More of the Same

For the most part, I give the appearance of being okay. I play with my son, I laugh with him, I come to work and am nice to people. I think that I put up a darn good front. But inside, every second is consumed with missing my husband, with the “what if’s”--- are things going to work out? Is it too late for us? Does he still feel the same way towards me? I am horribly (and probably irrationally) afraid that he will wake up one morning and decide that this is all just too much trouble and he doesn’t feel like working at things anymore. I want to work things out more than anything, though I can’t tell the truth to anyone in my real life because they’ve all decided that they hate A* and that he is awful and I’m SO much better off without him. I go along with it in a way, just change the subject as fast as I can, because I don’t want to have to hear the reasons and how much he sucks. I am under no false pretenses that this was all his fault; I know that I am at least a part of the problem and I can’t stand to hear him being blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong in our life together. I keep thinking about all the things that went RIGHT, and how desperately I want that back.


A* is basically homeless right now; he has been staying sporadically with friends and family, never too long in one place so that he doesn’t wear out his welcome. I feel so guilty as I go to sleep in a nice warm bed in a nice warm house and I don’t even know where he is. I can’t ever get a hold of him, have to wait until he gets in touch with me and when you’re thinking of someone every second it seems like years between phone calls. I just wish I could DO something, but I’m completely stuck in the situation right now. A* has got to take care of some things before I feel comfortable bringing C. back into the situation, and these things may take a while. If there is one thing that I am not good at, it is waiting. I want things to happen yesterday, so having to go day by day and knowing that nothing was accomplished is horrible.

Mostly I’m just so pathetically lonely. A* is my best friend and I miss him more than I could ever explain on this space. I have started writing in a notebook every night to him, every night that we can’t be together. I try to remember cute things that C. may have done or said, and things that I think of throughout the day that I want to tell him, and how I’m feeling. I may or may not let him read it someday. God I pray so much that there is a someday for us. Some moments I have a great attitude and I know everything will work out for the best, but then the black hole of depression sucks me right back in and I am hopeless again.

For some reason the worst part of my day is right after lunch. I would think it would be at night, but I think by then I’m so worn out from the whole day sleep is the only thing that I can think of. But when I come back from lunch at work there are tears just ready to fall, and I feel so helpless and negative about everything and this is when I think the worst thoughts.

If it wasn’t for C. I have no doubt I would either be in my bed under the covers for the next foreseeable future or I would be in the mental ward at the local hospital here is no choice but to pick up my feet, one after the other, squeeze that little boy for all he’s worth, and get through every day.

Take Me Back

Something just took me back to high school art class; the smell of CK One and paste.  I met my best friend my freshman year and we would sit at a table in the back where we could talk without being disturbed; our odd art teacher would jump around at the front of the room and he always had spit flying out of his mouth and crusted around the side.  My best friend wore CK One religiously and everytime I smell it I think of her.  I miss her so much.  I wish I were back in that art class, when my biggest problem was the D on my progress report in math. (BTW, I hid it in my underwear drawer, which was genius because my mom put away my laundry.  Of course she found it and I was grounded.)  I want to smell paint and paste and too much boys cologne.

Blech

I swear I can change emotions faster than I can change an outfit.  One second I'm feeling independent, ready to take on the world and be my own woman.  The next second I'm convinced that we will totally work this out and it will just be a learning experience to make our marriage even better.  Then I of course realize that none of this is true and I will be alone and miserable for the rest of my life, probably still living in my parent's basement.  Probably C. won't even acknowledge that I'm his mom.  Then back to feeling a little positive.  It's exhausting.

A* and I are talking.  Of course it would be wonderful if we could repair the things that are broken in our relationship and work it out.  But I can't go back to the way things were before, so there's a whole lot of work that needs to take place on both of our parts to get to that place.  I can't make C. go through this again, so I have to be absolutely positive that it is the right decision.  Of course everything that I do I'm questioning... is there a "right" way to parent when your whole life is in turmoil and you're trying desperately not to let the child see that it is crumbling right in front of him?  Right now A* and I are still trying to spend as much time as possible together with C. as a family, and obviously not discuss anything heavy in front of him.  C. has still been seeing him everyday, and I'm trying to keep things as normal as possible for him. 

But what's normal when your parents aren't there together anymore, when only Mommy tucks you in at night and Daddy isn't here?  I think that the hardest I've cried this whole time was when I dropped C. off to stay the night with A* at his mom's house.  Watching the two of them walk to the door and then go in there without me ripped my heart out.  The door closed after them and there I was, all by myself while the two most important people in the world went on without me.  I pulled down the street a little ways and sobbed until I couldn't breathe.  Nothing should be this hard.

Thank God for a wonderful and supportive family that took us in when we had no where else to go; the same family that I pretty much wrote off for another incident over the summer took us in with open arms.  But they didn't, however, take me in without conditions,but I'll get into that in another post.  I'm still trying to work all that out, too.  Anyway, they have given C. and I a place to stay and food to eat and love to last and that's more than anyone could ask for. 

I'm the type of person that wants to know what's coming next, I like routine and I like to know what's coming.  Having everything up in the air is killing me and the anxiety is through the roof.  I don't know where I'll be living in two months, who I'll be living with, if I'll be married, if I'll want to be married... it's driving me crazy.  A* keeps telling me I need to take things one day at a time, that things take time, and he's right but it is just so hard.  I used to have the future pretty mapped out in my head and now I just see a big question mark and I can't stand it.

Devastated

Without question this has been the very worst year of my life.  Marriage, extended family, finances... you name it, they have all fallen apart. 

I don't know what will happen with my marriage.  My husband has turned into someone that I don't know; one morning I woke up and there was a stranger in his place, and though I have tried desperately to find him I don't think this is something I can help him with.  God knows I have tried in every way that I know how.  I just can't live like this anymore, and more importantly I can't keep putting my son through this.  He told his grandmother that he can hear us yelling at night, and it scares him.  I feel like I am trying so hard to hold my family together, and maybe in doing this I am actually harming him even more by exposing him to us.  We both have major issues that we need to work on, and we have come to the conclusion that we can't do that while we are together.  I hope with all my heart that we will find that happiness that we had at one time; even if it isn't ultimately together, I want him to find himself again and I want ME to find myself too.  I have become a miserable person inside of this marriage, someone that yells and is hateful and says things deliberately to hurt.  I don't want to be that person anymore.  I can't, and I can't have my baby thinking that that is who I really am.  In my wildest dreams I never thought I would end up where I have. 

I hate not knowing what tomorrow brings, can't stand the fact that when I look into the future I truly don't know if my partner for the last ten years of my life will be in it or not.  I always told myself that my child would never end up in the same situation as I was, going back and forth between houses and not having any happy memories of my parents together.  But I am just so tired, I don't know if I can keep fighting.  Especially when it seems a lot of the time that I am fighting completely alone.  I have been alone for a while now, even while those last fragile strands of our relationship hung in the air.  My whole life I have been afraid of being alone; even as a teenager I wanted to know that someone was home, even if I didn't want to speak to them.  I had roommates in college, went back to my parent's, and then immediately moved in with A*.  I don't (didn't? god damn it) like it when A* leaves at night; I make sure that any unplanned times of free time are filled up with someone I can talk to.  My whole world is falling down in pieces around me, everything that has any meaning or substance is gone.  The only thing that is keeping me tethered to reality is the precious little boy who is sleeping soundly in his Cars bed, stuffy nose making him have cute snuffly noises when he breathes in and out, this little boy is mine and his father's only concern and I can only hope we haven't damaged him enough as it is.

I have never been known as a strong person.  There have been other instances in my life when my loved ones thought that I couldn't make it on my own, and I always pull through.  I HAVE to pull through, because none of this is my son's fault and my only goal in life is to make sure he has the best one possible.  I know this will include both his dad and I, so in whatever capacity we will both be there for him... this is one of the only things that I don't question.  My husband has never lost his ability to be one of the best dads I have ever seen, and they have a bond that I wouldn't dream of breaking.  Whatever happens with us I have to believe is what is meant to be.

But God, it is so, so hard.  I miss him and I hate him and I love him and I don't know him and I think of his smile and I keep thinking and thinking and things go round and round in my head and I never come up with the right answer and I lay down because I'm so exhausted and then can't sleep because I don't hear his cough in the night and I get out of the bed in the morning and don't hear a "good morning, baby" and then I'm pissed and somehow I have to put one foot in front of the other, have to dress the child and put my foot on the gas and sing silly songs without letting him hear the tears in my voice and once I drop him off I will sob and scream and shake and play sad songs at full volume and I miss him and I hate him and I love him and and and and and and....