The Truth So Help Me God

I'm back. New chapter, new words. I took off the old posts because I just don't need them any longer, but I do need this space. I'm stuck with words and thoughts and need a safe place to reel them out, look them over, work them through. Forget about making them pretty. I just need to get them out.

It's almost done. The divorce, I mean. It's almost done, almost over, almost completed. One week from tomorrow I'm due in court, where I will state my testimony that the marriage is irreparably broken and we are unable to continue in the bonds of matrimony.

I have to laugh a bit at the idea that we're even still married, legally speaking. It's a meaningless piece of paper at this point. That marriage died ages ago. I can't even figure when it became terminal. I know we kept it on life support much longer than it should have been. Brain death, you know. Heart death. Just stubbornness and reluctance to admit failure and fear of what would come after...those were the artificial methods that kept it going for just a few months more.

I haven't thought of him as my husband for...well, I suppose for nine months or so now. I think it took him longer to stop thinking of me as his wife.

Ugh. It's a bit creepy to write those words, honestly.

I sat across from him in a restaurant booth Monday night as we went over final details of the settlement. It was okay. Not terribly fun, but okay. I just wanted to get it done, get that weight of responsibility reduced, get back to My True Love. I don't hate The Ex, but I certainly don't love him. I don't even particularly like him. Every time we're in the same space, I end up looking at him and shaking my head (figuratively speaking) and wondering how on earth I managed to last as long as I did.

He's becoming his father, you know. He's even starting to shift loyalties when he refers to his own parents' ages-old divorce. He used to be fiercely loyal to his mother. Now his words place the heaviest burden of blame on her. A mutual friend said she thinks he's seeing things from a different perspective now, because of his own divorce. Perhaps. But it angers me, because his father just retired at the age of 59, is on his second sailboat, and just bought a condo down in Florida as his second home. His mother is still working at the age of 62, just recently was finally able to even purchase a (cheap) residence of her own rather than rent, and just last year finally stopped working a second job. Which of the two came out better in that divorce, I wonder?

Anyway.

I saw that coming years ago. I broke up with him briefly ten years ago. I told him at the time that I could see him becoming more like his father, and that I couldn't live with that person. I told him that when I thought of a future together, of getting married and having a life, I always thought "WHEN we get divorced..."

WHEN. Not IF.

We got back together a week later. Unfuckingbelievable, right? Yeah.

My True Love gave me a Gibbs (a "wake up call" slap to the back of the head) when I told him about that. Just about right.

I can't regret having my children. They're gorgeous. They're wonderful. I may feel conflicted about motherhood at times, but I do love them so very much. And really? THEY are the reason I have been willing to work through the divorce this way. THEY are the reason I haven't just walked away from the house, the mortgage, the bills, everything. THEY are the reason I've been willing to work with him and compromise and not just cut all ties. For them, I'll do what is right, even though it's fucking HARD sometimes.

You want to know how I feel when I think about walking out of that courtroom next week a divorced woman?

FREEDOM. RELIEF. LIKE DOING A FUCKING JIG.

And that's what I can't write anywhere else.

Why I'm Over Here

I am not new to blogging. When I was new to blogging, however, I made the rookie mistake of cluing in everyone I knew. This means my parents, my siblings, and even my grandmother read my blog. I'm not deleting my other blog, but there is now so much I CANNOT say on it that I decided I should just start a new and truly anonymous one. No names, no pictures, and no notifications to the people I want to keep out of this part of my life.

Why even blog this stuff at all? you ask.

Because I need the outlet. I need to express it. I have discovered that writing out my thoughts, my emotions, my ideas, my humor, and yes, my angst, allows me to process it better. I've lived so much of my life closed up and off, and in this new chapter I am determined not to wall myself up again.

So some of you may know me, either in real life or through my other blog, and I have told you about this one because you are people I feel I CAN trust with this information. If this is the case, please make sure you keep my identity safe. I'm learning how and when to trust people, so please don't let me down.

No pressure or anything.