Another thing to think about

And this one is a doozy.

So, in the weeks right before and right after she served me with papers we did bits and pieces of couple's counseling.  Invariably, she quit before anything could really get started, while I would continue to talk to the therapists and ministers we were talking with.  But also, invariably, the counselors would come to two conclusions, that seemed rather obvious to everyone, apparently.  Number one was that the two of us should simply never have been allowed to get married because it would NEVER have worked in the long-term between us. 

That one I've thought about a bit.  And it's true.

But the second one I've just ignored: that at some point, probably not too terribly far in the future, she would realize what all she was giving up and come asking me to reconcile. 

That one I haven't thought about much, but I also know I have NO idea what I would say or do if it were to happen.

Because, on one hand, how can I NOT accept?  Her coming back and saying, "Let's not break up our family.  Let's try and make it work."  How could I not try?  How could I justify refusing her as the right thing?

Yet the fact that this might happen someday, and the fact that it would be the right thing to do to accept it doesn't negate the first point.  And that one is pretty important.  Marriage between the two of us will NEVER work in the long-term as long as she is who she is and I am who I am.

Over the last few months I've talked to a lot of people, and grown surprisingly close to some surprising people.  There is one lady who used to work with Madam X.  She and another woman worked very closely together, while the ex worked more by herself, but would stop by often to chat with the other two.  After she would leave the two of them would sit there astonished and say, "Why would ANY woman talk that way about her husband?  Doesn't she know how badly it reflects back on her?"

And these were pretty gossipy people anyway.  And it shocked them.

The last six months before the divorce she would often come to me, angry, and say things like, "Nobody likes you, nobody likes to talk to you, everybody thinks your a jerk, I'm tired of people not wanting to hang out with me because of how badly they dislike you," and I would think to myself, "The people I talk to like me.  It's just the people that know you better than me who feel this way.  The problem isn't me, it's what you are saying about me to anybody who will listen."

But that's who she is.  To this day she believes that NOTHING that ever went wrong in our marriage was at all her fault.  At all.  That all of it was my fault, and that all of it was caused by me being the wrong person.  Her last grasp "attempt" to make things work before the divorce was to say to me, "The only way we can make this work is if you change everything about who you are." 

What kind of person does that?  What kind of person says that?  About six months before the divorce she started seeing a therapist, and then she insisted I see one.  But it was obvious that, to her, the reason I needed a therapist was because everything with me was wrong; and the reason she needed one was to learn how to deal with me. 

That's a level of messed-up that's pretty amazing.  I guess if I was some really, really awful guy that might be all justified.  But I'm not.  I may not be perfect, but I also know I'm, generally, a good guy. 

But, then again, she never really wanted to be married to me at all.  She's told me that, too.

So, when she comes back asking me to reconcile, what do I do?  I know the first time she does it, she'll try to make it on her terms: "If you change everything about you then we can get back together."  Sorry, but no.  But what if -- and this possibility is a lot less certain -- she actually comes back more contrite? 

I don't WANT to have her back.  I'm really OK not being married to her.  I mean, it is going to take YEARS to heal from how much she would tear me down constantly, but already I feel so much better about myself.  So much more comfortable being me.  When you don't have someone you love telling you all the time how much you suck, the world feels a lot better.  I can't go back to that.

I can't go back if her attitude is still that everything was my fault, that she was perfect, and that all the change needs to be in me.  That I will never sign up for.

This is my life????

Not that it's bad.  It's just surprising.  Everything is so new. 

So, this morning, I was asked by Father to serve again at the altar.  That is now the second Sunday I've done this: Palm Sunday and Easter.  Those are kind of big, as far as Sundays go.  I still have no real idea what I'm doing.  But he has confidence in me.  And so does most of the congregation.  They are always so supportive and complementary. 

But it's just really new.  The whole vesting myself is new enough.  But so is all the rest.  And I still don't understand all of it.  It's not bad, just new and different and kind of weird.  So, still scary.

I had my kids on kind of a weird schedule this weekend in order to keep away from what, to my ex-wife, would be the worst thing conceivable: me taking my kids to church.  The handing back and forth got a bit tiring.  But, still, my kids are very happy and are very affectionate with me.  They love me.  And I love them dearly.

I continued my weekly dinner party thing, this time having RS and Therese over for an Easter dinner: leg of lamb, a pilaf with kind of an Azerbijani flavor, and a cream of spinach soup for an opening.  Complex.  Kind of difficult.  I broiled the leg of lamb and the amount of smoke it poured out was astonishing - I thought for sure someone would call the fire department on me.  But it all turned out very nice. 

A nice night with nice friend and good food and good wine, and it was fun. 

But all this: this is my life?  So very, very different from what it was just months ago.  So different that you would have never convinced me then that this is how I would be living.  I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it all - even as I go forward rather boldly with all of it. 

Does that even make sense?  I'm not sure.  Yet, here I am.

Church

So, I really have no intention of this blog going like the last one where it became primarily about debating theology, but I thought I'd mention church a bit, because today is the first day of the Triduum and I had a lot of fun tonight, and because it is actually a rather relevant topic when it comes to my divorce and most especially to the complete reboot of my life.

I am currently a part of a small Anglo-Catholic community.  It's a little church, and for years I would drive by it and say, "I wonder what they are like?  I ought to go see sometime," but never really did.  There was a lot of reasons for my interest, not the least being that I was already (at the point of time I'm discussing) daily doing morning and evening prayer out of the Book of Common Prayer. 

Then, late last spring, things were getting SO bad at church where I was that I decided I NEEDED to go look around a bit.  So, I went by myself and visited.  It was the Sunday before Ascension, if I remember right.  It was nice.  I liked it.  Then, a few months later, I visited again, this time with Therese and, of all people, my ex's current beau, Bluto.  (Who was so uncomfortable he looked like he thought he was being mentally raped just being there.)  That was  the Sunday before July 4th. 

On both occasions, Father was just awesome and welcoming and made a great impression on me.  It's a little church, but beautiful.  And I loved the liturgy. 

So, when my relationship with my old religious affiliation all came to a head and I HAD to choose to go elsewhere, they were the first place that came to mind.

Now, it isn't perfect.  I have some ecclesiastical issues with them - and with the entire continuing Anglican movement since it is all so fractured.  I may not stay there forever.  But, for right now, it is what I need.  Father is one of the most pastoral men I've ever met.  He's awesome.  And it's a very little place, so I quickly got to know everybody.

And having sat down several times to talk through stuff with Father he cleared it with the Bishop to have me be involved and help out even though I haven't, officially, jumped through all the required hoops yet. 

So, on Sunday, the guys that normally help him out were all either sick or out of town.  So, as I was about to sit down he came up and asked, "Can you do me a big favor?"  And I said, "Sure, what?"  And he said, "Can you serve today?" 

And I answered, "I have no idea what to do?"  But he walked me through it and it was fun.

It feels really good to be involved again.  To not be just someone who shows up and sits in the pew, but to be a part of it all.  OK, so it is all new and different and kind of weird, but it's good. 

And he that sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."  --Revelation 21:5a

My kids are here...

And all is well.  I love my kids.  They are so different and both so very fun.

The whole way home my daughter had this Star Wars ship, pretending it was some video game controller and the game was to blow EVERYTHING up.  So, she's make laser noises and then inform me that the car in front of me was blown up, so I could go.  Meanwhile, my son is discussing with me (or attempting to) H. G. Well's The Time Machine.  She's 8 going on 4 and he's 11 going on 30.

When we got home, my son started working on homework.  He had math and spelling and stuff, but the big thing is this big project his class is working on. They each had to pick a country in the world and then research it.  They have a paper due, a poster, and several other things, including a "country in a box" which is just a decorated box filled with things either from or representing that country.

My son chose the UK.  Which is just awesome, since I am a rather pathological anglo-phile.  Not sure why, I just always have been.  Even in high school, almost the only music I would listen to were various British imports, from the Beatles to Clapton and the Kinks. 

And, of course, since I am now Anglo-Catholic in religion, I get it all even more deeply. 

So, we sat down and talked through a lot of stuff tonight.  He's just starting the project and was really just making a list of what he needs to research.  He's mainly using encyclopedias, so I basically helped him put together a massive list of people and places and things to look up.  That was fun.  When he presents this he has to do an oral presentation, in costume, and bring some typical food item to share.  He's has already asked me to make some scones, and help him brew up a nice pot of English tea.  This was fun.

So, a good night of bonding with my kids.  It's nice to feel like a father again.

Finances

Not sure I discussed this yet, and while it isn't the most important thing going on, by far, it is still important.

So, X always liked being married to someone who made an engineer's salary.  Not so much the being married to an actual engineer.  But she liked the money part.  A lot. 

I'm a pretty non-materialistic kind of guy and I can live pretty cheap.  She was the one always buying unnecessary crap just because she could.  I had a financial plan that would have had us in an AMAZING place in a couple years if we could just have a little discipline - we would have had the house paid off before my eldest graduated from high school, would have never had to borrow money for vehicles, would have been able to pay just about any college tuition out there, etc.  That was my outlook on our finances. 

Her's was, and I quote, "In a family that makes as much as we do, nobody should ever be allowed to say, 'we don't have the money for that.'"  She would talk about how her friends husbands make SO much less than me yet let their wives spend whatever they want.  I would want to respond, "It's called 'debt', honey," but I restrained myself.  In any event, while I saw my earnings as the path to future security and ease and blessings for our kids, she saw it as a ticket to an unlimited supply of useless crap, crappy clothes, and stripper heels. 

This puts us in an interesting position here on this side of the divorce.  I make a bit more than 90% of our combined income.  She spends somewhere above 65% of our combined income.  Something has to give way here. 

When she first filed papers she said she wanted the house.  That's really OK with me.  A 2200 square-foot house is a bit more than I want to be paying for right now, and considering how much equity we have in it, she'll have to give me just about every other asset we have to buy me out.  So, I can come out with no debt (even mortgage debt), my 401k intact, and a LOT lower living expenses than she has.  That's good.

But because I make so dang much and she makes so little the alimony and child support are going to be through the roof.  Combined, we are looking at upwards of $25k to $30k per year.  That's not so good.  And that is even with the child support being held down a bit by the fact that I'll continue to pay the kids' private school tuition.  Which is another $12k per year I'm on the hook for. 

I keep running my numbers.  I'm living in this little, cheap, kind of crappy apartment.  My utilities are next to nothing.  I don't eat out hardly at all.  The only place I'm spending an excessive amount of money is gas for my truck, since my round trip to work is 30+ miles.  Even so, I'll be brushing up against the edge.  I have no idea at all how she is going to live.  Her expenses are a LOT bigger than mine and even with all that money I'll be sending her every month she'll still be living on a lot less than me. 

Financial tip for anyone out there thinking about divorce: after you divorce you are still going to be making the same amount of money but will now be paying for two places to live AND will have to pay a big chunk of change to lawyers.  These things are not good.  They are not conducive to future financial security.

I'm just tired

First of all, thanks so much to all my bloggy friends who have found me here.  FTN, great to hear from you.  Aphron, glad you came by.  Thanks, everyone, for all your support.  Even that one girl named "Val" that left a comment that I was kind of half thinking was actually making fun of me.  But even if it was, welcome.

So, today.  Today sucked.

Not most of it.  Most of it was awesome.  I went in to see my therapist at 5:00 and I when he asked how I was I said, "I'm good.  I'm actually good.  I think I'm getting a handle on this stuff."

Boy, teach me to jinx it.  I wasn't even out the door with my therapist when one of my friends called me.  So, apparently my ex's boyfriend thought it was appropriate to post something criticizing me on facebook - over an incident he knew next to nothing about.  And he did it in the most insulting terms possible. 

OK.  What do I do?  I tried being mad, but it all just came out tired.  But, seriously, what could I possibly do?  Call him out on it?  How would that do anything other than make it worse?  He (and I'm seriously not making this up) thinks he actually knows both sides of everything going on, despite not actually talking to me for six months.  The friend that called me was talking to both me and Madam X up until about a month ago when the ex de-friended her (in facebook and in real life) for not taking her side on everything.  But up until then, she was talking to us both.  And X's boyfriend had the gall (and insanity) to tell this friend that she had taken her position because she didn't know both sides like he did. 

So, seriously, would talking to someone that detached from reality do anything good?  And would macho bluster over my reputation do anything but make me look even worse?  It's a no-win scenario.  Well, except for that whole "vengence is mine, says the Lord" thing. 

Father at church recommended that I let God handle it.  In his words, "the best way to defeat the assaults of the devil is to ignore them."  And he's right.  But I can't help feeling like a doormat. 

The hardest part

The hardest part of all this is just overcoming the sense of the unreality of all this.  Literally, every day I wake up and I look in the mirror and have to convince myself that, yes, this actually really is happening and, yes, this actually for real is my life.

And every single day, I find myself surprised by that fact.

Being of two minds

So, back when a lot of this first started - it was actually the first weekend I had my kids at my place - I asked the kids what they would think if some time in the future, when it was the right time and I was ready, I dated someone new and maybe even eventually get remarried.  I tend to try and think ahead, and was already thinking along those lines for the future, and was concerned about what they would think and feel about it.  I didn't understand yet that one of the strongest dynamics of the new situation is that everything I say to them gets back to Madam X, who then twists it beyond all recognition.  So, what she took from all this is, "Daddy says we'll have a new stepmom soon." 

Which is, obviously, a bit different.

But there's an interesting thing at play here.  One thing I've told just about everyone who would listen one constant mantra since this started (which should have been my first clue that this is something I should explore about myself) that I didn't want this divorce, I didn't start this divorce, and I certainly didn't want my family split up and all this.  Yet, I can also say with complete and total and forceful honesty (like I did tonight at my friends' house) that I am really, really rather glad I'm not married to her anymore. 

Do these two things contradict each other?  Sure.  I'm of two minds about the entire thing, which shouldn't be all that surprising.  On one hand I really, really don't want to be divorced.  On the other, I'm really, really glad I'm not married to her anymore. 

She, of course, can't see that.  When she hears me say anything (or hears of me saying anything) about not wanting this, or any other such equivocation, she immediately interprets it as lies because, if that's how I really felt then I would have never asked the kids what they would think about me dating again.  If I really didn't want to be divorced then I wouldn't even be thinking about dating again. 

Well, so, she doesn't get it.  That's not really all that new.  There's a lot she doesn't get. 

Kids

So, I've now been separated from the family dwelling for almost 3 months.  For that entire time, we were working on a time-sharing plan for the kids that had them with me not much at all.  I could have had a better one, but things got nasty awful quick and I thought it best to let things settle down a bit.  To not kick it up another notch in the crazy scale. 

This was not a popular decision with my friends and family, as you might imagine, who mostly accused me of letting Madam X get away with whatever she wanted and of me not fighting for my kids enough.  And there's probably a bit of truth in all that, too.

Starting today we are on a new and more permanent time-sharing plan.  One that STILL doesn't give me the time with the kids that I ought to have, or that I could have had if I had been willing to let it all go to custody arbitration, but I was trying to avoid destroying my children's lives, so I pushed her as hard as I could during mediation and got as good a deal as I could without getting courts involved.

That also wasn't a popular decision.  But I think I've got a bit firmer ground to stand on in defending this one.

But in any event, I've spent three months now mostly away from my kids.  When it all first started it was hard and it felt really weird, but we were all still family.  But by now...  I don't know.  It's like I've forgotten how to do this.  How to be a dad.  How to be THEIR dad.  I'll have them more now, enough that it will be more regular and normal and involved and everything.  Hopefully enough to remember how to do this. 

Being a father was everything to me.  It was how I defined my entire existence.  Not being dad - or not being allowed to really and truly be their dad the way I ought to be - has been the absolutely worst part of all this.  I love my kids so much.  And I know they love me.  I know they want to be here with me.  But it still feels kind of artificial and forced and I don't really remember what to do or how to do this right. 

Divorce is evil.

Divorce is bad, mkay

And you shouldn't ever do it at all.  It sucks worse than anyone who hasn't gone through it can possibly know.

But, if you just have to get a divorce, please, by all that is holy and good, get a good attorney.  There is nothing that can make it better for EVERYONE. Especially yourself.

Now, I know that seems obvious.  Of COURSE you want a good lawyer.  Nobody wants to go into a divorce with a bad lawyer.

The tricky part is that what actually makes a good divorce attorney is pretty much diametrically opposed to what people think makes a good divorce attorney.  At least that was true for me.  I'd watched way too much TV, and thought a GOOD lawyer was one you would go in a really stick it to the other person, demolish them in court, come up with a Chewbacca defense for anything you were being stuck with, etc.

No, that's actually a pretty good description of a BAD divorce attorney.

It's like this.  A GOOD attorney is one that, when you come in with the list of all the crap you want (I want the kids all the time, and for he/she to not have them at all/I want to not give her any money/I want him to give me all his money so I can sit at home and eat bon-bons all day/etc) will tell you, "Yeah....you're not going to get that.  Here's what you CAN get," and then convince you to be reasonable.  Then he or she will go meet with the other party's attorney, and if they are both good attorneys and both did the job outlined above, they will quickly negotiate to the settlement that both of them knew going in they would end up at.  Then you sign papers and are done.

A BAD attorney is the one who promises you that you can get whatever you want, who doesn't help you be reasonable, but drives you to being more and more unreasonable in your demands, and thus who stretches out the entire divorce process like crazy all so they can get paid more in legal fees.  And, at the end, the settlement will still be just about what it would have been if both had been good lawyers and both parties had been reasonable.  The difference is that it will take 10 times as long, cost EVERYBODY 20 times as much.

Oh, and it will absolutely destroy the lives of any children you might or might not have.  Because divorce is always hard on the kids, but what destroys them is when it all gets nasty and drawn out and the courts have to step in to make all the decisions because the two sides couldn't agree to a reasonable compromise.  THAT is what destroys kids.

So, get a good lawyer.  Help make sure your new ex finds a good lawyer, too.  Because the good, smooth, minimally-destructive process only works if BOTH parties have good attorneys.

I like my attorney a lot.  She's a very good attorney.  She works hard to keep my bill down.  She tries to get stuff through easily and reasonably.  Madam X's attorney is the absolute stereotype of a bad attorney.  She has a reputation in the local legal world of being, well, a complete bitch who has a tendency to take control of the case from her client and then drive it all into complete insanity.  It's just known that NOTHING goes smooth when she is involved.  Whenever you submit ANYTHING, she will HAVE to send it back with a billion amendments, trying to play every trick she can.

So, yeah, my life is just so much fun right now.  Let me tell you.  I'm identifying way too much with this right now.

So, don't get divorced.  It sucks.  But if you just have to, get good attorneys.  Save both of you a lot of time and money and heartache.

Weird stuff that I miss

So, there's a lot of adaptation I have to do in all this.  A lot of stuff that has to change that I never even thought of.  A lot of habits I have to break.

Like, for instance, I'm at some friends' house tonight, and I keep feeling like I have some place to be.  When I leave I look at my watch and curse how late it is...before I realized there was no place I had to be, no one who would be mad I was out that late, and nobody who would have known if I'd stayed longer.  Besides my friends, that is.  I'm so used to being...well, on a leash is how I'd put it right now.  I'm so used to being answerable to someone else who would be mad if I spent time with my friends.

Another one: I'm so used to someone else keeping my calender and telling me when I have to be places.  I keep almost forgetting appointments and stuff because I'm used to that being someone else's job.

Another one: I'm used to consulting someone else's opinion before I make decisions, big or small, and so now I'm having to do them all by myself and it's hard. 

So...

...what to talk about.

So, I feel better about stuff that I did a few days ago.  My emotions right now are like the stock market - or how we hope the stock market is, anyway.  It has its ups and downs, but the general, long-term trend is up.  I am getting better, but I still fall down a lot. 

But I'm doing better. 

So, let's talk about my new job.  That's a topic I haven't explored a lot yet.

In my old job I was, basically, a software engineer.  The software I was writing had an intimate connection with engineering hardware -- so it wasn't a purely software sort of job, like writing windows applications or iPhone apps would be -- but it was still mostly about writing code.  I'm very, very good at writing code.  Not the ins and outs of syntax and little tricks with the compilers or whatever.  That's not me.  But being able to quickly whip up a nice, little script that would do what we wanted right then - that's me.  OK, someone who WAS the expert ins and outs of syntax and who knew all the tricks would have to come around and clean it up to make it run with any sort of efficiency.  But the functionality -- the designing of the algorithms -- that was all me. 

It was a fun job, that I enjoyed a lot, and that I was very, very good at. 

But the economy being what it is, that company started having issues.  They started laying people off.  A lot of people.  But they did it really slowly and, well, wrong.  Instead of saying, "Over the next year we will only have work for X people, so we have to lay Y off," they would say, "What is the MOST people we can support at all this month, giving us the LEAST number we have to lay off right now." 

OK, so they were trying to be nice and lay off as few as possible, but it meant that the next month they had to come around again and do another round of lay offs.  And another one the next month.  And so on and so forth for, like, a year.  Over that time we lost half our staff.

Really scary, and all the worst because there was never one big cut and then it was over.  It just kept going on.  We all got REALLY tired of looking over our shoulder.

So, I decided to be pro-active and start looking around for something else on my own.  Well, I had talked about it.  But then, before I had even gotten around to sending out one resume or applying to one posting, out of the blue a former colleage called me.  He had seen which way the wind was blowing a LONG time before that, and had left then.  The place he was now working at is a kind of quasi-government sort of place (we always say it feels like the center between private industry, government, and academia).  The project he was working on needed someone with a particular skill set and asked him if he knew anyone with it, and he thought of me and gave them my name. 

I applied and got the job.  Yay me.  Nice, big increase in pay, too.

But the job, I quickly learned, was not software engineering.  It is systems engineering.  Highly related, yet very, very different.  What my manager wanted was someone who knew the software world I came from - the ins and outs, what it takes to do it, and how to apply it to these sorts of applications - and to then relate all that to the rest of the project.

So, I don't get to write code anymore.  At all.  (I've even been forbidden by my manager from even loading the programs necessary to write any of it on my computer.)  Instead, I write requirements.  I write systems engineering plans.  I plan configuration management schemes and release schedules.  I help formulate test plans and requirements verification matrices. 

Good work.  Easy work - a lot easier than what I was doing before.  A lot higher level, a lot more management-oriented.  A lot more being the guy in charge.  But, wow, do I ever miss writing code!

Don't get me wrong, I love my new job.  I've described my job to people as mainly consisting of going to meetings and then acting like I know what I'm talking about.  How easy is that?  I write power point charts a lot.  It's easy.  Kind of boring.  But easy.

The issue is that it is just SO different from what I did before.  I know what skills I had then, and I had a LOT of confidence in them.  This job...not so much.  Half the time I'm expecting my manager to come in and say I just wasn't really who they were looking for and so I have to go.  Which isn't going to actually happen - whenever I DO talk to my manager she raves about how everyone thinks I'm so great.  But, still, it's been a hard adaptation. 

Especially since in my former job, someone else would figure out what needed to be done and then tell me and I would do it.  Alone and by myself.  Now, I'm having to figure out what to do, but then I have to delegate it all to someone else.  And that's hard.  Now, I have the responsibility of telling them to do the RIGHT thing, and if it's not, then I screwed up - yet I don't have control of the actual process, so I can't fix it if it is wrong. 

Plus it is, as a job, a lot more people-oriented.  And I speak code a lot better than I speak people. 

But I seem to be doing well, by the standards and opinions of the group/company.  So, I don't think I have anything to worry about.  Just another weird change.

Tonight was fun

So, as part of my quest to actually have a life, instead of to just exist and survive, I decided to start having people over once a week.  To cook and have them over and do the dinner party/entertaining thing.  I started by asking over some friends I met through work.  The wife and I work very closely together, and she's kind of adopted me.  She calls me her "work son."  Her husband is an awesome guy, and the two have quickly become pretty good friends of mine.

They had me over a few weeks ago, and I decided to return the favor.  It was fun.  I got to cook good stuff and pretend I have class and am all fancy, and got to have a nice evening of conversation. 

It's certainly a good way for me to try and repay just a little bit all the people who have been there for me so deeply the past few months, and who have given of themselves to help me out.  I'll start with this couple, and make my through my list of people I owe debts of gratitude to week by week.  It's fun.

I'm still in a funk today

I don't really know why.  Well, yeah I do.  Kinda'. 

I miss my wife.  Yeah, she was evil and mean and made my life hell, but at least she was mine and I was hers.  There was someone to whom, whether she liked it or not, I had to be the top priority.  As she was mine, like it or not. 

And now I'm not anyone's priority.  I have friends.  Good friends, who are wonderful people and who care about me, and would do anything for me.  But they all have other priorities that are higher.  It's not wrong - in fact, it is the only way they can make their choices in the right way.  It's not their fault - any of them.  It's just the way it is.  But it hurts all the same. 

I don't know how to be this person.  I don't know how to live this life.  I don't know how to do this.

I really don't know what's wrong with me today.

Everything was in place for today to be just awesome.  And, for some reason, I'm more depressed that I've been in a long time.

Note: I'm already well on my way to being blind drunk, so if this starts to get a little incoherent, that would be why.  

I don't know.  I had an easy day at work.  Everybody at my company works 9/80 schedules, so we all have every other Friday off, but my rotation on that seems tobe 180 degreees out of phase with everyone else on my team.  So, I was there today, and next to nobody else was.  Quiet day to myself.  Because of how the 9/80 works, even my Fridays on are short - 8 hours instead of the 9 I work Mondays through Thursdays, and being Friday, I fast, which means I don't take a half hour for lunch, either.  So, easy, short day.

Fridays are when I get to see my kids (on our current schedule), and that's always good.  It seems like forever since Tuesday when I had them last, and I'm always so excited to go pick them up.  We always have such fun.  Today I've just been blah about it all.  We had fun tonight, but it was just so short, and sometimes I just don't know what to do with them.  I feel like, our time together is so precious that it has to just be awesome, and that's a lot of pressure.  And I can tell, when they are with me, that they are trying really, really hard to be OK but that they really aren't in a lot of ways.  I don't know what to do for them, and it scares me a lot.

And today was when my friend got home.  Ten weeks.  And, with the exception of the one week before she left, it was another four months before that since we really interacted as friends.  I'm very excited to have her home, but I'll admit some apprehension.  It's been six months since we've really been close.  Six months in which a LOT has happened.  I don't know how close we still are, and that scares me. 

And, I guess, psychologically, I've been kind of surviving here the last three months on the assumption that if I can just be OK, amd make it through until she gets back then somehow that signals that I will, in the end, be OK.  It was just some sort of milestone marker in the Project schedule in my head.  Well, she's back, but that doesn't mean I've really passed any sort of real milestone.  I'm not just all OK by now.  It all still sucks.  I guess my mind could handle it all when I thought there was an end in sight, but there's not. 

And none of that was conscious, of course.  I'm just now realizing it all. 

And please no one reading this think I'm implying anything inappropriate in my feelings.  It's just that everything is so interconnected.  It was September when I couldn't be her friend anymore because my wife said I could't, yet even when I chose my wife over my friend (to the point of saying good-bye, I thought possibly forever), things just got worse then.  They got worse and kept getting worse.  Then the divorce, which sucked, but since she was divorcing me then, hey, that does mean I can be friends with whomever I want again.  Right?  But the divorce was almost simultaneous with my friend going out of town;and while what I have been going through has been hell, so has what she's been out of town doing.  So, I guess my subconsious just made a connection: her hell experience had an end-date, so mine must, too. 

But mine doesn't, and life still sucks, and I'm in this massively fragile emotional state which just makes me feel like a loser, and she walks back into town with more self-confidence and emotional strength than I've ever seen in her.  What doesn't kill you is supposed ot make you stronger, and that worked with her, but I'm still staggering from the hits I've taken.  I guess I just feel like a great big, loser.  Like this scared little kid who can't do anything right. 

And I just feel so very deeply alone today.  I'm walking this path by myself.  And there's no one there to pick me up if I fall down.  nobody but me.  And I'm as tired of having to pick myself back up as I am of falling down again.