Father's Day

The house is quiet, only the sounds of my keyboard clicking as I type and the birds chirping and twittering outside the window. The kids are with their dad today, their longest day with him ever, from 8:30 this morning until 7:30 tonight.

I try not to be nervous, knowing it's such a long stretch for him and them. They have been used to the guy that got tired or frustrated after several minutes, and all three of them (ex and the kids) have begun to get used to several hour stretches. I just cringe knowing they won't get their naps, he has a tendency to remember to feed them after they are starving and melting down, my son will go 11 hours without nursing and he doesn't do well with cranky kids.

I try not to obsess over his tendency to forget sunscreen and focus on it being good that he gets this time with them.

I fight the urge to withdraw from my father and my dad (step) today, knowing my hesitancy today is all about withdrawal in general, not about them. If I could, I admit I'd skip it all today. I want to curl up in my bed with a book and some chocolate. I want to sleep, write, think and not think.

I don't want to cry today, but I know I will.

It was hard for me not to do Father's Day on the scale I always have. I didn't bake cookies for my ex, didn't cook him breakfast,didn't spend hours thinking about the perfect gift. My daughter decorated a shirt for her dad at school - one he will never wear - and we picked up The Daddy book by Todd Parr.

He won't see the attempt at kindness in the book. I just hope he enjoys reading it with his kids.

Sometimes, no matter how much I know my decision was the right one, it is hard to realize we had the last of something and didn't know it. this year will be a lot of firsts as a changed family....and it's hard sometimes, the realization that this is the first ___ in our new situation.

Monday was the two month anniversary of the day I left my husband.

To celebrate, I cut some flowers from my garden and mixed them with an inexpensive bunch of roses I bought at a fruit stand. Oh, and I invited another man over for dinner.

Granted, he's a friend and will likely always be just that...but still. There was something about having the presence of another man in the house that felt weird, strange, natural and comforting all at once. We grilled some steaks and hot dogs, ate corn and my homemade italian bread and enjoyed the covered patio while it rained.

After the kids were in bed and he'd gone home, I cried myself soggy.

No matter how glad I am that the worst parts of the relationship are over, no matter how hard it was to live with anxiety and fear on a daily basis at the end, it doesn't change the fact that I'm really upset at the end to my hopes for happily ever after.

I got married and it was supposed to be for life.

I walked down the aisle, loving the man at the other end of it, and planned to raise children WITH this man, grow old with him and get frustrated when his hearing aid wouldn't work.

I said forever, I meant it and there are parts of me really pissed off that it didn't work out that way. I don't understand why he couldn't just stay the man I fell in love with, don't understand how things became so awful and I feel cheated.

I didn't expect perfection or bliss, but safety and reasonable happiness didn't seem like so much to ask for.

I'm angry because I have been asked to explain to my daughter why her dad and I aren't living together anymore, and I did so without saying anything negative about him. I can't say he's acted the same, and what I really want to say is, "I don't know how we got to this place. I wanted forever, but not if it looked like THAT."

I know I did the best thing for myself and the children, but sometimes I wonder how I can explain love, marriage and a forever commitment when my marriage didn't last.

In a recent conversation with the ex, he made some comment about trying to hold it together now that his life has fallen apart.

HIS life fell apart? He went godzilla on mine, wrecking everything in sight and I'm supposed to feel sorry for him because his life fell apart? Seriously?

Sadly, I do and it really, really pisses me off.

"One Month," is marked on the calendar for the date of May 13th. I have no idea what that means, I just know that my ex marked it on my calendar in the kitchen and it pisses me off.

Partly because I have this weird thing about neatly written items on the calendar in the kitchen, and this is in his messy scrawl. Mostly because I have no idea what he's marking.

It isn't a month since I left him, as I left him on March 30th. Not one month since I filed for divorce, that would be April 10th. Not a month since we filed our taxes, that was April 15th. It intrigues me, in a way, that he chose to mark time on a calendar he never used, that was mine, because I've been marking time and I have to say I like the time I'm marking better.

Monday will be 8 weeks since I left him. I feel as if I've lived a lifetime in those 8 weeks.

I went to Kansas for a week with the kids, to visit some of my family. I lived for 6 weeks in a shelter for battered women, meeting some women who I'll likely know for years.

I less than six weeks time, I applied for readmission to school, got accepted, got it paid for and started classes. I'm rocking my first class and enjoying myself immensely.

I've reconnected with friends, taking my friendships and my life back. Better yet, I've rediscovered the real me and I love this woman. For six weeks I've been spending time with a dear friend, a guy friend, who is reminding me what it's like to spend time with a good man.

I'm back, baby, and if we're both marking time that's fine....I just know my markers are better, healthier and so worth it.

I'll be darned.

Who knew they weren't completely making stuff up when they said excess weight can be a form of trying to protect yourself, a way to hide? I thought it was bull. I thought it was a load of you know what, and that my weight was just there. A sign of excess hormones (true), lack of exercise (also true) and too much chocolate (got me again).

Interestingly enough, when I let loose 185 pounds of abusive husband I also started losing weight from my hips, thighs, arse and everywhere else. The safer I've felt, the more I've lost.

I stand corrected.

No honeymoon.

I've heard the spiel about the cycles of abuse many times. I knew what to look for, but didn't see it in my own relationship because one huge component was missing. He never, ever said he was sorry. Ever.

That was something I complained about to my friends, mentioning arguments - not the instances of abuse - when I said it was so frustrating he never apologized. When I realized that was consistently true, realized that even the abusers who did more physical damage than my husband ever did almost always apologized at some point, it was like a bucket of cold water being thrown in my face.

How did I miss that? How did it never occur to me until recently that he was so convinced what he was doing was okay that he never even said he was sorry? Not that sorry would have made it better, right or okay, but it might have at least shown some remorse. There simply was none, he felt justified in his actions.

I think he probably still does.

We had a beautiful honeymoon after our wedding, spending a week in Fiji. It was fantastic and we had a great time...except that he wanted to drink every night, and while we were in a beautiful resort with cheap drinks and no worries about driving, I'm just not that much of a drinker. Yes, I had coconut drinks there and enjoyed more than a few cocktails in a week's time, but not like he drank. On the nights I didn't feel well (I had an undiagnosed chronic illness) he was neither sympathetic or supportive, treating me as a party pooper and leaving me alone in the room while he hung out at the bar.

Even in that, no honeymoon, no attentive guy saying he was sorry. I feel like I've stepped out from a dark tunnel and I am suddenly blinded by the truth that was all around me that I failed to see.

Day one.

The decision to leave wasn't one I mulled over, nor did it occur on the worst day of the relationship.

I was standing in our bathroom, trying not to cry after spending the last 45 minutes doing just that as he screamed at me in front of our daughter. In that moment he pushed me, something so minor compared to other things he'd done that even now I have to fight the urge to say, "It was only a push, but..."

In that moment, the realization hit that choosing to stay would not only destroy me, it would send the message to our children that this is the way a man treats a woman, this is what you should expect from the man you love and it's okay.

It's absolutely not okay, for any reason.

This is my chronicle of starting over, reclaiming my life and moving forward.