All The Things…

I’m still here fighting.  The co-parent seems to be doing his very best to tear down anything I’m trying to do on my own.

The saddest part is that I don’t even care about him enough to hate him.  I simply want to move on and began my life as just me.

I have moved away (I’m officially a southern girl again!) from everything that was comfort for me.  I gave up my job, my home, custody of our youngest child…all the hard shit that needed to be done.  I did that shit like a THUG.  Tears were shed.  Pleadings to God were plentiful.

It has been hard…and painful…and joyful all at the same time.

I have invited happiness, fear, and love into my life.

My family has been my rock.  It’s where I returned to feel safe.  I am safe.

BL is still in my life, we are both living alone (single) in this world.  It’s been a wonderful and painful journey.

As for today, I know I deserve all the things.  All the joy, all the love, all the happiness.

My hope and plan is to have all the things.

Divorce

Yes.  I’ll have one of those please and thank you very much.

I started this blog so many years ago and I wrote and then I wrote some more, then I wrote no more.

My spirit was dying, my soul dying.  After separating in Nov. 2016. I finally filed for my freedom and peace Dec 2016.

The co parent ( as he will hence forth be named) did his best damage trying to undermine me with our children.  I pleaded that “he tread lightly” with them as they are still very much babies (25, 18, 15) in so many ways.  My pleading fell on deaf ears and soul shattering events took place.  I kept my mouth shut and more damage was done.  Thankfully my therapist explained how telling the truth isn’t taking the low road.  They were old enough to know the truth…as he had told them I was simply after “his” money (which is laughable, ain’t no money bitch LOL).

I told them about his ongoing affair and how I had tried to work it out for many years.  To say white boy was #bigmad was an understatement.  BUT I stood in that truth because he couldn’t call it a lie.

Now that he can no longer use my children against me (the healing is so very slow), he is using his attorney to “get at me”.  Asking for child support (we currently split equal time with the kids, even though the 18yr can’t be forced into visitation), alimony, and his attorney fees.  It’s laughable.  He currently makes more than I do, but will probably be without employment soon (not my issue anymore).

I am almost free and I am lonely at times but so fucking happy.

My joy will not be stolen, my soul shall be “fat and happy”.

It’s amazing that “divorce” is now the happiest place on earth for me.

 

 

 

 

 

And So…

This blinking cursor is going to be the bane of my existence.

My world is shaky at best right now, which is sad because this is what we dreamed of so many decades ago.  We wanted the American dream, we worked hard on the journey, but forgot to work on us.  Or maybe we simply didn’t know how.

So I find myself angry and afraid.  Using my voice and feeling like I’m speaking into a void.

In the past week 2 of my very closest friends, my sisterfriends  have mentioned my writing.  I don’t know if I should take that as a sign of what I SHOULD be doing.

And so I write.  I think about life and I write in my head, but it never seems to make it “on paper”.

I won’t say my life is shit, because I know my life is good, certain parts I just don’t want to think about.
I don’t feel strong like bull, but I don’t feel all that weak either. I do feel off track, like I have no insight to where I’m suppose to be.

My girl KC has gone through a divorce, she has recently asked me to write her story.  While I feel she wants me to “be her voice” I think she is still afraid to use her own.  I like the idea of a satirical writing of her life, the content is heavy and I don’t want to make light of such heavy material.  She seems to have faith that I can bring to light her struggle while making light of it at the same time.

My thoughts are scattered so the next few posts will be a smattering of my thoughts and emotions.  My fears and my desires.

And so that is where I am as we end the year.

Blessedly I am still here.

My 51 things….

I borrowed this idea from Lib at liberationtheory. Lib’s was 101 things in 1001 days. I shortened it just a bit. It’s a work in progress. I will eventually finish the list but I’m trying to add things outside my comfort zone and things that seem a bit fun. Wish me luck.

501 days from this day is October 1, 2014. When I look at this date I’m hopeful, almost excited

1. Learn enough spanish to have a conversation

2. Get to a weight I’m happy with

3. Get monthly massages

4. Get rid of our (my) credit card debt

5. Go on a cruise

6. Complete two major house projects

7. Clean up the garage/organize it

8. Make a “me” place for my make up

9. Learn to rollerblade

10. Make my blog public

11. Attend IMATS NY

12 Visit a tropical island

13. Update our passports

14. Develop a skin care regimen

15. Buy a gun

16. Learn to shoot

17. Decorate my walls

18. Visit the Oyin store in B-more

19. Visit my sister in TX

20. Start Grad School

21. Organize my closet

22. Skinny Dip

23. Learn to how make a crab broil

24. Roadtrip with Thelma

25. Cut my hair

26. Take unwanted closet items to Goodwill

27. Go dancing

28. Take a class for fun

29. Start and finish a scrapbooking project

30. Organize my make up

31. Finish my 51 things in 501 days list

32. Finish a 5k

32. Go kayaking

33. Go parasailing

October 2014 has come and gone.  My list did not get completed by I made efforts on some things and none on others.  I do plan to start a new list, some things will be on the list again, but I am striving to step out and be true to me.

7. The garage was cleaned and arranged but is a mess yet again.  Lots of items I need to take to goodwill, but generally things are where they need to be.

8.  I moved the over stuffed reading chair out of my nook in my room,  I set up a nice desk and a couple of bookshelves.  I bought some lamps with bright bulbs and a stand alone mirror.  It’s not complete but it’s MY space.  I like.

10. I made my blog public and searchable.  I don’t get a lot traffic and I’m quite alright with that.  I feel somewhat exposed but I did it.

13. I updated my own passport and I consider that a completion.

18. I have been a huge fan of Oyin and its creators since before they were “Oyin”  I visited their store in B-more and picked up some cute t-shirts and great hair products.

20.  I did indeed start Grad school and finished it in the Fall of 2014.  I’m so excited about this accomplishment.  I have so many great women in my life who have supported me in this journey.  Lib and Thelma, thank you so much!

21.  Much like the garage my closet WAS clean and organized…LOL

24. THELMA is my sister, I love her so much.  God sent her to this earth for me, he knew I needed someone who understood my crazy who wouldn’t judge my fuckery and who would set my crazy ass straight when needed.  It wasn’t actually a roadtrip as in we in the car…we went to VEGAS and it was a blast.  Love you girl!

25. I had my locs for 7.5yrs, I had come to the point where I needed to make changes and my hair was one of those things.  Thelma “held my hand” and I went from ass length locs to a very sexy RED TWA!  Shit was so cute, but I’m growing it out again for another set of locs.  Change is good.

26. Those things went to Goodwill AND I now have even more to get rid of…we have too much stuff.  Time to let it go.

27. Thelma and I got our dance on in Vegas…Wobble on deck!  LOL

30.  I have organized my makeup but I would like to make it “cute” and girly.  It’s a work in progress.

33.  Thelma and I took our families to the beach…The Mister and I parasailed it was wonderful.  I would so do it again!

The new 51 things list will be up soon.  The only place to move is forward.

You

I try not to think of it.  No one should ever live in the world of what if and if only.  I enjoy my life as it is…for the most part.  There has been a lot of healing and choosing of battles.  I credit a great therapist and psychiatrist with helping me on this journey.

I have had many missteps, I have owned my failings and tried to move beyond them.  I try never to fall prey to the grass is greener on the other side, because basically you don’t know the real tea on what the other side is living.

I have loved and lost and loved again.  Rinse and repeat.

As I think of you tonight something within me is screaming DO.NOT. WRITE. THIS!!! Don’t give these feeling and works life. I’m hardheaded and I will not listen to that voice.  I need to release it all.  I have to let go. I have to move past. I have to.

I miss you so deeply.  There are times in my mind I have made a different choice.  I have allowed my own needs to outweigh my fear.  There are times in my mind I choose someone else’s husband and not my own.

I have danced around that very thing on this blog for a long time. I didn’t want to be seen as a whore, home wrecker, selfish destroyer of lives.

I picture a life of hard choices and joy.  I picture me questioning and afraid that what I have done to another will be done to me. That choosing you will lead to nothing but fear and heartache.  That one day you will become so tired of trying to prove your love that you do the very thing that brought me to you…betrayal.

But on the joyous side of that life, of that choice, is me walking near the water with you and our family.  The one we tore apart to build anew.  I picture our girls as sisters and our boys as brothers.  I picture us loving through the hardship of a love built on rocky ground.

I picture us near the water, you teasing me about my walk and me acting as if I’m ignoring everything you are saying.  I see this body heavy and full with a child we created out of love and need.  The child the doctors told me could take my life. I see me wide and heavy, as you help me sit in the sand as the kids play.  You rub my tummy and speak to a child who will be the carrier of our hope and dreams of love.  I laugh as you pull up my shirt and speak to him.  As you tell him of how much we love him and can’t wait to meet him I am filled with a love so abundant.  I rub your head as you kiss my belly.  I watch the life we have built and as I pray that the dark beginnings of our love flourishes in the light.

I know you would move heaven and earth for me.  I know this love is all consuming and quiet in its being.

Even as I struggle to know my place in your life I want you to know here in my safe place, if no place else…there are moments in my life I know I chose incorrectly, I should have chosen you.

Blogging and drinking…oil and water?

My mama used to tell me never write down something you wouldn’t want me to read.  She was crazy and wise.  At times I don’t write about things because I know nothing you write down is truly safe.  But there are other times I write through the fear of my raw self being exposed to…well whomever.

I want this life.  A life I haven’t figured out quite yet.  I want someone who understands my heart, someone who sees that I am simply me.  It sounds all corny and whatnot, but I truly want someone who grabs me in the middle of the day and dances to a song that reminds him of me.  I want someone who is able to understand I may seem strong but there are times when I need him to grab me and hold me, just because.  I don’t want to be the strong one.  I want to be the protected one.   I found this song, it touched me.   I don’t want a “captain save a ho”.  I want to to be loved in a way I have never known, well I’ve known it I simply can’t have it.

What you compromise to get…

I’ve been on this earth for over 4 decades.  I’m trying so very hard to simply be honest in my life…honest with myself.  

My mantra for the latter part of 2014 and all of 2015 “I have compromised all I’m willing to compromised for those I love”.

For me the interaction with those I love, adults in my life, I have tried to be the truest me I can be.  I have changed the way I interact with those I love.  This includes my parents and the Mister.

I still see my psychiatrist and a counselor.  This has been working for me and I know I am doing better than I was just one year ago.  Progress.

The Mister and I have been doing this marriage thing and I have simply decided WHO I want to be in this marriage.  I’m not sure he really gets it.  I have held my tongue, compromised, and done things I simply didn’t WANT to do.  I rarely told him what I was doing.  He truly thought we were on the same page with so many things, why would he think differently?  It had been this way for years.  I simply stayed silent, didn’t use my voice.  That has changed.  I am finding ways to speak, not in a hurtful or harsh way (sometimes I fail).  The Mister is rightfully confused by the change, I have simply stated the things I want and I speak my truth.  This is new for the both of us.

I’m been real cool on my MIL for the past few years.  There is a long history with HER racist family and the way she interacts with me and my family (the kids) when she is in our space.  The Mister is oblivious to it all, so on this issue I simply do what I am comfortable with.  

I married a mama’s boy, one who has not been able to cut the apron strings and see that he has his OWN family, his own home, his own life.  He is so completely attached to his mother, it affects the way in which he is attached to me.  He doesn’t see the passive aggressiveness, the intrusion, the string pulling.  I can’t make him see it, so it’s not a fight I’m willing to take on.

As I type this I am in our “new” home over 1000 miles away from him and our kids for Xmas.  He wanted to spend this holiday with his mother because it was our “turn” to travel to see her (and Papa) for the holidays. Before THIS holiday he had spent 2 weeks with his mother in 2014.  I wasn’t willing to miss work and make other compromises to make this trip.  I chose to spend those 8 days in my home and celebrate the holiday a few days after Xmas and I’m okay with that.  I’m not a Xmas person I will enjoy him and the kids when they return.

There is an undercurrent of the unknown in my life right now.  No one never knows where they are headed.  I’ve finished Grad school a life long dream.  I’m discovering a new way to be me.  

I have refused to compromise to “keep”.  Whatever I have compromised to get is enough compromise for me.

wide awake

It has slumbered for so long as it  awakened it caught me off guard. The welcomed beat of a different heart.

Slow exhale eyes just this side of closed.

Quick glimpses ample thighs wrapped around your waist. Eyes closed.

I’m slick with want my cores heat fixated on your thickness

Each and every urgent stroke a signature. As you write your name from the inside of me to the outside of what is now we

Forceful down strokes. One hand  wrapped around my throat I trust each and every squeeze.  Your voice in my ear. One word that does not need to be spoken drawn out in a low guttural moan “mine”

The back of my thighs now pressed against your chest as you reach the place where we have always been connected.

Your lips and tongue claim me pronouncing your ownership without words as you taste me. As you feast you feed my need. Fingers strong and demanding as you grab my ass to allow better feasting. My heart soars as your mouth is full of me.

Ample thighs resting on your shoulder. Feast.

My back to your chest as you enter me from behind. My hands applying the perfect indirect pressure as you work us to the final expression of awakened love.

and scene…

This scenario, the film I have developed and edited repeatedly in my mind.

It can’t be warm. Those are times gone by, moments never to be relived.

It’s all eyes in the beginning. No touching.

It’s blistering cold and I’m being me when it comes to all of that. You laugh at me. Eyes almost closed, cheeks flushed from the cold.

I unwrap my layers. You laugh again shaking your head. Then as I remove my coat I realize I’m holding my breath.

Wheeeew. Exhale.

We sit because it’s just lunch.

I can’t stop looking at you. You don’t say a word. You extend your hands across the small table.  I welcome the first touch. I place my cold hands into yours. You rub your warm hands over mine. The first touch nothing like you read in books. The earth does not move. No heart beats skipped. It’s the warmth from your heart to my hands and once again I am safe.

Within your hands.

It’s warm again and we are by the water entangled in a love so rich so powerful life changing.

I’m in your hands heart mind body spirit.  Exhale.

You rub slowly, gently until my hands are warm. When you’re done you don’t let go. You slowly open your hands giving me the opportunity to disconnect if I feel the need. I rub my palms over yours. Still in your hands. I turn your hands over.  I slowly unlatch your over sized TAG Heuer lay it gently to the side.

I see the ink with my own eyes for the first time,  I’m under your skin. I rub my thumb over it very slowly as I try and fail to keep my emotions at bay. I look into your eyes as mine fill with tears.

Then you finally speak. “It’s okay Love. Let’s get some lunch”.

In your hands under your skin in your spirit. I am there.

I wrote this…

I haven’t been able to blog.  I jus keep writing and rewriting things in my head.  I’m trying to do the work to change the course of how I feel, but it would seem I’m not getting where I want to go.

I was never the princess type girl.  I dreamed of visiting place and being happily weird. I wanted to get away from that nagging feeling that I didn’t matter.  I found decades later, no matter how far you travel you pack those feelings with you. 

Not boasting but I have high emotional intelligence.  Logically I understand those feelings don’t reflect how those who love me see me in real time.

Unwittingly I married someone who has very low emotional intelligence.  I’ve been in therapy on my own and with my husband. It has taken me years to see myself unfiltered.  I am emotionally fragile with those I allow close to me.  Outside my circle others see this chick who has zero fucks to give.  If someone sees me this way it means I have kept them out of my circles.  My circles are very small and run inward with smaller circles as you get to my core.  As the circles get smaller it represents fewer and fewer people I allow close.

I’m sitting on the edge of something that terrifies me.

Hang with me for a bit.  Give me this space as I try to give words to where I’m at.

I can’t do math.  Well I can’t do advanced levels of math such as calculus and not even higher level algebra.  It’s not my portion.  I can follow that steps but left on my own it’s a foreign language to me.

As I sat with my therapist it came out that my husband doesn’t get emotion.  He doesn’t understand how someone could not feel what he feels and how he feels it.  The thought of how emotions ebb and flow.  The heart of it.  He simply does not get it.  

I was told I had to find a way to accept he does not have this gift to give me.  I want to call bullshit.  However if I do that I’m not acknowledging his limits.  I still think in my core he simply does not DESIRE to be more for ME.  I resent it and for years I have been drawn to those who are my emotional equals.

I was drawn to my husband because he was SO different from me.  Calm to my frantic.  I’ve always felt my emotions some how make me flawed.  I sought to fix that flaw by trying to balance it out.  I had no idea that those needs would some day outweigh the other things I felt were important in a partner.  I also had no idea I married someone who didn’t have the ability to bond with me in ways that I wanted and needed.  I took his “flaw” as my own.  As if his inability to fulfill me, to see me was my fault.  I simple didn’t matter enough. Again.  I’ve asked repeatedly for what I need emotionally.  I’ve yet to receive it.

Now I must decide what I can and can’t live with. Do I walk away because he’s unable?  I haven’t figured that out.  I know I want to stop being angry.  I want to stop laying awake at night silently crying because another day has passed and my soul is starving.  I want to stop resenting the fact he states he would do anything for me but in reality the things I need the most are out of his reach.

see

There are moments I find myself shaky.  Moments where my heart and soul are tender in their need for reassurance. 

I have tried so hard to stay in my lane.  To allow you to live the life you have constructed.  I have to tried to stay safe for both of our sakes.

Tonight it was too much, too much anger, too much Jack Daniels, and too much frustration. After the final sip I found myself wanting, needing.  I knew no matter what I could count on you to talk me down.  To soothe me and not judge my tears.

I felt so safe just letting you in.  Even with the lies of the past, I still trust you with the most fragile and tender parts of me. I reached out to you because even after all this time you are my safe place.  

I tried to hold back my tears, I sobbed unsuccessful as I let them fall with no shame.

Your words to me “I see you.” I know this to be true.  You see me in a way no one else does.  Through your eyes I am not perfect, but I am more than my flaws.  I am simply me.  That me fills this you and we are the we that has evolved through pain, triumph, and love.

I reach for you in the only way I know how.  Open, wanting, wounded, and longing.

The best most loving part of you, reaches the best most loving part of me.

It is not perfect, but it is enough for us to be who we have become.  Two people in this world of billions who through a lens of love “see” each other.

Un-broken

I have a sisterfriend who is working on her PhD in sociology. This blows my mind as I struggle to just get in gear to finish my masters thesis.

She is from a very small very religious conservative town. She has made her escape (her words not mine) and is pursuing her dream of being an educated woman changing the world.

She has suffered trauma at the hands of those who were suppose to love and protect her throughout her life. Family turned on her when she decided to follow her own path.

She is struggling with her history as her classes open up wounds from her history.

She stated she was broken.

I have been in therapy for a loooong time and I have said those same words, but it was pointed out to me that broken people don’t seek change, broken people are in fact broken and continue to stay in that state.

As I struggled with my PTSD I felt overwhelmed and weak, even though I saw myself as broken as I did the work to make LIFE work, I found that I was anything but broken. Life is not without struggle and pain, but as I see myself after accepting what has happened to me and not letting it BE me, I can now see I am most definitely…Un-broken.

And it is so…

I’ve been in this relationship for quite some time.  I have failed at some things repeatedly and been successful in others.  

After the last misstep we were back in counseling working through our own shit individually and together.

At our last joint counseling session, I simply spoke my truth.  My soul was not being fed and I needed something more, something different.  I asked for what I felt I needed. I laid it out in plain words.  

The response I got was one of confusion.  The mister seemed confused that I had grown and changed and the things I needed in my 20s were no longer the things I wanted or needed in my 40s.

I’ve asked for several different things in this marriage and several times my requests have been met with resistance.  

I have tried time and again to give him what he needs, touch,sex, and food.  So he says, he is just that simple.  Cuddle me Fuck me Feed me.  For some time I have struggled to provide him these things at intervals that were acceptable to him.  When we married I was not a cuddler, nor a woman who loved/lived to cook.  Now I loved the sex part, because 20 years ago I was a horny devil!  The Mister says these are the things he needs to feel loved.  It’s not who I am or was but I made an effort.

So now as I work my own stuff out in counseling (we no longer go together) I’ve come to my own reality.  He simply will not give me the things I asked for.  I won’t get those things from him and he is not going to give it even when I ask for it.

I have tried not to be bitter or resentful.  There are people in this world who simply can not or will not step outside their comfort zone.

He will not step outside that zone for me, though I know he has done it for others.  Since he has made his choices, I have to make mine.

I have a good life, I will not surrender it and I will not allow my soul to remain unfed.  I will not allow myself to become a bitter bitch. 

My plan is to live my life and find sustenance for my soul elsewhere. 

Someone once told me it takes 3… I will find my third.

And it is so, some day soon my soul and my heart will be fed and sated.

First Thought

Is it strange that I can remember the last time I felt I was a first thought.  I remember standing in that room fresh out of the shower looking in the mirror.  Starring at your reflection in the mirror as you stared at me.  You had done this, crashing into my world.  Trying to give me what I was unable to have…you…us.  

I remember the weight of your chin on my shoulder as you leaned in from behind me starring at my face in the mirror.  You leaned your head into mine and said “we are going to make a beautiful baby”.  Too many years, too late.

I remember the smell of you fresh from sleep, hot musky from your time on the road.

You came to me as soon as you were able, trading favors and goodwill to get on the road to simply be in my presence.  I knew in those few hours I mattered to you.  I was your first thought.  I ached so badly I couldn’t even give it words, breath, light.

Held close, you said all you ever wanted to do was sleep with me, to watch me unafraid and unguarded as I dreamed, hopefully of you, of us.  Something so simple.  You said it was a gift. A gift. 

Your gift to me?

Your first thought.

Grateful for homework

There are many things I’m grateful for in life. I’ve learned through my struggles in therapy the way you process situations makes a huge difference in how they affect you.

I’ve had little to no sex drive for at least 5 years. It saddens me because once upon a time I was hungry for sex. HUNGRY!

Now when I know it’s time to take care of my home by doing “homework” I feel irritated and some times angry. Then I’m sad because after almost 20 years and 60+ lbs this man still wants me. He still desires all of this GOODT GOODT! Now don’t get me wrong I know my pussy is top notch. I get it poopin!

However my desire and longing is non-existent. Sad. Now I enjoy sex when I’m having even though I’m distracted and usually thinking about how much I should be enjoying this beautiful man.

I’m not a foreplay girl. I prefer a good hard fuck. I like it rough. Back back in the day if I didn’t leave sex with a few bruises my partner didn’t get another chance. I didn’t believe in a 2nd chance to get it right. AND I made no excuses. Simply told the truth and kept it moving. Then I met The Mister. This man got THREE chances but sex wasn’t about bruises as trophies and good memories. Our sex life has
dwindled but we go strong when we go.

He’s never been a rough sex shit talker. I’ve requested it but it’s just not in him when it comes to us. No choking no filthy words.

Even though sex feels like work I am grateful for the homework after all these years. I know it doesn’t happen for everyone.

Officially

It’s officially official

There are people in my life I have had complicated relationships with, up and downs such is life.  For years there has been someone in my life I have continued to do the most for.  I have moved heaven and earth to make things happen in this relationship.  Always trying to go that extra mile, not always succeeding but doing the heavy lifting.

Yesterday something shifted for me.  I was once again on the receiving end of someone who claims to love me doing the least with no explanation and no alternatives.  I immediately went into doing the most…for about 4 seconds.  As I thought of offering fixes that would have me doing more than was necessary I just shook my head.  I didn’t even attempt to “make things work”

I have many issues that are residue from childhood.  I have allowed some people into my life who refused to make even an effort to put me first. For numerous years I have accepted that and continued to try and keep those people in my life.

No more.

I HAVE people in my life who have done the most for ME and I in return have tried to do the same.  I know those people see me as someone who is to be cherished and loved.  They do whatever they can when they can, with no excuses no apologies.

It’s officially official.  I’m done doing the most for those who are worth less than the least.

It feels good.  It feels right.  I am so very thankful for this growth and realization.

 

I (secretly) want to write about…

I have wanted to write a novel for at least the past five years.  I have fleshed out certain parts with great clarity and avoided other parts.  I have tried to decide what it is I’m trying to create.

I want to write about a relationship/marriage that is flawed with longing and infidelity.  The main female character will be “flawed” with longing and unfaithfulness.  The world doesn’t fall apart and the female character isn’t shamed into submission for following her longing and desires.  No scarlet letter anywhere to be found.  Life simply goes on. In my mind there are gritty parts that encompass erotic thoughts, some things that may be vile and disturbing to other.

It’s a work in progress and I’ve written parts in my mind over and over.  Some things change and some things stay the same.