Amazing how much junk can accumulate when you're not paying attention... I have tossed an enormous bag of broken toys, scribbled on papers, tons of junk mail, and the like off of my desk and out of my classroom... I can see most of my desk and have a better grip on the situation... all that leaves me with is the kitchen before I head off to bed to sleep between my freshly laundered sheets... it's nearing 2 a.m. and I'm convinced that if I had not taken the melatonin the last two nights I'd be a blithering idiot by now... I'll have to take more tonight to get to sleep because the longer I'm up the more I realize that there's too much on my mind... I've talked to both of my best friends tonight and couldn't get over how much anger I still have... his girlfriend made me so sick with her portrayal as the grieving darling who lost the love of her life... nowhere did she mention that she had him arrested a couple of nights before and had told him he needed to move out... nowhere has she acknowledged to me any remorse for her culpability... I know it takes two people to fight but even I know better... I have to forget that I'm smarter than her... her brain does not function on the same level where I see things more cut and dry and the answers are generally obvious... it's not a bragging point, it's just the truth... even I know what I should do in my current situation but I am aware that doing what is necessary is the admittance of his death... I know why I keep dragging my feet... but before this happened, before when I'd be fighting with him I knew where the boundaries were... I knew his history and there are certain lines that you never ever cross no matter how angry you are or how deserving he is of getting his ass handed to him... you never call the police... not even when he was reaching for the loaded gun... yeah... he tried to do that one time when we were still married... suicide crossed his mind when he was stressed and drunk... he would contemplate how much better life would be without him in it... usually he would crawl into bed and curl up next to me and pass out... the time he did go for the gun I was scared... not the scared kind where you hide behind the door and wait for help... the kind of scared that wrestled him away from where the gun was and hog-tied him with his belts and neck ties... I'm surprisingly strong and when my adrenaline is pumping I can hang with the best of them... I tossed his butt in bed and let him sleep it off... to call the police would have been the end of him and I had a vested interest in seeing him get better... it always came down to the kids need their father and I'm too stubborn to let him go that easily... I miss him... I miss him a lot... I keep finding pictures of him every time I clean out another box... miscellaneous photos from our trip to New York or at the park... back when we were happier and he was only a phone call away... I just don't understand how you can love someone that much and just walk away... I had been hurt by him in the same way that she had... in fact she was the last one he hurt me with, adding insult to injury by taking the kids on "family outings" together... things he would never do in our final year together... but the difference is I took it and turned the other cheek... he never actually told me he was cheating until he moved out but I had suspicions the entire time... I still wanted to work things out after he came clean... mostly that was from not wanting my world to change... I had become so dependent upon him that I didn't know what to do or how I was going to survive... it actually took me a month to realize that I could have a win-win situation by opening my day care... I could work from home and be with my son as well as be around when Hannah gets home from school... Chris did take care of us financially for quite some time after he moved out and I wasn't forced to earn money until September 05... I worked up to that time building up a small nest egg, most of which went to paying my divorce attorney... I did get a great settlement because he wanted out and gave into my demands... well, most of them... but even at that point I would have called the whole thing off just to have him back... it took me a year to move on... I knew it'd be too soon to start dating... if I couldn't hold a marriage together then how could I maintain a healthy relationship? I spent that year doing a lot of soul searching and started going to church... I read everything I could lay my hands on and wrote in my journal constantly... I realized that if I wanted to have someone in my life I would have to clean house, literally and figuratively... I made room in my closets and in my heart... I opened myself up to the possibility that I could love and be loved again... it was a constant prayer to keep myself open to Grace and Mercy and Love... all things I hadn't felt worthy of for quite some time... I was a shell of the person I had once been and needed to get back to center... Jenne had commented on how I now look and act much like I did ten years ago... back when I was happier and free spirited... back when there was always a smile on my face... that's where I'm trying to get back to... I am spiritually, emotionally, and literally decluttering my life... tossing out the pain, anger, old clothes, and papers... reorganizing my love, my Faith, my everything... it's most unfortunate that you can't hire a company to come do that for you while you take a vacation... such a nice thought...