An Open Letter to My Second Ex-Husband

I want you to know that yes, it's a lot without you.  Just as you said it would be.  Right now, it's a lot between the first six weeks of the school year (when you left, I imagined life as far ahead as parent/teacher conferences, and that's it, and now we're here), my son now suffering from what's being referred to as "chronic pain" because it's gone on so long (due in part to this divorce?  Psychological factors?  I don't know, and it's killing me), as well as my daughter's insane high school schedule.  

But I'm doing it, asshole.  I'm doing it all.

You didn't think I could, but you left your wife and her children so who cares what a shitty little bitch thinks.

Mailbox

I do play out the scenario in my head: he doesn't know what he was thinking, how could he do such a thing, he would do anything to have me back.  It happens, always, with a phone call.

But even in my dreams, I have to beg him to come back mostly.  I've given hell to his mother and his sister there, but I always give my pride away easily to him in my dreams.

I know the phone won't ringing.  I know he'll never talk to me as a person.  He just slinked away like a snake.

I'm getting back to that place where fuck him, who does he think he is, anyway?  I GAVE myself away to him, and he never deserved me.

Sure, I am strong of mind and will.  Sure, I don't give in when I really really stand for it; but my fight was always for my kids.  There's no way I'm the asshole.

I tried so hard, though, this second time around.  I did try so hard not to make the same mistakes.  I did not take him for granted, I never betrayed him not even for a second, and I loved him the best I could...I tried to change myself.  I did.  I heard what he said, and I changed myself.  And I was completely fooled into believing that I was loved in return.

And then I was left

Which is really cruel, truly.

So fuck that dude.

And time has passed now so I know in my heart and ****soul**** (he didn't believe in souls...red flag...) that I was left by a cowardly bullshitter...so who cares now.  I'm almost there to 100% believing it.

But still play around with the idea of getting a phone call.

There's just silence there though.

He went to see a lawyer before ever even talking to me.  No big blowout.  Just decided he was "done" and left without eve so much as saying goodbye to the kids.  (Gosh, I must be pretty scary for him to run and hide to his mama.)

You know, every relationship is complicated, but the least that can be said of me is that I gave him the gift of honesty.  Maybe I was too real; but I believed in our till death do we part.  I was real because it was VERY real to me.

I think that's the residue that exists in my dreams.  I think that's the thing that makes me wonder what I would even do if the phone rang, after everything.

Another correspondence from the lawyer today.  I knew that would pop back up...the lawyers have been handling it...my lawyer said I'd hear from her when I hear from her...  Lawyers tend to draw things out.  I've checked the mailbox everyday ready for it.  I only saw the corner of the letter and knew that today was the day.  It seems the mailbox is getting all the real action.

He's Really Sick

My son has been ill for going on two and a half weeks.  He goes back to Vanderbilt  (there's a clue to my identity...but I write the NAME because it's not the local hospital but the one we have to travel to; it carries weight to the significance of the thing) on Tuesday for an ultrasound of his liver and more blood work.  He's been feeling wrong and complaining of vague stomach pains for so long now.  I can't seem to help him, and he's just suffering while we dissect the sickness, doctor by doctor.  I feel myself aging with the worry of it and with the explaining SOMETHING IS WRONG and PLEASE HELP MY CHILD to each of them, more specialized as we go.  I have had a bad feeling this whole time, and it grows with the days.  I tell myself I have to think differently and will another fate into existence.

This thing with my son sure has taken my mind off of my divorce.  I think my (ex)husband is feeling it and living the reality of our divorce/his choices more than me; he's practically dead to me now.  There's just no room in my heart now.

The poster child

The back of my eyes hurt.

I have no time to write.  I'm drowning in work because I've been to the pediatrician, the clinic (x2 trips), the ER (in the hours of 10 pm-3:30 am) and to a specialist for my son all since 8 days ago.

I'm the poster child for when it rains, it pours.  But I refuse to lose my sunshine.  I want to be the poster child for mother fucking hope.

We're going to get my son well again.  It's been 2 weeks, and this specialist is going to have figured it out; and there will be relief for my child.

I'm going to close this entry, and I am going to rock this pile of work down and get enough sleep to survive tomorrow.

(And tonight when I go to sleep I'll think about that cute ER nurse that looked at me just like so and touched me just like so...)

And this trend where the weeks get harder ends here.

I'm the poster child for turning it into an opportunity to be a badass.  I got it all, LIFE, and I carry optimism in my heart.

"Life is 10% what happens to, 90% how you deal with it."

Holy Weekend

Five years ago, this is the weekend when our love began.  Again.  We referred to it as "Holy Weekend" in the years that followed, and oh god, there were moments when I felt perfectly in love in this life.  Loved.  He had me believing- completely- that I was his Sweet Baby and we lived for one another.  He was my second husband, but he was my first true love.  It happened in '98 when we met.  It happened again instantaneously five years ago.  As swiftly it came in, it's now all gone up in smoke.

I know he's thought of me, and that helps.  But only in a way.  He must miss me some on our weekend, on the first since he left.  But he was the one who did the leaving.

The thing I tell myself is that I chose my kids, and now I live for them exclusively.  But the truth is that he abandoned me, and he's left me utterly left and unwanted.  The greatest love of my life fizzled up and died in just a few short years.  Just past pathetic, the two and a half years of our marriage can only be classified as...sad.  Our Holy Weekend was a phony, a sham, a gimmick, and a lie.

He never really loved me.  Never.  Not with the kind of love that sustains.  Not really.

I wasn't hard to deal with.  I didn't expect much, and I asked for even less.  I just asked for room to be me.  I never lied or pretended to be someone I am not.

I am strong.  I will fight with all my heart for what I believe, for love.  For what's right. 

If I could be different, I would have been.  I would have done it for him.  I would have let him "be the man."  I would have let him discipline my kids in the too-harsh ways he wanted; but it never was my choice to make.  He wasn't the greatest love of my life.  I had already found it when he blew in with the hope of autumn five years ago.

This weekend is for my kids now.  The hope remains, and I will still feel completely loved.