Summer, sex, city

The kids get out of school tomorrow, therefore for all practical purposes IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER! We're going to the pool, then heading to the Mexican restaurant with a bunch of friends and staying up really late tomorrow night, just because we can. I don't want to be overly optimistic, but I do feel like I'm coming out of the shadows I've been in for a few days. Or weeks. I'm happy about summer, not worried about the past, gonna buy a new car and write my diss, I'm looking forward to the new job, only smoking one or two ciggies a day, and I just might head off to the beach by myself pretty soon if I can find some money. I guess sometimes you really have to let yourself live through bad stuff and fears and sadness and it will eventually pass. I sat and cried for about three days, and once that was over it was all gone. I think most of this was leftover crap I never dealt with from last year. Anyway, I'm back to normal. Big sigh of relief.

Okay, the Sex and the City movie comes out a week from tomorrow. I've been thinking about the show, and how much I adore it, and came up with a few of my favorite episodes:

-The episode where they go to the wedding of the character played by Nathan Lane, and Charlotte and Harry dance together and you realize that she really likes him...that whole episode is very sweet.

-The one where Smith cuts his hair all off cause Samantha shaved her head after she started losing her hair to chemo. He loves her...

-Another one - when Miranda's mother dies and the girls all show up and as she's walking out of the church she sees Steve and Aiden came too....that part always makes me cry.

-One more! The episode where Carrie meets up with her old fling, played by David Duchovny, and it turns out he lives in a mental institute.

OH and look! I found the perfect Carrie quote for me this week:

Later that night I got to thinking about the x-factor. In mathematics, we learn that x stands for the unknown, a+b=x, but what's really unknown is what plus what equals friendship with an ex. Is this an unsolvable equation? Or is it possible to transform a once passionate love into something that fits nice and easily onto the friendship shelf? I couldn’t help but wonder... can you be friends with an ex?


I wish I had their gams...any of them. OH how I love this show...counting the days till the movie! I am so excited about this I can't stand it. Discuss.

Thoughts for the Days

So my wonderful Myspace friend, Fiona, sends out a Thought for the Day every day. Somehow they are always right on target, in fact, often eerily so. Here is one from a couple of days ago:



Um, yes, less joyful is a nice way to put it.

But every time I read one of her bulletins, and think about how appropriate it is for me to get this message, at this moment in time, I start to wonder about our connection to the cosmos. Is there "something" out there that knows more than me, that knows when I need a message like this one, or an unexpected email or phone call, and makes sure I get it? Lately it seems so. I keep hearing just the right song at the right moment, or having two or three people send me exactly the same thought or idea, and I really take it to heart. But if that's the case, if some power from beyond is looking out for me and signaling me the right way to go, then why doesn't "it" go a step further and send me what I really need? Because all this hinting around, all these gentle pushes in the right direction, just end up frustrating me. What happened to me in October is much bigger than me. It's much more than I can fight alone. I need more than subtle hints; I need a real concrete solution.

I realized a few days ago that what happened between me and P. was so big that it requires big action. Going to therapy, going to group, reading about how to forget, how to forgive, how to accept, how to live in the moment...all these things are good positive moves in general, and are in fact, helpful for living life to the fullest and remaining healthy and strong. But I need something more. I can't move through and beyond the pain and sense of loss simply by accepting it; it's just not happening. I try to sit through the sadness. I end up still sad. I try to forbid myself from thinking about him. I still think about him. I tell myself he was an asshole to leave me the way he did. I still want him. I look at all his faults. I still miss him. None of my theraputic gestures has made me feel any different about P. than I did all along. I still love him. So I've got to do something drastic. I'm looking at several options.

Option number one: go to a psychic healer. I know nothing about psychic healers, but it's worth a shot. I'm to the point where an exorcism seems like a good idea, in fact.

Option number two: go to Sedona, Arizona, or Glastonbury, or one of those other places with strong vibrations. Maybe just by being in a very heavy place, I'll have a breakthrough of some sort, and know how to live without him, or how to get him back in my life.

Option number three: total and permanent change of scenery, like moving to Hawaii or something. I'm on the job market, and can technically go wherever I want to , if I can get a job there. The problem is, of course, the children. I can't take them too far away from their dad, but I so need to leave Atlanta, Athens, the southeast...I'd love to just give it all up and go away. Alone.

In the meantime, I continue to read, take long walks, think about (and sometimes even attempt) writing my dissertation. But in truth I'm just killing time. Waiting. For what? I don't know. But things aren't progressing as I had hoped they would. Damnit.

Moving on, or pretending to...

I spent the evening with a good friend, who told me "Girl, you need to let it go. Stop trying to make a bad situation feel better. It's painful and you have to grieve, cry, break shit, then let go. Otherwise you will never be yourself again."

So I am doing just that. After I threw out all the mementoes, I thought I'd be healed. I wasn't. After I bought a new cell phone, I thought I'd stop calling. I didn't. After I went out and had sex with someone else, I thought I'd forget. I haven't.

But at least I've done those things. I am able to enjoy an evening out with friends. I am able to sleep with a man without crying. I have lost tons of weight. I have two fabulous children who love me more than life itself. I am single and smart and funny and talented. I like my life.

Does this sound as pitiful to y'all as it does to me? Suddenly I've turned into that "I like myself" guy on Saturday Night Live. But only temporarily. Yesterday another friend said to me "Once you've gotten past this, the next storm you weather won't knock you down. It will barely make you bend an inch, you'll be so dang strong." How long till I get there, do you think?

Instant Karma

The more I think about this situation, the sicker I get. Can you believe ANYONE could love someone as much as Paul said he loved me and then treat me like a piece of dirt?

So I'm not thinking about it any more. I had planned to come on here today and address one by one the issues the Jolly Green Giant brought out in her nice email to me, but I decided, why the fuck bother? He has "chosen" her; good riddance to bad rubbish, or whatever the saying is. A friend of mine posted a comment yesterday on my last entry, saying "Wipe the dirt off your boots and haul the trash to the curb." I am doing just that. Another friend said "Just picture him sitting in her living room, listening to her shrieking voice with the snot-nosed toddler crying in the background...he's already paying for what he did." Even the brief maternal replacement she represents now, the free pot, and the what's-gotta-be-boring-as-shit sex (after what he and I had) are not gonna make up for the hell he's just entered. I can find solace in that.

So instead, today I am starting over. I have a new phone, with no memories of his voice, his text messages, or the pain he caused me attached to it. I threw away all the birthday cards, Valentine's Day cards, just-because-I-love-you cards, anything he wrote and gave me...I mean "Frenchie"...cause that person doesn't exist anymore. I actually went to the top of Stone Mountain this afternoon and threw the silver locket he gave me for our first Christmas together - three years ago this December - which had a picture of him inside and has been my prized piece of jewelry for these past years, off the mountain. That was hard, but felt really good. I'm working on clearing out all the photos we ever took together as well as the million emails he sent me over the years, too. That might take longer, but I'll get there.

Today I told my therapist "I woke up for the first time in weeks without that knife-in-the-heart feeling. I think Paul has moved 1/4 of an inch further to the back of my brain." It feels good.

Today I also realized the real reason I hesitated getting a divorce, which was a kind of ton of bricks moment. You see, I spent the day with my twelve-year-old son, who's been home from school sick all week. We were riding in the car and suddenly I looked in the rear-view mirror at him and it hit me: "You saved him, Julie." It's true...the reason I didn't get divorced before now is that I KNEW Paul was bad news for my children. Actually accepting that thought into my psyche was incredibly freeing. But I did it. I allowed myself to really look at how he was with them, and it was huge.

Every time Paul was with my children he paid them the most minimum of lip service, then brushed them off. That is, when he wasn't getting drunk and yelling at Nicholas. He showed no interest in them as individuals whatsoever, but made token attempts at being their mentor by talking about what he would do with them one day...the eternal "one day"...build them a treehouse, teach Nick about music, show him "how to be a man" (holy fuck, that's a good one...I know more about how to be a man than Paul does), teach Rosie how to play the harmonica. I sometimes think he honestly believed he was capable of these things, but I always knew once he "had" me, it would all blow away, like the hot air that it was in reality. He wanted in - in my house, in my life, in my bed, in my warmth - but with none of the responsibilities that come with an honest, mature relationship. His way of operating - telling others "You go fix what's wrong, then come back. I might take you back and I might not," or "You hurt me. I was innocent in everything that I did. I won't talk to you about it, I just don't ever want to see you again" would never fly with me and my children. He's sad, truthfully, because he has no idea how to live or how to love another person. Just look at what he did to his daughter. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Okay, so maybe I haven't moved on so much. But I'm realizing that before this summer, I instinctively knew something wasn't right with Paul and his approach to the world. That is why I stayed married, as some kind of protection for my kids, I think. But what happened is that he played me, perfectly, since he knows how to manipulate even the smartest of us. By enforcing our separation over the summer, he made me miss him, want him, regret my actions and see myself as the bad guy and him as the victim. He put me in the position of the guilty party, and I bought it hook, line and sinker. So I think the last few weeks of agony for me have been a result of looking at him through those warped lenses, the ones I wore all summer, rather than through the truthful lenses that I had worn prior to our separation, in which he was bad news for my kids.

Don't get me wrong - I seriously wanted a real, deep, honest relationship between the two of us. I loved that man more than I've ever loved anyone before. But I think way down deep inside I knew that he was nothing but trouble for me and for my family dynamics. Had it just been the two of us, it might have worked, but never with my children involved. Since I have to be a mom AND a lover, it could never work. He doesn't know how to share, and no matter what he says about me and the kids being a "package deal", the kids would have been forced into second place. Paul always has to be number one.

So I guess in the end I'm starting to see the whole situation a little more realistically. Maybe that's the first step of healing.