Sad

Another weekend disaster AKA Too many tears

I get up early Saturday morning and head up the road to Deep River. My weekend plan is to go to Taste-of-the-Valley first and then spend the rest of the day hiking out to the ski cabin with a group of women, Sunday morning to re-pack my boxes of extra stuff, meet with Rick for coffee, and go and visit Catherine in the afternoon. I have even written, ahead, to Catherine, to check that she will be there and that I can drop by. But I get to Deep River a bit too early for any of my planned activities, and so, a bit at a loss, decide to stop by and check the status of my boxes. Geoff moved them for me from my storage locker to an old shed which a neighbour was throwing out so that I wouldn't have to pay storage fees forever. But when I get there I find that the shed leaks and my cardboard boxes full of possessions are being dripped on. I knock on the door to no avail so call Geoff. He crawls out of bed and comes into the back yard and we discuss the situation and possible solutions to it and then he gives me a tour of his house, the house I lived in with him for a decade and then on my own with my youngest kid for a couple of years after that and then on my own for a couple of years after that. The house that he grew up in – that my kids grew up in – that I gave, somewhat reluctantly, back to him. There are dog food bowls on the kitchen floor, a dog mat in his bedroom. The presence of someone else fills his house. I didn’t want to know. Any hope I ever had of moving back into the life I/we couldn’t hold together is gone. My heart is broken. I have so much trouble moving on. There is no point being angry, no point bemoaning the past, all I can do is to move on. But to what? I don’t want to move on. I don’t want to accept that I have forever left behind the comfort of this house which has sheltered me for over a decade. I don’t want to move on from the security and status quo that it provided. I don’t want. I just don’t want. I don’t want, at all, to be where I am. I don’t want to be single, to be living in Arnprior, to be responsible for my own financial well-being, to have to teach, make decisions on my own, to… Geoff offers me a certain artwork of which he has two, one of them hung on our walls forever, the other on his mother’s wall, and I say I’ll take it, I am hungry for anything familiar, but then he rescinds the offer. It might sell. He has so much extra stuff between his two houses that he has rented a stall, for six months, at a local flee market, and is paying someone to sell it all for him. And I don’t even have a chair, a single chair, in my house, except for the one that Helen gave me. I am angry. And sad. And seeing the house with all his things in it, pictures of his ex-ex-wife (not me) adorning the living room walls, and rugs he collected while off vacationing with Jen’s best friend on the floors, I know it is over. Last weekend I was angry. I was so angry to be living by myself in Arnprior that I was, spitting mad. This weekend I am just sad. 

I retreat and sit in my car down by centennial rock, the ever so familiar scene of the river and the hills across, partially obscured today by low wet clouds, in front of me, and the sadness literally spills out of me tears streaming down my face. 

I am as overwhelmed by sadness this weekend as I was by anger last weekend. My emotions are out of control. I need to get a grip on myself. Decide what to do with the rest of my life. Remember that I have so much. So very very much. And then I need to made a plan, a good plan, a real plan, for the next 25 years. 

But for now… do I go on the hike, stay here and visit tomorrow… or do I just box up my stuff and leave, head back down the valley with my tail between my legs and my tears flowing freely. 

I think, since it is the one thing I am good at I will quit. Box and go. Be back in my cold lonely empty house by this evening. Alone. So alone.

And then, maybe, start looking for a rebound relationship.

But I am not ready for a new relationship. Despite the fact that it has been five years I feel I am just out of this marriage. I still can’t believe that we didn't make things work. I still can’t believe that our communication was so bad that we couldn't keep things together and, then, when they fell apart, couldn't put them back together. I still think that we both wanted to repair the relationship. But we just didn't have the skills to do it on our own and neither of us was organized enough to get the help we needed.

One thing is certain. I am not going to come here for Thanksgiving weekend (as planned). Not now. Maybe not ever. Perhaps after I am in a position that I feel stronger in. Maybe after I have remarried. At least I know. At least I came here now, this weekend, and found out (how empty the loss of the house, of my husband, makes me feel). At least there is that.

My heart is broken. Totally broken. 

And I'm just sad. 

So I go back to his back yard. Re box all my stuff. Deal with the leaks. Ditch all my other plans. Drive back down the valley. I know it is likely the wrong decision. That I am, as my grandmother would have said, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, or, as my mother would have said, cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I can't help it. My sadness overwhelms me - I couldn't, even if I wanted to, talk to anyone rationally about anything this weekend - it engulfs me, overpowers me, leaves me feeling wretched and empty. I only hope that it is also somehow cleansing, that, perhaps, afterwards, I may finally, finally, be able to move on.

But for now I am sad. 

Just so very very sad. 

Beyond coping. 

A second disastrous weekend in a row.

Yes. Sad. In more ways than one.

I will have to do better.