I can't believe he won't be aroudn when Lucy dies.

When Lucy takes her final breaths.  With her prematurely greyed snout, and her mom-given anxieties, and blind eye and her sweet demeanor, and her soft fur and her beautiful coat..

When she snuggles up into a ball, and makes her nest when shes ready... it willnot be the boy who said "you don;t need that puppy, I need that puppy" that will be by her side.

It will be the wife that said, "Lets think about it".

It will be the wife that trained her from 10 weeks old.

It will be the wife that fought for her right to live with us even though she destroyed carpets.

It will be the wife that stood by her during paralysis.

It will be the wife that taught her how to walk again.

It will be the woman that kept her when she couldnt afford $22 daily doggie daycare.

It will be the woman who stands with her in the rain while she refuses to potty.

When this beautiful resiliency teacher dies, it won't be the careless asshole that obtained her.  It will be me.  Loving her as I have every day for 7 years. And no one will care as much as I do.

When Lucy takes her last breaths in this shitty world, it will be in my arms.  Not his. Not ours.

When Lucy leaves this world she wont have her parents' loving arms wrapped around her.  No, she'll have to settle for her insufficient mom.  WHo did the best she could, but could never do enough.

Theres just no getting over you.
I have to accept that.
I had "loves" before you.  Zach. Brock. Pete.
And after each of them, I left. Knowing they'd always have a piece of my heart.  That love doesn't diminish, only expands the heart to make room for bigger better love.
With you, it isn't this way.
You're just there. Stuck. like a thorn, deeply inbedded. And nothing and no one else will do.
You're a constant.  The baseline for which all emotion, feeling, thought, reaction and living is based on.
This thing happens and its, "What would Chris say to me now?'
"How would Chris react to this happening"
"What advice or lack thereof would he offer me now?"

He's not in my life anymore.  But when this person dies, how would he have held me, or held space for me?
Because I remember when that person died, this was how I held him. Held space for him to grieve in whatever way he needed. I held it.  Beyond my comfort zone.  I held it beyond my own feelings.  This person who is important to him died. I am not human, but have learned how to human. Hug him. Do not let him go.  Let him know you are there, even if you don't know how to be. Its important.  You don't know what you are doing but this is what a loved one does.  You hold him fast. And he let you go sooner than you expected.

Hes not in my life anymore, but when our puppy is injured, I want to run to him, and ask, What do we do? What is the right course?

Thats my heart asking. Because I know my brain will always have the answer. Has always had to have the answer, because he was never there.  He wasnt there when she was paralyzed. He is not there now when she is having a relapse in mobility.

Hahahah Your husband abandoned you, left you to live with his sister who hates your guts and feeds him lies.
Hahahah Survive the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, his birthday, your birthday, without him and explaining, unsuccessfully, to family why he is not there.
Hahahah Your dog becomes paralyzed, despite how much you love and care for her.
Hahahah your husband still refuses to help, because "You were always a better puppy parent than [him]"
Hahahah You're now squatting in a house with no working kitchen for a month with no help while still working insane hours, hustling when you have nothing left to give.  With one paralyzed pup who still insists on doing everything she always could, ie stairs, and one healthy active pup.
Hahahah Your husband revs his engine and tries to run you over in a parking lot.
Hahahah You must sign a lease that you cannot afford without the help of BAH.
Hahahah Your husband moves across he country without even a decent goodbye, but a downright pathetic excuse for one.
Hahahah You have a breast cancer scare!  At 30!  Signs of the most aggressive type, that you suffer through; suffering down stairs and teaching yoga with an on fire breast that weighs heavy so much you have to hold it when you move at all.
Hahahah you pay $5,000 on a YOGA TEACHER'S SALARY to move out of said place because landlord is a total fucking asshole.
Hahahah You move into a new place with a self righteous bitter old hag of a bitch who hates dogs, and has already threatened to try to get you evicted for the mere sake of HAVING dogs before you've even moved in.
Hahahah you pay $800/month in doggie daycare, when you make $1000, and rent is $1025.
Hahahah your friends are insensitive and rude and tell you you have a bad attitude
Hahahah you lose one of your beloved dogs.
Hahahah your car is a death trap and undriveable but NO ONE will help you transport or figure out what the fuck to do with it so it gets towed for $175/day. Like you can afford one day day of that.
Hahahah Trump is President.

Its 2:22am and I am not tired.
I have to wake up at 8am at least and work a very full day at two different jobs, but my mind is wired with where I'm failing in my personal life and where I'm failing in my new job and what I can do right now to prevent future failings.
At least I'm an awesome yoga teacher.
#cantsleepwontsleep

Day 2 Post "clean" break

I saw a post in my INTJ group where a woman was telling all the bitter people to address their anger towards those who had hurt them, instead of anonymously trolling unsuspecting and innocent folks on the interwebs.  It ended with, "What you allow will continue."

It was profound to me, and I realized I had gotten into a handful of online arguments with strangers, as well as the complete lapse in judgment to post to one of his whore's wall, angry about what she did.  Mostly upset that he defended her and wouldn't respond appropriately to me, I took to her page, knowing her friends would only defend her, and I would look crazy.

So what?  I am supposed to let go of both the fact that I love him and want him in my life AND forgive him for how he's treated me?  Even if I could do that, I have to just love him for no reason.  There's no guarantee he will ever love me. 

I started reading The Purpose Driven Life.  I'm not religious, but found it while cleaning up some clutter in my room.  My mom bought it, and the journal, for me years ago and I don't think they were cheap.  As I laid in my very expensive bedroom set she also bought for me, I was reminded how much money she has put into me and how little gratitude I show her.  It made me think I could find a non-denomination church.

Mercury retrograde is over and I think these past few days I've felt it lifting, releasing its cold grip on my throat and possibly even revealing some clarity in direction.  I read this article, well a lot of articles, about letting go of relationships; but one in particular was about loving from afar.  And even if you can never be together, loving that person by honoring what they need to do as well as loving them by loving and honoring yourself.  Making yourself the best possible version you can be.  So seeking health, and peace.

I knew I wanted to take the dogs on a long walk this morning because they have to come to verizon with me.  So we went on  different route and all the new smells excited them, that they did their thing pretty soon.  I said to them, "Now that we've done our business we can just enjoy our friendly walk."  It instantly struck me.  What if thats all my and my once-husband's marriage was?  We did what we had to together to learn these lessons,  We finished our business now we're supposed to continue on our friendly walk.  Except I can't be friends with him.

I really wish people would stop saying, "Wow. That sucks. Sorry." to every shitty thing that is happening in my life right now.  What in the actual fuck do you think that is accomplishing?  You aren't actually sorry, and the word doesn't mean a fucking thing so don't fucking say that to me.

I really am scared if/when he gets healthy he won't want me anymore.  By then he'll find and marry some bitch who will have his kids.  In my shower cry I keep repeating I want to kill myself.  

Day 1 Post-"Clean"-Break

I still have flash anger spells.  Lying in bed before I decided to try to human today, I flash back to things he said and ways he defended his whores.  I remember things he said to denigrate my feelings and my blood boils, my jaw clenches and my heart races.  My dog Archer senses these spells in me.  Sometimes he’ll bark at me until I calm down but this morning he just jumped off the bed and crawled to his safe space under it.

Putting dishes away reminded me of every other morning I’ve put dishes away since I met him: alone.  And for the past 2 years, crying.  But today it’s like a brand new break up.

I hate my life.  I hate this place I live where the dinosaur upstairs terrifies Lucy to the point of shaking for 2 hours, and not eating breakfast.  I hate the other piece of shit neighbor that has forced me to bring the dogs with me every time I leave the house even more.  I hate that our doors are two handed devices.  I hate that when I leave to walk them first thing in the morning I have to wear shoes, a bra, bring keys when women’s clothes have no fucking pockets, and carry Lucy down the flight of stairs to get there.  I hate that I have to scout the hallway before walking it for fear of my dogs sounding like assholes and scaring someone.

In my facebook memories, which let’s face it will be hell forever now, I am reminded of this day 3 years go when I hurt my neck and just another example of him not only no taking me seriously, but laughing at my expense and making jokes.
 

Why then, do I keep looking for his emails, in their secret place in my inbox, that never come?

“I hate that I love you”

“I don’t trust you with my heart.”  Yet he sent me a long email explaining how the physical development of his childhood and teen years still affect him to this day.  Why share that with me if he doesn't trust me?

I only made half the bed today. Because I just couldn’t be bothered to go to the other side of the bed.  Everything hurts.  Everything is harder than it has to be and harder for other people.

Going to the grocery store, I have to bring the dogs.  I risk losing both them and my car because I leave it running with the AC on so I don’t get the cops called on me.  Lucy starts acting aggressive toward Archer, snarling at him and relegating him to the back seat.  I think because there is a bag of food back there.  Passing the grocery store, they hear someone in the parking lot, you know, talking like a normal person.  What do they do?  Freak the fuck out, bark like monsters, and try their damnest to crawl over me to get to the window.  I yell at them and cry when I park because I just can’t fucking do this anymore.  When I get home it has to be another walk for them, and I can’t bring the groceries and them in together because I don’t have enough hands.  So I walk them up the stairs, lock them on the patio so they don’t bother anyone indoors, go back downstairs, get the groceries and bring them up and unlock them.  It shouldn’t have to be like this.  We got these dogs together.  But when he went to school for a year, a mere 6 months into our marriage it was all on me.  “I can just go to school and you’ll take care of Lucy by yourself right?”  And when he deployed, it was the same but with 2 dogs this time.  At least then I had financial ability to provide all their needs.  

I had to dye my hair yesterday.  What used to be bright and beautiful, pink and purple.  What used to symbolize how I felt inside.  What used to make me feel beautiful and whole and how I was meant to present to the world… is now dark.  And makes me look old.

I remember the first time I noticed how my pink and purple hair had changed me.  I was walking around Las Vegas with my awesome hair and no makeup on, and I couldn’t have been more carefree!  I didn’t even think about putting on a face before I left my room.  And it wasn’t as though I was addicted to it before, or I think I have bad skin I am trying to cover.  I just like the way I look with makeup on, and happen to know how to do it incredibly well. 

So I knew I would hate my hair any other color.  Especially natural colors.  This is the first time I have to go stand in front of a room full of people I admire and respect without my hair, but with this ugly imposter hair.  I couldn’t bring myself to go barefaced.  Even though I have been for over two years now.  I look just as tired as I feel, but at least with bright hair it wasn’t as bad.  Now that its dark, the bags under my eyes are more prominent.  My dull and sallow skin appears transparent, the angry capillaries threatening to break through and spear someone.  I have baby hamster eyes that get lost in a sea of paleness surrounded by dark depths.

***

"I can't help you.  Support you like one survivor to another... that's about all I can do.  Hey sorry your day sucks."

"So strange.  You are on a tear today. I don't know where the fuck this is coming from.  Please find some peace.  I cannot adjust to your false reality.  I downloaded a book on your condition.  An M unlocks my phone. Your painting is my home screen.  You know I love you and today your rant is about your confusion and pain.  So disconnected.  You're twisted.  This is it, huh?  Over a non-truth?  This is so strange.  You're becoming like Glenn Close.  Let me know when this passes ok? Then we can talk about us."  LIKE THERE IS ANY FUCKING "US" TO TALK ABOUT WHEN HE REFUSES TO HELP ME WHATSOEVER.

"Remember what a high you were on a week ago?  Resilient, above the fray, permeating all of your troubles?"  This never happened.  What he is referring to is one solitary walk I took with the dogs. I was not on a high, my life was still shit. I was -$27 in the bank and all my bills were due.  This is how he skews my "troubles" and my reactions to them.  "You were strangely kind and patient and preaching resilience to me."  Hmm, yeah kindness happens when you offer someone in need help.  Someone you claim to love who is hurting very badly. And you offer something they cannnot do for themselves.  Then when you do not actually give that help, and in fact scoff at the person for even thinking you COULD help them, you get what he calls, "the other end of it."

"Know that you are in the worst bout of illness I've ever seen you."
Says the man that didn't eat or sleep for a month.  Says the man that looked like shit and crazy when he showed up at my work, a yoga studio, trying to get me fired.  Says a man who claimed he had a private detective following me around, one whom was very impressed with the work he had done already, showing me a very thick yellow envelope.  Says the man who tried to run me over in the parking lot of a bar, while I was walking with the manager, already scared he would show up.  Says the man who ran me off the road several times, driving maniacally, then asking me out to coffee.

Yes, I am the one who is "embarrassing myself incredibly."

"You were a hypersexual unfaithful deceitful bitch of a wife."  Really, am I the one who lost my virginity and next 3 encounters with a prostitute in Amsterdam?  Or am I hypersexual because you didn't want to fuck me daily?  Or even weekly?

"I will block you myself if you do not leave to rest either of these couples."
Neither of them are couples anymore and the women in both of these "couples" are whores he has fucked.  "Because no matter what I say or do, it is your own guilt and your own suspicion that prevents us from living in the present."  No, it isn't the fact that he is still sexting and writing erotica for these so-called-friend's wives.  Not that at all. And in his defense, he claims he isn't fucking them, not because he would never do that. No, he didn't fuck them because she/they would never have him.  As if.  She is so fucking high up on a pedestal, that he wouldn't be good enough for her?  So what does that make me?  "Yeah because I got it like that.  Girls who used to go after alphas now suddenly want a beta like me."  This is not what a man who loves his wife says.  A man who loves and only wants his wife says, "I would never with them.  They're not my type.  You are my type."  Instead he is claiming the only reason he didn't fuck them (which he did), is because they wouldn't want him.  Yet he admits to fucking one of them, and claims the other one was "like a sister".  Does a sister message her friend's husband and say "Let her go. I'm drunk. Call me now." at 12:15am?  No. That is a booty call.

"You are on my pedastal. The only one."

"We need to place the dogs. Find humanitarian homes for them." .... because I am unwilling whatsoever to care for these dogs that we obtained together.

"It is like you were in hiding the entire time.  You seemed to be in conflict with my health, my sobriety, and my proximity.  For those things threatened to reveal you.  You've said as much yourself."
I revealed all of me to you from the very beginning.  You chose to see what you wanted and ignore what you didn't.  I was never in hiding and I was never in conflict with your health because you have never been healthy a single day I have known you.  You are in conflict with your own health and blame me for that because you are weak.

> sends me useless fucking video and claims "It would stun you, help you and give you insight into picking" (It absolutely did none of these things but I suppose to someone who knows nothing of what they speak like he does, it would stun him).

> sends me a stupid selfie of his stupid face I never want to see again

> I send him evidence of how much skin I have picked off my scalp in a trance. His response, "That's a pretty blue {speaking of a piece of jewelry he bought me also in the picture}. I'm sure it complements your skintone and hair color perfectly."
I have 2 major problems with this.  1. Fucking acknowledge me.  2. You don't even know what fucking color my hair is.

> Sends me video of a panda bear eating a popsicle

> sends me this

Granted, this is at a point that he knows I can't pay rent. I can't pay bills. I am going out of my mind. I am about to lose my dogs because I can't care for them by myself. His response, "You need to be redirected sometimes.  There's nothing I can say. YOU DON'T WANT ME TO FIX ANYTHING.  I can't help like you're asking for."

I have not asked for a fucking thing but some goddamn compassion and acknowledgement.  I ask him how he thinks he has helped me.  He answers, "Ballet lessons."  Because yes. When I am drowning, please let me go to ballet to forget all my worries.  In DC.  An hour away.  One day in fact, I was in an accident on my way to said ballet lesson.  Am I supposed to thank him?  Can I pay my bills with that ballet lesson I almost didn't make it to?  I don't even have to wonder if he would even care if I had been splattered on the pavement.  No. He wouldn't.

Yet he always finds compassion and empathy for his whores he is so attached to.  They get all the compassion and conversation in the world, including intimate details of our relationship and me.  They get that.  And I get a panda.

"A drowning man cannot save you."

As opposed to, "I don't want anyone but you. I hope our roads converge after healing and growth.  I want our lives to come back together. So... get healthy. Lets do this.  You are profoundly ill right now.  Please get well. I will wait."

Yes, go fuck yourself he says, get healthy on your own because I refuse to help you.  No, whats worse, is that I offer you help I just do not give.  And then I call you crazy for thinking that I can or will, despite my saying I would.  And I force you to go onto your own, one with no means, no income, no support whatsoever, and then once you become cool and sane again, I want you back.  

The musings began far too late

I’ve always put my entire being into the things I care for.  My mom loves to tell me and others when I was a kid and I hugged someone, you could always tell if I really liked them because I would squeeze them and make a little grunt.  As if I was trying to convey how hard I was loving them with sound.  I still do that at 31 years old.

So, in love, and work that I love, I am all in.  Its black or white.  I’ve never done grey. I don’t even know what that is.  The beautiful thing about this is that once you’ve been granted “in” status, there is nothing I won’t do for you.  The dark side of this is that I allow energy sucks to deplete me of energy.  Sometimes, as in teaching yoga, it's entirely worth it.  I put every single cell into teaching a class, creating sequencing to address vocalized issues, or even just what I am looking at in front of me.  I take note of every single body in the studio and my mind is in a constant cycle of thought: where do I want to assist this person, what can I give that student to expand their practice, what is a common denominating theme of the bodies in this room?  I love every. Single. Minute of it.  But I leave every. Single. Class drained.  Doubly, or triply so if I am leading back-to-backs.  I wouldn’t stop teaching if my life depended on it, but I am very aware and understanding of its effect on me.  

This is why I know when I need to sit alone in a quiet room.  This is why I know when I am feeling noise sensitive, I need a time-out. 

It’s unfortunate that those we love can sometimes become these energy sucks as well.  Being an introvert madly in love with an extrovert was never easy.  But again, he was worth it.  Well he was worth it to me back then.  Being a military spouse never came easily to me.  But it was worth it, if I got him a couple months here and there.

Now that things have passed… now that I’ve been divorced from for 9 months (am I having a divorce baby? Gross) … Now that he has literally moved on to another part of the country, and I have {had to} move on to new living situations myself… After all this time and heartache and pain, now?  Now he wants me to move to Kansas.  Just pack up my fucking 3-bedroom townhouse.  Put it all in a truck that costs thousands of dollars- on a yoga teacher’s salary!  Pack the dogs he threw away as harshly as he did me.  Move to the middle of nowhere.  With no job. No family. No friends.  No support.  Just him.  Back to a man that effectively ruined my life. 

At one time he would have been worth that.  When we were married, I would have followed him to the ends of the earth.  And that was the deal.  You marry into the military, you’re moving every few years.  And not to the most glamorous of areas.  Fine.  But his dumbass divorced me.  Not only divorced me, but did so in so ugly, so immature, so insensitive and unhealthy a fashion. 

The juice is no longer worth the squeeze.  And yet I let him into my life, my being, my essence still.  I have enough energy drains without him adding to it.  But I let him.  And when I muster the courage to block him, I too feel depleted.  Deprived of his attentions.  And nothing else satisfies the hunger for it.

I have nothing left to give.

And all the women in me are tired.