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About this blog

I have found blogging to be useful to me in the past. I get to write what I would write in a journal; anonymous people get to read and comment; everyone is happy.

Entries in this blog

Waiting

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
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Out of sorts

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
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It's time to look up

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
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Like Hell She Is!

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
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Up and Down

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
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Worst Day in a While

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
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Mobility

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
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Getting Going

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.
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Barely Hanging Together

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
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Accused

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
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Busy

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
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Renewal of Effort

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
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Long Weekend

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
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Short Update

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
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Lawyer 2.0

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'
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Out of Myself

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
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Baby Steps

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
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Movement

Well, I talked to my brother on the phone today, and he got mad at me because I'm still so hesitant. He's got a point: everyone's helping me except me, now. So I got up the courage to change the auto-deposit. Now, paying all the bills is my responsibility. And I have to inform her that I did it, and face whatever comes from that. It's progress, though.
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It's a Process

Well, since I last wrote, my other brother (technically, half-brother) has offered to put me up, although he lives maybe an hour and a half away, and my dad has put a sizeable amount of money in the account I opened yesterday. Yeah, I needed a second account: the first one I opened was at the bank my wife and I currently use, so I couldn't get an ATM card without it being visible to her, so ... I shouldn't have opened it at all when I heard that, but the branch is easier to reach on foot. An
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Falter

Well, I opened a checking account on Saturday, but I didn't make any progress Sunday, and I'm a bit more worried. The more I consider the visit to the lawyer, the less I feel we accomplished. She got paid to give us an hour's sales pitch, but carefully refrained from giving any unequivocal advice. Now I'm living off my brother's charity but have no guts to take the next step(s). I have to keep focusing on being positive and telling myself that I'm worth it, that this is just a temporary pause
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Lawyer and Next Steps

Well, my brother drove up to support me and we went to see the lawyer. She was quite old, and although she seemed knowledgeable, she had a tendency to ramble instead of being as focused on the issues as I had expected. And the retainer she asked for was huge! But I did learn that it ought not to be desertion either to change my auto-deposit or to leave, so in that sense, it helped. The plan for now is to set up a bank account and a P.O. box and prepare for the financial separation. I'm leanin
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Movement

Well, my brother wired me money, so I'm full for the first time in a couple of weeks. I have an appointment with a lawyer in the middle of the day tomorrow, which he's also paying for. The hard part is the waiting. I don't know what _I_ can do to move this forward.
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Some Relief

Well, my brother answered an e-mail I wrote him yesterday, asking (begging?) him for help. It has taken a huge load off my mind: he offered to help. In fact, he seems to have taken charge. He's been an ER and operating-room nurse for maybe fifteen years, so he's trained to do that. My only concern is that I might just switch people to rely completely on. It's so much less scary, at least, and I can work on fine-tuning the relationship later. I feel a lot better (though slightly guilty tha
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Consistency

How is it that what seems like a good idea to me right now is so scary to me in the morning? So much that I cower in bed until I can't implement it and just have to go to work another day without doing anything. Well, okay, it's scary now too, but I can at least contemplate that nothing else will change anything. At times I can slow the spinning cycle of fear in my thoughts, but somehow I can't break out of it.
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Uncertainty

I really don't know what's going on. And I guess that's partly my fault, still not taking any sort of control. The missing clothes from Thursday were apparently donated to charity. [Passive voice: rewrite] My wife apparently donated to charity the clothes that she took on Thursday. She wrote me an e-mail saying that she was leaving me the number of shirts and pants that I owned when we got married. I guess she thinks that she's responsible for giving me the rest. Granted, she's the one who
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