When I Look Back

Some days are really bad days... even still after almost two years. I often sit and wonder why Sir Arsewipe hurt me.... I'm not miserable every day but it just comes up out of nowhere to bight me and throw me into the depths of despair. Most of the times it is when I get really overwhelmed with everything that I have to do.. especially when it comes to caring for my parents. I caught mom yesterday filling the washing machine with a water jug and she was using bought drinking water. Dad is a constant concern with his constant demands to help him... sometimes I just can't take it and I sit in my room feeling sorry for myself. I tell myself that that is ok because I am only human and I do have a horrific amount of pressure on me. I mean the pressure that I have would sink some people but I really just keep ticking along until I have one of those days when I feel overwhelmed and then I wish that I had a soul mate... a help mate... someone who gives a damn. Most of the time I hate Sir Arsewipe with a loathing that you cannot imagine but every so often I just wish the man I married had been everything for which I had given him credit. Some people are just weak though and he is one of them. Cowardly and weak.... sad and pathetic too. I deserved better... I didn't get it. sometimes I just need a slap up the side of the head to remind me that everyone has bad days... including me and that's forgivable. Sometimes I look back and it makes me cry... and when I have shed enough tears and blown my nose till it is quite red I get up off the floor and wash my face and put on some make up and forgive myself my moment of weakness and then I put the hate back where it needs to be and I keep going.

One Year Down The Road

One year down the road. One year since that fateful morning when I rolled over in bed to see his cell phone lying on the pillow next to me, one year since I discovered that the man I had married twenty years before, the man I have loved, honoured, and cherished, was a lying cheating jackass.

It's been an eventful year since I discovered that Sir Arsewipe wanted a divorce.

The move came to pass and one year down the road I find I am a country away from all that came to pass. I look back on the last year and so much has changed... yet so much hasn't. I find one year down the road I am still in love with the man I married. I am still mourning the loss of the love of my life.  I still miss him. But I also realize that Michael is not the man I fell in love with. The man I loved never existed. The man I fell in love with was a figment of my imagination... always was, always will be. I am a country away... but it still is not far enough... I have stopped running because there is no place on the face of this earth that will get me far enough away. There is no place to which I can run. I have run and now it is time to stop.

So what has happened in this last year?

I left HH on the 9th of September for Newfoundland to make my way in the world without the person who had been my anchor. Set adrift like a hot air balloon drifting with the wind I have come to a halt on these shores... but the thing that holds me here is not roots nor even a solid anchor... it is a place, for now. That's not to say that I am looking to move on... no, for now it is good enough but that's not to say that I won't move on either.... it just means that I am rolling with life. Who knows what the future holds... I may stay... I may not.

I have come through some very dark times this past year. To be quite honest I have been introduced to the very depths of hell and one is never sure if one will return there or not. I hope not but one should never say never. I don't want to see hell again... I hope I never see hell again.... but you never know in this world.

It all started as the train pulled away from the station in Edmonton. I watched from my berth as the man I had loved came closer and closer on the platform and as I got closer and closer I realized that he saw me in the window and I began to cry. Hot silent tears welled in my eyes as we drew nearer to each other. I just stared unable to tear my eyes away.  Then, as the car I was in was slowly passing by, he held up his hand in a silent wave to me.  My hand went up to the window and there it stayed in a half wave as if to reach out and hold on. He doubled over in agony.... and then disappeared from sight, as the train slowly rolled past him.

I was on my own for the first time in many years and so was he. That was the last time I saw the Michael I fell in love with... he is gone.... fully and completely. He is no more. Nor will I see him again.   I am sure he walked away from the platform in distress perhaps because he felt bad about me but mostly I think because he was losing the girls... but I know he drove through the night and by midmorning the next day he was back in HH and on his way to the arms of the other woman... the one that now claims his loyalty.

The trip across Canada was trying... the reality of my parents problems hit home like a thunder clap. They are not well... it is a miracle we all got here safely. But we did. There were many trials along the way. Horrific conditions on the railway... obnoxious workers in Montreal... arduous work in Halifax securing a car and trailer. Long days and dark nights as we drove from Nova Scotia to the ferry. A horrible night in Portes aux Basques. And a disheartening welcome when we opened the door to our new home. The stink of smoke and the filth was enough to knock you backwards... but we persevered and we have begun to make this house more home-like.

And here we are one year later...

There have been bad times and there have been good times.  But I knew when I left HH that I was running on adrenaline and that once the adrenaline rush was over I would hit a wall.... and I did. Boy did I hit the wall hard.

October month was a month of getting all the paper-work and medical/driver's licence cards finalized. It was a month of settling my mom and dad into their new home while trying to get the girls settled into their new school. It was difficult but still busy.

Then November came and I crashed. I remember walking the dogs at night and I would sit under the stars of the ink black night at my favourite sitting place which is further out on the end of the point of land I live on. I remember night after night just sitting and crying quietly as the stars shone down their light on me. I remember wondering what in the world I was doing, going to do... what the future held for me.... I was terrified. Money was part of the issue but loneliness was the bigger issue. I felt resentful that I would have to be the soul care giver to my parents and I found single parenting daunting... the whole thing worried me. But like anything it all comes together and much takes care of itself.

When we left HH what I wasn't expecting was the uninvolvement of Sir A in the girls lives... that has been the biggest shock. He is not a parent except only in as much as it is convenient for him and he can throw money at it. His telephone calls at first were fairly frequent but then quickly began to dwindle. They grew shorter and shorter and by Christmas there were times when two weeks would go by with barely a text.  He does not seem to want to be involved in their day to day lives... that has become apparent. He sends them gifts for special occasions but doesn't seem to care what is happening to them. I see his phone calls becoming shorter and shorter and when he has finished I ask the girls what their father had to say and they tell me that there wasn't much time to talk. Usually he cuts the conversation short because he has to go somewhere or his phone is going dead... once he used walking the dog as an excuse. Conversations seem superficial talking about the weather etc... He wanted to visit them at Christmas time so that was good but then plans for summer at first were defined by his working for the JCRs. The girls have begun to realize that he is emotionally unavailable to them. At one point during the year he accused me of poisoning the girls against him... I was horrified because I have done anything but poison them against him... he's done a mighty fine job of that all by himself. What has been the biggest shock is that everyone, mom and dad and even Leah and Shellsea, have let go of him long ago... it's me... stupid me who is having the most trouble letting go of him. The girls think of him very little and have very little respect for him... (the have begun to call him as the F**ktard and Douchy McDouche and his whore is Shortanddoughy). I think it is me who has the most respect for him and that is because I still have a hard time equating the man I thought I had married with the one who is real. It has been very difficult.

December came and by then we were beginning to see the way of things. Bitter remarks were made regularly by the girls and I was watchful of this because I did not want them to become hardened by it. I have even gone so far as to try to subtly warn him that the girls opinion of him was changing but I can't come right out and speak to him because he gets defensive and starts to accuse me of over reacting.

All fall I sunk deeper and deeper into despair not only because of what I was seeing happening to the girls and their father but because I was finally coming to grips with how little I meant to him. We hardly talked anymore. When we did he was usually mean and impatient and belittling. I also was beginning to see the reality of my loneliness and how difficult it will be to make a life for myself on my own. As we drew closer to Christmas the whirl that is Christmas the dark pit of crying was pushed back for a while.... but I was still standing on a precipice. Michael came back to Nfld for Christmas. He arrived on Christmas Eve night  and I knew the next few weeks would be painful. Christmas eve and day were not too bad... better than expected actually.  But then the day came when I had to meet Michael at Gambo intersection with the girls so that they could spend the next week with their father. He was there waiting for them when we got there and I saw him get out of the car. He was wearing a hoodie that I had given him and one of those skull toques that rappers often wear.... he looked like an old man trying to turn back the clock and all I could think was "pathetic". I did not get out of the car but instead said my good-byes to the girls inside and allowed them to take the stuff out of the back with their father's help. I saw them heading off toward the car he was driving, so I got out of there fast and headed for home. All the time I was stiff... stiff outside, stiff inside.

I never sunk as low as I did that next week. Each day was a pointless effort to get up and try to find a reason for doing so. I tried to spin.... I tried to draw... I tried to write poetry. None of it worked. I really had no reason to get going each day and so I finally went to the drugstore and bought a $50 iTunes card and started watching movies. I watched movie after movie after movie. That's all I did.... I didn't even eat a lot. I hardly went downstairs as I lay on my bed watching movies on my computer. Anything to take my mind off my troubles... some people drink... some people take drugs... some people become workaholics.... I watched movies. I knew I was in a bad frame of mind.... I knew I needed help. I tried finding self-help stuff that would help me get through... some of it helped but not much. All the while I was dwelling on those words "I never loved her... I married her out of obligation" that he had written to Rosie SG. I would cry for hours on end.... and I was so dehydrated that I wondered how the hell my skin didn't just turn into a bunch of scabs.

Those cutting words still haunt me... not a day goes by that I don't shed a few tears over them.

There came a night during that week when I hit such a low... no one can ever know how low you can fall emotionally... mentally.... I felt unloved, abandoned, unworthy, useless, all the reasons Michael had given me for not loving me anymore reverberated in my head like a bell tolling a death. Late one night about 3 a.m. I sat up in bed.... I sat up, turned on my computer and wrote a letter. If truth be told it was a suicide note. I wrote it to Michael. I wrote it to him because I knew that when I was gone he would have the girls. I knew that as soon as I was finished with myself... someone would find it and would give it to him and he would read it sooner or later. It was only one page but it said all I needed it to say. After I finished it I cried and cried and cried and then I started searching online for ways to kill myself successfully. Morning finally came and Narmin wanted to go out. Thank God for Narmin. He was what saved me that night.

I have dabbled in hell a few times since that night. I really think I saw the flames of hell licking at my heals... and they have been close half a dozen times as the winter progressed. But I hung on. I hung on because of Leah and Shellsea... because of Narmin... because of my parents... because of true friends like Carol Densmore, and Linde Gillert, Rene Giesbrecht, and Char Stark,... and the best non-sister-in-law a person could ever have.... I held on because I didn't want to die... but I just felt that there was no point... and I couldn't see past my nose and I felt I had no other option.

The funny thing is that it was my crazy sense of humour that got me off the edge.  Back at the end of March, I was looking for a website that could confer information about killing yourself quietly and successfully when I happened on a website that I can no longer find. I can't even remember the name of the website. I have to say here before I continue that sometimes I think that there are higher powers that are directing us and watching out over us and then there are times when I think that it is complete hogwash and that we are completely alone in this universe with nothing to direct us at all but ourselves. Whatever the case I found myself on that website and a good damn thing too. Maybe it was the noir side of my sense of humour... I don't know but that website changed everything for me. I don't know why I found that website... whether it was coincidence or if it was a higher power... it doesn't matter. What matters is that it saved my life.

I had decided previously that the best method to do away with myself was to asphyxiate in the car. I would take some sleeping pills turn on the car and just go to sleep..... so I wanted to know some details like should I tape the windows and vents so that there was no air coming in... (well... all I can say is you have to be practical). I knew I would wait until the girls had graduated.... so I had time to plan... I mean if I was going to off myself then I needed to make sure that they were in good shape... which meant insurance... and a will, and finalizing the divorce so Sir A couldn't get his shitty hands on the money I have managed to get from our estate, etc.... The girls, you have to realize, were priority one. They still are but I'll get to that in a minute. Mom and Dad, I believed, could fend for themselves for the most part with pensions and so they didn't really come into my plan at all. (I know that sound unfeeling... but there is my sister and I have since then rethought that whole thing... and you don't really think straight when you are suicidal.)

Anyway I was looking on this website for best suggestions for a successful suicide and there they were talking about things like buying a two inch hose... the best kind is black PVC pipe apparently... and connecting it to your exhaust and feeding it in through the window, but the problem is that with low emission standards in North America that lots of people who try this method are unsuccessful. Then they suggested that you take an ordinary black garbage bag and put it over your head with duct tape around the neck.... I could see me having a claustrophobic attack inside the bag and dying really badly.... I think it was the whole actual indignity of actually putting a garbage bag over your head and using that very mundane thing called duct tape to do such a horrific thing to yourself and then an image of Red Green came to mind (I think it was the reference to duct tape) and I started to laugh.... sick... I know... but I laughed so hard.... I laughed and laughed and kept laughing and then I thought.... there really is no dignity in death... and like that I was me again... I wasn't standing on the precipice of hell anymore... It was all so macabre. Nope, I was ok and I would be no matter what. 'Cause you know what... I'm a survivor.  I picked myself up and dusted myself off and I've been going ever since.

The nice thing is that I am beginning to enjoy life again. Simple things give me the greatest pleasure. Sunsets, the sparkle of the sun on the water, the wheeling around of the gulls, the feel of the sun on my skin and the feel of the wind in my hair. The feel of Narmin's little body cuddled into my back at night. The laughter of the girls when they are joking around with each other. I am once again engaged in the world around me.... weirdly enough, I lost my blog at that time... (that's the Becoming Claire Now one) and I debated restarting again. But then that's when I decided on the new one.... it makes you wonder if things don't happen for a reason. The best thing to come of my descent into hell is... he's not worth it.... he lost me. It took a while but I'm not available to him anymore.... and never will be.

I did have one more bad time and that was when I went to visit his family in Nicholsville. There were so many memories and regrets to ponder. It was a very difficult weekend. Somehow I feel such a disconnect with all that that place used to mean to me. The hill where he proposed to me and gave me the ring was hard to see. The Goose arm road where we hiked is as fresh to me now as it was then when we hiked it together. All the memories he instilled in me are still there... it was difficult. Very difficult. But I got through and maybe next time I visit, won't be as bad.

Recently the girls and I have been talking. We have discussed their dad at length.... they will be leaving to go and see him in July... as I said, he at one point was putting the JCR camp ahead of everything and wanted them to come at the end of July instead of when they got out of school. This would have meant that they would have had very little time with him at all... he knew that but the JCR thing was more important.... then suddenly there was a change and I found out that the JCR summer camp has been changed in time this year and he won't be attending it. I realized right away that the change in his heart for the time to see the girls was only due to the fact that his schedule had changed and that the girls are not his priority but that the JCR camp thing was and when he no longer had that opportunity it was back to his next best option.... which was the girls. They have never been his priority... he is his priority. I never said a thing about it... I think he has to make his own way in the world now and I am not going to teach him how to be a father... he's had 17 years to figure that out. But the girls see it.... they know that they were second to the JCRs and Rangers and everything else in his life.... Leah told me recently that Opa has been more of a father than Michael ever was. She talks with her grandfather a lot and sometimes I walk downstairs into the living room and hear them talking about philosophy and politics and Leah's future and so on and I think,... yup, my dad is pretty awesome... I am glad they have someone to be a dad to them... Dad even gives them a weekly allowance which is more than Michael does. Michael spends his money on himself... and his girlfriend. The girls see that too. So this summer they are going to BC not so much to see their dad... they are going to BC to see their friends. They don't talk to him, they talk at him.... on the phone even when he is there in person... they just talk at him or they don't talk at all. They all have let go of him... mom and dad, and the girls. My dark times are over but I still have a hard time equating Michael with this jackass that he has become and sometimes it depresses the hell out of me. When it does that's when I repeat... he's dead to me... he's dead to me. And if I treat it like I am in mourning then I can carry on.

What's left? I can tell you.... the divorce is being finalized... the lawyer's have it in hand and it will be done soon. It really is just the final stamp of something so complete already. We are divorced in our hearts and I don't know where he stands a year down the road... if he has any regrets. I don't care. It doesn't matter now.  Sometimes I think of him on the platform of the railway station.... it always makes me sad. By July 1st we will be able to file our divorce with or without the adultery forms signed... I couldn't care less. Had the separation gone through earlier in the year I would have sought the adultery thing so that we could complete our divorce but it will go through and in the end the adultery thing is just a byproduct... it matters that he committed adultery but it matters worse that he never loved me... I can tell you those words have haunted me like nothing else ever has... and they always will. They hurt.... a deep down hurt."I never loved her... I married her out of obligation". He broke my heart by cheating on me but he cut off my legs when he said those words. They have taught me that no man can be trusted and no man ever will be trusted. I am well and truly single in my mind. Letting go... more and more all the time.

I still go and sit on my rock at the house at the end of the road and look at the stars but now I don't dwell on things... now I see the stars and I am so glad that I really see them... they are beautiful. Life is beautiful and it is a shame to throw it away. I think of the future sometimes and it doesn't scare me as much... I don't know what the future holds but at least I am not as afraid as I was.

What I know:
1. Michael never loved me:
          a. he only after a few months into our relationship left me one evening after a very romantic afternoon of sex and cuddling to go to a dance... you don't walk away from a warm and welcoming woman unless you are stupid or not in love... that was my first hint not to marry him.
          b. he kept seeing an old girlfriend even after we were engaged. That was my second hint not to marry him.
          c. only six months after we were married I discovered he had been lying to me about money he said that he had but he "was too afraid to tell me the truth about the fact that he had already used it" instead of keeping it to use on his student loan as he had told me he would. When you are afraid to tell your wife that you used your own money... well I should have divorced him then... That kind of told me too he was a coward.

Every time stuff like that happened, I forgave him and gave him the benefit of the doubt because I really thought there was a great guy underneath... just a bit foolhardy though... the lie about the money really hurt mostly because "he was afraid to tell me". Leah told me once... Mom you are a good person... good people always expect good from other people and they always see the best in other people. They say that you reflect back what you are in the world... I should see good in that case... I thought I saw good.... I believed I saw good... because I am good.

The three things above were my hints that I should never have married him, but the truth couldn't help but hit me in the face... and this one is the one that most haunts me...
         d. when he told his online and telephone whore Rosie Seidel-Grazuities that he never loved me... well you can't get more blatant than that.... I was a damn fool... an enabler... it never occurred to me in all my twenty years with him, that I might be wrong about him.

I also know this:

2. Michael has a sexual fetish for things sick and out of control...
        a. he came home a few years before we separated with some really sick porn with a woman gagging in the video from giving... well it was disgusting I'll just say that.  It turned him on but just grossed me out... I had him throw it out. (I think he resented me for that.)
        b. he wrote pornagraphic stuff to Rosie (in the hardest language possible) on a regular basis even initiating it. I showed it to a friend and she said it was like the worst hard core porn she had ever read.
        c. he chased Samantha in ways that were perverted initiating sexual things with her knowing he had a wife and children and that she was vulnerable from her own divorce.
        d. there have been things intimated and unprovable that he has had extramarital sexual encounters all through our relationship.
        e. he cheated on Samantha since the sexual encounters with Rosie according to the dates of his FB messages, were ongoing during his courtship with Samantha.... forget the fact that he was still having sex with me... and I'm willing to bet that he was telling her that he wasn't getting any at home.

In addition, I also know this:

3. Michael is a coward:
       a. he was too afraid to tell me that he didn't love me right from the beginning. (as said above.)
       b. he was too afraid to tell me he had lied about the money issue when we first got married.
       c. he was too scared of initiating my anger and scared of emotional or deep conversations so he didn't tell me when things were making him unhappy all through our relationship.
       d. he was too afraid to tell his mother for over a week we were splitting up.
       e. he was too afraid to make a decision to stay with me and the girls when I asked for a reconciliation... he had to ask his mistress.
       f. he couldn't come out and say that his decision was to split with me when I asked for a reconciliation... he just kept beating around the bush and wouldn't come out with it.

I have discovered since leaving him this:

4. Michael is proving to be a terrible father:
      a. the girls have told me about how very hard it has always been to go to their father with anything that concerned them and they have not felt they could talk to him.
      b. he has gone weeks without conversing with them by phone or email since they have lived with me here in Nfld. and even when I hinted to him that he should pay a little more attention to them he has ignored me.
      c. he put the JCRs first over the girls when it came to planning their trip until the dates got changed.

All of the above saddens me but it has taken me this whole year to come to grips with the reality that is Michael. I cannot change the past and on bad days I curse that I ever met him... his happy go lucky attitude was what attracted me to him... but in the end it was the same lack of seriousness that was our downfall. His sense of humour will always be what is his biggest attraction but it will also always be his biggest fault.... not a serious bone in his body and sometimes there needs to be a sense of decorum and a sense and seriousness. Marriage is serious... it is hard work... no one goes through it without temptations and choices.... Michael was tempted and to be truthful I have had my temptations over the years too.... but it is whether or not we choose to act on those temptations that will bring down a family. It is what we do and not what we think that hurts people and crushes them. Michael chose wrongly... maybe he regrets.. more than likely not... if he doesn't maybe he will... I don't know.... but again it doesn't matter because in the end here we are and this is what we have left to live with. His actions and thoughtlessness has brought a woman who did not deserve it to the brink of hell. And no matter what else he has done, he has financially ruined me... my future is greatly reduced because of him. It will take a miracle for me to live out my days anywhere near being equal to him financially.  You only need to look at our projected budgets to see that. I will live on $15,000.00 dollars a year for the rest of my life (if all goes well) and he will live on $89,000.00 less my $15,000.00.                      

Michael has always reminded me of a joker/court jester. Always ready with a laugh or a light hearted quip with no regard for those he might be saying it to or that he might be hurting someone... he never knew when enough was enough. I always thought him to be a bit too light hearted, too easy going, too much at the whim of others but I never thought him hurtful. I would never have married him if I had.

So where do I go from here.... I don't really know....

To answer that question there are two things that must be addressed...

1. I don't want to ever see or have anything to do with Michael again. This past year has driven that home forcefully. I have no respect for him whatsoever... none. I know at one point he said to Rosie that he hoped we could be friends...  To that I say a resounding "no". I don't know him and apparently I never did and as a stranger, and knowing what I know about him now, I don't care to know him. What I have learned about him... what I see in him is that he is not a nice person, not a kind person. What appeared to me to be kindness and easy going-ness is nothing more than apathy and lack a daisy-ness. And since he has proven to be unfaithful not only in marriage but as a  son-in-law, and more importantly in parenting as well, I really don't care to have contact with him.  He has become an ugly person to me.... on the inside... where it counts. I want him out... O U T... out of my life and that includes his financial support. I am hopeful that I will eventually be able to support myself and when I do I will gladly relinquish his support. However, having said that, some basic things have come home to roost. Knowing now, that I was never loved by him, I have begun to understand the nature of our relationship. I have begun to understand that I was nothing more than his whore and his housekeeper all through our marriage, and as such, room and board does not even begin to cover the cost of what he owes me.  Whores get far better pay than room and board....or anything else that he gave me, so he can make up for it now. I figure I am entitled to the money he pays me and I am not ashamed to take it. He has left me high and dry at a time when the support of a partner was most needed. With my illness of Celiac's disease, my ongoing back issues, problems with high blood pressure, and my parents subsequent need of full time care, I don't think anyone realises the difficulties of finding a job and working full time while I have parents that are so needy and my own health issues at hand.  Actually he is getting off fairly easily. In addition, I am not willing to take any old job just to disconnect from him. I will not work in anything that does not pay very well or where I am required to do heavy or hard manual labour... to raise his kids I have given up the ability to have a career and any job I get from this point forward, unless it is self-employment, would never give me the income that I could have generated had I had the opportunities as a young woman that I could have had. Yes, I realize that it was my decision not to work and be a stay-at-home mom, but had I known that he was going to dump me, had we not had a conversation about that where he promised to support me as a stay at home mom, would I have made different decisions... you bet your fucking ass I would have. Our vows said till death us do part and the discussions we had when I was pregnant with Leah about me being a stay-at-home mom and losing the possibility of a chance at a career  and him promising to take care of me led me to make that decision. In that discussion he promised he would never leave me this way.... and so I trusted him... so much for promises. So I will take his money for as long as I can and I don't feel one bit bad about it. As a matter of a fact I'd take a lot more if I could.

2.  I take each day as it comes now. I don't plan for the future because it is too dark to see far enough ahead. For now I will work on my paintings and my MS program and my writing. I will teach spinning as I can. I will live each day to the fullest trying to take pleasure in the smallest of things. That is enough with which to be going forward. I do know that as soon as the divorce is final which should be by the end of the summer I will be going forward with my change of name... I used to be Frankie... but it doesn't fit anymore. Even after I moved back to Nfld... I would think of myself as Frankie Nichols. Slowly that has changed over the year. The last time someone called me Frankie by accident I felt really weird like that was a lifetime ago or another person. I have not fully become this new name I have chosen partially because I still have to use my given name. I am working on that.... the hardest thing has been letting go of the Mrs. Nichols which I was called. This comes as a surprise. I had finally become accustomed to being called Mrs. Nichols. It took twenty years and I'm not even sure when that happened but somewhere over those years I began to think of myself as Mrs. Nichols.... it has been harder than I expected to go back to my maiden name. But I will be a new person with a new name soon. I think the new me deserves that.

Leah has an inkling of the dark times I have gone through over the last year but Shellsea and mom and dad do not.... it is difficult to tell them how low I went. I don't know if I ever will talk about it to them... they do not and probably should not know about it... it would break their hearts to know about my descent into hell. Suicide is a dreadful thing to talk about.

When I left HH I took with me some items that belonged to Michael and some things that he had given me over the years... small things... things of no consequence... things that he probably won't miss but things that were meant to be inclusive of him in my family and me in his... They include a little pin he gave me that he had gotten from a bubblegum machine a chicken pin... the stocking that I had made for him. The first ornament he ever gave me for our Christmas tree... things like that. Today I will burn them... he is not my family anymore. He is just the sperm donor.

My family has a weird dynamic... we are a motley crew. It consists of me, Leah and Shellsea, my mom and dad, and the two dogs. We are a family now and you know what... we make a good family.

That is all.

The Reckoning

It has been over a month since I began the story of how Sir Arsewipe and I got to be where we are. I know most of you have read that story and lamented the way things unfolded. People who have read my story tell me how raw and bitter the pain is... that it jumps right off the page because it is so raw.  But to write my story in any other way would be disingenuous. I want my friends and family to know my deepest feelings about my life because I want them to know how easy it is to be fooled into complacency. How harmful lying and sneaking behind the back of the person who is closest to you can be.  I know I will carry this with me the rest of my life... it has ruined my life. There is not a day that goes by that I don't cry over our love lost. There not a night goes by that I don't lie awake wondering where M is and if he is in bed with the other woman. There's not an night goes by that I wonder if he is touching her they way he used to touch me.  There's not a day goes by that I am not consumed by the bitterness that eats at my insides and may possibly poison all the good things in my life if I cannot find a way to let go of it.  I often think about how he used to hold my hand and how that made me feel. There is nothing better than having the hand of the man you love in yours and after all is said and done you cannot turn off love like a switch. Even now after all these months and after all that I have discovered about M, even knowing that I could never be a part of his life again, even with all the bitterness that eats at me, I can't help loving him... because I do... not the him that I have discovered that he has become but the him that I fell in love with... the him that I know is still there somewhere. In some ways I wish he had died on June 7th because the cut would have been so final and the hurt would have been mourning and not this bitter stew that it has become.

This story is being told also because I hope that someday, some way M will read this and he will realize how he has torn me in two. I hope he does... not for revenge but so that he can understand that I didn't neglect him and that I did love him... more than anything else in this world I loved him. He should know what a destructive force his actions have been... how one person's life can be so destroyed and how hard it is to pick up the pieces if I can.

I also tell this story not only as catharsis for me but because I want his family to know how easily it is to be fooled by your own family... by someone that you think you know.  Mostly I write this story for my girls... and no they don't read my blog very often... sometimes like their dad, I would read it to them for feedback on the writing but I have not wanted them to hear the horrible story over and over as it is like a cancer and it has been hard enough to keep my feelings on the subject to myself... so much so that I have not succeeded very well. The main reason that I write here this dreadful story is so that if for some reason, they in the future want to know me better and I am not here to impart this information, then someone might be able to lead them to this site and show them the story of the end of their mother's and father's great love.

There is one other reason that I write this story... it is because if for some reason there is someone out there contemplating cheating or lying to their spouse and they read this and it stops them from doing it then I will have imparted knowledge and helped another innocent victim and that is good.

For those of you who hit this site on today's posting and want to read my complete story you can go here and here for the two previous posts leading up to this one.

My Story continued again: Spilling The Beans

When I left off last, with my story, I was running away to my friend's house. Daughter #1 was with me but Daughter #2 had opted to stay for a few days with her father.

So I left.  As we drove there, Daughter #1 and I talked about a lot of things but mostly she talked  about all the things she wanted in her life and I was happy to let her go on about it because it helped to distract my mind from the angst that was twisting up my insides. One of the things that she wanted was to dye her hair blue... not totally but she wanted blue streaks or one large blue streak. I knew this kind of girly thing to do for the next couple of days would help to distract me but also it would give us something to do, to while away time before HE left for Vernon. One week that's all I had to get through... I could do that. A week and then he would be away in Vernon and I could return to my home... in the meantime what better way to spend time with my Daughter than by doing the things that would be fun and maybe even hilarious. We were up early in the mornings and we would go have breakfast at a local coffee shop and we would do a little shopping. All the while we were enjoying ourselves, my mind was in a void. It is not as hard to do two things at the same time as one would think. I would for all appearances laugh with my daughter but all the while, inside I was so broken. Wednesday arrived and I knew I had to take Daughter #1 out to HH so that she could finish her last day of work... and after she would have to go to the house and pack for Vernon. I knew I would see him. My mind had been mulling and mulling over everything that had passed between us. I am an over analytical person and so every nuance of body language was analyzed by me over and over again. Every time I thought about this horror, I kept coming back to the fact that he was finished with me but my heart had not let go... I had to make it let go.

When I arrived at our house there was a message from her employer that Daughter #1 would not be needed at work after all. Instead, she went right upstairs and began to pack. Sir Arsewipe needed water and so he loaded the water tank into the back of the truck and went off to haul water for his use for the rest of the week. I sat on the deck and the two Daughters got their gear ready so that when he returned with the truck we would be ready to leave. It was while I was sitting on the deck that I got an idea. The idea was sly and sneaky and might work or it might possibly not work... 

Years earlier when M had decided to open a FB account I had felt uncomfortable with social networking. I felt that there was a part of him that I didn't know and I felt distrustful of the situation. (In hind sight I was perfectly right in that distrust.)  I felt there was an awkwardness to M having a part of his life so wholly separate from mine. I was reluctant to open my own Facebook account and so I had asked M if I could go into his account and look around and see what it was like. He told me his password and so I used it to access his account and all the information on Facebook to get a feel for what it was like. My sneaky plan was to use that old password and see if it was still active and go into his account to see what exactly was going on between his chit and him... and hopefully in the process help my heart to let go. I sat on the deck in the bright summer sun and tried it... M is not the most astute person so I was not surprised when it worked. He hadn't thought that he should hide his private world from me with a new password. I didn't just have access to his public page I had access to all of his private messages too. All of them and not just the ones he had sent to his chit. I sat there on the deck and read and read and read.....and what I found out was that he had not been my M for a very long time....

When he came back to the house I had only just started to read.... I had read only a few of his messages to her....only a few. We left the house, me with trepidation as my constant companion... what if he found out what I was doing, and I hadn't told the girls either what I was doing... it was my secret alone. In hind sight, I realize that accessing someones private messages is a violation of their rights... but he had been violating my trust for many months and though justifying it still doesn't make it right it made me feel a little better.  I also know that in hind sight I would do it again.... in a heart beat.

I got back to my friend's house in FSJ and went to my room and kept reading. I read and read and read. I read and read and read some more, and still there was more to read. Supper time came and I got dinner and then I sat down and read some more. By this time the girls knew what I was doing. They knew I had gotten into his personal text messages on FB and was reading private material between his girlfriend and himself. He had told me that their relationship had only gotten serious in the last few months.... that was false... he had been doing physical things like sticking his tongue in her ear and giving her back and foot messages since back early in the fall of 2011. (These are the things that I know of for sure but other things were intimated.) It went all the way back to when he first got the iPhone, and from those earliest messages it had been going on even before that. He had lied... he had told me that their friendship had only been going on for a few months and only just recently developed beyond that, and he had told me that it hadn't developed past kissing. From what was being said it had been going on since at least the previous summer and it was far beyond kissing. I was getting a real eye opener into my husband. Their conversations were familiar... in some of those messages I could hear him saying the same lines he used with me when we first met. In other conversations there were things to which he was telling her that I had never been privy. I was realizing that there were parts of this man that I did not know at all.... by three in the morning I had pretty much read all 2000 messages between them. I had discovered that he had been spending days in FSJ with her telling me that he was going in for meetings. He had been buying gifts for her without my knowledge. He had even bought her a gift for her birthday which was only a few days before mine. I looked at the Dewalt bag that he had bought for me and realized that all the gifts that he had given me for the last year were gifts of obligation and that the true gifts of his heart were the ones that he had been buying for her. I was so tied up in knots having read all the crap and yuck that he was writing that I almost missed the rest of it...

I was so tired by this time that I felt I had needed a little sleep. So I hit the back button in an effort to log out not only of those messages with his chit but out of his whole account....and it was as I was doing it that I noticed there were names on his list of messages from people of which I had never even heard. I had a quick look through the list and it was as I was going down through it that I noticed one friend that had the first line of their last message there in full display..... and the word "Sweetie" was used followed by the words "good night" and "bum squeeze". I hesitated and thought that's weird...

I opened it up and began to read.... that was the beginning of me growing a backbone. That was the beginning of me trying to really make an effort to put this all behind me.

What I have discovered is that every person can harbour secrets. There are some secrets that should remain secret and there are some secrets that we need to find out. I don't know if I should have found out M's secrets but I needed to find out M's secrets.... They have released me... I feel no obligation in any way shape or form to that man... there has never been a more false person on the face of the earth than the man that I married twenty years ago. Those secrets included that he hates my parents.... and especially my mother, "but she doesn't matter anyway because she will soon forget me." (in reference to her being recently diagnosed with the beginnings of dementia.) He has never loved me, "and married me out of a sense of obligation because I had broken up with a rich guy who I had been with for six years." (Actually it was 7 1/2 years).  He sees our daughters as lazy and unmotivated. He has spent the better part of a year thinking about how he could divorce me. And he has been sexting with another woman he met online for at least three years.  He uses coarse language as a rule with the other two women in his life talking of sexual things blatantly and openly. This has been going on back to at least 2009 and from what I can glean from their conversations, the woman (from the US apparently) goes back far longer than that. She calls him her j--k o-f buddy, and guess what... she's cheating on her husband too not only with Sir Arsewipe but with her partner at work. I have learned that you don't have to be in physical contact with someone to cheat with them as it is in Sir Arsewipe's and R-----'s case. I have found out that a lot of my personal information... private things that no one should know are out there in the stratosphere with a woman who I have never even met and didn't even know was alive until a few short weeks ago. That kind of disloyalty is unforgiveable. They talk about me as though I am the devil incarnate. That I am a "fat crazy bitch". That all I ever do is nag at him and deny him any freedom. "oh here she comes again for round two." There is nothing but contempt for me in his writing. Because of his relationship with R-----, and because he talks to her about the chit in HH (and me and the Daughters if truth be told), I have discovered that my husband is so much like Bill Clinton that it is not even funny... Do you remember what President Clinton said when he was first accused of having sex with Monica Lewinski? He said.... "I swear I have never had sexual relations with this woman"... isn't that what he said? Well my husband said the same thing to me in regards to his girlfriend. But it is not true because he tells R----- everything... He told her about his and the chit's relationship. It gives kissing a whole new meaning...  So much for his story to me about the fact that they had only kissed... apparently putting your face in someone's lap (that's the polite way of putting it) is considered kissing.  The whole thing is far beyond disgusting... he signs off to R----- in the states a number of times with x's and o's regularly and sends her cyber bum squeezes too. Apparently, the HH chit knows about the American chit and the American chit knows about the HH chit and so where does that leave me? O... U.... T... out... that's where I am!

It amazes me how so fooled we can be by what passes as love. I am a victim... I am a person who has enabled this asshole that I am married to, to lie, lie, lie, and keep lying.

I have read over 3307 messages between M and his harem... I have had one of the rudest wake up calls possible. If he can do what he has been doing with these women how many more have there been of which there is no trace. Trust, in any way shape or form between me and that man, is gone and can never, ever return. The sad thing is that the girls are the collateral damage because they found out from me what their father has been up to unfortunately... I didn't mean for them to find out and had I been thinking more clearly they never would have, but that's because I was in complete shock, that's because I had a complete breakdown.... I cried so hard and so long... all the love I bore for my husband has had such a supernova ending... they had to find out... and they found out far more than they should have.... "Mom why are you crying... Mom what is wrong.... Mom what are you reading..." as they removed the iPhone from my limp hands. We have become casualties of lies and deceit. I know I am damaged goods... and it remains to be seen if they are damaged goods too... I hope not but it won't take much to put them right here with me.

I spent my time while he was in Vernon buying ink and paper at Staples and I have copies of that material that I read. I have copies galore. I did that because I knew I might need it if our divorce proceedings got ugly and I knew I would need it for proof. I have read them over a few times but I do not read them any more.... only when my heart gets away from me and I begin to soften toward him. Then I get out those messages that he wrote and I read the worst ones so that I can remember what kind of man he is. Proof is a very good thing because I have done nothing wrong. I didn't break into his account I didn't need to since he had given me his password. I have proof so he cannot accuse me of defamation. And best of all if for some reason down the road I should ever let my guard down and meet a man who I feel is worthy of me... I can prove that my vows in my first marriage were made falsely and I might find redemption in the eyes of the church.... (and hopefully God too).

And so almost ten weeks later, I am only too glad to walk away (though I walk away with a very torn up heart)... I am only too glad to put this pile of crap that I am living in behind me. The Daughters and I felt the necessity to confront him and so we did that when Daughter #1 and he returned from Vernon at the end of July... That day in early July while I was still at my friend's house, that day that I read about R------ and I read all his sick messages to his other chit in HH (who he calls his crumpet) was a day when the girls and I made a plan. We could not confront him then as we wanted because we wanted to confront him altogether. We had to wait until all of us were together when the trip to Vernon was finished. Well, he was only home a couple of days when the eagles swooped in on him and so we laid our cards on the table. He knows that we know that he is the most repelling consummate lier and cheat there can possibly be. I cannot look at him without feeling repelled. My skin crawls each and every time he comes near me. The man of reality and the man of my heart are far apart and two completely different people.

Since July when I read all of his texts... I have had a very hard time looking him in the face... it is not the face of a friend. We will never be friends... we will never be anything again. But every now and again I see his eyes. Sometimes when I look at him now and I see the rage simmering under the surface... he holds a grudge deep in his heart because he thinks I told the girls out of revenge.  But I didn't because I have defended him to them... as stupid as that sounds that man still shares blood with my children and that means something... for me I am finished... but they are not... and never can be. They are chained to him as surely as any prisoner and his ball... so we must find the good in that if it is at all possible.

At one point he went to FSJ to pick up supplies for the renovation on the house and when he returned he told me that he had been to see the mediator at the Fairway Divorce office. We had agreed that the rule of waiting one year for a divorce in BC was ludicrous for us... that there was no going back and that Divorce was the only way forward. He told me that he would sign a document saying that he had committed adultery so that our divorce could go through more quickly. I was satisfied with that... but since then he has told me that the law in BC stipulates that adultery is defined as intercourse and he says that he has never had intercourse with either of these women... I don't know what to believe. I certainly don't trust him. All I have proof of is that he has participated in oral sex. I also see that he is unable to look me in the eye and sometimes I wonder if under it all, the man that I married is still there beneath the alien skin he has donned. I'm sure there must be guilt because he is an adulterer... in my eyes and in his own and in God's he is an adulterer. Legal jargon does not change that.  I wonder how he can look at himself in the mirror.

I keep remembering that somewhere in the Fairways Divorce Solutions literature packet that I got when I signed my contract, that good people get themselves into bad positions... perhaps that is what happened. I don't know and I tell the girls to look at it that way. But I'll be honest I see them looking at their father and I see shear confusion... should they love him or should they not... they are torn loving him is disloyal to me but they cannot hate him. They are so twisted up inside... they love him but they hate his deeds. Daughter #1 has taken to calling  him the "manwhore" behind his back... I don't like it because it indicates that there is much bitterness. In the end the person that he has hurt the most, ironically is himself. He has lost the three best things that ever happened in his life... there were never three women that loved a man as much as the Daughters and I loved him. But he has lost that. All I know is that I hope she/they were worth it.

I have one last thing to say.... this is the end... the end of this story for sure... the end of detailed descriptions (and I am so sorry to have offended anyone, I did try to be as politically correct as possible) of one man's story and his descent into falsehood... but it is also the end of Ye Olde Batt. I will not be returning... the Batt will not be rising again. One of the things that has come out of all this is change. It was forced on me and at first I had difficulty with it... but since the full knowledge of Michael's actions has been found out, I have embraced change... it is my way forward. I am heading to Nfld...  I have dyed my hair and lost some weight, I have permed my hair too in an effort to change my appearances. In addition to these outward changes there are some very important inner changes taking place too. I will move forward with great trepidation... my relationships with people will never be quite the same as I will find it very difficult to trust ever again. In addition, I have realized that calling myself Ye Olde Batt was funny when I first thought of it because I was a happily married woman... and it had no meaning but I see now that any kind of a put down towards yourself is still a put down even if it is meant humourously. As a result, the name has to go.  I've also discovered how hard it is for people to stop calling you by a name by which you have been known for so long... I am never going to use Frankie again... the whole Frankenstein thing is just wrong. So I have decided that since I am going to be changing all of my documentation to accommodate my maiden name anyway, that I will change my name entirely. I will no longer be Ye Olde Batt, Frankie Nichols, or my maiden name... but some of you will learn more about the whole name changing thing soon.  In additon to the whole name change thing, I am going to be a single mom and a primary caretaker to some aging parents. I am also becoming a bayman (which I've never been before, because I grew up a townie)... and I will have to find a way to support myself. I will become one of the mainstream and no longer will the opportunity to farm be part of my life.

At the same time, there are some things that will never change... I am fundamentally a creative person... I can't change that.. nor do I want to. I live, breath, eat, and sleep creativity. The day that I stop creating will be the day that they put me in my box (and it will probably be a wood burned one). I am already thinking about ways I can take out my creative frustrations on my house and property in Nfld!  I am also a spinner and weaver through and through... I do not know how that will manifest itself in my new life... but I am hoping that I will be able to use that to my advantage and make a career out of it. I am also a writer.... if nothing else this past few months of writing here since this catastrophe has driven home that knowledge like a jackhammer. Do not despair though... just because I am not coming back here to Ye Olde Batt doesn't mean that I will not be writing... I will be. Just somewhere else. Some of you will receive invitations to my new blog... some of you will not. There is a reason for this... as part of my way forward through these changes, I am leaving behind M and all things to do with him and I do not want the possibility of him finding my online presence again. If you think that you have been left out and would like to be carried over onto the new blog, you can email... yeoldebatt(the "at" symbol)gmail(dot)com. That email address will be running for the next while...  but at some point I will shut that down too.... after that you will have to find me with lots and lots and lots of luck.

So you see all things change and some things end while others are just beginning.  It is the way of life, my friends. My life with M has come to an end... he has changed and as a result I have changed and my new life alone is just beginning. It has been so good here at Ye Olde Batt and I thank you one and all for letting me into your world...hugs to you all...

Now I must go get on that train...

Finis

With Fear And Trepidation

I begin this day with fear and trepidation. Poor Dad's knee is swollen about double and he has been sitting up most of the night. We stopped in Whitecourt for the night and got the last three rooms available. Dad has not slept in a bed for years because he has his chair. A few years back Sir Arsewipe and I bought him an electronic chair that reclines and lifts and can pretty much put him in any position possible. It is Dad's lifeline. I'm sure that had we not bought that chair for him he would be dead now. It has prolonged his life and that is NOT a joke. Last night my father sat in an uncomfortable chair (I know cause I tried it for a while) and tried to get some sleep. I am sharing the room with my parents as Sir Arsewipe shares with the daughters and the people driving my mom and dad have their own room. Since these where the last three rooms there wasn't a lot to choose from. I am taking along a tribe basically. The two dogs going to Nfld. with us are in our room too. I have been worrying about my dad. If anyone thinks this next four days is going to be a vacation then they are sadly mistaken. This will be an arduous journey. My father for all intents and purposes should be in a wheel chair. The depth of this is beginning to hit home. I am a nursemaid basically to a man who has one foot in the grave and another one on a banana peal, while my mother can barely remember her name. God, what the hell am I doing!?

There is no time to nurse this broken heart... I am on my own with more responsibility than any one person should have. And what choice... Stay and watch my husband with his new life and new love and be eaten alive with bitterness or go forward into an unknown future with aging parents and an unforgiving situation... And what of the Daughters... Is this fair to them?

On My Way

We are on our way. Rough having to drive with my ex husband. What the hell am I doing? I'll tell you what I'm doing.... I'm acting like everything is alright. This world we live in is one screwed up place. I'm back to living in a Salvedore Dali painting. I don't know when this Tilt a Whirl life of mine is going to equalize.

The government of British Columbia is about to tell us that we can go jump in the sack with whomever we choose. I don't feel like that at all. So I guess I'll just keep on living like I'm a Picasso painting. One side of me is up and the other is down.

The Sounds Of Sleeping

The sounds of sleeping are all around me and I am typing this from my new laptop. I sit here on my bed and listen to Narmie who is breathing heavily and making doggie sleeping noises. I listen to Jiggs who is sleeping by the side of me and every so ofter makes a stretching and groaning noise and from down the hall I can here my dad breathing heavily and snoring some too. Mom is at the other end of the house and she is very quietly going back to bed after having to get up a few minutes ago. I am unable once again to sleep. Of course I am worrying. I am walking away from the only man I have ever known as a husband. The only man I have ever trusted so deeply and there is no trust between us anymore. I wish I had movers coming tomorrow to take what is left here in this mobile home so that I could know that it is on the way. But I am not satisfied that the house deal in Nfld. is going ahead yet. And yet today I went to the bank and got a certified check ready and sent it priority post to the law office in Nfld that I am using to complete the house sale in Wesleyville. I am scared but I am also looking forward to this with some excitement. This will be the first time that I own a house or anything significant by myself. That is huge. Today I went to the Motor Vehicle Registration office and signed over the truck into Sir Arsewipe's name. I also went to the bank and removed my name from all joint accounts. There is nothing left to do but pay off a a few bills when his paycheck comes in and I don't have to do that since that will now be his problem.  I must remind him that these things need to be done. I also have to get my phone removed from his so that my bill comes to me and his bill goes to him. For the most part I am completely resigned to this now but every so often I get this feeling like I want to.... well it does no good to go there and so I won't.

I am really liking this little laptop.

I have backed up all of my files on the big computer.... all of them.... and files are transferred to memory sticks and then to this wee laptop.  I am terrified that he will give me trouble about the computer or that it will go missing in the move and I will lose every picture that we have taken in the last ten years. That would be horrific and so I am awake working on computer stuff as pics upload to files then files are loaded onto memory sticks and then from the memory sticks, they go onto this wee laptop.  

And still the sounds of sleeping abound.

It is hard to believe that this town in which I have enjoyed living these past 15 years, will be put behind  me in such a short time. One day left. Tomorrow will be a day of junk to the dump again and deciding which boxes go to Nfld and which ones don't as well as what goes on the truck to Nfld and which things go in the mail. I will have to send a bunch of things tomorrow morning but I will also be expecting Sir Arsewipe to send some of this stuff to me a little at a time when I get established in Nfld. The biggest problem is that I do not have a mailing address in Nfld yet and you wouldn't believe the massive problems this causes. But we shall persevere.

I will not be sorry to see the end of Sir Arsewipe and his chit. There was a slide presentation at the library for the trip to Ghana on Thursday night but I was in FSJ and didn't get back until late. She was in Ghana for three weeks with several kids (mostly hers) over the month of July. They went there to help build an orphanage which is a very commendable thing to do. Her kids actually are quite an awesome set of kids and she must have some good qualities to raise such lovely children but then I guess we could put it down to her husband. Whatever.... who cares. I don't even like to think about it since she and Sir Arsewipe can't wait till I'm gone no doubt.

Narmie just rolled onto his back for a belly rub. He's such a cutie.

I wonder how I will be 24 hours from now. At that point I know that our tip will be only hours away. I still have no financial agreement in place yet and I am heading off this abyss trusting that my untrustworthy ex-husband will not see us starving. How flipping ironic. I wonder if he will think on the 15th when his first paycheck for the year comes in about us and will deposit money in my account. Hmm... I wonder.Sometimes you just have to put your faith in something beyond yourself and pray really hard in the fates that things will work out and if they don't then you just have to go back to school and get funding for it so that you can find a job that will put food on the table and pay the bills. If I have to I will find a way to support us all... without Sir Arsewipe's help.

It is amazing all the dreadful things that go through your mind when only months ago you put stock in a person and had more trust in him than in anyone else on the face of this planet... but after what he has done how can there be any trust. And now he treats me with such disdain and dismissal that I know he has no respect for me... but then I have no respect for him either. How could I?

This will probably be one of my last posts before I leave on the train. I may not get a chance to post here tomorrow and I will try to post from the hotel when we get in Edmonton on Sunday but I am not sure I will be able to. We will have to see how that goes. Either way Wesley, the green dog, waits politely for his trip... there will be pics of him.... and us all as we travel across this great country.

Tomorrow I have people lined up to help me label each item in this house as to where it will go and how it eventually will get to Nfld. I sure hope that all goes smoothly. I am sure there will be a few more boxes that will have to go in the mail and I'm sure that some of those boxes will have to be repacked since the Daughters were thinking that everything would go on the truck to Nfld when they packed them up. Sending stuff via truck and sending stuff via post demands different packing techniques.

And so the sleeping sounds continue and I guess I should try to catch a few winks before dawn comes.

We'll see you from on the road.

Reflections On This Busy Time....

Monday night there was a Bon Voyage party. It was held in my honour... everyone was so kind and they all made me feel so good. Of course I didn't make it through without tears. We ate some yummy food and chatted and gabbed and then we took a picture or two. These are the people who care what happens to me. These are the people that I care about too. They are my friends and it felt good to know that they wanted to celebrate the fact that I had been their friend and that I had been a good one. Yesterday the church gave us a little send off as well. There were good wishes and kind words and they were all heart felt and I felt honoured to know these people. These are the people who I will be sorry to leave. These are the people with which I will stay in touch. The last few days have been difficult ones and I don't expect it to get easier as time draws closer and closer to the close. We are leaving at around 9 a.m. on Sunday and we will go as far as we can with Dad.  It will be a little worrisome since he will have to stop regularly to put his feet up. Till then though we continue to sort and organize our stuff that's here since hopefully we can get the movers to move the majority of it after we leave. Staying at Mom's and Dad's place has meant that I am rarely seeing Sir Arsewipe especially now that he is at the school. But the chit (and believe me I use stronger words for her when not on this venue) is also back to work at the school too. I would love to tattoo across her face.... I am a home wrecker... and then walk away. It would serve her right. Yesterday I was at the stop sign by the post office and she passed by in her car, and honestly, I can't see what he sees in her. It was the first time I have seen her since this all happened and she looked like she had sucked prunes. Squat, fat, little dork!

I have been told to let the bitterness go... that's easier said than done. Don't think I sit around trying to hang on to these dreadful feelings. I don't sit down and nurse them. I do try to put them aside. But when your husband of twenty years throws you over as if you are nothing and then informs you that you were an obligation and never a true love you kind tend to feel a little bit bitter. That is one of the reasons for leaving here..... because when it is in your face all the time, you kind of feel like you've just been through the worst assault. When you see them together or even if you see them separately if it is a regular thing it really is hard to let go of this bitterness, especially when you live in the same town and it's a small town.  You work on being "over it" but seeing them is like a little burst of a taser gun being put to your heart every time.

School is back in session this week.  I have had not one kind word or for that matter, any word, from his co-workers and that is because..... I honestly haven't got a clue. I have cooked lunches for them over the years and I have sent baskets of treats etc... I have sent lunches when they were on strike. I have invited most of them to our house on one occasion or another, I have volunteered at the school and demonstrated spinning and weaving and I have served on the School Planning Council but apparently that means nothing. Perhaps they are embarrassed... perhaps they don't want to choose sides. But it is crushing to know that people you have entertained in your home and made welcome and tried to be friends with can be so dismissive.  Not one kind word... not one.

But I am sick of looking back at this place... it is not the town of my heart... my heart got crushed here under the weight of the jackass I married and have been burdened with for twenty years. So instead, these days I try to focus forward.... Forward facing is best. So I am working on getting this house in ship shape order before I go... Yesterday there were four trips to the dump with old things that should have been cleared out of here ages ago. Lamps that don't work properly and chairs that have been hanging together barely, and an old dishwasher that hasn't worked for three years, old mattresses that you wouldn't have your dog lie on, and blanket and sheets that are so frayed they are not worth a cobbler's cuss, even old bookshelves that were barely hanging together. It all made a one way trip to the dump. And good riddance.... it just means less to deal with and more room to get around in this small mobile home I am sharing with my Mom and Dad.

I am beginning to panic as I get closer to the date when I leave. There is still not an agreement in place for spousal and child support. Today I will be in the office of our mediator and I am hoping that the outcome will be good.  I would like to have this all in order before I go. Then there will be a quick course on co-parenting... and then some child custodial issues will be negotiated. We have CPP issue outstanding and hopefully we can say that it is done. He will have to sign a form saying that he has committed adultery and that is why our marriage has broken down and then the whole thing can be signed off and filed in court and then he is free to do whatever he wants and I am free to do what I need to do. How we go into the future from there will be up to us each individually. For me I will be making a new life in a new place with the support of family (cousins, uncles, and aunts, and even my sister) as I make new friends. For him it will be the same old, same old, only he'll be getting his jollies off with a new girl. (Sorry that was a little bitterness that slipped out. I wonder if you can totally let go of the bitterness. Most of the divorced women I know still hold grudges after years of being divorced.)

The picture at the top of today's post seemed particularly significant since I am feeling like I am walking a very fine line between shooting for the stars or falling into the abyss. The last few days have been really tough since for a while there it looked like I might lose the house in Nfld... {see I told you that Murphy lives with me.... I think he has taken to hanging onto my pants and living in my underwear.  If you see me, just tell me to bend over and give Murphy a good swift kick will ya. : ) Oh I love it when my sense of humour comes back a little!} I think we have it all straightened out but honestly I won't feel safe with the house situation until the deed is in a safe deposit box and the keys are in my hands. It is so easy to lose the sale of a house deal because of just shear stupid bad luck... and mine is apparently stupid bad luck. No lottery tickets for me... with my luck I'd win and have to give Sir Arsewipe half!!!!

Today there is a trip to FSJ... probably my last. I have to take the girls to the dentist for a cleaning... Narmin has to go for his booster, I have to pick up a kennel for Jiggs, and a laptop for traveling so that I don't lose all my computer files, I have to get tags for luggage and maybe even a piece or two of luggage and some hair dye since my blondness is beginning to need a pick-me-up and I think the girls want to have at their hair with dye too. I will also, as I said have to go to the Fairways Divorce office and get some more on that sorted too. So there it is. Three days left and still tons to do. But after all is said and done, I can't wait for those three days to go... the hardest one is left... and that will be the days we leave Edmonton on the train and watch as my husband for the last twenty years and the girl's father gets smaller in the distance. I wonder how we will all handle that. I know he'll care some about the girls but I wonder if he'll care a fig about me leaving.... somehow I doubt it and besides his chit will be waiting to cheer him up.

I'm off for another busy day....