One Week

I have started and deleted my next post about a hundred times since the last one. I have also started and walked away from my next post about a hundred other times. For the first time in my life, my preferred method of expressing myself is failing me. I can't find the words to express how I feel. Ironically enough, for the first time in my life my appetite has disappeared as well.

This has been without a doubt one of the toughest and most heart wrenching weeks in my life. What started out as probable divorce with a remote chance at saving it is now definite divorce with no chance at saving it. I have cried myself dizzy. I have experienced bouts of extreme anger. I have sat numb and lost. I have exercised obsessively. I have hugged my boys, and I have cried with them too. I have questioned my life, my self, my family, my ability to hold it together, and my heart.

I haven't slept much, and when I do manage to relax enough to fall asleep, reality often slaps my dreams and I wake up in a panic, yelling the word John into the dead of the night. It echoes in the silence.

I tell myself that I am strong, that I can make it through this- repeatedly- as if it were a record broken in my head, skipping back to the word strong over and over and over. I think maybe if I tell myself often, one of these times I might believe it. It might break through the wall of ache in my chest and finally once again let me take a deep breath.

The boys are first and foremost in my thoughts. I think of all the things I have to do for them. Not only do I have to wake up each morning to care for them and nurture them, I have to be strong for them. I have to show them that although it's OK to be strong and go on with our lives, it's also OK to be sad and grieve the family we were. I have to learn how to let go of him and still cultivate a friendship for the sake of the boys. I have to put my feelings aside and place the boys before any ache, hurt, or anger I might have.

I am sad. I am heartbroken. I am lost.

I am banking on the fact that it has to get better, because I can't see how it can possibly get any worse.