Wow, disappear for a couple of weeks and your post is turned into Craig's List!

My posts are ridiculously infrequent. I have been so OBE; Overcome by Events.

I think back to the panic and loss of control that was all mine four years ago, when I first lurked on these posts, posting every 10 minutes! I had totally lost myself (almost literally, as you may recall), and was just a shell of the confident, self-assured me that I knew.

The saga continues as we move toward what certainly will be a trial because she is so unreasonable in what she wants. I don't care. So be it. Better a judge tell me what to do than she does. As the line from the movie American Beauty went "Never tell me what to do again".

I so lost myself trying to pacify her, and make all right with her.

Going to Iraq for a year was great for me, but I must say that the addition of a great new woamn in my life has been unbeatable.

As you may recall, it was just about a year ago this week, when I first talked about "Lightning in a Bottle", and running into a woman from my past at the gym, a month back from Iraq. The rest is history. We have been inseparable since then. I never looked for it, it just fell on me.

All the stuff about not falling for anyone too quickly, or healing or all the other stuff you read about never seemed to apply, and still doesn't. It's like I was nver married to STBX. The last three years of that nightmare were awful. I was treated like an unwanted dog. ughhhhh. Iraq gave me a great gift: Perspective.

"Gym Woman" is absolutely crazy about me and I am about her. She suffered the same indignation at the hands of her XH; I'm not happy, so I'm going to scr$w my secretary"

blah...blah.......blah, so we both cherish someone who is finally really into us!

I consider myself to be so fortunate to have come out of the depths of unbelievable depression. It was at the point that getting dressed in the morning seemed insurmountable. All I wanted to do was die. It's amazing what time and some unbelievable luck can do.

I hope that all of you who have been torn apart by the loss of a marriage and the violent resturcturing of what your kids knew as a family can find renewed happiness at some point. Life is too short.

(Do I sound like a "Tony Robbins" motivational speaker?)