grits.

grits for dinner.

what a weekend.

i am completely, utterly, and entirely exhausted.

my throat is raw from cigarettes, and i only had maybe five or six today, which is half of what i've been having.

i believe, right now, that there is not enough beer and are not enough cigarettes in the world.

line them up in front of me. watch them disappear.

i am using a crutch. well, really, crutches.

i'm so tired. i'm so drained. i'm so stressed. i'm so angry.

the only thing that is making me feel better is working on getting drunk with friends.

i only got drunk on friday night. i knew i should have stopped at two with a nice buzz. but pushed the envelope.

i went out with kit. i'd had a long afternoon of talking with ever. i had been crying. i was so tired then, that i could have gone to bed at six that evening and not woken up until the next day.

i was backpedaling, to use alice's phrase. i felt myself doubting everything. every single decision i'm making. that i'm making a huge mistake. that i love him too much to leave him. that i cannot lose this house and my dog. that i cannot lose my husband.

and i knew that if i stayed, the backpedaling would increase. i was afraid to stay in the house.

it has been a crazy few days. too much has happened, really, to try to write out.

but friday, in front of his intern, he told me that he wasn't going to eat dinner with me (a friday tradition). that there was no point to date night now.

so i made plans with kit, because the thought of just staying home with a mopey ever made me want to vomit.

so we went to a pub, and had three beers over the course of a few hours. talking, talking, talking.

i'm so fucking sick and tired of TALKING. i hate hearing myself whine and complain, commiserate, talk about my problems.

but i keep doing it.

so at the pub, kit asks when i'm moving out.

and i tell her, honestly, that i don't know. sooner would be better, if money wasn't a factor.

but i was trying to give him a few days to see if he takes a step toward finding roommates.

so she told me that i have to set a timeline. give myself a deadline. or else there won't be any rush for me to find a place, or for him to find roommates.

and after six days of talking for hours, and crying for hours, i was pretty much ready to just stop going home, and start staying elsewhere.

so it was 1230, and kit and i headed back to our house. and she came in for a beer, we talked for an hour. she went home.

she'd wanted me to stay over that night. and perhaps i should have. but i didn't.

so it was 130. and i got into bed. and ever had been asleep, but i guess i woke him up when i came upstairs and got into bed.

so he comes in, and says, 'i need to talk to you. or are you too asleep now?'

and there was all this heat and hostility in his voice. and the asleep part was more an accusation that i was faking sleep to avoid talking to him.

i wasn't faking sleep. i could have fallen asleep inside ten minutes at that point.

but hearing the tone in his voice woke me up, and i was instantly sober. i pulled the pillow from off my head, and faced him in the dark.

he goes into this whole story about how he was trying to be proactive while i was out and that he got two roommates lined up. that they were moving in april first and that when i come back from my trip home to tell my parents, that i shouldn't come back. that i should be out before i leave.

THIS IS TWO WEEKS AWAY.

i'm thinking, panicking silently, how the fuck am i supposed to get all of my shit packed and out of here in two weeks? how am i supposed to find, and pay three months' rent in two weeks when i haven't even started looking yet. i was thinking that i was going to work on my novel the whole next day, at kit's, and started thinking about looking for apartments online instead.

i was just thinking.

and he was like, 'don't you have anything to say?'

and i told him that i was thinking, that if he really felt that way, that i would do it. that two weeks wasn't very much time, but that i realize that he needs me to leave, and that i respect that and would honor his wishes.

totally taking the high road.

and then i ask, 'so who's moving in?' in my mind, i'm scrolling through everyone we know, thinking about who would live here with him.

and he says that he can't tell me. that they don't want it to be awkward. i tell him that i'm going to figure it out the first time i come over, and keep pushing him to tell me.

he refuses.

he just keeps asking me what i want to say.

and i keep saying that i'm just trying to make a plan to make this happen in time. that i'll start packing the next day and looking for a place.

and i push again to know who is moving in, feeling like i'd be so much less happy if it was a girl, or two girls. partially because i don't want to subject them to his filth. but also because i think it's too soon to put another girl in the house.

and he says...

'there are no roommates. i was just saying that to see what you would say. i thought we were really getting somewhere when you were leaving to go with kit, and i thought you would say that you didn't want to leave. that you changed your mind.'

and i was so FUCKING PISSED OFF.

how could he do that to me? i was relieved, because i thought that he'd put on his big boy pants and decided to do something to help his situation, to make sure the mortgage and bills get paid. i mean, the stress of the time crunch for me was totally worth it.

and it was all a LIE. a trick. he was manipulating me.

and i told him that this is precisely why i'm leaving him. that he lies all the time to everyone around me. that i see him do it, without flinching. that he does it with such ease and without wavering.

and i've told him so many times in the past that it bothers me how easily he can lie to people.

and for him to do it to me and tell me? unbelievable!

i started not yelling, but kinda yelling, how could you? here i thought you were being responsible, and you're just tricking me to get some emotional response out of me?

i don't know. we talked for a few hours after that. i went to bed between 330 and 4 when i was so tired i could no longer sit in a chair and smoke cigarettes.

you know, i only cry when he's talking with me.

and i cried and cried, trying to explain myself to him. and it's easier to do when i'm angry, because i don't care how mean my words sound. i feel like i have to be super mean to him so that the shit sinks in.

anyways, i went to bed, in shock over that. woke up at 9 to some jackass using a fucking jackhammer outside my bedroom window. so so angry.

get up, have coffee, tell nina the whole thing.

and she reacted as violently as i did. that is so fucked up! how could he do that?

and i told her. this divorce, our dying marriage. it's like dying by papercuts.

so many marriages are like a slit throat. very concrete instance. someone cheats, constant fighting, etc. by mine is like a million tiny paper cuts. no one thing is any big deal. but when all of them have made their mark, you bleed to death from a million tiny cuts that are seemingly insignificant.

we talked online for an hour, and then he woke up, so i got offline, and started to clean our bedroom, separating dirty clothes from clean ones and hanging stuff.

and he asks me to come lay in bed and talk to him.

it had only been six or seven hours since we'd been talking, so i wasn't too happy about that. i had plans with kit at 1130, and it was already 1030.

whatever. so i lay down on my side of the bed to talk to him.

and he apologized for the night before, just saying that he is so desperate to keep me here that he'd do anything. that he'd get a job if i'd stay. that he'd put all of his business stuff in the basement if i'd stay.

and i told him that this is not the time to be making those drastic offers. that the time to do that was over the past six months when i was asking him to and telling him that i was really upset by both money issues and space issues, and not feeling like i have a place in the house.

and he just listened.

and i went into a few different analogies, to really try to drive it home. because i realized that i feel like i just need to go to rehab. not literally. the type of rehab where you remove yourself from your situation (being married, in a house) to remove your problems (husband). to really be alone and to really try to figure yourself out.

and just like an addict surrounded by drugs. you can never succeed at figuring out what's at the root of your addictions if you're living in a crack house.

you have to go somewhere (a tiny apartment) and be completely alone, or with a shrink, maybe, and work on yourself. your problems, your skewed way of thinking. and then fix yourself.

before you can even try to reintroduce yourself to the situation where all of your triggers are (home with husband). and reintroducing yourself is NEVER a good idea. but for some people, that is the choice that they make.

what else?

i don't know.

i went to kit's mostly sure i'd be staying there that night, but still didn't pack for it anyways. i just couldn't imagine not going home. it's like i'm living this single life now, already, without really being single. staying wherever, making my own choices.

and trying not to worry about their impact on him. but i do anyways. for some retarded reason.

so i stayed at her place. all day. all evening. we watch olympics, drink coffee, make food. i edited my novel and started making revisions. we looked at apartments together for a few minutes.

and then it was nine. and i really really didn't want to go home. and i really really wanted to have a slumber party instead.

it felt like being asked, 'would you rather eat some cake, or be eaten by an alligator?'

easy fucking choice.

so i text him and say that i want to stay, what is he doing? and he says, i think you should stay. get some rest. i need sleep, too.

which we both looked at each other and thought about who might be going over to stay with him, jokingly, but only really kindof.

like, that was TOO easy.

so that was that. cracked open three beers. stay up writing and talking and scrabbling until like 2 am? i don't know. i was so exhausted.

i just cannot say that enough. i'm so tired.

all the time.

so whatever. go to sleep.

and it was so peaceful. i didn't cry the whole time i was gone. i haven't cried in front of her about this yet, because i just get so angry telling the story that there's no room for sadness.

so i slept very well, woke up at 1030 and made coffee and worked on writing until i went home to get ready for my lunch date with alice.

to say that alice and i have been living parallel lives for the past few months would be the understatement of the year. she wasn't married, but was with her boyfriend for three and a half years. and just recently had been going through every single thing i've been going through with ever.

and i was shocked when she told me that they split up the first week of february.

so we hadn't seen each other, and she didn't know about ever and i. so we went for brunch and beers.

and it was awesome.

well, as awesome as it can be to see your friend as hurt and as angry as you are.

i hate when addages have merit. but 'misery loves company'.

we just kept grabbing each other and oh my god-ding each other. because everything was the same. same thoughts, same feelings, same EVERYTHING.

i love her. i knew that she was awesome when we cooked together over the summer, but we each ahd separate sets of friends, so i guess we just kept doing what we are doing. but i am so glad that we reconnected again now.

it was great. i just feel less insane knowing that someone i know and love feels the same way i have been feeling for the past few months. and i hope she came away from it feeling as much affirmation that i do about doing the right thing. doing the hard thing. but doing the right thing.

and everyone keeps telling me that i'm so brave. but really, it isn't bravity. is that even a word? autocorrect is telling me it's not.

but it's not that. it's just having faith that i will be happier on the other side of this fucking cesspool of shit.


so i decided after brunch, growing a pair of balls via beer and lunch with alice, to start packing today.

and i have maybe eight boxes so far. movies. summer/spring clothes. journals, photo albums, keepsakes and old letters. art supplies, canvases.

and it's not much. but i feel like i'm more than halfway.

i just have the kitchen and the clothes i wear now.

and that can happen the day before i leave.

i feel like i'm getting sick. which really really sucks. i know i've killed my immune system with all this stress and blowing my nose from crying is the worst thing to do during flu season. and smoking and drinking don't help, either. not sleeping...the list goes on.

i read somewhere that people in loving relationships get sick less often than people who are not.

and i think that i have crossed that line.

i feel better. he asked me to stop packing because he couldn't watch me do it. so i did.

then he went up to smoke and talk on the phone. he was telling someone, and i heard him say, for the millionth time that 'she just isn't in love with me anymore,'

which is the only reason he can state for why i am leaving.

and it's so ridiculous. because it is not a reason for me at all.

so i packed more, in an effort to not hear what else he had to say about it.

and now, sleep.

i hope i can. because i'm too tired not to.