Not blogging for this many days is a bit like falling off the wagon. And the reason is similar. Motivation for progress is pretty much gone; I'm just maintaining at the moment. My Dad went to the hospital for dizziness on Friday. After several days, they sent him home without finding anything. Now he's spending a few days in the medical ward at the retirement home he lives in, trying to find out whether he's at risk of falling before he goes back to living alone. I've visited each day from S
Well, I arranged to go see one of my brothers each day, this weekend. That should keep me busy. I'll be seeing my younger brother's two children for the first time; that tells you how long it's been. I have to remember to look up where his new house is, exactly, too. I've never been to my older (half-)brother's house, either. It'll be like a family reunion, one member at a time. Plus, it'll keep me busy and out of my empty apartment.
What am I waiting for, Friday the 13th? Good thing it's tomorrow. My one brother, who was going to bring me some second-hand things for my apartment that he had hanging around, had a little accident this morning. He loaded his pickup, left it running while he went inside, and came back out to find it crashed into a tree at the bottom of the hill. As he said, he was lucky it didn't hit anybody. So, I'm just waiting for my bed to be delivered Saturday, for the bills to come due, for work to lay
Strange day. Not much to do at work; you can see I've been kind of monopolizing the forums instead. It's like I'm waiting for something to happen. The apartment's empty, the commute's longer, there's nothing to do at work except worry that there's nothing to do at work, but I have to stay late to make up for taking off on Monday so I could get into the apartment ... One of my brothers is going to bring some stuff over while I'm at work tomorrow, so maybe I'll have actual dishes. And my bed g
Metaphorically, I've spent a lot of time lately with my eyes on the ground right in front of my feet, dodging and weaving around the pitfalls, one step at a time. I'll have to do that for a little while longer, but I'm frankly getting tired of it. What I'm looking forward to is the time when I can lift my head and look into the middle distance to see, rather than daily ups and downs, the more even progress of the larger path that I'm on. Only on that scale can I see whether it's going up or go
"....the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." FDR says this about fear in his inaugural address. He also says that fear is "nameless, unreasoning, and unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
Much of today has been spent -- (or rather, in active voice) I have spent much of today feeling down again, not just dreaming of chucking it all and running away but pretty much believing that that was the only way things would work out. Yesterday, the hearing about the protective order ended without resolution, and mostly because I gave in to something she requested. The short story is that the preliminary order is "continued" for another couple of weeks while we file for divorce, so that she
It just goes to show how changeable I am lately that yesterday's bad time passed fairly readily, and all it took was time. I drove back to the hotel from work, stopping for dinner, and read myself to sleep. Tomorrow is the hearing on the protective order, so I won't be at work, and therefore won't be on here, either. If I'm lucky, by Friday, the order will be lifted, I will have used the opportunity to get (most of) my things out of the house, and I may even decide on an apartment in the after
Harville Hendrix, an author of several books including "Getting the Love You Want" has an exercise to define what you need/want in a relationship. When I first started the exercise some things came easy, and some things did not. My first attempt was several months ago. Since, "My Relationship Vision" actually became a "vision." I didn't think to actually put it to paper until last week while driving and the visual images moved, and actually moved through my mind with a certain movement and feel.
Well, my wife has still been calling my work supervisor, trying to convince him that I am a danger to my co-workers or somebody. Luckily, he's enough of a friend and I've kept him up to date on my situation. But that, and work-related depression have been getting me down, today. For the first time in months, I've been fantasizing running away, google-mapping places like the Grand Canyon, Key West, and the Bahamas, to go to. Sounds great, huh? Except, what would I do afterwards? Those escape
Well, I bought a car on Saturday. It's almost too easy, these days: no money down, just a couple of hours and it's yours. Weird feeling. And now, I can get around on my own without having to walk, and I even have a safe place to store stuff! Now all I need is stuff ... I started apartment-shopping, too. There are so many choices, with such small differences. And they're all over-shadowed by the what-if of the possible layoffs, not to mention the tight budget with two households. Too bad, I
How hard it is to stay with One Day At A Time. But it works. I need to think about what's the next step, what am I going to do at the next decision point, not what will the world look like after all the decisions are done. No one knows. And I'm safe for the moment, and I have help. Let's see how much I can get done this weekend.
We packed and packed for days on end, sorting out what we had room to keep and what things must be thrown out. Some things with sentimental value had to be thrown away or given away. Emotionally painful. We pushed all day through 36 years worth of stuff beginning at 6:30 am and stopping at 4:00 pm--I wasn't up to the pace. After 3 days of this insanity, I started to cave and have dark thoughts. The guilt of even having these thoughts again slammed me even more because I finally had reached s
Well, originally I had planned to rent a car and drive to a motel which is some distance away, but cheaper. I made reservations for both. Then, after work, the car rental company picked me up and took me to their office. Unfortunately, after a long and complicated story, it turned out that I could not rent the car, after all. So they dropped me back at work. Luckily, I found a co-worker who gave me a ride to the motel. I didn't sleep very well, and then had to take an expensive taxi to wor
Well, I'm not sure whether this is really a mental health post, or more of personal current events. Also, instead of being the victim of abuse, I'm the accused, and I believe, falsely accused. So either I'm in massive denial, or it's really someone else's problem. Anyway, I was awakened this morning at 5:30 am by three police officers, serving me with a protective order requested by my wife. Basically, she petitioned the court that I was a threat to her, and they granted her a preliminary ord
For some reason, work has decided to keep me busy the past few days. Then, my wife has sent me several e-mails, each one basically asking "well, are you going to pay this other bill that I just thought of?" And the lawyer sent me a 20-page draft settlement agreement to review. And I need to do some more job searching. So, of course, I decided to take on moderating duties here, at the same time. ;-) Well, I knocked out the work, and read the settlement agreement (two drafts so far, and I found t
This week, I have sort of been taking it easy, telling myself that I was giving my wife an opportunity to negotiate some kind of financial settlement with me, despite her having already told me she doesn't think we'll agree without lawyers mediating. And despite the continuing threat of layoff, not doing much in the way of job searching, either. Well, I gave myself today as a deadline, and wrote to the lawyer, instructing her to start drafting the formal initial offer. Tomorrow, I'm going to t
is the decision I make from the last entry. Ever been bitten by a pissed off and frightened cat?! I cried it hurt so damn bad! If you ever are, which I so hope you never are....but if you are.....scrub with a stiff nail brush with antibacterial soap until it bleeds. That's after you have regained some composure from the bite. Afterwards...make a paste out of epsom salt. Soak bandage with wet paste of epsom salt. Place on bite, and wrap up with saran wrap and stretch tape guaze. Leave on all nigh
Well, I didn't do much this weekend. I did get to the library Saturday, and had lunch and a visit with my Dad on Sunday. Didn't do much on finances or job searching, really. I still have trouble identifying a point to doing things. It's like I've given away my life, and now all I have is time. Wow, that sounds worse than it feels. Or maybe I (the part of me that's writing) don't feel things very well. The best thing I can think of to do is to keep pushing myself to do more. Maybe graduall
Well, my brother advised me to make job searching a priority. I'd been trying to deal with divorce stuff exclusively, but that's not realistic, the way things are going. I wasn't able to put my half of the mortgage into the joint account in time, so I'll have to do some running around tomorrow to take care of that immediate concern. And my wife would rather negotiate who's going to leave than who's going to pay. I can't see how that will work. Still, there was an interesting article here today
Well, the second lawyer I tried was much more approachable. With my dad's financial help, I retained her. I also got to spend the rest of the day with my dad, with whom I've spent very little time since getting married. He was very supportive, and helped rid me of a lot of my money worries. Not all of them, though: according to the lawyer, I may be on the hook for spousal support of more than half my take-home pay, which along with the mortgage, would probably prohibit me from moving out. I'
I find I have to keep focusing on getting out of myself. It's especially difficult on weekends. I tend to hide in bed and read and doze. I talk myself into believing there's no point in doing more. That there isn't anything I can do that's more ... what, entertaining, fun, valuable? ... than that. Thankfully, my brother called me both Saturday and Sunday, both beautiful days, and talked me into going out on Sunday. Even though I was still alone, and had to walk everywhere, it was much better
Well, I have an appointment to see a lawyer on Tuesday. Yet another tiny step forward. My wife replied to the e-mail telling her that I had changed the auto-deposit. So far, the exchanges haven't really been negotiations, but in some ways, something's better than nothing. My brother suggested that I might be able to borrow my Dad's car instead of getting one of my own, which I will have to explore. At least it would allow me to postpone the big step of buying a car. So, now I have another wee
