2302. april 12th.

it seems the girl at 2302 has ended up feeling a bit like a ship lost at sea.

i don't know what it is.

maybe it's a feeling that life will go on.

maybe it's recognizing my desire to slip into the next thing.

maybe it's just missing my dog-daughter.

but for a girl who was so determined, so focused on having goals and aspirations, i feel like i'm just moving between mini milestones.

maybe it's because the nine week chalkboard calendar that used to dictate my life hasn't been viewed in just over five.

when kenna explained the safe harbor thing to me, it sounded very foreign. i thought i'd never feel that way. because ever was never a safe harbor.

i didn't feel like i was losing any sense of stability by leaving. i felt like i was gaining it.

spoiler alert: maybe it's the book i'm reading.

i love the choose your own adventure quality, approach, to the story.

and i love seeing the contrast between what might have been in each possible life.

and how the perception of what you have and what you're missing out on shifts, depending on which life you're in. it's exactly how i have thought about my not choosing coffee, or my not choosing the sun. it's going back in time and rehashing the decisions i made at various forks in the road.

i wonder, for tonight, what i'd be doing at this precise moment in time if i was still living with my husband in our house.

i'd probably have made the same dinner, the same quantity of food. only there wouldn't be leftovers.

he'd probably be stoned, watching the same shows he always watched with me, or without me if i was taking my time to write, thus avoiding him.

i'd probably be pissed at the amount of housework left for me to do at the end of my workday.

he'd probably have eaten my ice cream. and i'd probably have gone downstairs to have a tiny bowl. and then i'd probably have thought, 'why? he will do this to me until the day i die. he has no respect for me.'

we'd probably have had an argument, or a discussion, because he'd probably have proposed sex, and i'd probably have turned him down.

or, worse yet, maybe i would've obliged, and i'd be laying in bed disappointed. or in the bathroom after, crying because he selfishly left after he finished.

i'd probably be looking for the least wrinkled thing in the pile of laundry he'd thrown onto the couch, waiting for me to hang it all up and put it all away, to wear to work tomorrow. because the last thing i need first thing in the morning after a night of not being able to sleep is trying to find an outfit in the dark, exhausted.

knowing these probably outcomes doesn't change how i feel right now, at this very second.

i wouldn't be reading this book. i wouldn't have had time to read the three before it. because his life would be my life, and there wouldn't be time for me.

it has been 37 days since i left him. it seems and feels like it's been a lot longer than that.

it has been two months (58 days) since we made the transition from 'working on our marriage' to 'getting a divorce'. and i can't even remember how my hand used to feel with two rings on it, dictating that i belonged to him.

i was sitting outside, and thought, 'i should call ever and see how he's doing'. and i think it's because one year ago today, it was easter. and his grandfather died.


kit and i watched dream for an insomniac yesterday.

and though it is chock full of cheese, i love that movie to pieces.

it gives me hollywood hope that somewhere, out there, there is one person who is so completely me that i won't want to live my life without him.

that he would realize, no matter his current relationship status, that i am the one for him, and that anything other than me is settling.

i had to write on paper all day at work today. it was agonizing. because i was going in many directions, only it was on paper, so i knew that i'd have to type it later.

and one place that i went, on paper, was financial.

after i get the apartment behind me, i will have about $900 a month that is unclaimed, after all of my bills are paid.

if i can just make it there. everything will be okay.

i'm sure the first month will be spent on installing internet and opening accounts with utility companies. a bed that is worth sleeping on. a dresser for my clothes that cannot be hung. and plane tickets home and back, and a ticket here for nina.

sometimes, in this apartment, i feel like an intruder. i guess with the window closing on my short time here, i feel like i should be on my way. i feel, some days, like i've outstayed my welcome.

and every day, a few times a day, i feel gratitude for kit. because she has given me a place to live for two short months. and in two more weeks, i will finish the chapter on the halfway house portion of my life. and close the book, and move on to what comes after.