Moored

[Gordie]

Thanks Marye. It's nice to hear from you and thanks for the kind post.

Job - on the subject of deep replay, tonight while we ate a proper dinner, h had a bowl of icecream.

It's been an odd week here. I feel like all these shifts took place, like plates beneath the earth. And weird as it was when it was all happening, once it passed I came to an even more settled landscape.

The week started with me, out of the blue, thinking maybe this wasn't MLC. It's been so long now that I thought maybe this is just who he is now. Then I re-read the stages of MLC and talked myself off my own mental ledge.

Next I just got so sad that, because this has been going on so long, this is probably how my kids will remember their father "is." And that bummed me out to my core. This shapes their childhood memories so much.

After that, for a few days, I found myself wondering why he hasn't given me his resignation papers. Years ago he said he was going to get a place and start sleeping around. It seems like this was something he felt he really needed to do and I was waiting so long for it.

And the week capped out with me having a spurt of anger over so much of what he's done to all of us. How he's altered the landscape of our lives so very much. I wanted to say something to him; ask him to get himself together--get a grip.

Then after all that I had moments where I thought I should do more. But what? He kicked me to the curb and then basically wrote me a (really weird) power point presentation on the stupid things I needed to do to fix the whole marriage single handedly.

Sometimes I wonder if I am even being a lighthouse? I try to remember that doing nothing is doing something.

Anyway, it's been a mental gymnastics sort of week here. But after it all passed I do feel like I hit more solid ground. I deserve so much more than this. While I know that, I feel myself really believing it in a whole new way. It's some sort of shift that has been cemented after all the turmoil this week.

A couple quick h updates. He helped kids w/homework this week. A first in a long while. So I thanked him. His immediate response was a cantankerous: "I didn't do it for you" (complete with a scoff). Me (very lightly): "well, I know that but it happened to save me time so thanks."

What a punk.

Last night I said something that made h laugh and he laughed in a way I have not seen in years. It went on and one in his old way. Then when he stopped minutes later he laughed all over again. And his eyes danced.

He was showing me something and had to adjust my legs to explain. It is the first time he has happened to touch me since Christmas. I felt nothing. It was neither awkward nor painful. That made me sad. Just nada.

As h shifted something I saw him looking at a photo album. I would think he'd have to see how happy we all were. But probably he was only looking at himself and lamenting the degree to which he's aged.

And today in the kitchen, he asked if I was feeling better. I said yes and he said he could tell. I said he was lucky he didn't get it. He said he did and that the sore throat was bad, but he never lost his voice. Truly, it felt like a conversation with a co-worker. Polite, civil but absolutely nothing more. Monday morning water bubbler talk.

HaWho, thanks for your continuing inspiration. I feel so many of the things you feel. Is this really MLC or did my W just change? Why hasn't she filed D papers yet? How is this affecting our children? And the aging thing...my W says she no longer believes in aging. I didn't know that was something one believed in or not.