A New Beginning - after 2 years...

[keep_going]

OMG... I almost spit out my drink when I read about the toilet paper. You guys are too funny!


I want to THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for all the support. I am so lucky that you are all in my life - I feel loved and cared for and I am so grateful for it. You all give me strength and inspiration and it's just such a relief to have people who I can vent with and who simply get it!

Acc, Bug, Busting, AS, BF, 25 - thank you for all the cheers! You are definitely helping boost my self-confidence. As LBS, our self-esteem takes such a beating and It's been a while since I felt this good about myself.

NLW - Thanks for the support and concern! I feel like I have thought about all the possibilities and am acting in the way I feel I can protect myself as much as I can. Yet in the end, I don't hold all the cards. No matter what I do, my H can either act like the man I know and love or he can become a dead-beat dad. I am not worrying about it or giving it any more real-estate in my brain right now. I think I have done plenty of that in the last 2 years and now that I have more control, I will deal with things and issues as they unfold.

BF - You are right, we are not going to be the first or last women to work full time while our kids are in school/daycare. I remind myself of that often, so thank you for bringing me back to the here and now. I used to work full time pretty much since I met H 20 years ago until S2 was born. My concern is about overdoing it... It's all a matter of having balance and one of the positives of this awful experience is that I have had to revisit my priorities and make sure I act according to those. Finding a balance between my job and the rest of my life will be something I will constantly monitor, but I am confident things will be ok.

2Ch - I know what you are saying and believe me - if I knew there was ANY chance to be able to remain at home with the kids, I would do so. I have learned to live very, very frugally and while it was a scary thought at first, I realize the there is so much "stuff" we just don't need... Yet with H being unemployed, that is just not an option anymore.

25 - You ask why I am protecting H from his family.... I am really not. i just don't want to put any of my in-laws in the middle of this - they have been mortified about the whole situation since DB and I made the decision a few months ago to completely separate my R with all of them from what is going on with H. We get together or talk and nobody even mentions H. Might be weird, but at this point it's just better for everyone. I figure sooner or later they will find out what's going on.


Every day I am feeling better. I have a new sense of purpose and direction and I am not worried or scared about the future anymore. I am enjoying my time when with the kids or alone and I find myself with a long list of things to do before I go back to work in two weeks.

This is another busy weekend... I had two birthday parties with the girls. I love going to those because it gives me time to focus on them 100% w/o S2. It's always so much fun.

I have been working on reaching out to people in general - smiling at everyone, striking conversations with strangers or with parents of other kids from preschool that I didn't know before. Even if I find that I don't have a lot in common with them, I am focusing on asking questions, listening and it's been a lot of fun. I had stopped doing that a long time ago. I guess when you live always hurrying around, it's hard to truly interact in a meaningful way with others.

I am doing a little bit of gardening tomorrow. I am transplanting some plants that have outgrown their pots and my neighbor's nanny invited me to her daughter's baby shower. I am also going to steam clean my carpet, since the kids are with H this weekend.

Finally, I am hoping to do some yoga. I had a bad vertigo episode last weekend and it still has not completely gone away, so I am hoping it does. I also joined an adult gymnastics meet-up group and plan to start attending once a week once as soon as I start working, on days when I don't have the kids. I used to do gymnastics as a kid and it never occured to me to go back to it as an adult, so I am stoked I found this meetup group!

So many good things going on now and in the near future. I am a lucky woman!

((((((((hugs to all my DB friends))))))))