Me and Mildlife and...III

[CT1118]

Thanks AP and thanks to all.

AndrewP/Mach 1, I believe there were some questions left for me. If ya'll don't mind, they may remain that way for a bit.

[quote=Mach1]
You will realize that you already have the answers within, you have just been asking the wrong questions....[quote/]

I had. I had indeed. I wish this post was getting ready to be more insightful, I am not sure that it will. I do truly appreciate everyone's well wishes and comments on my writing. I only try, with a lot of help, to get the truth of me out. If it helps, I think that is awesome. But, I have had diagnosis of a very bad strain of the flu for the past 3 days and today is the first day I actually felt able to sit up and do anything, even if small.

I wrote that last post and I did take my son and I to my parent for Thanksgiving. It was a nice time for a couple of days. While there, I broke off and went to a winery by myself. While sitting in the sun, on a very abnormally warm day for the Shenandoah Valley in November, I sat with a glass of wine and witnessed the sun falling into the mid-western skyline. I hit another moment of in-the-moment and just thought "this is my life" and it was a comfort. This is my life. Since typing and you cannot see me, my body language would tell you it was a happy thought, not a sad one or a sarcastic one.

Son & I left Saturday to avoid traffic, but traffic found us anyway. I offered to my s5 a choice to stay on the highway or get off it and see something different - fruit does not fall far from the tree. We drove byways, through small towns and farmlands to get back home. We stopped and walked railroad tracks, like my dad did with me as a kid in Carolina. A nice old man stopped us to say we looked great together. At the end of the day, only 15 minutes longer than a regular drive using the highway, but total victory for us both.

My last post was about facing new decisions. In this one, I have made them. My spouse came over on Sunday to pick up our son. She stayed for about 30 minutes. We spoke, she asked about family, she asked about, me, the trip, etc. She was regular Sunday for many people, just the basics in clothes, hair in a tail, her running shoes, she looked beautiful. I helped load the full volume of comet trail into her Jeep which occurs each time our son visits a grandparent. She hugged me, she and our son left.

Monday came and I went to IC. She asked me how the holiday went. I told her great. I had printed out my last post here and read it to her. She actually teared up. She asked what I wanted. I told her I wanted to end this and that I would be discussing divorce with my spouse. She showed no surprise, but asked me why. I told the mixed messaging no longer worked. I had reached a position of clarity and I would be seeking this for my own mental health. I had a journey to continue which required no looking back. I told her I did not know this when I had written what I read to her, but I knew it now. She said, "will you still love her, or is that gone". I told her I would very much still be in love with her.

I went to work after IC. Nothing from spouse and day was just as bangged up busy as always.I had made plans to meet up with a work colleague at a brewery after our day and have a couple nice seasonal beers before we rushed off to respective abodes. Right before leaving work, I sat down to write my spouse about meeting to discuss things and where we would be and in my email was an email from her. I opened it and she was asking me about divorce, where it would go and and essentially a very similar email to what I intended to send her. Well, well.

I spoke to her of the irony of timing, said I was open to discussion, and sent her a song - which had nothing to do with us as a couple, but it was the first song which came to mind. I left my office. As I left my office, I felt relief, weight, and matter all leave me. I felt clean and free for the first time in....not sure when. Not what I am supposed to say right? Not what I have been doing here all this time? Actually, I feel like it is, and this is for me, this is not giving up or yielding, this is me knowing me as well as her.

I realized what I wanted was to let her go. I realized I wanted to let myself go. For me, this realization had nothing to do with me wanting to find another, to the contrary I do still want her. But I know that I hit a challenge I had been thinking about for long time. Not that I was waiting for it, but hoping I would be ready when it came. I met the challenge, her and I , in syncopation at the same moment, both asking for the same thing. I did not feel like loss, I did not feel like victory. I did get up from my desk feeling like I had evolved into my own hero; indeed I did.

I followed the DB process, I changed more than one thing, I focused on myself and I intend to keep doing so. This is not the end of my story here. I still love my spouse very much, and from speaking with her she still loves me, but we are both facing a journey which may not lead down the same road and both of us know that. We will remain parallel forever, bonded by our beautiful son. I will continue to come here, and will update as I am sure I am not through with a desire to for help or to hear from all of you.

I became the 1 of 1 infinitude in the odds. I left no one. I abandoned no one. I became better and I finally found me. Thing is, I still have some exploration to do on me, thus, my fight for self continues. I became the the man I would be a fool to leave...much less to ignore. Everyone here honors me...this is not goodbye.