I haven't had time to catch up with posts. I will soon. L consult tomorrow--still trying to gather info and find someone who I'd potentially want to hire. Please allow me to ramble: We're at the tail end of a crazy heat wave, and there are fires all over the state. A friend's home and farm may have burned last night--she said she let her donkeys and goat go before they evacuated, but didn't mention anything about their chickens. One of our chickens "retired" there years ago, and I always go to visit her. I hope the animals are okay, I hope their home somehow survived the fire... I've just been broken up about that all day. I shared her update with H via text this morning and mentioned our chicken, but of course he hasn't responded. I'm not surprised, but I've been struggling all day. Before I saw the news about the fire, I woke up and for some reason was thinking about how I used to wake up next to H. Then, looking through phone photos for something I needed, I came across the photo of the letter H had given me in November--I started reading it thinking it was the photo of the apology/love letter he'd written me when we were in college. The similarities... both times he admits running away from things and shutting down. In the first one, though, he says he misses me and the happiness we had (I'd broken up with him months earlier). In the second one from last year, he says all he knows is he can't find the happiness he wants with me, and he is filing for D.
It was weird reading those letters back to back today. He sounded in the second letter like he'd realized some things with his post-BD IC, had examined his life, and was ready to move forward without me, though he was sorry that it had come to this. He sounded like he'd struggled with the decision over the few months after BD, but he was confident and moving forward in order to be happy. He didn't love me anymore. He sounded somewhat rational. But then why did he never file? I know there is no rational answer. Ugh. From where I sit reading both those letters now, he's just as lost now as he was in college. He realized he'd been sad and unhappy for years and hadn't let himself feel those things--it's like, of course, in his mind, our R/M had to go too. He's got to leave behind those sad/unhappy feelings. There was none of the anger in that letter that he's directed at me since.
Kindly, I need to re-read your post. I've been so busy focusing on the classes I'll be teaching that I haven't been looking in the rearview mirror. But I'm just all around sad today, and everything is covered in ash.
