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December 26, 2004
Antartica, suicide, divorce.
Day after Christmas, sort of. Christmas day was shit, at least for the spouse and I. We are so very tired of each other, our lives, our differences, our disappointments, our rut...just the plain grind of it all. We've said the "D" word for the second time in several months. I don't want to go there, but I am so tired of trying and failing at being a wife. Or do I try? I don't know. I started out this relationship with no confidence in my ability to be married. To my credit I told my husband flat out that I had no idea what a good marriage was or how to have a healthy relationship.
He keeps blindsiding me with, "How long are we going to go on like this?" Or just basically the fact that he doesn't want to go on the way we're going on. I know I'm not an easy person to be with. I get up every morning (or night) and plan to be good, to do good, to find good. Some days I'm good. Some days I'm not. I have to accept that living with me has worn my husband down and out.
Last night, before I left for work he said that he didn't know who was going to breakdown and end the relationship first, him or me. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. (I'm damn tired of that feeling.) I was a mess all the way to work and have continued feeling messy all through my shift. I called him after several hours and basically said "Uncle". I told him that he had two weeks to find either a marriage counselor or an attorney. If he hasn't found a counselor in two weeks, the boys and I are moving out.
I know I'm doing and saying the wrong thing. I know I should suck it up and find out once again what I'm doing wrong and how I can change it, but this cycle just keeps going on and on and on. When he gets depressed and unhappy, he is verbally abusive to our boys. I do the same. I admit that I am unhappy and lonely and dissapointed with myself, but I need to do what is best for our boys. What is that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
My heart aches. Which is a better solution, divorce or suicide? If I commit suicide, my husband and boys will get a nice pile of cash and then he can move on and find a woman that doesn't tire him out. But, it would make changes in my children that could never be reversed. Could I come up with something that wouldn't look like suicide? I have all the paperwork in place to make a seizure and a spectacular car accident believable. Just have to think this through.
God I am tired. 45 years of struggle and failure. A woman living in the most enlightened country during the most enlightened of ages. Why am I wishing for death? Work has kept me going for a long time. Working in the ICU, seeing life laid bare has shored up my attitude for a long time, but I am tired. I can't comprehend of another 30 years of this. 10950 odd days of mind numbing life.
Would divorce help anything? I'd still be suffocating in this life and my children would be devastated. My husband and I have been promising them that we would never, never, never get divorced. Never. I don't know what to do. Suck it up. My life is over. I will never be anything significant other than a mother. Suck it up and do what I need to do to make myself into something my husband can live with. I have to hold it together for my children. They need a home with two sane parents. Can I do that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Want to go work for a while...Antartica, New Zealand, Kuwait, somewhere. I've been in this once place too long. I'm fat and lazy and sluggish. The years fly by and I sit still. No progress. No growth. I hate that I've been in this place for so long. I want to go. Antartica, suicide, divorce. So many lovely options.
Posted by swift at 4:21 AM
December 12, 2004
Going to That Happy Place In My Mind...
Sunday morning. Finals on Monday and Tuesday. Am in the eye of the storm. No anxiety. Feeling magnanimous and patient. How very strange. Two weeks ago I tried killing myself. Had the mortar and pestle out and was reaching for the pills. The husband took them away. Danced right along the edge but didn't go over and now I'm finer than fine-ity dine dine.
Heard a poem recited on the radio today. Made me think of my “happy” place.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
~WB Yeats
Posted by swift at 3:22 AM
When I Am In Doubt.
When I am in doubt
When I am in doubt
I talk to surgeons.
I know they will know what to do.
They seem so sure.
Once I talked to a surgeon.
He said that when he is in doubt
He talks to priests.
Priests will know what to do.
Priests seem so sure.
Once I talked to a priest
He said that when he is in doubt
He talks to God.
God will know what to do.
God seems so sure.
Once I talked to God
He said that when he is in doubt
He thinks of me.
He says I will know what to do.
I seem so sure.
~~Glenn Colquhoun
Posted by swift at 1:10 AM
December 3, 2004
Scraped Butter
12 more days left in the semester. It has been hell. I feel hazed. I feel unmoored. I feel...thin (in the words of Bilbo Baggins).
"I feel...thin, sort of stretched like butter scraped over too much bread."
I don't even think I could taste the butter right now if I wanted to.
Posted by swift at 5:50 AM