2012 In Review – Part II

This is the second of four recaps of the 2012 Review Extravaganza.  I’m joining up with other bloggers, recapping the last year, three months at a time.

April: On April 8th, Easter Sunday morning, my husband D told me that he wasn’t in love with me anymore, and he wanted to separate.  For the first time in our marriage, he took his wedding band off, which to me really said volumes.  I went through the motions that day, which hurts doubly because, as I later found out (and couldn’t have known then), this was to be the last holiday with my grandfather.  My last memory of him is of him sitting in my parents’ den, watching golf on the TV, blissfully happy…so I guess I can count myself lucky.

I think I reacted about the same as anyone will.  I can’t say that I didn’t see it coming.  Our marriage had never bounced back from the crushing blow it took in September of 2011, and although we had been seeing a marriage counselor, DS, since then, things hadn’t been as productive as either of us had liked, and I think D got tired and decided to throw in the towel.

The high point of April was going to Boston (a week after Easter) and meeting some fabulous friends from an internet message board that I’d only spoken to.  They were as wonderful in real life as they are online, and it was a great get-together.

I spent about a week lying in bed watching TV and crying all the time, and then something happened that jolted me out of it:

I got an A on my first major graduate paper since going back to school.

This was the wakeup call I needed.  I had to do well.  I knew I had to do well before all of this happened, but now it was even more critical.  It wasn’t even a case of “I won’t let him take this away from me.”  Because in the end, D couldn’t ruin my graduate career.  Only I could do that.  I couldn’t let me take this away from me, if that makes sense.  What good would it be to let my studies fall down?  Then I’d be divorced and a failure.  No.  So as difficult as it was, I threw myself heart and soul into being the best student I could be.

May: May was another difficult month.  D didn’t want to tell his family until we actually, legitimately separated, and I was having a difficult time finding an apartment.  We lived in a college town, and the housing market is ridiculous (affordable apartments are rarely on the market for more than 24 hours).

On May 12, I was a bridesmaid in my friend Tina’s beautiful wedding:

I spent the first three weeks of May tearing my way through my papers, and took three days off at the end of the semester to go to May Wildfire retreat.  I really wish I could find the video online of me spinning fire poi, because it was awesome.  But I can’t find it.

I came back from Wildfire, and found out that I had gotten an A and A- on my report card for Spring 2012 semester.  Which gave me a 3.85 GPA, the highest I’ve ever earned.  It was exhilarating.  I’ll admit I teared up at my desk.  I couldn’t believe that I had done it, that in spite of it being the most difficult few months of my life, I had rocked it.

I wish I could say that May ended on a high note, but it didn’t.  In the same week, my grandfather passed away at the age of 90 from what the doctors believe was an embolism.  And two days after that, my guinea pig, Milo, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.

June: I found an apartment, and at the last minute, I let it go.  My parents told me that my aunt, as executor of my grandfather’s will, would be willing to rent me his house, out in the woods, until it got a buyer.  With trepidation I agreed, because the house was so remote and out in the middle of nowhere (as my BIL said when  he saw it “People commit murders in places like this”), and I tried to find something else to occupy my brain.  I signed up for a five week course, starting the first week of July.

 

Okay, I wish I could say it gets better from here!  It doesn’t, but Week Four will, at least I hope, be slightly more uplifting!