Oh baby, this one's from the heart...

I meant to post earlier in the day, but the day had other plans for me. It's been a busy sort of weekend and I am grateful for that.

I have no profound words about Valentine's Day.

Friday night, I went to dinner with a good, good friend of mine. I think it is the first time in awhile that we dined without my son in tow. So not only did I get to wear my big girl shoes, we got to have solid, uninterrupted girl talk. Driving back to her place, she posed a question to me that is still resonating with me tonight because of my answer.

In the blissful afterglow of good food, good conversation, and a good night sleep, I went to work yesterday in a strange state of contemplation. The cold kept people away so there was a lot of uninterrupted thought. In the afternoon, after my cohort clocked in we had another equally profound conversation. So with those two conversations rolling through my head I clocked out anxious to get on to my next adventure with the girl who is Statler to my Waldorf or is it the other way I can never remember.

Have you ever had a blossoming friendship that has moments that make you kind of go whoa, that's shit that my friends say, and by friends you mean people who have known you since you were a young blank slate, people that knew you before all the duct tape and white out and gesso and crack filler and staples and stuff. My friend of a scant 5 months totally got on my case about my lack of focus and my lack of writing. It wasn't even what we were talking about, she just stopped mid-sentence and exclaimed,"Oh my God, you haven't been writing have you! That's what's wrong with you."

What does any of this have to do with anything? Or with the subject line for that matter!

Sigh.

It remains to be seen.

I have got to focus. I have been in damage control for 27 months. That is a long time to not be alive. Held back by fear, deep fear and a completely shattered sense of self. I don't talk about a lot of things I should talk about in order to help myself. I am still in denial that my husband who swore he would love me forever would actually take my heart to pieces like this. I am not in denial about what is happening or delusional about anything. I realized that I need people to respect how deeply and mortally torn my heart is over my divorce.

I was never a girl who sat and dreamed about marriage. I could keep anyone and everyone at arms length. Anyone but him. I tried. Hell, I tried to not even meet him. Once, I did...I was hooked and I always believed that everything progressed the way it did and in the time frame it did because it was exactly what was supposed to happen to us. My husband changed me in ways that I never thought were possible. He made me a better, kinder woman not because of who he was but because of who he believed in.

Thank God I met him and he encouraged me in my faith. I imagine, if he could let himself, he would be proud of my progress and my propensity for praying prayers of surrender. All those times he prayed for me and he isn't even here to see that his prayers were answered. Some days when I see him I totally want to tell him that I am the lucky rabbit too and all the things that have happened for me because I got out of God's way.

But he doesn't talk to me at all. Not even about our son if he can help it.

It's truly sad.

I can't do what everyone wants right now. I can't move the way people want me to move. I can't date because I am not ready. So not ready and I don't know if I ever will be. I really need everyone to be okay with that. I am. I totally am because I had everything I ever wanted and a great deal that I never realized I needed with him as my friend and lover. It's not about me being stuck. It's about me needing to fully mourn a great loss.


It's not going to happen unless I focus.

I miss him terribly. And it's the election year more than Valentine's day that has me feeling the void of his presence in my life. It's walking out of sermons that he would label as "strength" and wishing he had been there to hear so we could discuss it further over lunch.

And I usually don't admit that I do miss him because then people get all negative about him. I know what he did. It's a fallen world and we all fall short of the glory. I chose to forgive. From what I can tell it is the road less taken in these cases and let me tell you it has made all the difference but since very few people have travel this road...the path is narrow and not as easy to travel.

The title today is from a Tom Waits song that has been on my heart tonight: