I am living

I am living on paracetamol
and pain. They're my
constant companions.
Each time I think about the lies
and betrayal,
it hurts so much.


A pain that sits beside
my heart, behind my
chest bone. Inside me.
I find the lies the worst
making it all my fault,
justifying what they have
done.
I cry at thoughts of them,
I cry with temper and
anger at thoughts of her.
I cry when I talk about them
I don't want to talk about them
anymore.
I don't want to talk,
I don't want to think,
I don't want to cry,
I don't want to anymore.

Dix

BR - Bluebeard by Angela Carter

This is a Penguin Mini Modern Classic. An interesting read but not as good as I hoped it would be. It kinda stated the obvious about old classic fairy tales and didn't do anything new. We did an exercise at Uni about rewriting or writing a fairy tale and I was hoping these would be more like this in creating new ideas around old stories.

Anyway quick to read and a bit of fun although I felt it was kinda judgemental and sarcastic (if that is possible) and superior in away that took away the fun and even interestingness of it.

I must admit I have never really liked moral tales that much and this points out the morals and the alternative morals and that just irritated me.

Dix

BR - A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French

Over the last couple of weeks I have read loads of books (well quite a few) but not blogged my reviews yet so here is one.

I read this book initially whilst I was away with boy and then finished it at home. I did enjoy it but have to say with the change in my life circumstances it didn't seem so good.

I think it is well written and enjoyable. The characters really stand out and parts of it made me laugh. The main female character ended up getting on my nerves though. Maybe she reminded me too much of me. I don't know. But anyway I would recommend this to someone as a summer read - I really would and I think Dawn French can really write (if she did write this of course but I suspect she did). I enjoyed the differences in the characters language and style and found this an interesting way of writing.

I will probably give this to my friend to read (and her daughter maybe) as it was fun if nothing else.

Dix

Strength and Weakness

At the moment I am on this roller coaster ride of pain. One minute I feel strong, I feel like I can do this, that somehow I can make it in the future and everything will be OK. The next I am afraid and weak. I want to see him. I want him to come around and tell me everything is going to be OK because that is what has happened in my life for the last 30 years. I am especially weak when I know he has to visit or I know he is seeing my daughter.

On the good days I feel strong - I feel like I can face everything that is to be thrown at me and in the future I will find happiness and kindness and love.

On the bad days I feel weak and ugly and think that I deserve this, that I was a bad wife, that I am a bad person and that I just can't manage without him. That if I just really promise the earth, if I just tell him how afraid and ugly and bad I am and that it was all my fault he will come back and I will be OK.

The truth is I don't really want him back. I really don't. Sometimes enough is enough. He has hurt me so much. If he had just gone off with some stranger it would have been more bearable but he left with one of my friends. Someone who I had been friends with for a long time. Neither of them give an absolute stuff about me and my feelings. They are selfish and nasty. Neither of them care what they have done to my family.

I know I can't go back because if I did I would not survive. I would lose myself completely. But I also know I hate that he is happy, I hate that they have done this to me, I want them to feel just a bit of the pain that I feel. I want to know that my future is going to be OK and that one day I will find happiness and feel loved in some way. I just want to feel good about myself.

I have already lost a stone in weight and hope this trend will continue. I know that being slimmer will help my confidence and help me feel better about myself. But I also know that my strength needs to come from a much deeper place than this. I know that in order for me to have the future that I need I will have to learn to love myself much more, I will have to be strong and confident and just give it all a go. I will have to take the bad (and I am sure there is going to be lots of bad) and move over it. Get through it.

At the moment I have good friends and my children have just been amazing. I know I can't go on leaning on them as I have but am grateful of the help at the moment.

The truth is it has only been 2 weeks and I shouldn't beat myself up for having these moments of weakness. I should except them and move on. I should not think I am a bad person for sending him a silly text saying I don't know if I can go on alone. Sometimes I will be weak but these moments will get further apart and each day will not start the with the same pain of loneliness and unhappiness. Somewhere alone the line I will find a way for me to survive without the constant pain.

So today I need to except I am only human, that I will make mistakes, that they have really hurt me and that sometimes this will show and that is OK. Some days will be bad and others will be better because I am only human. I really don't deserve what has happened to me and I must stop thinking that I do. Nobody deserves this. I have to give myself the compassion that I would give someone else.

I know some of this is easier said than done but I am gonna try.

Diana

Bad Day

Yesterday I had a bad day. A really bad day. I couldn't stop crying. I was mowing the lawn sobbing. When I spoke to anyone I was crying . I was crying in public. Yesterday I felt so much pain and so much doubts.

Yesterday I felt useless and ugly and hopeless. Yesterday I missed him so bad. I felt that I just couldn't go on without him. That somehow I had to speak to him and make him understand how much pain I am suffering, how much doubt I feel. How so totally alone I am.

The future opened up in front of me like a great big hole that I can only fall into, that I can't control and that will only involve pain and suffering. Yesterday I grieved for 30 years of marriage and a relationship that if not very good was a least something. Yesterday I was a bad 'mum' to Boy and a bad mum to my daughters. Yesterday I was a pretty hopeless person.

I didn't contact him because I knew it would just make me feel worse - not better. I just kept going got through it. I got through yesterday and just hope there are not too many days that bad because I don't know how if I can cope with them. I don't know.

Today I am not going to do this. It will be hard and I will have to use all my strength but today will be better. It has to be. I have to be better for boy and my lovely daughters. I have to be better for me.

So I will breathe, I will tell my mind to stop, I will try to believe in me and hope there really is a future out there for me. I will just go through the next few hours believing in these things. I will start trying to love myself, something I haven't done for a long, long, time.

I hope I have the strength.

Dix

Keeping busy but...

There were times yesterday when I didn't hurt so bad. I kept busy, really, really, busy. I chopped wood and gardened and the front of the house looks a bit better. A long way to go but at least I now know it is do-able.

I was knackered. Actually sat in the chair and fell asleep. Another good thing really as I haven't slept like that for over a week and it felt OK to sleep because I was tired. But the trouble is as soon as I stop, as soon as I have a moment all the terrible thoughts just come back and I am eaten up by the pain and the anger.

I don't want to be but I can't stop my mind. I woke up the morning after a pretty good nights sleep and realise I was dreaming about her, about telling her what I thought, about telling her just how much pain she had inflicted on me. And it was awful. I don't want this to happen but it happens anyway.

Then I get up and I feel the physical pain inside. It is like grief and I guess I am suffering grief. A pain of loss. Yesterday I thought about the feelings I have for him. Guess I do still love him (or maybe it is just care for him a little bit). But we had 30 years together and even though he doesn't thinks so - most of the time it was good. We were friends, he was my support. We had good loving sex and were together. Now I don't have that anymore. He told me it is over and that is that but I just can't get to that point yet. I will I know I will but for me it is going to take a lot longer that just a week.

I realise that I shouldn't beat myself up about this. 30 years to a week - nothing. I realise it is OK to be frightened, even though things were bad he was still about, I still depended on him for a lot. These are the things I have to get used to. I can't ask him about cooking, I can't ask him to help with Boy, I can't talk to him about my beautiful girls. These things I can't do anymore. Yesterday I nearly texted him about where something was. I didn't. I get it - I can't anymore. And all day in my head I kept thinking about reasons to text him. I didn't. Instead I asked myself why I wanted to do this. And I guess the answer is above.

In my mind I know things will eventually get better for me (even though I suspect they will get worse first before they get better). In my mind I know that learning to be strong and independent will be a really good thing for me. In my mind I hope that one day I can find someone new and be loved again. Even if it is not a permanent thing. In my mind I hope I can bring up Boy on my own and do a good job. But at the moment my mind is also racing full of all the pain and suffering and the hurt. So there is a lot of competition in there.

And that competition is not always such a good thing.

Dix

I was doing OK

I was doing ok. I was trying to be strong and making it happen. I was starting to feel good about myself which is something I haven't felt for along, long time. I felt strong (ish) and that I could cope with the day to day and make plans for the future. Even if they don't work out it felt like a framework, something to make me feel safe ish.

Then I saw him again - my ex husband, that is what I am calling him just because I don't know what to call him. I can't talk about us or we anymore either. He took out boy and they had a good time and he was kind (something he hadn't been for a long time).

But I came home to him being here and I just felt all the pain and all the hurt and all the anger. And I saw his body language and I saw him ignore me and look at me in that way. I have been thrown away by him like a piece of rubbish and it is awful.

So even though I tried really hard I went into that nasty person. The nasty person who just needs to tell how much I hate her - she was my friend and has totally stabbed my in the back and I call her names and he told me not to because they are together. I get that they are together. I get that it is over. In some ways I am so glad that he has gone - that just maybe I can find out who I am and be better and stronger and believe in myself. But he doesn't get the absolute pain that has been inflicted. In his mind it has been a week (yeah a whole week) and I should just move on and forget it. Be done with it. We have been married 30 years but in one week it is over. Done. We had been friends for 26 years but I should forget, I shouldn't feel any pain, I shouldn't feel betrayed because that is just me being unreasonable, that is just me being horrible and nagging.

And just for a moment there I fell for it. I felt bad for being who I was, I felt bad for feeling what I feel. I cried and swore and felt right back to point one - alone, useless, ugly, unloved and unlovable.

You know what - fuck him and fuck her. It is not me and what I feel is not unreasonable. Just because he has moved on in one week maybe I go a bit deeper than that. Maybe I need time to readjust, find a way through, work it all out. I have a right to be hurt, to be angry, to feel this terrible pain and to show it. I have that right - he doesn't have the right to make me feel it is my fault for feeling like that.

But I have to keep moving forward - I have to come out of this stronger, confident and alive. I have to - for myself and for boy.

I rang him after he left - I don't want to see him for a while - I need the space to not feel that pain all the time. I may always feel like it - who knows but I don't want to come out of this bitter and angry all the time. I know I have to deal with the loneliness but I don't have to make myself all chewed up inside. I don't have to put up with him making me feel like that.

I need closure with her - I need to write a letter to tell her how I feel - I need that and I don't give a stuff about what it does to her. Somehow I have to find a way to get that letter to her because I need it for me.

I am not sure if I can get through this - I am not sure if I can survive - I know I have so much more to content with and that each day will be harder but I have to try. I just have to do what is right for me and what will make me strong.

Of course, not seeing him is exactly what he wants - out of sight out of mind but really I have to put that aside and forget it. I have to be strong for me and my boy. I just have to.