That sucking sound you hear is just the end of my holidays going down the drain.

The holiday season is over.  Thank you very much Will Robinson. (I don’t know where the fuck that came from.  Anyone? Am I insane? Shut up.)  With the exception of New Year’s Eve, but I never celebrate that.  This year? Will be no exception. The past two weeks have not been easy or fun and it all came to a head last night. (Last night being tonight actually as I write this, but last night when I post it tomorrow. And tomorrow being Monday.  Caught up? Yes? Good.)

It’s Christmas time again, and I should have seen it coming. It happens every year.  It’s the curse of Santa Claus.  Or Christmas trees.  Or poinsettias.  Or maybe mistletoe.  No, it’s not the mistletoe, there’s never any of that around.  Maybe it’s the curse of wrapping paper?  Who knows?  Who cares?

What am I talking about?

Brian.

And me.

And us.

Or the fact that, well, it’s December, and it’s Christmas, and for those of you playing along at home know, that means, he dumped me.

Again.

It happens like clockwork, right around Christmas/New Years.  I should just break up with him on Black Friday, and call him again on Super Bowl Sunday.  Save a whole lot of money on gifts, and parties, and hopes, and wishes, and expectations.

And broken hearts.

I saw it coming.  For weeks now.  It really isn’t important.  When he finally maned up tonight and said “I’m just done” it wasn’t a surprise. Of course, my first thought (ok, maybe not my FIRST thought, but one of the ones early on) was I have so many readers on my blog and friends on Facebook, I can totally bash him all over the place and exact my revenge on-line.

And then?

I didn’t.

Because I had a conversation with his mother, after I talked to him, and she told me “I love you, and I love your girls.” and I know that she doesn’t throw that word around lightly.  And maybe there’s a little bit of respect in there too.  Either way, the relationship we have now has not come easy and it is far too precious to me to throw away.  Bashing him on-line would only destroy the love/respect his mother has for me and the girls.

So, I am taking the high road.

Ok, I’m staying out of the mud.

It took him all of 10 minutes to change his status on Facebook to single, and to change what he’s looking for to “women”.  The bed is barely cold from where I spent all day with him, and he’s already on the prowl. And maybe he did that because he knew I would look, and he just feels this need to hurt me.

Score one for him.

I aired some dirty laundry on Facebook a few weeks ago.  The comments got out of hand, and I knew it at the time.  And I should have stopped it, to prevent a fight. And yet, I didn’t.  Because I wanted him to hear me.  I wanted him to know what I had been trying to say to him.

But he didn’t hear me.

He hasn’t listened.

And that’s the most mud I’m going to sling in this whole big mess.

I can’t wrap my head around it right now.

In the midst of the problems we’ve been going through these past few months I have found friends I didn’t know I had.  I have girlfriends. The girls I work with were awesome and amazing at the Christmas party.  They offered up their sofa in the sitting area of their hotel suite so I could get my drink on and not have to drive home.  My girl AD never fails to remind me to pick up my awesomeness, brush it off, and let it shine all over the place.  My girl LD is the funniest, craziest, sweetest, touch-my-heart-make-me-love-her girlfriend ever.  She never lets me forget how amazing she thinks I am for being a single mom and raising my girls by myself.  My girl WW is always there to say “Fuck it let’s get a drink.”  Although we seldom do, sometimes just the thought is enough.  My girl JB, is always there to remind me how strong I really am. She’s always there with the rear view mirror telling me “Look how far you’ve come. Now just imagine how far you’ll go.”  My girl MM rocks my world, and she made me cry when she told me “Come spend the holidays with us.  We love you and we want you around.”  And my girl SK, well, how can you argue when she offers to buy you a drink or form the lynch mob?  Answer? Don’t bother arguing.

Even tonight, when I went and changed my relationship status on Facebook, (after all I look pretty stupid when my page says I’m in a relationship with Brian and his says Single.  Makes me look like a stalker or a nutjob who’s in an imaginary relationship with someone who doesn’t even know it.) people commented on it.  People I didn’t expect would see it. People who’s friendship I am grateful for.

That sucking noise you hear?  That’s the end of 2010.  That bright shining light on the horizon?

That would be my awesomeness.

January 8, 2004

It’s to the point where I don’t even want to come home, not that I have a home, but I know going out will only cause trouble. But being in this house is so depressing, and being around him is even worse.

He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want anyone else around me. Even now he tries to control me. Of course his life doesn’t change and neither does mine. The problem is, mine is supposed to get better.

Once again he asks me “This marriage is over, isn’t it?” And instead of my standard “I can’t make that decision for you”, I decided to make that decision for myself. “Yes. It is.” I knew at that moment that if I didn’t say Yes, if I didn’t make that decision, he never would.

It would be two weeks later that I was gone. It was as if those three words had set us both free. Me, free to finally find a way to get out, and stop the hurting the anger the pain. But in his mind, it freed him to be meaner, and vindictive, and abusive to me, because he had nothing to lose. He had lost it all. At this point he was taking my journals every single morning after I left for work, and reading everything I wrote. I knew it, so I wrote in them, “I know he gets in here and reads this. That’s fine, he can read whatever he wants. When it comes to him and our marriage, everything is in here. When it comes to my life, I don’t even put the important things in here. He’ll never find the truth from me.” He had accused me of cheating on him virtually with every man I talked to. So whether I did or didn’t would never be in those journals.

I spent the majority of 2003 writing “I hate him” on page after page after page of my journals. I had a whole laundry list of reasons why, pick one, or two or ten, didn’t matter. One was as good as the next and probably just as true. It took me a year to figure out that if this marriage was over, the only way to stop the pain was for someone to leave. It took me a while longer to realize that that someone was going to have to be me. It took me a little while after that to finally get the courage to leave. It has taken him almost 8 years to come to terms with the fact that I left him. The divorce is final. I’ve moved over 100 miles away from him. I’m not coming back. He still holds out hope.