Inhale....Exhale....Inhale...Exhale

 It's been a little over four months.....and where am I? Better than I was, but not as good as I know that I'm going to be.

It was Sunday night...*sigh* I'm not sure what Sunday night looks like for most, but for me it feels like an weekly exercise in futility. By the time Sunday comes I realize that I have gotten no rest, that I'm just as tired as I was the week before, and that the next day will be Monday......and the wheel goes round and round.

I go to work, I keep my kids together, I study, I write....and I get no sleep. A good nights sleep has become something that eludes me. Just when I feel like I'm slipping into a really deep sleep, the alarm goes off.

Inside I know I'm holding on to something that I need to let go of....but I can't quite put my finger on it. The other day a really sweet person on Twitter asked me if I thought my "soon-to-be ex" would come back, or if I even wanted him to. I have asked myself these very same questions a thousand times...and I really have no answer.

I think, I'm afraid to admit out loud that I really don't want him to come back.....that would make me a bad person, a bad wife. I'm supposed to keeping the light burning in the window in the hopes that "sir stupid" will see the error of his ways and come home.

The not so funny thing is, if I think about it too long a get a knot in the pit of my stomach and feel nauseous! (I have really bad reactions to anxiety) That's when I have to remind my self to breathe...inhale, exhale....inhale, exhale.....I have to remind myself that I can only be in control of my own actions, that it's OK for me to love myself and to know that I deserve to be happy.....and that this is all just a part of the process.

"I willingly accept love and feel it to the depth of my being."

My Life In A Series Of Fridays

This week was REALLY great.....until Friday that is. That was the day that the "soon to be ex"  came over to try and help me with my air conditioner. People, I looked at him and he looked really good! It looked as if he had lost at least 10 lbs.

It was at that moment that I began to feel as if the entire universe was conspiring against me. Not only does this man leave me after almost 20 years, but he has the nerve to have been working out, losing weight and looking amazing! I felt as if I had to do something anything to make the field of competition level. After all, this is a competition isn't it?

From the moment that he left, I've had on my mind the fact that I needed to make my self look good, not solely for the purpose of rubbing his face in the fact that he left a good  woman, but just for me and my self confidence. I thought I was doing fairly well...that is until this past Friday.

So what did I decide to do.....I decided to be like a race horse with blinders on. I'm not going to worry about what he's doing, I'm just going to run my race.

At the beginning of the summer I decided that I was going to take a vacation day every other Friday, partly so that I could do summer fun things with the kids, but also so I could focus on how I can make our lives better. Things have been coming along slowly but surely. But after this past Friday I decided to change one thing that I had been putting off, my bedroom. If you've been following along, you know how important this room was to us, this was the one place that we as a couple were able to come together after a day of madness and just let the whole world melt away, and just be the two of us. But the two of us are no more. So I needed to put a new spin a more personal, singular spin on my room. So that's what I did. I was afraid to move his things, but I did. just to get them out of eyesight. my room now feels like it's free.

I don't know what all of my Friday's are going to bring, but for now I'm just going to run my race, making changes in my life in a series of Fridays.

~And this to shall pass

Days 15 and 16 - Check List

These last two days have gone by fairly easily...not much drama. Since the "soon to be" ex left, there really hasn't been much drama. There have been a few moments, but nothing that I'll bother you with here.

I take the train to work every morning now. I used to get a ride from the "soon to be" ex...but not anymore. We only had one car and he took that with him. I don't really like the arrangement, but, it's too far for him to travel from job to job to take public transportation. Any way, as I was riding on the train all the things that I don't know how to do as well as the things that I need started running through my mind.

It's tough having children and no car living in this city. There are things that we want to do, places that we want to go that we just can't get to. Who wants to spend hours on the bus to get to a mall that you used to drive to in 30 minutes. What can I say, some families never have a car, but we did, so that's what we're used to. Right now I get the car for a few hours on Saturday. So the second thing on my list is to get a car. But you know what's funny...I've had several cars in my life, but I've never bought one on my own. My father gave me my first car, and by the time I got a second I was married.

What's the first thing I need to do you ask? Get my credit together. I've been trying to work on my credit for the longest. But now that I'm facing being a single mom and the primary caregiver for four children, I have no time to waste.

Then, I thought about the little things I need to learn, how to change the windows in the house, how to work the electrical box in the basement. How do handle the water that comes into the basement when it rains really hard. We've never really had to have repair men come to the house. The "soon to be" ex was a very handy man and did most of the minor repairs that we needed around the house. Do you know I don't even know how to cut the grass! I know I can figure out how to use the mower, it's the fact that I've never done it.

I told the kids that I wanted us to sit as a family and make a list of all the things that we needed to learn and do around the house, and we'll work on them together, as a family, the way that it always should have been. I think it will especially be good for my daughter to learn how to do some of the things that I never learned how to do. I want her to be as independent as she can be.

So I'm off to start the check list.....I wish everything else was so easy.

But, this too shall pass.