Rememberella

I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. It’s stupid o’clock, and I let myself nap for three hours around dinner-time and here I am.

Oh my girls, those of you who still have me in your feeds – or moreover – who still even check their readers (I don’t), how to begin to explain the journey of the last couple of years? Some of you are my friends on Facebook, so you know at least, that I survived.

And thrived.

Have you ever had to completely let go of everything?

It happens sometimes in life, I think. Something happens to rock the foundations of the faulty life you’ve built, and everything comes toppling over… every assumption you’ve made, every wrong choice, everything you believe about yourself and others.

But you see the truth, you know? You see what’s no longer adequate or right. And you rebuild yourself and your life, stronger and realer, and more beautiful, too.

I left my husband, as you know. It was messy. We both behaved abhorrently, though I maintain he started it, because it was the way he behaved afterwards – in his grief and anger, and most of all with a crushed ego – that started the sorry saga. I won’t bore you with the details – you’ve heard the same stories before, I bet: abusive emails, custody shit, restraining orders, mediation, blah blah blah… Needless to say, we don’t like each other very much anymore, though we are getting better at managing it for Jas’ sake (or T is, which was the main problem for me, really.)

And then, I guess, I had some kind of breakdown.

Now, I’ve always been a bit nutty (For example, who needs to breastfeed that badly? Someone with massive anxiety issues, that’s who) but the events following our separation took me past the point of control. I’ve had to come to terms with my mental health issues in a big way. It was really scary sometimes. I don’t have a clear diagnosis yet, but I do believe there were moments there when I was literally manic, and some where I was a bit psychotic too.  For real, I mean, not in the colloquial sense.

I’m being treated now, with medication/psychiatrist/psychologist/etc. and I’m coming good. But I wasn’t able to work, and I am still not able to teach. I doubt I ever will be, even if I had the inclination. So yeah, massive financial strife, of course – and via my impending personal bankruptcy, a goodbye to the enormous debts I incurred in a decade of being the family breadwinner with a not-so-big income. But then, I had no real assets to lose, certainly not a house or anything, and it’s somewhat of a relief to be able to “start fresh”.

And also, I found True Love.

He was there all along, actually. A friend. We were never single at the same time, though, until a year ago – even in our early 20s when we met. It started as a secret amusement – I’d had my first post-breakup “fling” and had rediscovered sex. He was convenient, and trusted. And a hottie, always.

It became quickly obvious that there was something magical, something spectacular, there – but we stayed in denial for the longest time, feigning “friends with benefits”, then “casual relationship”, then “open relationship”. All rather gruelling for both of us really, but we were scared.

T. found out, of course. Things got really ugly for a while.

Still, we made it through all of it. And Jas and I moved into his place a few months ago.

And it’s wonderful. It’s like everything I always wanted but never thought was real. It’s like a rom-com, it’s like Paul & Linda McCartney, it’s Greek mythology. The man is The One. It’s perfect. Not he or I… but IT – whatever IT is that we make when we come together. Which, we are hoping, will be a baby very very soon.

So yes. Vomit, vomit. Love love love. My Twin Soul, The Love of my Life, My Best Friend… spew spew retch ad finitum.

(Except true.)

You can ask questions now.

Heh.

…i miss my girls…

I was doing well.

Really. The last few days had made it clear to me that I was doing the right thing. The more I’ve talked to those closest to me, the more it has opened up inside me – all the different things I’ve been suppressing for so long. It’s like, that gut feeling that was so shapeless not a week ago – so intangible and quiet and frightening – has now been telling me: Yes. There was that, and there was that, and there was that too. Things I never dared to allow myself to feel or think consciously about our marriage before.

And it seems so obvious that I wonder how it could have come as a surprise to him. But then, it came as a surprise to me too, the actual doing of this, didn’t it?

But then I have contact with him, and I stop feeling so good.

He’s gutted… I think.

I mean, if his Facebook wall is anything to go by. The Leonard Cohen song lyrics, the links to a download of his new heartbroken song ( I haven’t listened – I’m not QUITE that masochistic), descriptions of packing ten years into boxes. I know my (ex) husband, and I know he’s all about being the victim. I shouldn’t be surprised. And I’m trying not to get upset by it. I know he doesn’t have the support of family nearby, and that he needs that support. And he’s playing games too I think – trying to show me what I’m doing to him without showing me, and he’s hurt and angry and we are in the 21st Century, right? Reaching out is all about the electronic communication.

But I don’t know. It works. I DO feel guilty. It DOES make me feel awful.

I just keep trying to think about later – one year, two years down the track. When we can be mates again, when the hurt has faded – and, hopefully, when he has had the chance to process and heal and see all the things that are so obvious to me now. Because I think he will. I don’t think the level of dysfunction that’s been festering between us for so long can be one-sided. You know? I don’t think it’s a matter of the “she broke my heart” stuff he’s putting out there. We’ve both been unhappy in this marriage for a long time.

It’s just that for some reason I don’t entirely understand, I’ve just been more prepared to admit it.

The nerve. She returns, almost a year later, expecting blog pals to come running, showering her with love and affection. As if she would still be on their reader. What is the statute of limitations on dead blogs?

But we all know. Sometimes we need this, sometimes we don’t.

And I haven’t. Most of you I have in my FB account – those who I don’t, I still read, and though I rarely (ahem, almost never) comment, I know where in the internet world I can find you.

So here I am. Needing to write. Needing my girls, my old bloggy pals. Needing to put it down, sort it out, sift through the raw messiness of life. Here I am again.

You’re asking why?

I have left my husband.

It happened Sunday night.

There I was, reeling out the usual list of petty complaints to my sister – “husbands suck”, “husbands make you do everything” etc. oh etc. And as I was talking to her, it occured to me that I have been here before. Too many times. And that enough was enough.

It wasn’t the petty complaints. That’s just the skin on the milk. That’s what goes on everywhere, in every marriage in some way or another, and it means nothing. It’s bickering.

What was there, that I have been covering up with busy-ness for so long – God, literally years – is that something isn’t right. It’s not with him, and it’s not not with me. He’s a good man, an intelligent, articulate, gentle, warm man. He ticks all the boxes, right? But there’s something, there hidden in the very texture of us, the third life we create as a unit, that isn’t right. I’ve been denying it. Even now I’m not sure if it is a figment of my imagination; the result of watching “When Harry met Sally” too many times in my youth – some romatic ideal that doesn’t and hasn’t ever existed for us.

I have always had this niggling. Even on our wedding day. Even the morning after the first night we spent together.

It’s like when you love someone, but you don’t LOVE them.

I’m staying at my mums for the time being. BB is there, not here. For two years we have alternated child care between his work days and my work days, and that’s the way it will stay. Until this Thursday, it will be my work days.

Being apart from BB is excruciating. I know this will get worse before it gets better. I’ve chosen a hard road. I’m trying not to doubt it. But it’s hard. A lovely man (be he not right for ME) is hurting because of my actions. My family, my sense of security and home, is gone.

I feel terribly alone. Terribly sad, terribly alone, and terribly hollow.

I don’ t know.

High shame. Have re-started smoking. Am blogging it out here.

Here’s the boring “pregnancy announcements bite” post we’ve all heard a zillion times.

But don’t they?

The women in my mother’s group are all working on second children now. Two have just been born, one is around 20 weeks, and now… two more pregnancies have been announced – 7 weeks and 13 weeks. Then there’s my sister, of course – but my goodwill seems to stop after babies I am going to be related to.

I am so glad that I was one of the first women I knew to have a baby, so that I never truly had to deal with this while I was in the throes of IF.

I was lucky.

Because it’s hard even now not to be a bitter old cow: how fucking nice for you, people.

Even though I always said I only wanted one; couldn’t handle the two of my stepchildren fighting. Even though I don’t think I’d have the strength to face IVF and high risk pregnancy. Even though the fact of the matter is my husband says I’m not allowed to have more (and fair enough, he is in his 50s. One child was our compromise, after all.)

But still. Part of me wishes. And part of me still wants to punch things.

And part of me just wants to be able to let it go.

It seems lately that the only time I get on to post here is when I am having some kind of crisis. I feel like a teenager who writes angsty poetry and then closes her notebook until she breaks up with the next boyfriend.

But it happens.

Thank you for your support on my last, most tortured of posts. My sister has decided to keep the baby. Turns out she can stay on her current anti-crazy medication throughout the pregnancy, which was the deal-breaker. So I get to be an auntie again, and I’m betting on a little girl, if only so I have soemone to give “Anne of Green Gables” books to, and to see High School Musical Number 12 with.

I’ve been away, as I mentioned in a post a few weeks back. Right now I am sitting on the back porch in Norman Bates’ motel just outside of Auckland airport.

I’ve been in New Zealand for eleven days now, visiting an old flatmate of mine from ten years ago. She is British, and we’ve been writing to each other like boarding school penpals ever since. It’s been wonderful to catch up with her after so long – we’ve had some wonderful talks on rugged cliff-faces, and its been a fantastic opportunity to take stock of the last leg of the journey (actually the last several legs) and try and figure out where I’m going next. I need to process still, I think, but I won’t put you all through it now.

I miss my boys desperately, the big one and the little one. J said his first real sentence right before I left, holding his bottle out to me : “I want some more juice please”.  Cracked me up. He’s all about the damn juice right now.

He’s coping ok without me, T says; we’re both doing better than I expected, actually. Poor T is the one who has copped it all – alone, being pulled a million directions by J and his other two kids, who are now 16 and 12, and his ex-partner. He’s a gem, my husband. I need to tell him that more often (Resolution #1).  Supposedly J is being the metre-man – T can’t go more than a metre away before J starts getting clingy. Apparently he went to sleep quietly murmuring mama mama mama the other night. And then there was the bit where he pointed at the television – at vile, disgusting Charli from Hi 5 to be precise – and said “mama”.

Of course, I’ve been dreadfully worried about the damage eleven days away from mum will do to his psyche. Will he always have this looming sense of abandonment in his relationships with women? Will he be permanently seeking security in all the wrong places? Pure paranoia of course – everyone keeps telling me children are more resilient than we know. And of course they are.

Still.

Anyway, must go. Hope you all had a lovely christmas and new year. Hopefully won’t be long until I get off my butt to post again.

xx

Quickly, becasue I am visiting my step-kids and yet, things must come out.

My sister called this morning. She is pregnant. With an eight month old. And post-natal depression.

She said to me: “I’m not used to the idea”.

What my mother told me she’s saying: “I cannot keep this baby”.

I know it is not my decision to make. I know I can’t say anything to her. That she will do what is right for her, and she will have good reasons for it. And it will not be something she will take lightly. She is a natural mother, my sister – one of those rare kinds of mothers.

But I cannot help the infertile in me, the one put down the phone and went to the bathroom and shut the door. Who put her hands over her face and wept silently, violently, and like a child.

Thank you to you all for your thoughts and prayers. x

Well.

It looks like everything is ok. Ultrasound and mammogram both showed no “evidence of cystic or solid lesions”. The boob doctor told me that it looks like normal lumpy breast tissue to her – that it could be hormonal? She took a tissue sample and I’m going back next Monday to see what it had to say.

Still. There’s enough to be grateful for there.

The most terrible kinds of anxiety have been eased.

There is a lump in my breast.

It isn’t a small lump. It isn’t a pea-shaped lump. It is a big, hard mass of a two inch lump.

I think it just came up. Suddenly. This week. That’s what I think.

But I’m not sure; I’m doubting myself. What if that kind of lumpy tissue that’s been there for a long time – that seemed to be on both sides; that I thought was just breast tissue – what if it wasn’t?

I went to the doctor this morning. He didn’t help. Talk of his not being able to reassure me, talk of kicking heads if I couldn’t get into testing earlier this coming week. He gave me Monday morning off work to make the calls. All his manner, partially – another doctor would have said ‘We’ll get tests right away, but it probably isn’t the worst case scenario, at 31 years of age.”

But he didn’t. He thought it likely I would have to cancel my overseas trip – coming in three weeks.

And I am near panic. In and out of panic actually. For several hours today I convinced myself it was breastfeeding-related. Strange let-down sensations on both sides, two babies born around me in the last week. A bit of milk on the opposite side to the lump. Some weird, hormonal freak of nature – it happens, they say. My friend, two years past breastfeeding, said she startied randomly lactating earlier this year, for a week. Perhaps its a blocked duct. Perhaps its a cyst.

But I don’t know.

I’m so scared. So fucking scared.