In the light of day...

When the kids go to bed in the dark of night, I allow my mind to open and think and ponder and struggle. To fight the dark thoughts, to fight the demons, to deal with those feelings and things which I cannot ponder in the light of day. In the light of day I aneed to be present, to make breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks inbetween. To play games, stop fights, bathe babies and have fun. To soothe hearts a little broken and wipe tears from faces, read books, watch Barbie and build Lego together. I need to be there, in the moments, running or observing the moments. No chance, no opening to think or to ponder..no room.

I realised this morning that I never blog in the light of day, with the kids present and so I am painting the picture of a sombre depressing life with no light, no hope, no good in the moments after the end of the marraige. The end of the abuse...sort of....not quite yet. So here I am .

I woke this morning with beautiful cherubs beside me snoozing as they had wandered in at some point during the night. After making their breakfast I began to clean up...toys everywhere. As I sat on the floor I realised that it really doesn't matter where we are living, it doesn't matter if I have to rent...it doesn't matter. Now this thought changes throughout the day. Sometimes I feel so sick and sad to even think about leaving here and allowing someone else to live here, others I couldn't care less. I think that the main positive to leaving here is that I would be severing the tie to my husband. I would be taking away the control. He would have no control whatsoever on a new house that I get in my name. That I furnish and decorate. Not sharing a mortgage with him would take away a large substantial portion of the control that he has over me.

I have found a place close to the kids school and I will be arranging to see it soon. It may be early to look but then it accepts pets, is in my price range and is new. It is nice and small enough to not be as overwhelming to maintain as here and it has a large backyard (going by the description) . The kids can still play outside, they can be near friends, we can start again.

I was talking with a friend yesterday who I have known for eyars and years. I actually met her through my husband and we became great friends. She knows all that has happened, she has watched it from the early days and over the last few years we have grown apart, not seeing or even speaking to each other very much at all. She knows though and sends me messages a few times a week to see how I am. Our friendship is the kind that can be picked up and be as strong as ever or be left for a year and not diminish. She asked yesterday...how are things going with him?

To answer that question is complicated but let me just say that things are definitely not good. The last time we spoke, after I tried to make him understand it was over and he tried to tell me that to him it is not and after I listened to all the wonderful things he has done to change and he didn't listen to the fact that that doesn't change my mind then things got passive aggresively nasty! It came back to what it always does, and in a few separate moments of anger and frustration he proved my suspicions that he has not changed at all! He says he doesn't get angry, he says he cares and loves me, he says he is sorry for what he did...

Then he said he lied about what he did, then he blamed me for being a cold bitch and not helping him or trying to fix things, he accused me of having it made and leaving him with nothing...no house, no family he can't even have any more kids. Little things thrown in to sting and it is those things said in the frustration and anger which are the truths! He cares nothing for me, he only cares about the fact that he has lost everything! He has lost the slave he had. He has lost the house and the appearance that life is awesome. He has lost the right to lord over us all daily...he must be exhausted trying so damn hard to prove that he has changed while living with his family that he longs to come back home and reloax and continue on the same abusive pattern he has always been on. His call....it totally destroyed me! My parents came to take over with the kids and I completely fell apart.

The next few days were the worst. As I gave my friends space and didn't reach out, gave them their lives back...as I sat in the silence and I felt sick and thoughts about that conversation wafted through my mind I fell harder and harder down. I felt worthless and frustrated that he had undone all the hard work to build myself up that I had spent the last few weeks doing.

In a moment of sorrow and loneliness I had the thought that perhaps I didn't deserve anything better? I wasn't worth anything better and I was supposed to just take him back and suffer through it? That having him here would be better than being alone, even if it meant I was killing any vestige of myself and my selfworth by doing so...

But no....the moment passed and I realised that I don't owe him anything! I can take the blame if that is what it takes (and it will be what it takes!) . I can be the bitch in the situation and I can take whatever torture he will dish out from afar as long as it means in the long run that I am free of him. I am free of ever feeling the way he made me feel daily, the way he made me feel when I hung up that phone!

So...that's where I am at..moments of clarity in which I am ready to move forward and move on! mixed with moments of intense sadness and hollowness where I am lost and unsure what to do, mixed with moments of abuse still being slung upon me...all the while putting on the strong hat, the incontrol and protection hat for my children to get them through as pain free as possible.

On and On and On....

When I first read Elizabeth Gilberts 'Eat Pray Love' I thought that I understood completely her quest. That I understood so well the need that she had to find herself once more once she got the divorce...I even understood her need to get a divorce...heck I identified with everything she did and wrote. I thought....

When I would come across someone who was divorced or seperated and I was going through so much hardness at home I would feel a tinge of envy just looking at them. Like a child looking at their friend as they held the latest doll which they have been covetting for weeks...asking the question, "why does she get one and I don't?" . I thought that they were the lucky ones. Not having to be in that situation any more. Freedom.

Trust me there is a bloody large part of me that is revelling in the freedom. I cannot speak this too loud for it is thrown back in my face. To say that anything in life feels good is to feed the controller ammunition to throw back my way as a bomb....so I stay silent...I stay still and say nothing and try not to feel guilty for trying to live my life now..free of daily critisicm while still feeling the sting and aftermath of it, while still having to endure it as he just will not let go. He will not accept it is over, he will not stop the cycle.

I try and rebuild....but there is one thing that I never ever realised about this seperation thing, this rebuild and starting again and that is that it has to happen alone. ALONE. I have not been alone since I was 14 years old! 14! Practically a baby.

I have had boyfriends and relationships for the last 20 years. Oh dear that makes me feel bloody old! I have always found myself, through all the different stages of my life with the aide of someone else. When I think of it that way it is so incredibly, fucking scary to think of going it alone. But this is where I feel I am at.

Sure I have my parents and family who care and are concerned and who are worried about me, but they cannot be there for me as they have in the past. As they helped me grow when younger, as they guided me and taught me right from wrong. Held me when I hurt, when I was sick, when I struggled. When my heart was broken they helped to mend me....but they cannot do that this time. I cannot pack up and move back home, into my childhood bed, surrounded by childhood heros and crushes staring down from glossy posters on the wall. I have children of my own, work, life....a house, bills. There is no packing it in and mourning, sobbing, screaming at the injustice! There are dishes to be done, dinners to be cooked and washing to wash and dry and fold and put away. It doesn't stop....the cycle keeps going. So instead my parents and family ring and ask how I am, they bring groceries when I cannot get out and help when they can with the children..a little...as frequently as they can as they go about their everyday life and responsibilities.

My friends are there for me, I am surrounded by little bits of them, figures, photos of flowers long gone but not forgotten, cards and notes and little messages throughout the day. In everyway I can look and see that they care about me. But it is not the same as in days of the past. Days when friends flowed through your veins as frequently as the blood which kept you going. 5 days a week spent together with nights on the phone, weekends by each others side. Travelling in packs, laughing, crying, being stupid together. When break ups happened they held me as I cried, just happened? I'll be right there. Lets bitch about him, lets bag the shit out of him! Here you want vodka? DRINK...you want to put a potato in his exhaust pipe and sand in his petrol tank....perhaps best we do that another day when the vodka's not making your decisions...we will walk home! Shit I know its a long way but so what! Laugh, cry, movies, fun....you had each other because you had no other responsibilities. Oh how quickly we longed to grow up and start that grown up life of mortgages and babies and bills and responsibility and not realising the wonderful freedom we were living while living it.

My friends, beautiful, adorable friends. Some the same as those days of freedom, some new, some long serving..all wonderful. Ringing, messaging, encouraging, listening - sometimes objectively....sometimes not...there. They fill my heart, they make me feel valued and cared for and they have helped in ways I cannot explain but it also hurts to except their help. I didn't really understand the saying that EG said when she turned her back on her friends and ran away to Italy until now. She valued the support they gave her but felt guilt that she could not give anything back. She was of no help to them the way she was. I don't believe that I am of no value to my friends, but I do question to what value I am to them compared to what value they are to me?

I keep apologising to them. Over and over I feel like telling them that I am sorry. I am so sorry that I share my sorrow, that I share my hard times because that just doesn't seem fair. I know that their life is not perfect, not by any means, I may not have lived the same life as them in retrospect but I did have moments in my married life when things were normal and calm. MOments of love and joy, moments of worry over money or housework. Laughter and crying over things. They happened. I cannot deny, 3 children would not have happened without those normal moments. But my world now is so incredibly far removed from that time...it is almost like I have been thrust into a world where people speak a different language of which I do not understand! I don't know how to get along in this new world. I don't understand it fully and I feel like I am trying to work it out and verbalising my confusion and sorrow over this displacement feeling to people who are still living in that world. I feel like I am putting pressure on them to try and understand this world, while still living in the other world. I imagine how insanely hard that must be to comprehend and understand and I don't want to impact on them too much.

I also don't know how much to share, how much of them to take? I worry everyday that I take too much. That I expect too much. I don't know how much to expect of my friends?

I visualise all the time, the people that they have around them. Like a circle, with strings attached from my friend to all the people in their circle. I place their family in the front row of the circle closest to them and then I place extended family in the next row and then friends..etc. Where do I stand in that circle? I must stand in the third or fourth row surely? Then I think of my circle....

There is me and my children, my parents and right now through all of this are my friends...all in the first circle. Then there are people helping me, extended family and friends who are offering incredible support and words when needed but who I don't necessarily disclose all to, as my second circle and on and on. But everyday I question if I have any right at all to have my friends in that first circle? They should be in the second or third circle shouldn't they? They used to be, even through it all and when things were terrible I kept them there, in the second row because i understood then that in that world, family and relationships came first....good or bad they had to be the number one priority.

I have cried myself to sleep, sobbed hysterically so many times over these circles. For the circles no longer make sense to me! They don't make sense. All of a sudden I feel that I have circles which have dotted lines rather than string. For the people connected to mine have strong line connections to others first and foremost....as mine is to my children....but to me?.....

I try and fill the voids, I try to find something, anything to fill the insane gap in my life that this has made..,the loneliness. But they never seem to stick. A new tv show, a friendship (I spend so much time worrying that I am putting so much pressure on my friends that those worries bring a new pain of a different kind :( ), alcohol when the kids leave (not a good solution and stopped quicker than it started! Only a glass or two but the thought that it would fix things, especially considering my extended families experiences with it for the same reason, has scared that thought right out of my head!), reading - works as long as the book lasts and as long as it has no triggers in it...on and on I search and keep coming back to the same conclusion.....there is nothing! I have to face this and deal with this.

I AM ALONE

I have to learn to know myself once more. I need to figure out who I am and I cannot rely on anyone else to heal me. I have to heal myself. And it scares the shit out of me because I have absolutely no fucking idea how to do that at all. No idea.

This is new, unchartered waters of which I need to set a path and hope like hell it works out to be the right one. I need to try and get through this for the most part on my own. With support and people around me but from a distance. None of them can be here for me, in the day to day, holding my hand..encouraging me..seeing me through the hard times and laughing with me in the good in real time. None of them. When I have a funny moment with the kids who do I turn to and tell? Should I message friends? is there a certain number of times I message though, a magic number when I suddenly turn into a needy friend or a pain in the butt? when do I start to impede on a part of their circle I don't fit into? Who do I rage at when everything turns to shit? Who do I turn to when I have had enough and everything seems too bloody hard? I have turned to my parents but lets be practical, they cannot drop everything and come running to my aide all the time. I try and reserve those needs for the incredibly desperate times.

Alone. A completely new concept, new outfit which sure as hell doesn't fit me yet!

It hurts so incredibly deeply it is not even possible to explain or comprehend from the outside. So so much....and I think that the thing which fuels it the most is that it is such a foreign situation, so unfamiliar that there is no way to see what the future will bring. If you cannot work something out then how can you find hope that it will ever be any different? Right now it looks and feels like an infinite forever of the same...barren loneliness stretching on and on and on for all of eternity...on and on and on...

Fck!

That bloody sign...

A week or so ago they erected a new, large sign on the road I travel down everyday to take the kids to school and pick them up. It is advertising the site for a future Primary and Secondary school only three streets across from our house.

This school has always been on the plans for this area. It is a proposed government school and when we bought the land and were making life long plans it was going to be the school that we would move the kids to the minute it opened. Heck, I was even thinking of going for a job there! It was walking distance from home ( 5 minutes walk) and would go right up to Year 12. Perfect!

This compounded with the kids love of our backyard for the first time ever since being here has caused a panic attack to take hold tonight worse than i have ever suffered before!

As the silence has gone on I have found that my own self confidence and strength has grown. No longer am I gripped with fear but instead there is mostly a surity of self as his voice begins to leave my mind. I no longer have someone telling me how useless I am. When the dishes sit there overnight I am not gripped with fear waiting for the reprimand. It annoys me but it is also ok with me to leave the housework if I am sick or really tired or other things are more important at the time. I am able to put my health and the kids health and needs before the things that need to be done around the house. I am able to shower them with love and not yell at them anymore.

This house has changed drastically and it is wonderful. When they spill things, when my youngest throws things as a 3 yr old does, he is beginning to not quake in his boots as much as he used to. They say sorry instantly and explain what happened and we fix it together. There is no yelling, no blaming or shaming...just fixing it and comforting and talking about it. I am not saying that we are perfect, far from it. I still have moments where I lose it, the kids still have moments too but the difference is that instantly we can apologise, explain it away (I can by openly telling them I am sorry and that I am tired, etc) and we are developoing an understanding of each other and that sometimes bad things happen which don't make us bad people. The expectation of perfection is beginning to be shed and it is such a gigantic relief.

I feel as though I am slowly finding myself again. I have built up some wonderful friendships and support over the last 5 weeks. I have culled many on my facebook friends list to the point where I feel comfortable saying if I need to that I Am not coping. That things hurt or suck and gaining support from those who are still there. Beautiful, lovely people, some of who I have never met, who are there for me if I need it. I have been silent and not shared with people and still they reach out and support. My brother and sil gave me the biggest hug on the weekend, the first time i had seen or talked to them since it went down. They do not know all that was involved, but they love me and the kids and will support me in whatever I need. Accepting that at the moment I am keeping to myself alot, just as long as I know that they are there then they are happy. Family friends who offer a hug and comfort and just words of love....it is so incredibly comforting and touching to know there are so many people out there that care.

It doesn't stop the heartaching loneliness that still hits at night several nights a week and takes my breath away. That infiltrates my dreams and turns them to nightmares. It doesn't take that away, but it sure does help.

I know that i am healing and growing a little stronger because I am thinking of me and how to help and take care of me. One of my best friends used to say to me, near the end of my relationship and in my dark and down days, "look after yourself" and I used to wonder how in the hell that was possible?! When I was in such a terrible position, constantly put down and putting myself down, facing constant negativity and verbal abuse, protecting the kids and myself by always being on the ball and stopping it before it started, how could I then look after myself? You cannot look after something that you don't give a stuff about! :( .

Now though I do give a stuff. I started to think of my diet. I already have given up caffeine (well except the small amount in chocolate) and am cutting down on sugar in my tea. I don't have dairy and I was thinking the other day that perhaps I could go back to low g.i and sugar free soon. I know it will make me feel better and I realised when I thought of it that I deserve to feel better. It has been many years since I have felt like I 'deserve' to feel good. I was seriously thinking of doing tai chi and exercising once more to boost my adrenaline and energy and hormone levels in my body.

I haven't started yet on any of these, but the fact that I thought of doing these things not because I should but because soon I think that I will want to and enjoy doing it is a gigantic step for me. I was thinking of face and body creams and looking after my appearance. I cut my fringe, which changed my hairstyle for the first time in over 8 years at least! It has made a massive difference to the way I look and feel about myself. As those long strands of hair fell it was as though I was shedding a skin!

So although I am still struggling at times I find that those times aren't as frequent as a few weeks ago.

But lets get back to that panic attack...

It is over this house and whether I can stay here with my children or not. It will be a struggle financially no doubt about it and I would rather be able to do it without having to rely on my ex at all. Ie, child payment contributions from him. I do not want to ever be indebted to him again. If I am relying on the payments from him and he uses those payments as a method of control over me then I am no better off than I was when married. In order to move forward I need to do it on my own and see any payments that he does provide as a bonus for our children. Money to go towards continuing their sports and recreations.

I have a shocking cold right now which exemplifies this feeling of dread I'\m feeling and my worry levels. Looking at market prices in this area, an area which I love for it's many parks, terrific riding tracks and edge of suburbia living, schools and shopping in close proximity...etc for me to downsize to a smaller house here I would be still having a mortgage of around this size! It seems crazy to do that when I have a big block here with a terrific backyard for sustainibility and the kids to play in safely. The house is too big for us I feel but then perhaps I can use the extra room inside to my advantage somehow? I was thinking of maybe a photography studio set up in the future or even getting a boarder....although that idea frightens me considerably because of all we have been through.

I have options available to me like moving back home with my parents and saving up for a year or so and then buying again but I will be honest and say I am really worried that I will not be earning enough to get a loan on my own at that point anyway, despite having a substantial deposit. I also worry about the strain living in cramped conditions will put on my children and my parents.

Then again I would not be able to transfer this loan to my name at the level it is at right now either, and I would need to buy my hubby out I am assuming?

Over and over again I go over the figures in my head, try and search out something that I might have forgotten which would bring in more money or bring down the cost of living and I will have a win and think, "Yes, I can stay" and then I will think of something else which rules it out.

The thing that I think is stopping me from moving the most is my youngest son. I have fears that he is autistic and am taking the road to having him assessed. He has just started a few months previously in a childcare centre he is doing brilliantly in. He barely talks to his workers, and it took months for him to open up to the ladies he has had since 6 months old. He does not like new sitiuations at all. If I move to my parents then I will need to move his childcare to closer to them as they live in a completely different area. I am terrified (no really! so insanely worried about this!) about how he will cope with this. His behaviour has dramatically decreased in coping since the separation and I feel many days that he is teetering on the edge of losing it completely. If I was to change not only the place he lives but then also the childcare centre he loves to all new people and surroundings then I fear and believe that he will degress considerably developmentally, socially and emotionally.

That sign...when I drive past that sign each and every bloody day I am reminded of the dream I had for our family and our children and the thought runs through my mind....can I still give them that dream? how the hell will I make it all alright and provide the kind of life for them and future for them I imagined on one wage and all alone? How....how.....how?

It makes my heart beat increase and my breathing become shallow just thinking and worrying about it
:(

The Deafening Silence...

Sitting in the centrelink office surrounded by people and 'ding' goes my phone. It is him.

"When will you be ready to talk do you think?", he asks. As much as I hate the waiting I am also dreading the talk yet again where he professes how much effort he has made and how much he has changed and I again need to say that it is over for me and cannot be any other way. I then will sit and wait for the nastiness to start...maybe I am wrong, maybe there will be no nastiness....maybe...

I answer I am not ready. End of the month I say. And then my name is called...

I had a bad week. It was emotionally draining going back to work. First day was dreadful after barely any sleep and listening to other people discuss their holidays was nice but also a little too much for me. Oh how I longed to have carefree holidays as they had had. Overseas trips, mini getaways...fun times. As much fun as I put on for the kids these past holidays there were also many many horrible moments at night, all alone and emotionally exhausting moments. Days and days and days of barely any sleep tumbling into one another..night after night of nightmares and dreams which zap whatever energy that could be built up through slumber.

I have over-committed myself to do too much again I am believing. On the holidays I signed up for a writing course which I had one a voucher for. I thought I could do it all. Plan for the term, work at work, work at home, parent, go through a seperation and also do a writing course. I think I was wrong. For the life of me I cannot tell you where the nights of last week went! I cannot remember what I did at all. Other than feed the children, do the dishes, some washing...read books and tend to sleep disturbances in everyone I have no idea what my nights were filled with. One thing I know is that they were not filled with reading the course material nor doing the assignment.

The week before I even forgot about it totally until the day after week 2s assignment was due. Today I have two to do and have not touched them, spending the time instead preparing materials for work which I did not get to on the holidays. I will not have a chance to do them tonight...I think that this is going to be something which will go on the backburner....thankfully I did not pay the money out on it...although I did pay out someones.

How can it all seem to be too hard?

I was going so well this weekend. I ran the children all over town yesterday before dropping them off with their Dad. Then I came home and cleaned like a mad woman. I learnt how to clean out the aquarium filter! Go me! :) and then I vacuumed and mopped and then I coloured my hair and read my book, finally falling into exhaustive sleep at 1am.

I awoke at 8am and got to work on the computer. I had a photo shoot this morning and it was so much fun. I felt in control and important and 'happy'. After that I went and bought notebooks for the students at school before returning home and starting to plan for work. I had finished two things on my list when it happened.

It came out of nowhere. One minute I was working away happily and the next it hit me. I couldn't concentrate on what I was doing, I couldn't find any comfort nor enthusiasm for it and so I closed it down. I missed my children so insanely much that I could not function. I missed my old life. Oh how stupid, you might be thinking...but it is true. I miss them running around and making noise and I miss the idea of my husband being here. I am right now though thinking about what it would have been like in reality and I know that i would have felt insanely guilty for being on the computer and not doing the housework instead (the kids rooms need to be cleaned up) . I would have been given a hard time for leaving this morning to take the photos. I would have not gone and bought the books because I would have been worried about what he would say about me spending that money on them and questioning why I need to do that in my time? He would have been coming in and looking over my shoulder to see what I was doing and questioning whether I was doing work or stuffing around on the computer. He would have interrupted me a million times with things that were important to him.

It is so quiet in this house right now...so deafeningly quiet that it is making my ears pound! I long to leave and run far away and surround myself with people....chattering, laughing people...noise of which the background sound of music or the t.v will not fill no matter how hard I try to make it.

I have been living grandeous dreams this week. Trying to make things happen to better my own and my childrens futures and I am exhausted from it all. :( . I am lonely.

The moment when I get to pick those little cherubs up and wrap them in my arms can not come soon enough! :(

Hope has...

“Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.”

— St Augustine of Hippo

The stupid little poor girl turns up...

I drove home today and the tears began to fall. I had had the shittiest day and topped it up with attending something which should have been relaxing and fun but because of the stress of the day, the forgetting of the meds in the car therefore not taking them at the right time and the worry over my little boy who had had a fever during the day at childcare, my heart and focus wasn't into it properly. Due to already feeling less than confident I then began to feel worse and worse as I felt more and more out of touch with things within my industry.

I am hopeless with names, with remembering what this or that program are called and who gave this or that PD. I can put plenty of educational initiatives into place and yet I cannot tell you what they are or who they were written by. It is something I am a little self conscious of, I long to be able to do it! Truly long to. I wish I could because to me, especially growing up in the socio-economic bracket which I did, it meant that you were incredibly smart and also perhaps a little better in social standing if you could sound like you knew what you were talking about. If you could quote people when talking and talk with confidence then it gave you a higher social standing...in appearance anyway. So when I am among others who can fluently and confidently speak the talk I feel once more like the stupid little poor girl who didn't know all that much. I felt so incredibly stupid. And then I felt so bad. These are wonderful and lovely people who I respect so much, who are friends and here I am wanting to run as far away from them as possible. Not because of what they are saying or who they are but because of my own insecurities. I did as best I could to join in and feel confident but I felt anything but confident. I felt as though I was talking about dutch while everyone else was talking English and I was waiting for the moment when they gave me the 'we don't quite think that you belong here?' look or even worse, ask me why I am there and to see my credentials to determine if in fact I really did attend Uni and get my Bachelor degree and am qualified to do my job? Of course they never did give me that look or ask to see my credentials...it was all the way I was viewing myself in the situation, it as all about my own insecurities.

When the conversation turned to laughing at the ways in which we take home our bad days and take them out on our partners, I needed to physically fight the urge to run far far away. As much as I laughed along and I could relate to what they were saying, I did not share nor join in because it hurt a little to think about. Soon enough though I really could leave and it was only when I got in the car that it all fell down upon me!

I drove, music blaring as I tried to drown out the sorrow in my head and heart...trying to forget the things which hurt so much and distract myself but this evening it just was not working! No amount of music nor distraction could stop the tears from falling. There I was driving home after an incredibly hard and shitty day where I needed to be far more disciplinarian than I ever like to be and I had no opportunity to vent it out to anyone. I couldn't go home and pick a fight with someone, I wasn't going to be asked about my day and be able to bitch about how crappy it was...noone was going to be there just waiting to hear about my day... :(

My friends have been so incredibly brilliant in the last few months...as I faced the worst depression I have ever gone through and then the break up of my marriage they have been a tower of strength to me. Messaging me, bringing me flowers and caring how I am. But as I drove home I thought about them and the impact that I must have made on their lives during that time. They have families of their own to take care of and be with, partners to chat with and lives of their own to lead and here I was in a fallen heap in hell and reaching out into their worlds to say hi, to make a connection of friendship which I just do not have at home. I was infiltrating their world and I suddenly felt and feel so incredibly bad about that.

What right do I have to put my problems upon them? What right do I have to interrupt their lives with my anxst?

I had the strongest urge possible to message them and tell them that I was sorry. I am sorry for putting so much of my troubles on them. I am so sorry for asking so much of them. I am so grateful for all that they have done for me but I am so sorry that I have been so much trouble. But then I thought, maybe that will come across as attention seeking rather than genuine? so instead I did nothing. I thought maybe I should just back off...not message, stay away...quietly give them back their lives and stay away. But then I worry that to do that might also come across as though I have a problem with them when infact it is the complete opposite which is the problem...I have a problem with me. Such a huge problem with me that I cannot imagine that their lives wouldn't be better off without me in them.

I had the strongest urge to turn my phone and computers off forever. What right do I have to keep on putting this shit, this hell out there on the internet forever for people to stumble upon and read just to drag down their day?

I watched my children play in the backyard yesterday when we got home and I saw the joy they got out of being out there and I suddenly had the strongest thought that I just had to do whatever I could to keep this house...for them. It is a great area, it is a terrific house and block and has everything I want for them. So I brainstormed and tried to work out money and if I can work more, do more...something, anything to give them what they deserve. But I sit here now, typing through tears and I know that it was all just a complete waste of time and energy to even think about it! There is no way we can stay here...the dream is over and we will have to move on. And you know that deep down I know that that will be ok, that eventually it will all be ok. But for one moment in time I wished and dreamed that I wouldn't have to change another thing in my childrens worlds. That they could feel comfortable and safe here without worry...that I could too.

I don't think that I have ever cried so much and so deeply as I have lately...sporadically when alone or when the kids are asleep as they are tonight. Deep, gut wrenching tears unlike any before. Not from the soul and self crushing place of the teenage me when my relationships broke up..but from a more mature and so much more scary and alone place. I hold it together with my friends, I dry my tears and pack away my worries before I pick up the kids. I ask them about their day and I soothe their anxst and their worries, I am more than holding it together at work and focused...with only the occasional zone out moment when alone.....but in the dark of night or when the house is vacant of little bodies it hits me hard. As the Therapist said to me it is not the grief of something I have lost but it is the grief of something which I never had which is tearing me apart..for what I have lost brings relief...but what I do not and never did have....that is the hardest to bare.

The realisation that my people all have someone who thinks about them during the day and longs to be with them at the end of the day and ask about them at the end of the day brings me so much joy for them but so much sorrow at the realisation that I am that person for my children and to an extent they are that for me...but there are things I cannot share with them...there are things that I need to deal with alone.

Sometimes that is just so hard to do :(

To those friends who come to read, whether I know you only through the net or I know you mainly face to face please believe that I mean it when I say through my tears right now that I appreciate you so incredibly much...more than I could ever express but I am also so sorry to have shared this all with you, to have offloaded my worries and pain on you. I am genuinely GENUINELY sorry. As Elizabeth Gilbert replied to her friend in 'Eat Pray Love' when she was reminded of just how much support and love she had at home to get through this stage of her life, "but how much am I giving you?" . What good am I to you right now?

The new normal...

For each little thing that I have had to take over that my husband did before there has been a moment of hurt, a moment of reality that things have drastically changed in my life. Due to the way we ran before this, ie, me doing everything there have not been many of these moments, infact the only one that comes to mind is doing the rubbish and putting out the bins.

But tomorrow marks the start of the fourth term of school, my return to work and the kids return to school. Holidays are over and our routine begins once more. But it doesn't really...because our routine is completely different now. There is no miracle that is going to occur of the dinner being started before I arrive home from work, because there is noone here to do that.....actually I say it is a miracle because it was rarely done so I wont miss it all that much.

In fact there really isn't in a physical sense all that much that will be different between this and every other in our married life.

Returning to work though will be different. I had a nightmare last night that we had a fill in Art teacher who had taught all my Year 4's a song to sing to the school community which was all about helping me and holding me up while I deal with...and then they sang all the things that I have going on in my life that they never knew about. I questioned her and she said she found it all on my blog. Thankfully they sang it for the first time at a staff rehearsal and not to the parents. I then had the task of writing my version of my depression and my seperation to the staff so that they knew the truth...I literally had to bare my soul to all the people I worked with. It was humiliating and felt as though they were seeing me naked..like the naked to school dreams only ten times worse. Upon waking I felt as though I had not slept....tired and grumpy I began to evaluate the dream and I think that it comes from the realisation that some people at work know about my separation and others do not. The ones who do will ask, as others have over the holidays, how I am doing? this will not always be discreet and so eventually more and more people will find out. I am also not wearing my wedding or engagement rings. After the nightmare I had the other night I could not bare to look at them so they are put away. I have thoughts about maybe putting them back on so my cluey girls in my room don't cotton on/ notice and ask questions but then I really don't think that I can.

Tomorrow will bring with it the reality that this is the new normal for us. A life of school and work where it is just the kids and me. It is different and it is scary..because when life returns to routine then normalcy sets in and this will be a new normal. A better, yet harder normal. We will be ok....we will right?

Have you ever scooped the insides of a kiwi fruit and been left with only the peeling, an empty shell? that is what I feel like today. I feel incredibly hollow, so incredibly alone and lonely. No amount of laughing with the kids, hugging and kissing them is enough to take this feeling away. It is horrible. I am not lonely for what I had...I am lonely for what I never had. The silence in the house is deafening.

The sounds of my new normal...