No more denial, time to get to work

[MRay]

This has been a really good week so far. I enjoyed the heck out of my softball game yesterday. I forgot just how much I love physical competition. I've twice run into former students while out and both bought me a drink and we sat, ate, and chatted about life. I'm heading for an 8 mile hike with a couple friends on Saturday, and I think my GAL is doing great things for me.

Sunday I'm taking the kids out to my hometown for a local heritage celebration. I'm a bit concerned this may be a trigger for me, so it will be a test for myself. Since we were young (I'm talking 5 years old here), W and I would see each other at these celebrations. It's where we both developed crushes on each other when I was 12 and she was 13. I have vivid memories of those times talking and dancing with her, so I'll see how I feel when I go there. I hope to feel what I feel, and soak it in, but not be overwhelmed. I hope it just feels bittersweet, but I'll see.

I feel myself getting stronger every day, and my smile is back more often than not. I'm even listening to a song right now that we went and listened to at a concert many years ago, and I'm just singing along smiling. In contrast, W is really down right now. I could tell something had been wrong since we last talked about divorce paperwork on Monday, so I pushed a bit when I got home last night and she told me her best friend had found a new job (they work together, her entire social circle is at her work). They had been given joint-directorship of a new project for next school year, and W was very excited for this. Now she's just down in the dumps. I just continued to validate her feelings, and told her that I'm there if she needs to talk about it.

It's really strange to see her so down and me so up as we move towards divorce. She says she just can't wait until she can be happy. I'm doing nothing to hold her back at this point, and have made it clear that I have no expectations of her and I mean it. She says she is trying to "be respectful" towards me during this whole process, and I still think she and OM are not communicating. I don't know what she is waiting for, unless she is trying to save face at work and make it seem like they didn't start anything until we were officially divorced. No matter, I think I am starting to feel pretty lovingly detached at this point. I'm sure I'll fall soon, but I'm confident the ups are going to come much more than the downs in the future.