How Is It Nearly July Already?

At last.  A near perfect weekend.  About bloody time.  The previous 3 weekends have all involved tears (mine) in one form or another - from muffled sobs into a tea towel while curled up by the washing machine on a Saturday morning, to full out hysterical sobs at a child's birthday party, on a bright Sunday afternoon - so this has to be progress.

June, for some reason, has been a tough month.

Maybe it's simply down to the fact that tomorrow I will have been living in the UK for 6 months.

6 months?

Doesn't seem possible.  Time is moving way too quickly and it's hard to see how my life is truly moving on, how I am actually making progress, now that I have nothing to complain about, finally being home.

The past four weeks have been pretty...well, challenging.  I say that although, of course, good things are happening all around me.  The boys are great.  I am out and about, meeting new people, doing fun things.  However, in spite of this, in spite of the fact that I am spending an abundance of energy getting myself out there, none of it appears to be tipping the balance on my 'general happiness and well being' meter.

At times I feel just as lost as I have ever been.  Just as angry, exhausted, disappointed and scared.  I aim  barbed arrows of judgement at people all around me, but in truth it's myself that I am disgusted with.  My inability to be a motivated, optimistic person 100% of the time.  The fact that some days I am just so sad, for no reason at all.  Why can I not just trust that it is all really okay?

Maybe I'm just not drinking enough alcohol.

Nah.

I'm pretty sure that I am.

Ex and AG were here for half term and, obviously, had a gay old time with the boys and various friends and family.  God, that still rankles, though I so wish it didn't.  When I think about it all rationally, the situation couldn't be much better for the boys.  (Actually, not true...the situation would be much better if I was the one in the fantastic new relationship, while the gitbag who actually dessimated this family was alone and bereft...but I digress.)  Friends who haven't been in this situation find it hard to understand. Surely I should have let it all go by now?  After all, it's fairly amicable, isn't it?  It all could be so much worse.

And I agree.

But this isn't about the rational, is it?  How can you be rational about the person that you planned on loving and spending the rest of your life with, loving someone else?  And that being okay?  I struggle day to day with my little torn apart family, dealing with boys who cry heartbrokenly because they miss their dad.  I did everything I could to keep this family together and it wasn't enough.  I had no idea I was so disposable.  That my replacement would not even be born until I was 13 years old and lived on the continent that I, stupidly, dragged us to over 10 years ago.

I want to find it in my heart to be the bigger person and just 'let it go'.  I don't want to be petty and mean spirited, because I know I am no longer in love with my Ex.  By allowing my vulnerability to override my common sense, I continue to disappoint and frustrate myself.  I feel I am on the verge of losing friendships due to the fact that this situation still paralyses me, impacting me to physical nausea.  Rationally it's all so unnecessary, but in truth it's how I still feel.

One day I am going to read this and not be able to equate with it at all.  That's a comforting thought at least.  How I long for that day - and may it just hurry up and get here.

I think the cat being released from quarantine marked the passage of time that I have been home for quite a while.  Bert arrived home, looking none the worse for wear.  For the first few days he seemed to have had a personality transplant following his ordeal, to the point where he even sought and tolerated the boys affections.  Then he stopped eating cat food and started a new diet, consisting mainly of his own fur.  Bald patches started appearing with alarming frequency.  He succeeded in scratching most of the fur off his ears and his face.  His tummy, instead of featuring silky black hair, became predominantly pink.  The hair that remained attached to his skinny frame became greasy and lank.  In my usual slack Alice fashion, I ignored it for the first week thinking I could simply stroke him back to health.  When that failed I conceded defeat and rushed him to the vet.

Good God, I thought mercilessly, if you pop your clogs now after I paid out thousands from my divorce fund to get you through quarantine, I am going to be a teensy, weensy bit annoyed.

Turns out that it is anxiety.  Must be contagious.  This is the effect I have on animate objects, apparently.  Even the cat is now stressed to the eyeballs after a few days of living with me.

No sooner did the cat move back in...then my sister moved out.  She found a great place to live, just over a mile away.  I have mixed feelings about the move.  I miss having her here, even though I know it was the right time for both of us.  The fact that we survived going from hardly seeing each other for 10 years, to living in each others pockets for the past 6 months, pretty much reflects the strength of our friendship.

It feels strange not to see her on a daily basis though.  And my eating habits have gone completely down hill since she left.  Funny how it was so easy to motivate myself to prepare a healthy meal each night, when there was someone else to cook for, who appreciated it so much.  For the past week I have lazily forfeited preparing salad and protein for my alternative nutritious combo of kettle chips and Haagen Daaz.  Not really food for the mind, is it?  Or the thighs, come to think of it.  Still.  It does taste bloody delicious.

Anyway, rather than let this general malaise lead me down the inevitable rocky road of a permanent sugar coma, I have decided to try to face this period of my life head on and booked myself some therapy.  Rather than keep this simple and also boost the local economy, I have begged the therapist I used to see in Chicago, to help me out via Skype.  Sounds a little pretentious I know, but I just couldn't bare the thought of having to go through my recent history yet again.  All the details of the dead baby, then the high risk pregnancies, premature births, infant surgeries, marital breakdown, separation, divorce and transatlantic move - and everything else in between.  I don't have the time or inclination.

Luckily for me, my therapist said You Betcha! in that optimistic, American way and so now, at last, help is at hand.  There's hope for me yet.  Although apparently, tears are like burps and farts.  Better out than in.  And while I'm not aiming to cry me a river any time soon, I am mildly regretting not having shares in Kleenex at this point in time.