Clearing out space....

After a couple of absolutely miserable months, the fog started lifting a couple of weeks ago. I realized that there was a lot of clutter in my current existance...stuff that is just hanging around, slowing me down, dragging me down, and making me want to avoid living in my own life. I decided to start clearing out the debris, and I've been feeling MUCH better over the past few days.

While it isn't completely resolved yet, the relationship with D. is more over than not, and I realize how much energy I was using up trying to convince myself that a) I didn't care as much as I really did so as not to ruin the charade he had going, and b) believing that his actions were more meaningful than his words, which were emphatic and unwavering in their message that he had no romantic feelings for me and didn't anticipate that ever happening after two years. I miss him, and I'm pretty hurt that he has chosen to handle things as he has, since he told me repeatedly that the friendship was so important to him and now he's essentially cut all ties. I don't get how we went from spending hours and hours a week together and talking on the phone several times a day to a few emails over the past two weeks, but I guess it's good to know the reality of the shallowness of his true investment in the friendship.

More than anything, I feel sad and exhausted. I really thought maybe this was a relationship that could go the distance. I did everything I knew to do the right way this time, and I really worked hard not to let my old neuroses and bad habits poison the relationship. I can't imagine putting myself out there and getting disappointed again. I don't need a relationship to be happy, but I do enjoy having companionship...it's hard to find friends who have the time and space that I do as a single mom, and a dating type of relationship generally is good for that. For now, I'm going to just lay low and try to pick up the pieces of so many other things that fell by the wayside while I was busy not falling in love with D.

Which leads to some of the other clutter-busting I've been doing. I have decided to go ahead and refinance the house and free up some of the equity I've built up in it over the last 14 years, and I'm going to pay off the remaining debt from my graduate school loans and the mess with XH2 (it's only been three years, I think I can be done punishing myself now for that relationship). If something happens that I have to sell quickly in the next couple of years, I'll still have enough equity for a downpayment on another house, and I'll also be debt-free. A couple of years ago I would never have trusted myself to do this, but I've really learned how to manage my finances now.

I also bit the bullet on some work things that were really dragging me down....I'd been dreading them so much that I was procrastinating, which certainly wasn't going to make things better when I finally got the guts to deal with them. I'm still going to have to get through the process, but I made some good first steps on Friday and I'll get the rest of the ball rolling on Monday.

I've read a couple of great books recently that really have me thinking about finding my bliss and living with more integrity, and I've been focusing on how to find more joy in the day to day stuff. I am trying to rediscover things that really make me happy and find ways to squeeze them into my crazy life. One thing I miss tremendously is baking...I don't do much of it these days because of DS2's allergies. I decided to sign up to make desserts for Bingo one Friday a month for the parish where my kids go to school...it will give me the chance to make something really decadent and be creative again in the kitchen.

I think I'm turning a corner. I can't move the "big rocks" right now, and I can acknowledge feeling stuck with those. But there are many things in my life that I do have some control over, and if I want to get some movement in my life and stop feeling borderline victim-like, I need to do what I can on the "small rocks".