capsizing. february 10.

then there's the kenna call.

so i was talking work with kenna and she asked me how i was doing.

i spilled about the shrink. i spilled about where i am mentally. she gave me some really good things to think about, not really advice, but things she remembered from this time in her own life. and she asked me a few questions that made me think.

she asked me if i even wanted him to show me affection anymore.

and i realized how violently i've been pushing him away and batting down his attempts to even touch me. my shoulder, my hair, my foot, my leg.

i don't want him anywhere near me. i leave the room when he comes into it. just being near him is starting to drive me batty.

and when she asked and i answered, i simultaneously realized that this is a significant thing.

for so long i didn't want to feel reduced to a roommate. i wanted him to show me affection, and to make me feel loved and respected (not just lusted, which is what i get most often).

it's important that i don't want this from him, because it means that i really don't want to work it out.

she told me that she remembered the feeling of life being a vast ocean, that she was setting out to sea alone and that it was very very scary. terrifying. that she'd been in a safe harbor to that point, despite the fact that she was not happy in it. that it was very stressful leaving the harbor.

i'd already realized alot of what she was telling me, but in different terms. she said in a lot of ways it's like a death. which i had just realized and written out that very morning. because it is. and i think that the last few months have been denial. wanting to try to work on it and fix it. then anger.

which is where i've been simultaneously, but am stuck in presently.

i remember DABDA from psych classes. but not what the b means. i guess i should look it up and then buckle up for that part. and the d part. before the acceptance, which is where i suspect i'll be in a few months. accepting that it is happening and that i'm pretty clear about what i want to do.

actually, i remember. the b stands for: bargaining. but i don't know what that will be like in these terms.

the d is lost on me right now.

i think when i went home, the reason that trip was so hard and so traumatic for me is that i was already there. i was already hopeless. feeling like this sinking ship cannot be bailed out. there's just too much water. it's capsizing.

and i'm putting on my life vest and hoping that i can float long enough to be able to save myself. or to let people i love try to save me.

i don't know.

the next few months are going to suck. the last few already really have.

i just want good things to happen in my life. and i guess that i just want my freedom. the freedom to be myself and to not feel guilty about it.

one of the things kenna told me is that guilt is our mind fighting the belief that we aren't the type of person who would do the thing that we feel guilt about.

like i feel guilty when i leave him alone and do my own thing. because i am fighting the thoughts surrounding my desire to be away from him, and to have more fun than i have when i'm with him.

she said that she feared the 'scarlet letter' thing. like, being marked and judged by all of her friends and her family.

i'm not really afraid of that. let's face it... the majority of my friends who are married haven't stayed that way. which is good in a way, because it means that i have a huge support network. all ends of the spectrum, too. from people who were divorced so quickly that it could have been an annulment to the people with families and kids that complicated things so much more than what i will have to go through.

as silly as it sounds, i'm mostly afraid of losing an entire group of mutual friends who work with him. people i have financially and emotionally supported for the last seven years. i don't want them to hate me and judge me for doing what i am still convinced is completely selfish on my part. but that also feels like the smartest and best thing for me to do.

i know that this isn't some magical answer to a shitty problem. i know that i'm not going to make my decision known and then be happy and light and carefree and free. i know that. i know that i'm going to miss the person in bed next to me every night. i'm going to miss my dog. so so much. she has been our substitute daughter and i cry when i think about her.

i know that as much as i just want to be alone, in my anger right now, that being alone is going to get old pretty fast. because i am perfectly aware of my own past to know that i've never let that be the case before. i fill my life with the next boy.

but i also think i've grown up and matured enough to not fall into that again. and to honestly appreciate just being alone.

i am really good at being devoted and being faithful and being monogamous. i always have been. and i don't want out of this just to be on the market again. it isn't that i want to be with someone else, and that i want to leave him for that person.

though the coffee situation definitely complicates things. i am also not dumb enough to think of that as an even remote possibility.

that's not what this is about.

this is about wanting to be able to feel the things i feel for him. because he proves to me that i am capable.

it's not that ever is a bad person. he's a good guy. but they're all good guys, in a way. and kenna said that it's okay to decide that he's a good guy, but that he's not for me anymore.

and after the week i've had, it's hard to even think that he ever was the right thing for me.

poor brownies.

goddamn i wish i'd listened to her.

who knows where i'd be if not for ignoring her completely, but i wouldn't be here.

what i know now is that i don't think i'm the type to be married. my independence means too much to me now. and i am going to pay a high fucking price for that independence, and it is going to suck. intensely.

but just realizing that i feel these things (and that all the guilt in the world can no longer keep me here) is a huge deal.

because i want a separation.

i'm nearly certain that i want a divorce.

i can't even say that word out loud. or write it. i can talk circles around it and hint at it all day every day. but just saying that word makes my mouth hurt. my head hurt. my heart hurt.

it's not been in my vocabulary, EVER. it's never been an option for me.

divorce. divorce. divorce. divorce. divorce. that oughta help.

life is too fucking short for this mediocrity.

i am too happy and fun a person to keep living this way.

and i'm over the stubbornness of refusing to give in to it. i was so determined to save it. like giving cpr to a person who has been dead for more than five minutes. there is just no point. it is dead.

i accept you, divorce. i accept you as a viable option.

and i'll work through the guilt of getting over the fact that, apparently, i am exactly the type of person who would ask for one.

kenna is going to be a great source of strength and advice for me in the coming months, and i told her that. i told her that, of everyone i know, she will be the person i talk to the most about it because i know that she has been there. that we are such similar people and that i'm in such a similar situation to the one she was in all those years ago (maybe ten or eleven for her), that she will be able to help me more than anyone else i know.

she is glad that i'm seeing a shrink, because it helps to have someone ask important questions that you wouldn't otherwise think of. and to help you process your own answers, and derive things from the words you speak without really thinking, your impulse answers.

if i am with someone again, someday, i want to make out with them. i want to spoon with them. i want to feel like they both love and respect me. i want someone to really get me. to help me accomplish my goals and dreams, not take away every chance i have to reach them. i want someone who understands what makes me tick and also appreciates the same things. i want someone i can share everything with. a best friend. not someone that i forced into this mold of things that they really don't fit into. i want to return to my list of 20 things. and not marry the first person that has only two of them.

i've been STARVING for these things. and maybe the reason i'm at this point is because i realize that it's do or die. i will starve to death, pieces of me will die if i stay in this. because they aren't getting what they need to thrive, to survive.

my heart is so full of love. it always has been. and i think i just made a huge mistake when i chose the person to give the whole thing to, in terms of forever.

and maybe this is all because i never took my heart back from the boy who stole it so long ago. i settled, because i knew i couldn't have him. and i thought i'd never find another one of him ever again. twice in a lifetime? impossible odds.

and i think that is really the root of it. i settled for a boy who loved me more than i loved him. and now here i sit, writing this. wishing i could take it all back. and undo it all to save myself from the things i'm going through now. because saying no to a popped question doesn't even come close to the disappointment of ending a marriage that only lasted seven short years.

it's 206 am.

one more cigarette before i lay in bed and stare at the ceiling until i can't anymore. i've had takk on repeat for three days now in an attempt to make myself cry this shit out. since the day in the shrink's office. heysatan used to do it every time. even that isn't working anymore. i just can't cry.

i'll cry eventually. and when i do, i hope i have a good half hour to just let myself go. because it's inevitable. it's gonna be a good one. maybe the best cry of my life. just letting go of all of it. all the initial shock and grief. i'm ready to say goodbye and bury this chapter of my life. put it to rest.

and while 2009 was the year i never want to speak of again, 2010 is going to be a hard year for me in a different way. and, unfortunately, i'll be talking about it for the rest of my life.

in that way, i guess i am afraid of a scarlet letter. being marked. like i'm going to have to introduce myself, 'i'm tea. and i'm divorced.' i am afraid that it will define me.

but the thing is, it's going to make me smarter.

it's so textbook, and so clear to me now.

and more than anything, i want other people to know what i've been through so that i can help them to avoid it.

because if i wasn't so stubborn and my mind hadn't been so made up, i'd have seen all the signs from a mile away. and run away as fast as i could.

i should never have settled. whether it meant putting it on the line with coffee and really knowing once and for all that it was over and done with and that it was all in my head. or whether it just meant being willing to walk to the ends of the earth to find another one of him. it wouldn't have been this.

i think pretty often 'i didn't sign up for this'. i didn't sign up to be someone's mother. i signed up to be someone's wife. and if that's not how i'm going to be treated and valued, then i have no use for it anymore. if i wanted to be a mother, i'd have a fucking child.

if only it was that easy.

to just know, and break free. but my conscience won't let me do that yet.

nina said it is like having kids. there's never going to be a right time. it's going to be a bumpy road, this i know. but eventually, like having kids, you just decide that it is what you want. and that you are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to have it.

and i'm on the edge of the cliff. checking my parachute for tears as i get ready to jump.