Hope and heartache

[ClingingToHope]

D7 is up and wants the computer. D10 still sleeping downstairs. Wondering today how you have patience. Is it a matter of just managing to get through each day and then ... weeks, months, years later ... looking back and realizing you've made it.

I read the threads and reread the DR book and get inspired by the success stories and even draw comfort from the ones that ended in D. Most have survived just fine.

But that doesn't help today. Last night, we were watching the Disney Channel when one of the young actresses was singing a remake of "Someday My Prince Will Come."

I don't think either daughter noticed, but I started crying. I remain a hopeless romantic and I do believe I am my W's prince. I don't regret any of the 13 years. Sure, during them I was way too wrapped up in my own feelings and unrealistic expectations, but I look at the careers we've built, the way the daughters have developed and the house we've built and trips we've taken.

As a whole, it is the American Dream.

Sure it can be improved and it took this separation to convince me and now I'm ready to do the work. Will I get that chance? Today, right now, I see no chance in that. She seems so sure of herself and so angry towards me. If anything, she is distancing herself from me more and more.

But I look at the success stories and I feel like I can't give up.

How do you manage those emotions? What happens if next week someone walks into my life that I am interested in -- and who's interested in me. It isn't as if I haven't been looking. But what happens then? Or she finds someone to replace me?

Tonight, if I can get the kids to bed at the correct hour for school tomorrow, I restart a long term project. Perhaps that will help.