Hey! Ottawa parents!

Don’t miss this great event taking place next month on February 16th – a fundraiser with proceeds to benefit Churchill Alternative School Council.  Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a wonderful, inspiring speaker, of interest to parents, educators, or anyone who works with kids of any age, from toddlers to teens.

Tickets can be purchased through Dovercourt Recreation Centre’s website, (enter course #76642) or by calling them at 613-798-8950.  See you there!

I think I am finally starting to unwind. I feel as if I have been on a treadmill, speed set on high, for months. I don’t mean that in a bad way, so choice of the treadmill as a metaphor isn’t the best. I’ve been in school. I’ve been raising kids. I’ve been in a new relationship. I’ve been working. I’ve been just plain vanilla BUSY. But good busy.

I have another ten days with pretty much nothing to do. So…what to do? The one part of my life I feel I have neglected is my creative one. What’s that, you may ask? I forget. It’s just playing. Drawing. Crocheting. Making pretty things. I used to do these things, even if just in fits and bursts. I miss it. And it’s good for me, good for my soul.

More want. I want to take better care of myself, better care of my run down, neglected body. I haven’t been good to it of late. I haven’t been feeding and watering it things that are good for it, nor have I been moving it enough. I don’t like how it looks or feels at the moment. It deserves better.

But right now, it deserves coffee. And breakfast. And a shower.

Onwards!

Job

I start a job, of sorts, on Monday.  A job!

It doesn’t pay much.  But, it’s in my field.  My new field, which is related to what I used to do, but has the potential to be more lucrative.  Lucrative while still allowing me to have a conscience.  For now, it’s casual.  One week, it might be eight hours, the next week, twenty.  It’s not about the money, it’s about experience and having something to put on my C.V. that is recent and relevant to what I want to do.  It goes well with the certificate program I’m doing at college.

And best of all, it’s one step closer to unshackling myself from my ex and spousal support…

Two years

This past Tuesday marked my two year Dumpiversary, the day my ex announced to me that he was leaving me after being together for over 22 years.  I’m not going to rehash the events or emotions that led up to that day, or even really the events or emotions that immediately followed it.

But, what I will say to the universe is this:  Thank you.  Thank you for ridding me of that most unhappy and unhealthy excuse of a human being, for giving me the chance of a life lived in pursuit of my own happiness and not someone else’s, for independence, for true joy, for the chance to really see and experience my own strength.

I were to come across the person I was on November 23, 2009, heaving and crying on my friend E’s sofa, I would say this:

This is good.  You don’t feel it right now but you are free.  It’s going to be tough but you are off the crazy carousel, at last.  And speaking of crazy, you were never depressed- you were married to an asshole.  It’s going to get better.  It’s already better.  

And yes, it’s so, so much better.

Hellooooooo…

It’s 2:12 a.m. I’m drinking tea, even though I’m feeling a wee bit of heartburn. Slightly tired, should be more tired, but I don’t want to sleep. Brain is too racy, but happy-racy. Long time no blog, yes-siree.

More, a demain…

Better

Phew.  Glad that’s over.  I’ve been feeling normal, even good, again for a few days now.  I’m slowly catching up on life.  My mother being here has helped, and, bonus!, she hasn’t criticized me or my house or my parenting skills even once!

Life never ceases to amaze me.

 

Bah

Everything feels grey and beige and drab all over, and I don’t like it one bit.

First thing- sun.  Where’s spring?  We’ve had nothing but rain and humidity and grey.  I know it’s good for the garden.  Fine.  But I need sun, dammit!  How about what’s good for me?

Second thing- my head.  Last weekend I came down with what I thought was food poisoning, after an epic post-Swiss Chalet vomit on Sunday night.  Holiday Monday was spent in a dark living room, on the sofa, dozing away and taking the odd sip of water.  Happy birthday, Victoria.  It was an all-round fucking drag.

I’m still not feeling 100%.  I haven’t thrown up since, but I’ve been feeling vertigo-ish.  Rather coincidentally I had my annual physical on Wednesday.  I told my doc about how I’d been feeling.  He doesn’t think it was food poisoning, he thinks it’s benign positional vertigo, and that it should clear up on its own within a few days.  I think it’s getting better.  I don’t feel 100% right yet, but it’s nothing like it was earlier in the week either.

All that to say I feel like I’m very much off my game.  Once again, a crisis or two comes around, and the rest of my life goes very much on the back burner.  My income taxes are still not filed.  My house is a minor disaster.  I missed the deadline for registering for my summer course.  I haven’t been job hunting, and I keep saying I have to give that another whirl.  I feel aimless and unproductive.

Then there’s the man thing.  That’s a whole ball of confusion of its own.

So, dear universe, please send me some sun, clarity, peace, and perspective.  I will be eternally grateful.

So, over a year down the road and we are finally, finally about to sign our separation agreement.  We’re at the stage where typos and formatting are being correcting, but the substantive stuff has all been dealt with.  You’d think that we’d be in a better place.  For awhile, we were in a better place.  But, alas, no.

He’s angry with me.  And the little kid in me who can’t ever, ever bear to be in trouble can’t stand it.  I hear the voices of my friends who are far more sensible than me say, “Who CARES if he hates you?”  He’s being sucky and angry and petulant over a conversation I had with his father where he feels that I overstepped by bounds, and simply put, I don’t.  I had that conversation because, surprise, surprise, after 22 years of being lied to I felt that G was still lying to me (he was), and I wanted to confirm fact from assumption.  I did, and I’m glad I did.  Now I know.

He can’t stand it though.  He can’t stand it when I take matters into my own hands and stand up for myself.  He can’t stand it when I show him to be who he really is- a liar.

So, he gets back at me by being angry, but cutting me off, by being cold and efficious and unfriendly.  Whatever.  Satisfy yourself, buzzkill, the pleasure is all mine.

It’s been like this for a couple of weeks.  For the most part, I’ve avoided communication with him altogether.  And when I couldn’t avoid it, I stuck to email.  Revelation:  It was easier.  I felt more at peace and less involved with him.  Must not forget this.

The mistake I’ve made in the past is to let things slide when things are easier and friendly between us.  I’ve always leaned on him for certain things.  I still run a house and take care of the great majority of the kids’ needs.  I could ask him to fix a bike tire or put up the blinds in Boychild’s room, and he’d do it.  Well, no, I can’t.  In his resentful spew to me the other day he told me he was sick of me always leaning on him, that I wasn’t his problem.  Well, okay then.

He’s being cold, and harsh, and unnecessarily mean and I have to protect myself from this, somehow.

What worries me is that so far, the kids have seen remarkable little tension between us.  If he’s going to be angry and sucky around me though, that veneer is going to wear fast.

What a prick.  I despise him.  Can I say that today?  There, I did.

I have so much crap on my plate right now.  I’m going to get the kids off to school, then buckle down.  Income taxes, filing, review the agreement, cleaning, groceries, school forms, laundry…gah!  I can do this, I can get my shit in order.  I’m not even going to think about the million things that I need to fix around here that I can’t afford to fix.  Baby steps.

Being kind

I made good on my promise to be kind to myself last night.  I got the kids to bed at a decent time, and then made the bathroom ground zero.  I colored my hair, had a bubble bath, scrubbed the dead skin off my feet with my heavy duty pumice, shaved my legs, slathered on a ton of lotion and put on my favorite pj’s.  I even paid some attention to my face, which I haven’t been able to do much of because of the swelling and the stitches.  I tried out my new moisturizer and did my brows.  The only thing I didn’t do that I wanted was to get to bed early.  I still look like I’m out on a day pass from a women’s shelter, but I feel better.

And so far, I’m liking today.  I struggled to get out of bed on time to get the kids ready to school, but then I remembered that today is effectively Friday.  No school tomorrow, no anything.  I love days where the city shuts down.  I can sleep in!

One week

One week later, I’m healing- albeit slowly.  The swelling is mostly down, the bruises are smaller and yellowing around the edges.  It’s still not pretty.  In fact, I’m feeling about as physically ugly as I’ve ever felt.  That’s okay though- there’s only one way to go, and that’s up.

I’ve been trying to focus on getting better, both accident-wise and otherwise.  I’m still feeling kind of low about P.  He emails me every single day, and gets anxious if I don’t write back the same day.  WTF?  We speak in an intimate (though not sexual) way.  He still wants to do our Netflix date/movie nights.  He’s behaving, in other words, like nothing’s changed.  Like this is all part of “taking it slowly.”

Mixed messages much?

Anyhow.  When the shit hits the fan, I remind myself of how E handles these times.  Focus on the priorities:  food, clothing, shelter.  Then, anything that feels good.  That’s it.

And so, this is what I’m doing.  Mostly staying home.  Being with the kids.  Cooking and baking and finishing up the little unfinished projects that nag at me.  Listening to music.  Catching up on filing and paperwork and getting my shit in order to do my taxes.  I like this.  I like getting everything just so.

I’m alone again this weekend, and with the state of mind I’m in, this is a good thing.  G’s taking the kids to Toronto, to visit his dad.  They’re back on Sunday night, so we’ll be doing our Easter thing on Monday.

C’est tout, mes amis…