Start of the Holiday Season

I keep pinching myself every time I realize that it’s actually December.  I don’t know where this year went, I really don’t.  Looking back, I realize that I was intensely, insanely busy for most of it, so it’s not all that surprising that the last eleven months just flew.  But it’s hard to believe that in just four weeks, it’s going to be January and 2014.  Considering how crazy jam-packed this month is, I just know it’s going to fly.

It’s strange; this is technically my first year divorced, but it is my second round of holidays without David, since we stopped doing the family holiday thing last November.  David worked on Thanksgiving, and we were already living apart.  The last family events we went to together were David’s family Christmas party and his nana’s 80th birthday.  But we missed everything else, so fortunately I got all of that out of the way last year.  I was anticipating perhaps feeling some sadness on Thanksgiving — and let me tell you, there was no shortage of people saying “now, don’t go letting yourself get upset now” beforehand — but there was nothing.  Honestly, on Thanksgiving morning, I hugged my mom at one point and told her I was “so damn happy”.  I think she was a little surprised, but I know she liked hearing it.  Because it’s true.  I am happy.  I reshuffled my dreams and I’m working it out, and making the best of the hand I’ve drawn.  I think I’m doing more than okay.

The only real blights to my happiness right now are both things that I really can’t change.  The first being — I am fed the fuck up to HERE with my thesis, and with less than 30 pages to go, I’m just exhausted.  Really, done.  I know I have to do it, I have until December 20th but my own personal deadline is December 18th, and I’m just…done, guys.  I’m done.  I’m tired.  Finito.  I’m going to get ingloriously drunk the night that I finish the damn thing.  That’s a promise.  I have a bottle of riesling in my fridge and I’m not afraid to crack into it.

The second would be my stupid lungs.  Which still haven’t improved, despite a battery of steroids.  Jess keeps nagging me to call the doctor and I think I’m going to have to.  I’m still having trouble breathing, get winded ridiculously easily, and get chest pains most evenings.  Bullshit.

Right now I’m trying to balance thesis, work, social life, and Christmas shopping, all while trying to spend some time with myself.  I got some beautiful Dream in Classy yarn for FREE yesterday at WEBS — my dear high school friend Rob gave me a $30 GC for my birthday, and the yarn was $30, so score!.  And I’m planning on making myself a pair of fingerless mitts with it.  Just something small for me.   I’m foregoing most of the Christmas knitting this year.  I’m making a single hat for someone, but everyone else is getting other stuff.  Every year I kill myself with the Christmas knitting, but with school I just do not have the time to dedicate to it.  It’s all right, I’m going to be fine with other stuff.

The yarn, for those of you who like yarn pron, is Dream in Color Classy with Cashmere and is incredibly soft (merino/cashmere/nylon) and I love it.  This is the color: Chocolate Night.  LOVE.

I’m getting there.  Just two more weeks until the end of the semester.  This, I can handle.

Happy (Little) Gratitudes

I feel compelled to write one of these.   It goes without saying that I’m grateful for family, friends, etc.  But these are just the little things that are making my heart happy, these last few days.

Google Docs.   How did I never know this gloriousness before?  Special thanks to my friend Lyndsey who introduced me to it.  I have all of the drafts of the Fallen Beyond Salvation series up there, along with the rough drafts of my thesis chapters and my Christmas shopping list.  Seriously, being able to a) access from any computer and b) not worry about my own computer crashing?  Gold.  Pure gold.

Homemade sugar scrub.  I did this last night and my skin feels bangin’.  Going to make sugar scrubs for friends this holiday season, I think.

Teavana’s White Chocolate Peppermint Rooibos Tea.  YES.  You can pick up this liquid herbal joy here.  Jess and I bought a tin of it the other day, splitting the cost (at $40, it ain’t cheap), and that’s going to keep us from spending our money at Starbucks when we get together at her place, at least for a while.

Lancome Energie De Vie.  I got this as a 100 point sample from Sephora and I LOVE it.  It makes my skin feel incredibly soft and smells very familiar, I’m wondering if my grandmother used it when I was little, because its scent instantly transported me back to being a little girl spending the night at her house.  Of course, the full size retails for $55, so I won’t be getting THAT, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts.  Much like the holiday season.

This week at work.  I have only a day and a half before I’m off for a wonderful four and a half day weekend.  I can’t wait.

Good friends.  ‘Nuff said.

Prednisone.  Lucky me has a lung infection…but at least I have steroids to clear it up.  And at least it’s not pneumonia.

90.5 completed pages of my thesis.  One chapter and 30 more pages to do between now and December 20th.  I CAN DO IT.  And then I get a month off.  Thank God.

When night falls on me, I’ll not close my eyes (car accident PTSD-PSA)

August 27, 2005

I can sum it up in one sentence — my life changed forever.  It was one day, one decision, one mistake.  I got in that car.  By rights, I should never have done it.  I had my own car, but why waste the gas when I could catch a ride with my mother?  She’d drive me back later.  Except I never went back later.  I ended my evening with a trip to Hartford Hospital on LifeStar.  The hours, minutes, seconds of that evening are a blur.  There are moments, lost in time, that I’ll never get back.  Most of them are moments I never want to have back.

To nearly die is such a surreal thing.  At the time, in my head, there was never any question that I was going to live.  There was never even a second where I was lying there and thought “I might not live through this.”  It took me half an hour just to wrap my brain around what had happened to me.   The first time I remember realizing what had happened to me — “I was just in a really bad car accident” — was when I was being carried off the helicopter and into the emergency room.  Before that, I mostly felt heavy.  Tired.  Searing pain on the right side of my body.  I didn’t even realize until a few days later that my face was messed-up.  I didn’t even notice the pain in my cheekbone, near my right eye.  My biggest terror, the only one I voiced, was when they were prying the door from out of my side, and I thought that I was paralyzed because I couldn’t move.  As soon as I knew I wasn’t, I calmed down a bit.  I didn’t realize how bad the accident was until my aunt, coming to visit me in the hospital after taking my mom to sign over her totaled car, said to me “I think you’re lucky to be alive.”  Or, until months later, when I saw the photos of the car itself.  What was left of it.

A lot of people thought that the worst part was the injuries, the hospital visit, the rehabilitation, the physical therapy.  And I’m not going to lie and say those things didn’t suck.  They did.  A lot.  I would never, ever want to go back and revisit those moments of my life.  But the hardest part came after I got better.  When I was home again, in my apartment, and everything was the same, except for in my head.

Me – Autumn 2005, two months after the accident.  If you look carefully, you can see a little bit of “road burn” from the crash in my right cheek, hidden by my hair.

Car accidents aren’t usually the first thing that someone thinks of when they hear the words “post-traumatic stress disorder”.  Most of the time, we think of veterans hitting the deck, or rape victims, or those who were horribly abused in childhood.  But 10% of motor vehicle accident survivors will be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after the fact — and that is only the number of people who seek a diagnosis.  Motor vehicle-related PTSD may effect anywhere from 3.5 to 7 million people in the United States.  It is more prevalent in our country than we may be aware.

I can speak only for myself.  I spent three years in hell.  From 2005 to 2008, my life went off the rails.  I couldn’t sleep.  I couldn’t eat.  I had days where I would walk to my door, to try and leave my apartment, and I would go into a panic attack just reaching for the doorknob.  I stayed up too late.  I drank more than I should have.  I tried to pretend that it didn’t bother me.  I refused to seek counseling.  I refused to get medicated.  I insisted I could handle everything — a full time job and graduate school.  I got fired from one job and laid off from another.  My GPA tanked.  Worst of all — I lost who I was.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that the person I had been, before August 27, 2005, died in that car.  The EMTs pulled out an entirely different person, and I didn’t know how to find myself again.

Over the last five years, I’ve clawed my way out.  It was not easy.  I am not proud of the person that I had become.  It was an uphill climb, with several steps back before I could step forward.  I had to drop out of school.  I had to go through four different brands of pills before I hit on the one that was right for me.  I had to concede and commit to counseling.  More than anything, I had to really self-reflect, to look at the person I had become since the car accident, and say that yes, it was different; no, it couldn’t be the same.  But it could be better.  I could be better.  I just had to accept that I maybe couldn’t do it on my own.

I don’t view it as a personal victory.  It wasn’t about winning or losing; it was about salvation.  I couldn’t go on the way I lived from 2005-2008.  I was losing every piece of myself, everything that made me a likeable person, a good friend, a loving daughter, a caring sister.  There was only one way my life was going if I continued on that path.  It took me three years to figure out that this wasn’t the way I wanted to be.  I had to take back my life.

Now, eight years later, I can look back and say that I am certainly not perfect.  I am probably not where I would have been, if I had decided not to get in that car that Saturday evening.  But I can look in the mirror and say, I’ve got this.  I’ve been through it, and I handled it, and now I’m doing okay.  I wish that I could have become somebody that I liked, without those three years of disorder and chaos, but…that’s not how the world works sometimes.

If there was anything that I could say that is good from all of this, it’s…yes.  It sucks.  It hurts.  But you can get through it.  You can pick up the pieces and be who you were again.  Get help.  Put your pride in your pocket if need be.  Your health is more important.  Your life is more important.  Your relationships with your family and friends are more important.  It’s going to be tough, and yes, sometimes, it is going to hurt.  But God, once you get over the hump, once you get to the top of the mountain and you can look down and see how far you’ve climbed…the view is truly spectacular.  

And it’s all worth it.  Every second.

Me today – Summer 2013. First day of my last year of grad school.

 

The following link is a great resource for people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder of any kind:  Helpguide.org.

 

 

I need to update this thing more…

Sorry, guys.  I’m doing an absolute shit job of keeping this thing updated now that the divorce is over.  Even though I said I would be transitioning this blog into something other than a ‘divorce blog’, I haven’t been doing a great job of that.  I may have made my life something more interesting than just centering on the end of my marriage, but I certainly have done a shit job of documenting it.  The last time I updated was July 23rd, over two weeks ago.  So let’s see where we are now.

Wildfire is in a week and a half.  As in, a week from Thursday.  Holy cats.  Right now, the state of my car and packing is, shall we say, utter garbage.  My car is still full to the gills with stuff that I took from David’s apartment and haven’t found space for in my own apartment (I really need to take a Saturday to just unpack shit and move things around), and I still need a sleeping bag and ear plugs.  Oh, and a can of fuel.  Fortunately, I have everything else I’m going to need.

My thesis is…stalled.  Even though the Graduate Studies Office approved the prospectus (did I mention this?  Oh well, if I didn’t — the GSO approved my prospectus), I’m realizing that I am terrified of actually starting the stupid thing.  I don’t know why it’s so daunting.  It just is.  Stupid, I know.  (In hindsight, I realize that I did write about that.  See?  I need to post more often)

I learned how to sew this past weekend.  Or, more accurately, I learned how to use my sewing machine.  The sewing machine I got for my birthday in September of 2012 (I have been busy.  Sue me).  My first project is a cotton peasant skirt for Wildfire next weekend.  I’m making it in green and white, and if I have time I’m planning on putting a Tudor rose on it.

Speaking of Tudor roses, I designed what I hope to have tattooed on my body one of these days:

It’s a Tudor rose, the white inside the red, symbolic of my obsession with history.  I’ve been trying to figure out what would best illustrate my love of history, since I’ve wanted a history tattoo for a while, and the other day thought, why not a Tudor rose?  They’re beautiful, I’m obsessed with Tudor history (not just Henry VIII — the Wars of the Roses all the way to Elizabeth I and beyond fascinates me)…it’s perfect.  Around the circle, in Gaelic (little nod to my Irish heritage) are the words of my favorite saying: “When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.”  Because I like to plan, I’m going to sit on the design for a while before committing to having it inked on me.  I don’t know how long.  I also don’t know where I want it — I’m thinking back, but I don’t know if I am brave enough to have it out in plain view between my shoulder blades (which is my ideal location, really), or lower back.  But I love it.

And for your edification (ha) here is a picture of my in-progress green and white peasant skirt:

Front and back.  I’m pleased with it so far.

I wish I had more exciting things to write, but nothing really is going on.

More (and more progress pics, most likely) when I have time again.

Little Victories, Week…Fifteen. We’re On Fifteen Now.

(It’s been a REALLY long time since I did “Little Victories” so I could not even remember what week we were on.  It’s the end of the semester, cut me some slack.)

For 2013, I’m going to have a Friday post every single week, for positive victories in my life.  They may not be big things, but they will be things that I am proud of, things I did in the past seven days.  I’m hoping this will keep me focused on the positive, all the good things that are going on in my life.

– Pulled myself (within 24 hours) out of a slump that I felt last weekend.  It may not seem like that big of a victory, but I’ll tell you, divorce wreaks havoc on your sense of self-worth, and if you can get out of a semi-depressive slump in 24 hours, that’s a damn good thing.

– Reached (and passed) the anniversary of the day D first told me he wanted a divorce, without theatrics, without getting (too) upset.  I realized I’ve definitely turned a corner, and that corner is acceptance.  And that feels pretty damn good.

– Got the green light from my thesis adviser to start my prospectus for my thesis.  Rough draft is due on April 23rd.  (In regards to the link, my teacher also pushed back the research paper, which was a huge relief).

– Best news: WE GOT AN APARTMENT!  I feel like this should sort of be an entry in and of itself, but…yes.  Samantha and I got an apartment.  It’s about five minutes from school, 12 minutes from my work.  Second floor of a three-family home, doesn’t look like much on the outside.  But inside, oh, inside.  I wish I had pictures, I really do.  It’s gorgeous.  Hardwood floors, windows everywhere, the cutest bathroom, big bedrooms, a washer and dryer (definitely my favorite part of the apartment!) and off-street parking.  I’m a little worried about living there, because it’s only two blocks from where I lived a few years ago (worst couple years of my life, even tops separating and divorcing, really, but that’s all I’m going to get into since it was so long ago).  But friends of mine straightened me out, and said it was practically criminal to give up such a beautiful apartment that was literally everything we were looking for, just because it happens to be near my old place.

Rent (split with Samantha) is only going to be $50 a month more than I’m paying now.  Plus I’ll be splitting the utilities, which will also be a load off.  It’s gas heat (the apartment D and I lived in was oil heat) so that will be pretty cheap.  I’m  excited.

So excited, even, that I even went back to that devil’s social network, Pinterest.  Samantha definitely started it.  She created an apartment pinboard and we’ve both been working on it the past few days.  It really helps that she and I have the same basic loves when it comes to decorating.  We’re both very French country.  These are some of the things we’ve pinned this far for ideas:

NO idea if we’d be able to pull this off for the living room, but isn’t it gorgeous?

The walls of “my” bedroom are sage, so this is the palette I’m thinking of. Less purple, though, more creams, roses, and greens.

 

The bedding set I want. It’s a little pricier but eh, I’m a single girl now!

Sam’s color ideas for her bedroom.

 

I love Monet — hell, Impressionist art in general — and I want to have “Waterlilies” on the wall.

Moving in is going to suck (second floor walk-up, after all!), but decorating and unpacking is going to be great.  And laundry — there’s laundry!  I have to say having a washer and dryer is my favorite part about this new place.

It’s going to be a good weekend, I think.  After work today I’m going to Jess’s house for a bit, and then it’s off to see D’s cousin Amy for the weekend.  We’re very good friends and I haven’t seen her since Christmas, though we talk about once or twice a week.  I’m seeing MIL tomorrow, which is going to be rough, but I’m glad that it’s happening.

Happy weekend, all!

Little Victories, Week Eight

For 2013, I’m going to have a Friday post every single week, for positive victories in my life.  They may not be big things, but they will be things that I am proud of, things I did in the past seven days.  I’m hoping this will keep me focused on the positive, all the good things that are going on in my life.

– The  biggest thing, the most bittersweet thing, obviously, is that I filed for divorce.  It is by no means a “happy” victory, but getting over my terror of filing and what would happen afterwards was a huge step.

– Finished (and reviewed) A World On Fire.

– Reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen in quite a while — I went to Worcester on Saturday to see Jackie, Pomfret on Saturday night to see Leanne and Mandy and other college friends, and Bridgeport on Monday to see Rob.  I also spent most of Wednesday talking to my friend Lyndsey online, about writing, history, and the like.

– I finally came clean to my thesis adviser, Dr. LW, that I was getting a divorce.  And though I had been dreading this for some time…it actually went okay.

– Bought a new (to me) car!  And because my camera is being a whore, this is what it looks like (this is not my car, I stole this image from someone else):

Things added to my 2013 jar: Two.

Have a happy Friday and a great weekend!

 

A quick succession of busy nothings

I fully expected to feel run-down, exhausted, unhappy today, and in reality, I feel better than I have all week.  I don’t much want to talk about the filing process, but I’m very, very glad that I did it and that I can stop dreading it now.  Everything’s started, there’s no going back.  Well, there could be, considering that Connecticut has a mandatory 90-day waiting period for divorces, but I don’t foresee it happening at all.  And it’s funny, how many people said “I’m proud of you” once I had done it.  It’s a sad situation, it’s not a happy thing, but when so many people seem to be behind you when you do something like that, it makes you feel that much more confident that you made the right choice.

Other things are going on, which are much happier.

Samantha and I are continuing our quest to find the perfect “post-break apartment”.  Since she just broke up with her boyfriend of three years, and I just broke things off with my husband of two years, we’re in the market for the perfect two-bedroom apartment that is somewhere between work and school, isn’t in an unsafe neighborhood, and lets you have cats (Tempest and Tabitha are part of me, they go where I go).  So far, we have a couple of leads, but nothing certain.  I keep my eyes peeled every day on Craigslist.

My friend Drea became a Partylite consultant this past month and had her first party last night, hosted by my little sister.  It was a lot of fun.  In the end, Christina earned $150 worth of free merchandise (and got a lot of really nice things), Drea got some good experience and managed to push through her nerves (and did SO WELL), and I spent my first night, post-divorce filing, not questioning my decisions or feeling bad or crying.  I didn’t cry at all last night.  I drank Barefoot moscato and laughed with my friends and spent a little too much money, but I have more than enough in the bank account right now, a splurge was fun, and Christina promised to return the favor when I have my party in April.

What did I get?  More bird things.  Are you sensing a theme yet?

Bird candle holder.  This is much bigger than it looks — it actually holds a round jar candle, which is why I got it (not really big into the melts).  You can’t see it too well on the white background, but there’s a tiny little bird on the branch!

Another GloLite pillar in Apple Blossom.  I love the way the clusters of different sized pillars look, and I got a free tray from Michaels (with a GC from Christmas, since the ones from Partylite were like $20 and I got that one for $4).

Package of Universal Tealights in Calm Waters.

Natural Rituals Aromatherapy Soy Candle in “Calm” (same fragrance I bought last time — the lavender/rosemary).

You may ask “Why the hell do you need so many candles?”  Well, TBH, my apartment is tiny, not ventilated well, and musty as hell.  Plus, I’d really like to see my friend Drea make a success of her business.  She’s doing something for herself, and that makes me happy.

This Sunday is my sister’s annual Oscar shindig, which I am also looking forward to…tons of food, the Oscars, red carpet-snarkiness…what’s there not to look forward to?

Tonight is my last night of school for the week.  I have a ton of research to do this weekend, as well as cleaning out my old car…oh, did I mention?  I got a new (to me) car this week!  It’s a 2005 Honda Accord with about 100,000 miles on it, dark forest green, leather seats, seatwarmers…love!  I’ll post a picture tomorrow.

And tomorrow is Friday.  The return of Little Victories”, and a little more sanity to my life.

Little Victories, Week Seven

For 2013, I’m going to have a Friday post every single week, for positive victories in my life.  They may not be big things, but they will be things that I am proud of, things I did in the past seven days.  I’m hoping this will keep me focused on the positive, all the good things that are going on in my life.

– Told my boss that I was getting divorced and planning on applying for an annulment.  This may not seem like a big thing, but it definitely was.

– Finalized payment schedule and plans for buying my dad’s car (should be happening after he gets back from Florida next weekend).

– Made it through my first Valentine’s Day single since 2008 (yes, I’m considering this a victory, and I think anyone else who is getting divorced or is divorced would understand).

– Found my class ring from Salve Regina University — it had been lost for the better part of two years.

– Applied for a trainee position at Wildfire Retreat in August!  This will be my fourth Wildfire, and I’m really hoping I get the position…I think volunteering will be a lot of fun and really good for me to concentrate on.

That’s pretty much it for little victories.

I spent the rest of my evening last night at my friend Jess’s house…she made beef Wellington and some delicious potatoes and we watched stupid movies and laughed a lot.  I got my Partylite stuff in from her party on Super Bowl Sunday.  I didn’t spend a ton because I really didn’t have a lot of money to spend that weekend, but here’s what I got:

A tealight holder shaped like a little bird (I love birds):

A GloLight pillar candle in “Apple Blossom”:

And a set of tealights in “Calm” (lavender/rosemary-scented):

Christina’s hosting another party this week.  I’m already looking at new stuff.

This weekend, I’m going to see my friend Jackie tomorrow (we’re going to go to Sephora and do some major damage), and then (hopefully, if it doesn’t snow) to my friend Leanne’s birthday party Saturday night.  Sunday my dad leaves for Florida for a week.  And Monday I’m going to dinner with my high school friend (and senior prom date) Rob.

Have a good weekend and a happy Friday, everyone!

The next step

Back in April of 2011, I remember logging into my FB account and seeing my SIL posting (after a night of drinking with her friends) that she was “ready to take the next step!”  She meant — as many of us who have been married for awhile and are either closing in on or in our 30’s do — that she was ready for kids.

Today, I said “I’m ready to take the next step”, and it meant something wholly different.

When I moved from my apartment with D, to the in-law apartment behind my parents’ house, that was a big step.  The first step.  Sort of like “the college years” of getting divorced.  College is, in my mind, the perfect first step to becoming an adult.  You live on campus, your bills are all prepaid, you go to the cafeteria for your meal plan, you have an RA making sure that you’re not hiding booze and strippers in your room.  But you also are living without your parents for the first time.  You don’t have to make decisions like “shit, am I going to eat this month or pay the electric bill?” but you do need to learn (sometimes the hard way) that a diet of Coke and Lucky Charms does not bode well for your figure, and that staying up until all hours of the morning playing Halo and eating cheese pizza is not going to result in straight A’s.  Also, in college (in most cases), there’s a “glass floor” — you can fuck up, but (usually) you can only fuck up so much.

That was what this apartment was for me.  It was a month-to-month lease that I could quit at any time, it was behind my parents’ house (in case I cried relentlessly and needed support — thus far, hasn’t happened, and doesn’t look like it will), and I knew that I could leave (either to go back to D or to move on) any time I wanted.  And in a lot of ways, it was exactly what I needed.

But I don’t want to do it forever.  And lately I’ve been feeling ready to take that next step.

A friend of mine, Samantha, broke up with her long-time boyfriend back in December, and asked me the other day if I wanted to move in with her.  She’s living with her mom out about an hour from campus, and she’s graduating this spring.  So it wouldn’t be for a couple of months.  I had to think about it, because I really don’t want to give up my ridiculously cheap rent.  But if we get a two-bedroom apartment for $850 a month (feasible), then it’s possible, it really is, to leave my current place without my bills going too high.  And it would mean someone who would help with the utilities…and someone who understands what I’m going through, both financially, educationally, and emotionally.

And this morning I emailed her to confirm that this is something she really wants to do.

Sometimes I feel like the world’s biggest chicken.  Like it has taken me FOREVER to get to this point.  And people in my life (my family, especially) have been asking, over and over again “What are you are waiting for?”

For this, guys.  For the ability to take a step and know that I am ready, know that it is the right one.  To be comfortable with the choices I make, to have some sense of control, instead of resignation.  Yeah, the process is slow, but at the same time?  When I make the choices, make the steps, they are the right ones.

I’m ready to take the next step.

Give me the simple life

I have a “Fought with Comcast All Day Saturday/Super Bowl Sunday” hangover today.  I barely even drank, but I’m pretty sure my body is punishing me for the metric TON of crap I ate yesterday, between the Super Bowl and my friend’s Partylite party.  Which I actually had a lot of fun at, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Saturday was the WORST day I’ve had in a long time.  Like…a really long time.  It was terrible.  I got up at 9 AM and immediately began tangling with Comcast.  And it did not go well.  Two errands out and one new router later, at 5:19 PM, I finally got online.  And let me tell you…it’s almost worth the hassle.  I forgot how awesome unlimited internet is, and I am so happy.  Also, I have access to Netflix again.  YES.

Finances are…well, they are.  Because of the screw-up with D’s car payments, the loan company automatically deducted $300 from my bank account, instead of his, which didn’t put me in a hole (thank God) but I was pretty upset when I discovered that.  He paid me back $150 this Saturday (because I was on the verge of an intense meltdown when I saw him) and agreed to help me pay out of the Verizon upgrade we did last year when we were just merely separating and didn’t want to add another bill for me to have internet.  Unfortunately, I realized this past month that there is no way I can download scholastic articles for my thesis research on the limited data plan that we had, so that’s out.  Anyway.  That’s how we handled it, and it’s all but done now.

Yesterday I went to my first Partylite party, at Jess’s house.  Because it was Super Bowl Sunday, she themed the party “superhero” — everyone was supposed to come as a superhero or their “alter-ego”.  And of course, even though my beloved Pats weren’t in the Super Bowl, I wore allllll of my Pats gear one last time this season, down to my red, blue, and silver-tipped nails (and toenails, though nobody saw them).  My superhero identity was “Lady Denial.”

See the little #12 in my stripes?  Oh, Tom Brady.  Thanks for the stripes, Drea!

Anyway.  The party was fun, especially for my first one.  I usually hate parties like that (I’ve gone to Tupperware and Pampered Chef and was bored at both), but I actually like Partylite.  I got a bird-shaped tealight holder, a pillar candle, and some tealights.  I didn’t spend much because my sister is having her own party in about two weeks, so I’ll pick up some more there.  Plus, hello, budgeting.

The only bad part about the party was that the consultant overheard that I was getting divorced, and started asking a whole slew of personal questions.  Not cool.  Drea sat next to me and gave me a neck rub while Tina answered for me in short, one-word answers, trying to get her to drop the subject, which she finally did.  But again, that was only about five minutes of awkwardness and at least she didn’t bring it up later.

D is going to talk to his mom this weekend in person and tell her that we’re getting a divorce.  I’m not looking forward to it…well, I am but I’m not.  I love my MIL and it makes me cry to think that she’s not going to be “mine” anymore.  But it will be a relief to have the lid blown off this whole thing.  Plus I want to meet up with her — I told D that I wanted to give her the diamond from my ring back (it’s a family stone) and I want to make sure she knows the truth about all of this.  That it’s not because I gave up, or because I didn’t want it to work.  She needs to know about the other woman, too.  And she may hate me for it, and she may not believe me…but there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to the truth, and least two of D’s other family members know what happened.  I think she will hear me out.

I haven’t seen Crazy Bruce in two weeks because he hurt his hip last week 😦  I miss him a lot.

I also have nada on the docket for this evening except getting home early and getting a good, long night’s sleep.  And eating healthier today than the last few days.  I had way too much crap yesterday and I’m pretty sure that’s why I feel like complete ass this morning.  A long bath, a good healthy meal, and more chapters of The Behemoth sound like an excellent way to spend Monday night. 🙂

I have an unfamiliar feeling in my stomach for the first time in months…I think it’s hope.  And I’m scared, so scared to hope for something good to happen…especially something this good.  So I try not to think about it, because I don’t want to get hurt, I really don’t.  But sometimes, that little butterfly of hope is all that keeps you going.  Sometimes I feel lately that’s all it is.  Just a tiny little butterfly…flitting through my life.

All I want to do is hope again.