Marble 20

Not feeling well.... Is it because all the emotions and stress surrounding T? I think more likely the stress trying to convince P to stay away...

Marble 19

He came for the weekend to visit the church with me. M got a major haircut. 

Marble 18

Trip for the kids to meet him. Did NOT go well.  :/

Marble 17

Christian Singles New Years Eve party... 

Marble 16

Christmas Week 

2 days off, three days working double shifts. No kids. Lots of time to sit around alone and feel sorry for myself... 

I started trying to get out of it... I went to meeting on Thursday night, and heard some really great things... I went to several more after that... I keep forgetting how much they help. 

Meetings

I started going to meetings again. I don't know why I stopped. I guess I really thought that all I needed was to get out of the house and start working and feeling productive, and then I would be so much better... Plus I am so tired after work, I don't want to leave the house again once I get home...

But after yesterday, I realized that I had to do something, and if I sat at home alone and had nothing to do but think about all of this, I would go mad. So I went.

I really wish that I could remember how important it is to keep going, even when things seem OK... Just one hour in the rooms, 2 nights in a row, have made such a difference...

A few things that I heard or thought during these last 2 meetings:


* I already established a long time ago that my biggest problem was "people pleasing"... This has not changed, regardless of time alone.  I desperately need to be loved- I am upset only because I'm not. I have been rejected again. I have to focus on the truth and not just the bare feelings.

I had a realization- this people pleasing- changing myself, doing things for others, giving gifts, posting on Facebook- is all to get others to love me the way I want to be loved. This is all about self esteem. Completely. I wanted him because I wanted him to want me. I couldn't stand that he was thinking that I wasn't good enough or right for him. I had to make it happen. All the while I always knew that I didn't really want him or that life.

* A lot of people talked about how hard the holidays are. They talked about feeling envious of other peoples perfect lives and Norman Rockwell holidays when our are so messed up... Someone pointed out that just because they look happy doesn't mean they are. I probably look very happy from the outside... We are comparing our insides to other peoples outsides.

* One fellow said that he had been spending a lot of time lately in self-intorspection, and he was "Unpacking my suitcase and seeing what I still wear and what I should give away". I liked that.

* As I sat there, I realized that I never really have to feel alone. There is a meeting every single night. If I want, I can have somewhere to go and have plans for every single day of my life. I never have to spend an evening all alone and miserable- not if I don't want to. Not if I get my ass up and out of the house and do something.

* I have been looking for unconditional love. It's all I asked him for. It is hard to feel the same about it, but I realize that God's love is unconditional. And the love in the meeting rooms- that is unconditional. Completely.

* Talking. Just talking to a few people made such a difference and I felt so much better. I need to talk to work through information. That isn't wrong, it is just who I am. I need to embrace my reality and not think it is wrong because other people are different. I need to realize what about me I DO need to change, and change it. But not everyting about me is wrong.

* One man who works in theatre noted that being involved in the stage is perfect for my kind of personality- a constant need for approval- applause, praise and admiration- and a feeling that you control it- if you work hard enough you can get good enough that people will give you the love and praise that you desire. Not that it is healthy- just that it is a logical place for someone like me- and him- to wind up. :)

Marble 15

This was my 15th marble. My 15th week alone.... I took the picture on December 22... But I'm not actually posting it until June 18th... 

I left Christmas gifts for T and the girls in the beginning of December. it started a short exchange of emails between us. I was hoping it would. After so many months, I was certain that we had grown and moved on from the painful things that had caused our problems. I wasn't expecting to hear that he had moved on and had started seeing someone else only weeks after he left me. 

I was devastated.. Not so much because he and I wouldn't be getting back together, but by the fact that he had moved on so quickly. My self esteem was already so low- to know that I was SO easy to get over... That he hadn't even struggled, or thought about trying again or anything... He just left and actually, literally never looked back. My heart was broken. I really was completely unlovable and ugly and useless. 

Against my better judgement, I wrote him one last letter. I asked him to think about all we had shared. All we knew about each other and all the plans we had... I told him that if he was SURE that this new woman was 'the one', then, fine- don't answer me at all. I don't want to hear about it. But if there was even a tiny, small part of him that thought he might be making a mistake, then please to just have lunch with me, and let us have a chance to get to know each other again. 

I decided to give him a week to answer. Christmas was coming, and he had company in town. I decided that if he didn't answer in a week, I would assume he was completely done with me, and I would unfriend him and his friends on Facebook, and give up for real and completely. 

When I took this picture, I was waiting. It was all I could think about, all day, every day. Waiting and hoping that he would write. Thinking about how different I was, and how much I wanted to show him that I wasn't the needy, emotional mess I had been when he left... 

I wanted to take a picture that would help me remember what had been going on. I saw the girraffe in Audre's room and decided that would definetly make me remember. 

It was two days after Christmas, 2 days before I had planned to give up and unfriend everyone, so that I wouldn't have to be forced to watch him move on with his life and see him happy with someone else... I had already written a lettter to him- a very kind, loving letter that said that all I ever really wanted was for him to feel loved and be happy, and obviously he was... I was on my way into a meeting at work, when I got an alert on my phone... "T is in a relationship with J.D."... 

In all the time we were together, he wouldn't even post a pic of me on his page... He wouldn't change his relationship status.... He wouldn't even take off that he was married to her, even after he had moved out and we were dating... It was impossible to not take it as a purposeful  deliberate slap in the face... I wrote him an angry note, attached the nice note, and then unfriended him and everyone that I had met through him, so that I wouldn't have to see it anymore. 

I had just begun 21 days of being all alone... I only worked, and spent evenings with my cats... 

However, only a few days later, things happened that set a whole string of events in motion that changed everything...