P is for Passion

Which I have lost. I have no zest for life anymore. No passion for anything. Life is a drab, dreary existence. It has been a long time since I have been excited - truly excited - about something. I used to love life. I used to look forward to each day, wondering what new and exciting things the day would bring.

                             
How does one reclaim passion? Where did it go and why? There are very few things I even barely enjoy anymore. I was thinking today that I hate my job. My new job I just got. I hate it already. The problem is, there is nothing I would rather do.

                        
Passion is gone from my life. Ex stole it. Or, rather, drained happiness from my soul. I miss being happy. I miss wanting to be alive. I miss having a purpose. I miss me.

O is for Ololygmancy

What does ololygmancy mean? Don't worry; I didn't know, either. Had to look it up. It refers to the practice of telling fortunes by listening to the howling of dogs. Does anyone reading this know how to practice ololygmancy? If you do, please let me know, so I can learn from you. It would be very useful for my full-time job.
                                       
How so? I work at a "pet resort" now. It's my official full-time job. I have three other jobs as well, none of which pays squat. Anyway, back to ololygmancy. What a great word. If I knew how to interpret the howling of dogs, I would be a genius at work.
                                       
I could probably quit and become a pet psychic! That would be fun, no doubt. I don't like my job. It sucks. I run dogs back to daycare all morning and check in boarding dogs and call vets to check on vaccinations. It is stressful. The clients pay a lot, and they expect great service in return. I can see why. If I paid that much, I would want someone who knows what's up, too.
                                   
Guess I will get used to it. This was only my sixth day and there is a lot (!) to learn. I think it will be an easy job once I get the hang of it. If only Ex could see how far I have fallen...

N is for Night

I used to have insomnia really badly. I could barely sleep, ever. If I had the time, I could generally take naps, but I rarely had time back when I had insomnia.
                                      
Now I sleep like a log. Now, that is, until tonight. I went to a different therapy group today. It's called "Trauma Care" and deals with, duh, trauma. There were so many things we talked about that triggered bad things for me. I can't go back. I won't.

And now here it is, 2:51 AM, and I am still awake. I have to get up to go to work in two and a half hours. That is not a lot of sleep, yo. The group leader said that not being able to sleep was because something traumatic had happened at night and insomnia is the body's was of protecting you. If you don't sleep, maybe nothing can hurt you.
                                            
I hope this doesn't last long. I don't think I can take it again.

M is for Money

I left Ex over the spring break of 2010 while he was working out of town. He knew I was leaving and didn't care; he had told me, in fact, to get the f*** out of his house. (The audience gasps!) What had I done to offend this man in such a manner that he kick me out of his house? (Yes, when I say "his" house, it's not a typo. He made it very clear that, although we were married, the house was his and his alone.)

Well, I told Ex that we didn't have enough money for him to ride his motorcycle that weekend at a trial race. He didn't actually race motorcycles; he just went to track days and tooled around the track a few times, dropping about $500 in the process.
                                
Ex had been unemployed for several months prior to this job and I was in school full time, so there was not a lot of extra money. Oh, and did I mention that not only was I in school full time, but I was also working three part time jobs to try to make ends meet?
                             
We were completely in the red and had been for months. He got so mad at me. Loaded up the bike anyway and raced it, despite our not being able to afford it. After, of course, he screamed at me to get the f*** out of his house.

L is for Love

Shouldn't this be the easiest one to write? After all, we were married. Doesn't that mean that I loved Ex and he loved me? Isn't love a prerequisite for marriage? If not, should it be?
                                
The tyranny of the "should"s. Anyone who has spent any time in therapy has probably heard this phrase. I don't know who to attribute the phrase to, but it's a good thing I don't, because I hate it. I grew up "should"-ing myself. It's how I got through life up until now.

Now I'm trying to live without all of the "should" burden. It's a lot harder than one might think. For example, this post is called "L is for Love" and "should" be about love, shouldn't it? "Should" doesn't look like a word anymore. I should know how to spell it by now, at least.
                                      
So, maybe Ex should have loved me or not married me. I don't know for sure. All I know is that I loved Ex and thought he loved me. I should have known better.

K is for Knight

Before we got married, Ex was my knight in shining armor quite a few times. There was the time I was at school and felt so sick I didn't think I could even make it to my car. True, I was parked about a mile from school, but still. So I called Ex and he came to get me and took me home.
                               
Then one day, my car wouldn't start and Ex came out and saved me again. When it was time to move out of my house and into his, Ex came over with his truck and the two of us completed the move in no time.
                      
After we got married, I called AAA. Ex didn't care anymore.

J is for Jack

When I couldn't sleep at night, I would lie there and listen to Ex breathe and think about what I wanted to name our future children. It was a favorite game of mine; to go through the alphabet and think of names for girls and boys that started with each letter. As I'm writing this, I sense a theme...
                            
I wanted to name our kids Sophie and Simon. Ex agreed that Sophie was a cute name, but he said that Simon was the kind of name that got a boy beaten up. He liked the name Jack. Our last name started with "S", and Jack S----- sounded like someone out of 24 (the television show). It sounded tough and serious.
                                     
There were a lot of sleepless nights with Ex, and not in the good way. There were so many nights when he would not be speaking to me, and go to bed really early, like 7:00 or so, just so I wouldn't be able to go to bed at the same time. He would be sprawled out, taking up as much of the bed as possible, and I would creep in, SO careful not to touch or disturb him.  Then I would lie there and name our future kids to make myself feel better.
                      
Luckily, we never had kids, so naming them wasn't an issue. Those poor children would have been seriously screwed up.

I is for Irritated

There is a new man in my life. (The audience gasps!) It's true...there is a new man in my life. Unfortunately, I have never seen or spoken to him. Haven't even emailed him. (What? You say; how is this possible?)
                                   
My upstairs neighbor has a new boyfriend. He clomps around like a dinosaur, adding to her stomping like an elephant. And, of course, her bed is right above mine. You do that math. Yuck. So yes, I am irritated. This is not something I need in my life right now. I'm trying to study for my huge anatomy test tomorrow and it's a bit difficult to concentrate with those _______ (fill in the blank with whatever expletive is your favorite) banging (literally) around upstairs.
                              
I like the location of my apartment and I like the guy who lives across the hall. He loves my dogs. The rent is way cheap and the parking is covered. But I want a yard for my dogs that they don't have to share and I want to not live underneath all of this pounding. Again, irritated and yuck.

H is for Heat

My new (-ish) apartment has electric heat. I've never had a heater with no thermostat before and it is taking me a few tries to get the temperature right. One night, it was a bit warm so I turned it off and went to bed. Woke up sweating with my poor dogs panting. I had accidentally turned it all the way up instead of off. Oops.
                                
Sleeping in a non-freezing environment is not a luxury I had when married. On the very rare nights when he was feeling nice, Ex would let me curl up beside him and his heat kept me nice and warm. On every other night, though, he would cocoon himself in all of the blankets, leaving me with nothing.
                                
I quickly learned to keep a blanket beside the bed to use after Ex took all the blankets, although I would inevitably wake during the night, freezing, only to see that Ex had taken my spare blanket, too. I never even mentioned it to him. Wasn't worth the days of punishing silence that would have earned me. I preferred to freeze.

G is for Grades

My grades are not so good. To stay in professional school, one must maintain a lowly 2.5 GPA. Not to brag, but my science GPA was 3.7 from undergrad. I did pretty well.

Then I got divorced, my world fell apart, and my brain suffered. I took a year off of school and started back in August 2012, thinking I would be ready to go, brain in head. Not so much. I'm hanging on the brink of the 2.5 again.
                                  
This is my last chance. If I don't do really well on the next eight tests in the next two weeks, my dream is over. I don't know what I will do. I really don't.

F is for Foreclosure

I snooped again. Ex is a bad habit I can't seem to break. I googled his address and found out that the house went into foreclosure of January, 2012.
                               
Ex isn't the type to get too upset about things like that. I would not be surprised if he just stopped paying on purpose so the bank would take it off of his hands. It was worth a lot less than he owed.

There were very few good times in that house and a lot of bad ones. A lot. I don't much feel like talking about them right now...

E is for Exercise

So, I finally went mountain biking today. It was awesome! I had so much fun. I've been scared to go because mountain biking is something I did with Ex. He is the one who taught me that a nice bike makes all the difference in the world. He is the one who showed me that single track is amazing. Ex is the one who would always lead because if I was in front, I would go to fast and he would fall behind.
                       
Ex is the one who would stop right at the apex of the incline, forcing me to stop while still trying to get up the hill. Then he would yell at me for not making it all the way up the hill. Um, you're in the way, fool. Not that I would have ever dared to say something like that. No way.

Anyway, I would have to say that today was one of the best biking days I have had. It was a cool, crisp day, so I was warm but not hot in my long-sleeved biking shirt. There were enough people out to make it safe (if I crashed, someone would come by eventually)  but not so many that it was crowded.
                        
It was just me, my bike, the trees and the rocks. Great day. I  must remember that exercise is my friend.

D is for Down

I'm feeling down today. No, I don't mean goose down, I mean sad down. I have felt like crying for the past few days but nothing comes out. At first, I didn't know why I was sad, but I've figured that out...

My mom is probably moving to my little sister's state, which is eleven hours away. My mom is retiring the end of December and it is no coincidence that my little sister is expecting her first baby. When? At the end of December.
                               
My mom currently lives three hours away in the house in which I grew up. She lives in the same town as my older sister (who dutifully never moved away from her hometown) and four grandsons. My mom spends a lot of time with them and they go over to house all the time.

I think my older sister will be (and has more right to be) more upset than I am. So there will be drama, which I abhor, ending with my mom leaving in a huff and my older sister hurt. My little sister is not too thrilled, either.
                                
So nobody wins except for my mom. Which means it will happen, because all my mom thinks about is her own feelings. I remember trying to have a heart-to-heart with her once about some doubts about Ex I was having before we got married. She wasn't interested in the conversation because it wasn't about her. Or good gossip. She loves that, too.

Contrary to what you may think after reading this, I do love my mother. The problem is, I'm just now coming to terms with the fact that she was equally if not more responsible than my dad for my issues. I haven't had time to deal with all of that yet.
                            
And yes, I still miss Ex.

C is for Call

10:44 PM - trying to sleep. Started thinking about the things I am reprocessing in therapy. What am I working on right now? Read "N is for No" if you care.
                                          
It doesn't really matter. What does matter? This: my husband never loved me and it is okay to be sad about that. Of all of the millions of tears I have shed over that man, I don't think I have ever cried about the fact that I was in hell and it was his fault. I've cried because I miss him, cried because he hurt me, cried because my happy ending is not to be - but never cried because I deserve to be sad about it.

Hard to type and cry at the same time...
                              
Marriage to him was awful. He was a terrible husband who did terrible things. No one should have to put up with what I put up with. Could it have been worse? Of course. But that doesn't make what did happen matter any less.

Huge breakthrough for me. Huge.

I want to call and yell at him. Tell him what a ^)%(&^#$(&$(^(*&! he is. Ask him, rhetorically, of course, how he could manage to marry someone who loved him so much and then just throw her away like yesterday's garbage. I didn't deserve that. I am getting madder and madder. I want to call him. I don't think any good would come of it.
                               
At least I finally, finally gave myself permission to be sad that he mistreated me so. Because he did.

B is for Birthday

On my very first birthday as Ex's girlfriend, we had plans to go out to dinner and a movie. I had to work eleven hours that day, so we thought a nice, quiet evening would be perfect. At work, I saw that Ex had called, so I called him back on my break. He told me that a friend of his (who lived less than two hours away) was going to be in town for the weekend and that he and Ex were going out that night but that I was welcome to "come with".

Excuse me?

I got upset and went to dinner with a friend instead. Ex went out with his friend because he was a total ass. You would think little things like that would have been a sign. Red flag, but not red enough, I guess. 
                                              

I think the reason I put up with stuff like that is because I am used to being last on the list. My birthday was Saturday and none of my family called me. My mom did send me a text message, which was actually worse than forgetting me. She thinks texts are rude and dismissive and not worth anything. She hates texts. So she sends me a happy birthday text. I sent her one back.
                              
"thanks"

For everything.