free?

i have moved out. I think it has probably been about a month now. The place I am living is not nearly finished, but it is a work in progress. Someday it will be done. Hopefully by the time school starts. I need a bedroom door. Maybe I will do that today.

I still have no friends to be wild with me. That is frustrating, but does not hold me back. I went to play poker by myself. It's not the first time, but it was the first time that men flocked around me and actually sat and waited their turn to talk to me! That was very odd. And damn it all to hades, the only one that I was attracted to is married. BLECH!

I also went dancing alone. I told Randy I was going to and where and for some odd reason he showed up. AWKWARD! But, the night was still great. I danced til I sweat and I danced with the cutest guys in the bar too! Lean wit it Rock wit it. Randy did not dance. He talked to girls all night. Whatevs. Later I found out the boys that I danced with, inappropriately I might add, were in their early twenties. I don't quite know how to feel about that. Hmmmm. Oh well.

Here is something I realized. I don't know the date that I moved out. Isn't it funny how we celebrate the wedding day every year and I have no clue what date my marriage technically ended. I guess it is like everything else in that relationship it just slipped on by and slipped away.

A few things I learned about myself in the last month:
1. I allow myself to get into terribly tempting situations.
2. I am a lot of a germ a phobe (I knew that before, but I didn't know the extent of it.)
3. I am really not attracted to my ex/husband, at all, not even a tiny bit and I really am one hundred percent sure that I do not want to be with him at all, not even a tiny bit! But oddly, I did feel a twinge of jealousy.
4. I am not afraid to sleep alone, I actually enjoy it, even in a basement by myself!
5. And apparently I am spunky.
6. oh and apparently red heads are desirable and it is because everyone's first girlfriend was a red head. So I keep hearing.
7. Mostly, I am braver than I think or could possibly conceive.

today

I am melancholy. I spackled the dry wall a little with some missionaries. Weird in oh so many ways. Bought beer in my work shirt. Came home and drank warm beer. Read messages on facebook and emails from old, long lost friends. Felt lonely. Felt disconnected. Felt that my mask of stoicism is slipping or maybe just a bit skewed. I am getting closer to crying. Not ready to actually succumb to it. It is all creeping up into my vision and the blurred lines are becoming quite apparent and too real.

destin

my first vacation with my boys. Amazing, challenging, relaxing.

out on my own

Friday night, I went to play poker. I had a bad beat, pocket pair of Jacks (mine) against pocket nines (his, and he was as annoying as a mosquito at midnight). He ended up with four of a kind. (I rarely, okay never use this word, but this guy was a douche. EEWWWW! I know, but he was loud, obnoxious and had a Boston accent just to twist the knife in a little deeper!) Needless to say, I was out. Oh and pretty mad. So I drove my angry little self home. It was only 10:30. As I drove in my car, I decided I wanted to go dancing. I grabbed my phone, but of course no one would go with me, I knew that. So I put it down and thought, what the hell. I make my own fun. So, I went by myself!
Things I learned while going dancing by myself:
1. you never sit alone long at the bar
2. the beer tastes just as good by yourself or with a gaggle of girls
3. instead of feeling alone, I felt empowered that I was brave enough to go whether or not someone was with me!
4. there are lots of nice girls that go dancing with husbands or boyfriends that don't dance so I always had someone to dance with
5. when I finally do feel that I am ready to find a man, it is going to be very easy to find one


But, it was definitely an experience. I think I have a broken nose now. I never thought that I could get a broken nose from dancing like a whore, but I did! Another hot girl, my age even, from Georgia even, with two boys even, was dancing wildly with me and flung her head back into my face and ta da! Bloody nose! I walked to the bathroom and by the time she caught up to apologize I was laughing about the whole thing! Has this ever happened to anyone else? She told me it wasn't funny and she was so sorry and so embarrassed and all I could do was laugh and try to contain the blood. Now my nose is bruised and even my teeth hurt! But, I wouldn't have it any other way. My first experience going alone.

But, here is some insight, well my insight. Whenever I had a friend going through a divorce I was ALWAYS the one to be the support and the one to drag them out of their house to dance and not sit on the couch bawling. Part of me is sad that I don't have that person to depend on for me as I go through this crap. But, on the other hand, what I learned is that I don't need that person. I am that person. I am my own support system. That makes me feel brave and strong.

Another sad, interesting issue: I read my horoscope this weekend. It said that when I say goodbye to someone (lover or friend) this weekend I shouldn't be surprised at their reaction. They are not as prepared for this goodbye as I am.

Randy is not talking to me this weekend. I packed all day Saturday and took two loads over to my sisters. I asked for his help and he ignored me. I called his phone and texted him a few times and he ignored me. I have so many mixed emotions about this. I am sad for him, but at the same time he had so many years to make me feel like I was his priority and he never did take innitiative. How did he think it all would end? I just have to keep reminding myself that any husband/father that would go to a strip club the night before mother's day and get nothing for his wife/mother of his children is not a man that respects or wants his partner. That one action really sums it all up.

new phone

I finally got another cell phone. It has been over a year. I hate cell phones. It seems like another reminder that we are not connecting with anyone, really. Oh well, I can text my kids and they enjoy texting me, only because they don't have their friends' numbers yet.

The phone is for when we are all in separate households, then we can keep in contact better. Isn't that depressing? Here it is, the real preparations in the moving and the breaking up of our family, now we will be his and mine.
The boys have all taken it (the divorce) well and look forward to having less people in one household, they think it will be easier to maintain and there will be less fighting. I hope they are right.
I am supposed to be moving in a week, but I can not bring myself to pack a thing. I buy a twelve pack of corona light and think if I am a little tipsy, well, just maybe I can even make it fun to pack and separate our one household into two. But, instead, I just drink three or four beers, watch Gossip Girl or some other brain numbing show and go to sleep. Nothing is getting done here. Well, except the mountain of laundry keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I know it is a mental block. So, maybe this weekend instead of beer, I will buy coffee and french vanilla creamer (I only like coffee if it tastes like candy). After three cups of coffee I should be able to tackle any size mountain whether it is made of laundry or my own mental rubble! Here's to coffee! And here's to sifting through the accumulation of a 16 year marriage.

fancy foot flip flop fiesta

So, this is what I do for a living. Tiny, fancy feet are fabulously fantastic! (our letter of the week was F)

divorce becomes her?

I don't know where to start. Life is one big experiment, isn't it? I go in phases of being really snide to my husband and just trying hard to be kind and love him or make him 'feel' so loved that he will feel like maybe he is doing the wrong thing by letting me go. I touch his cheek softly and hope that he realizes how very much he will miss my touch. I am under appreciated here, I know that. I deserve more of so many things in this not so haven-ish home. It is time to move on and in my romantic view of divorce I become I N D E P E N D E N T (do you know what that means). I see myself graduating from college, buying my own home and happily living with my happy children with no man to answer to and I am strong and wise and capable. There is not a codependent bone in my divorced body. But (isn't there always a but), sometimes I just feel afraid and tired. I do not want to be that woman I see so often in the divorced woman culture, that woman that defines herself by the man she can snag and is depressed because she is single. I want to be the woman that realizes that loving herself is the most important person to love and being alone is sometimes the only way to find that love of oneself. I want to be comfortable and proud of who I am. I want to be accomplished and satisfied with the life that I create for myself and my children. I want to feel that I contribute more than I take from this life. And I want to be confident and FEARLESS! I want to believe in myself so that I can believe in others. I want to experience that life is good . I want to really embrace the beauty around me and let it melt away all my bitterness and disappointment. I want true happiness. I want to believe!