So many secrets. I have held on to so much shame. So much resentment. So much self-doubt, guilt, blame.

I thought he was my soul mate. I thought he was the other half of my heart. I was wrong. I was so wrong, because how can you love someone who isn't real? You can't truly love someone who you don't even know. I realize now, that while I knew things about him- I never knew him. This saddens me- because well, he knows me. Of course he does, how else would he have manipulated me for so long?

I am very much like the sender of this letter only decades later. Every day I think about leaving the state. Moving far away from him. I think about hiding. I think about dying. I think that I have to escape because I find myself in this trap. It's MY addiction- and while I'm much better at staying away from it, well... for example, alcoholics are told to "walk in dry places." Anywhere that he isn't- is my 'dry place', and I am not sure that this city, county, state or this side of the coast is big enough for the two of us. If I leave where he can't get to me- I'll be free. It may be the only way.

As I come to the end of this post, I must say that this changes nothing. My decision to leave has been sealed. I have moved on. There is no hope for this relationship, but I have to admit that it breaks my heart into a thousand pieces to know that it never stood a chance.

the right thing

I don't know what I want to do with this blog anymore. I don't want to blog about my husband, soon to be ex husband because I think it bores the fuck out of people. However, since I'm still here...

Last week or so, I decided it was simply time. It was over and done and the last straw had been... um... 'strawed'. I gave him a few days to get his stuff together and get out. I was so angry - mostly because I didn't want it to end THIS way.

I don't know if it's been a week or two weeks since then. Maybe two weeks. Anyway- so fast forward to last Friday and I offered to drive him to rehab. The day before, he went to a facility and DURING the intake process his blood sugar dropped to dangerous levels, they had to call 911 and he was sent to the ER, and then was told he could not go to that rehab. It was a state run facility and while they may take patients with health problems, they needed someone a bit more stable. This facility was a pain in the ass though, from the beginning. I decided to just use my insurance and find him a facility that had a few more resources. I allowed him to stay one night and on Friday he found a new place that took our insurance. Ok fine. So I took the morning off and drove him around lunch time, about 60 miles to Riverside to a nice looking place that was acceptable far enough away.

So I'm waiting in the kitchen area when he comes out- and he's white and sweating and headed for the vending machine. His blood sugar is dropping... again. Ok, now my husband doesn't have LOW blood sugar problems, he has HIGH blood sugar problems. The only time his blood sugar ever gets low is when he takes too much insulin... so yeah. great. He ate a BUNCH of candy, which I knew would be a problem later. Then went back into the office. More waiting.

Then I get called into the office.

Your husbands blood sugar is very low. We had to call 911.
again.

Great.

So the rehab facility tells me that they referred him to a different detox facility that CAN help him with his blood sugar but he needs to be stable before they take him in. So the ER needed to stablize him and then he could go into that other place. So off to the ER where I explained to the doctor what the situation was. He hadn't explained to the doctor what the situation was. This didn't shock me, which was why I insisted on going back there. When the doctor asked him, "so you need a letter clearing you for detox?" He agreed and played along, but I know now that he was doing his best to either get a last dose of meds, or had it in him to use whatever means possible to screw this up.

7 hours later and his blood sugar had spiked up (thanks to all the candybars)- and then it finally came back down and the doctor said he would clear him and we could be on our way. His response to that was instant anger. He got up and pulled out his IV's etc. He walked off the unit and then came back when the nurse followed him. He was in a rage and wouldn't even wait until we GOT the discharge paperwork to leave. The doctor was confused and when Mike walked off the unit, I explained to him and the nurse what I suspected was going on. Now he HAS to go to rehab. His efforts to sabotage failed, and now he's pissed.

The nurse had me go out front and she agreed to come out with the discharge paperwork. Security also followed, making sure that I would be ok. He offered to drive us to the rehab center. Can you imagine? The hospital security, btw, was the Moreno Valley Police Department. So yeah, that would have been all kinds of awesome- but no, I'm ok.

So it was 11PM now, and we drove to the facility. and waited and waited and waited until he was taken in. We barely spoke until it was time to leave.

At 12:45AM, I finally went home leaving him behind.

Those were the details of the day. The emotional nightmare can barely be touched. It was a bad day. I had nothing but guilt because I was forcing him to do this. I had no idea if he wanted to get sober, he said he did- but he had no other choice at this point. I was putting him out- I was leaving him homeless. This was his only hope, and I was helping him get there- and his negativity about it made me want to put his bags on the side of the freeway and him with them. Even in these last moments together I felt so angry that here I was trying to help him and he was still resisting. Even in the end, he would never accept what I was trying to do. He would never truly appreciate it.

I know I made the right choice... I know because it felt like hell and doing the right thing never feels as good as it ought to.