The thing that was weighing most heavily on me (definitely since my H left 4 weeks ago, but also when he had been away working in the previous 3 years, for months and months at a time) was time itself.
Today, I feel it totally differently. It doesn't matter if time passes slowly or quickly really, it's what you *do* with that time that matters. It's what *you choose* to do with that time that matters. It's where *you choose* to put your focus that matters
I've also understood that over the past handful of years H and I have become the worst incarnations of ourselves. He's very much to the spontaneous side of things anyway, doesn't enjoy much thinking about consequences and responsibilities. So now he's become totally impulsive and isn't thinking about any of the consequences of what he's doing.
I'm a bit more to the reflective side of things, and I've become stiflingly analytical. I also like to run at any problems full on and try and sort them out, however deep you have to go and however much you have to plumb the depths and look at ugly stuff in life, in other people and also in yourself (most importantly of all). I'm not scared of that...not at all.
My counsellor told me last week that most people are happier living more on the surface of things and don't really want to go to their darker places. She wasn't saying that as a value judgement, but merely as an observation to try and help me understand that not everyone is like me.
I can't control what he does (what he *chooses* to do, and the messes he gets himself into). But I can be totally responsible for myself, no?
So, my way back from this hell, this corner I've totally painted myself into, is to let go of the need to sort stuff out. I let go of the need to look after his stuff, to work things out for him, to find and present the answers to him.
I learn to appreciate everything I have in my life (everything I am choosing to have in my life) as it unfolds, day to day, moment to moment. Time is a gift indeed. And that appreciation hopefully leads to the possibility of just being your own, true self and to calm and contentment.
