New beginnings...

So, it's been about a month since I posted, but I have been going through some thangs! Came to realize my marriage wasn't what I thought it was at all, mainly because my husband wasn't the man I thought he was at all. I caught the flu, and that didn't help. My mom took Sarah for a few days so that I could get some rest and brood in peace, and it helped, a little. I'm over the flu, trying my damndest to get over my husband, and trying to stay distracted because I've had this stomach ache brought on by stress that I haven't had since I was a kid. If I stay distracted, it goes away. When the house is quiet and I have a minute to myself to think, it comes back in full force. I am not the first woman in the history of the world to have a philandering husband who is not as strong as I thought he was. I know this. Bad country songs are made of these things. I will find a way to move on, to find strength for myself and my daughter, and one day, I will wake up and be able to enjoy my life again. I know this. But for now, this hurts like hell, and it sucks. I'm sorry I don't have a more elegant turn-of-phrase for you, but as anyone who has been in my position can tell you, that pretty much is the simplest and most accurate way to describe this. I feel like my heart has been eviscerated, then put back in, and expected by the world at large to function the way it did before. I'm supposed to be over this because he is. I'm supposed to forget the last 11 years ever happened, be the good ex-wife and not let my emotions get in the way. Such bullshit.

Add to that the fact that Sarah's upward swing is now starting to decline. Her gums are starting to swell again, she is eating less. She is losing weight again, her clothes are starting not to fit. Her doctors want to start a new chemo, in addition to the old one. I don't even know what it's called. Would you judge me if I said I really didn't care, as long as it gave us more time? I have already lost everything I have worked for my entire life. I have lost my job, the career I spent my life building, the relationship and marriage I spent 11 years building, my relationship with my stepchildren, my dignity and self-respect. I have nothing left to show for my life except that little girl. Thing is, I would lose it all a hundred times if it meant I got to keep her.

So tomorrow, we start the new chemo with the name that eludes me, and which her wonderful doctors have tweaked to 4 days instead of 5 so that we won't have to come in on a Saturday, and they've also agreed to do it outpatient if I bring her every day. If it means Sarah will be happy, and she can swing and play T-ball in the yard, I will absolutely drive her to the hospital every day. There is no sense in buying more time if we can't enjoy it.

I am slowly but surely learning a new way of life. I am learning to be a person, an adult in my own right, because I don't know how to be that. I have been with this man since I was 21 years old, raising his children, being his wife. I have loved him all of my adult life. I don't know how not to love him. I know the girl I used to be before I met him, and I know the woman I have become with him. I don't know who I am apart from him, and I am learning. I am learning how to live solely for myself and my daughter, and how to love us both better. I am reading, watching tv programs, journaling, doing whatever I can to realize my own shortcomings, the places where I went wrong, if only to improve myself since it has been made clear to me on more than one occasion that my marriage is completely over. He thinks he can find happiness with his mistress. I am being left no choice but to leave him to it. It isn't like me to just give up, especially to an unworthy opponent, but in this case, I think it's a lesson I need to learn. The art of letting go.

I have made a "me" list, of ways I want to improve, things I want for myself, things I want to do, and be and see. I have decided to do at least one nice thing for myself a month, get out of the house on my own once a month, whether it be dinner with a friend or even shopping on my own. I want to write more, pick up where I left off with that novel I started writing awhile back. I want to craft and read, and play with my daughter in the yard, all of the things there was never time for while I was struggling to hold onto something that wasn't there. From the ashes of my marriage, I will rise. From the ashes of this cancer, my daughter and I will both rise, better, stronger, alive. And if we are in our final days, then I am determined to make them the best. I am determined to create memories that will last me until the end of my days. Life is for living, and I intend to live it. Now.