47 ... 14 ... 3

I'm still struggling this week. With balance, with identity, with what I want ...  it has been 16 months to the day since exH moved out, and some days it seems like I have come so far only to feel on other days that I am even more adrift than I was back then. Thankfully, the day-to-day feelings of hopelessness and sadness that came from living in a failed marriage are gone, along with the constant fear of exH's temper.

But in their place are a different sort of hopelessness and fear. Fear that I will fail Lulu and Boo -- and myself -- in some way, whether it be emotionally, financially, or professionally. Fear that I have already or will warp their ideas about relationships, either through the divorce or by bringing the wrong people into their lives ... or perhaps worse, by not modeling a healthy relationship at all. Hopelessness that where I am right now -- house poor, relationship-challenged, professionally unsatisfied -- is where I will always be.

Of course, I know things will change. The girl I was at 25 is incredibly different from whom I am at 35, so 45-year-old me still has a fighting chance. I think about P, who tells me he was broke, unemployed, and nearing the end of a 10-year relationship when he was 35. Today at 45, he is near the top of the company we work for and has enough money saved not to have to worry about the future. And he has me -- whether or not that's ultimately a good thing for him, I don't know -- but he can't say he isn't loved and wanted.


Here are a few changes I am looking forward to (and counting down to) ...

In 47 days ...
I close on the new house. And about a week later, I'll finally have a place of my own again.

In 14 days ...
The divorce will be final.

In 3 years ...
I will find a real job. This is a new deadline I am setting for myself. In three years, I want to have a new job, in a career I am excited about, at a company where I want to stay. I am fortunate to have a job now that pays me decently, if not enough, allows me a very liberal schedule, and where I have been long enough that barring something extreme, I am very unlikely to be fired or laid off. If the recent crisis didn't do it, then I am probably OK. But it doesn't fulfill me in any meaningful way, and it isn't where I want to spend the next 25 years. Why wait three years and not start looking today? I figure I need about three years to settle into the new house, get my feet back under me financially, and most important, get Boo settled into school. And it may take three years to figure out exactly what it is I want to do.  So June 2013, I've got you circled in red.

Your weekly musings on P
As per usual (a P saying), I am still confused about P. Where we are or aren't going, whether it is good or bad that he is my escape, what I am discovering about who I am in a relationship. We had a pretty nice week, spending some or all of 5 out of 7 days together. Sometimes I can relax and enjoy the time with him without worrying about the future, while other days the lack of a future gnaws away at me. I don't know for sure how he feels and I doubt he does, either. I do know (if I don't always remember) that whatever happens, I will come out of this much better than I went in. Either it lasts and we're happy or it doesn't, and though I will be sad then, I have learned so much about myself through this. I have seen so clearly many of the destructive patterns I played out in previous relationships and I've gotten the chance to practice correcting them. Most important, I've learned how to love someone without letting them take over my life. And I will always be thankful to him for all of this.