The magic in a rainbow

My gaze kept drifting between the trees rushing past outside the car window and the face of the woman I love in the driver's seat.  Today was a difficult day, I was going home.  My vacation to see her wasn't nearly long enough and I did not want to get on that plane.  We hadn't really talked much since getting in the car and my guess was that she was lost in her own thoughts just like I was. 

 
I will never know what she was thinking about that day, but my thoughts were along the lines of not wanting to lose her again and not wanting to go home to the drama I knew awaited me.  I think what brought me out of my thoughts was the feeling of her thumb rubbing on my hand, and I looked down at our hands and smiled.  There was a little rainbow dancing on our joined hands, moving over our skin as the car followed the contours of the road. 

What happened next, a muttered, "Oh shit!" from L followed by her tearing her hand away from mine so she could steer us to safety, changed my life forever.  We both came out of the accident in one piece thankfully, and I later told her what I'd seen the light doing on our joined hands, but it took me just over six months from the day of the accident to make a connection. 

Now I don't normally make a big deal out of my spiritual beliefs but I think its important here to note that I do not consider myself a Christian.  I have no problems with God, mind you, just many of his followers.  That said, I'm not sure what exactly prompted me to think about it, but as I was driving to the bank today it hit me: God made a promise with a rainbow after the flood that he would never again do something so drastic.

I can't help but wonder if maybe the sweet little rainbow dancing across mine and L's joined hands was a promise too.  A promise that this time the love I have will last, that I won't lose her to my own stupidity again, or that we would survive what was about to happen to us.  I'm not sure.  Maybe it was just a fluke of light shining through the windshield at just the right angle.  The logical part of me says its probably the latter, but the part of me that believes in magic, miracles, and higher powers really wants to believe in the former. 

Rainbows have been considered a sign of hope in many cultures, in others they have been considered a message.  Before the accident I just thought of them as beautiful flukes of nature, light reflecting through water (or sometimes glass/crystal).  I haven't seen one since that day but I'm pretty sure that the next time I do it won't just be a fluke to me anymore, it will be something a bit more magical. 

Intrusion and Forgiveness

The day of the divorce I made this blog public in hopes that somebody going through a similar ordeal as what I went/am going through would find some help from it.  A few days ago I found out that the one person I really didn't want to read it has been doing exactly that.  The ex has (not surprisingly) located my blog and decided that it'd be a good idea to read it, to "check on the kids and family".  Fantastic.  If he wanted to know about the kids he should have asked as very little gets mentioned about them in this blog.  As for his family, well the only family he has left that this blog would tell him anything about is C & R. 

After what he tried two weeks ago I am not at a place in my life where I can consider him family anymore.  I do not have it in me emotionally to relate to him in any way other than as C & R's other biological parent, and maybe as somebody I used to be friends with.  As is my nature, I will always care about him and what is going on with him.  This really truly complicates things for me because my head is telling me to break all ties with him to save myself the drama and further heartache but my heart, my big, soft, ever forgiving, and loving heart...  I wouldn't be who I am without my tendancies to care too strongly and too much but in this particular situation my brain wishes I could at least put a damper on those tendancies.

How do I leave my fears and anxiety of two weeks ago (and the 5ish years of abuse) behind and move on when I still care so damn much what happens to him?  I want him happy and healthy and in a good place in his life so he can be a part of his kids' lives.  Yet at the same time, until he is in what I consider at least a better place in his life I can't help but want to have minimal contact with him.  Yes, maybe this is harsh and me punishing him.  Maybe this is me thinking only about me.  Maybe me, on the day he tried to end his life, saying that I wished he'd turn out to be a dead-beat dad was a heartless thing to say.  But damnit, I just want to be free of the drama that always seems to happen between us.  If we can someday exist in each other's orbits without causing some sort of drama for the other person or our kids then maybe I will be able to finally let go.

Until the day comes when I can finally leave all of this heartache behind I will keep working toward forgiveness.  I can forgive him for everything that happened (eventually) but I will never forget what happened because I don't want to forget the lessons its taught me.  Those lessons are helping me see who I have the potential to be if I just have faith in myself.  I am strong enough to deal with all of this, I will be able to move on someday.  It may take me a long time, but I will get there.

Exhausted and missing Her.

It rained, we snuggled, it was perfect.  I see much more of
this in our rainy NW future.

Its been a week since the ex pulled his stupid stunt and L came out on an emergency rescue mission (2 days after) to make sure I was okay and to help me while I tried not to crumble, and today I once again put her back on a damned plane.  Medically/physically the ex is fine now but he's doing a voluntary stay at the hospital's psych unit for at least a few more days.  To say the last week has been a blur is a major understatement.  Between the drama of last Sunday, the worry all day Monday and into Tuesday, then my day in Seattle waiting for L's flight to get in the beginning of the week was completely shot which threw off the rest of my week too.  I know I missed one test this week and I'll have to beg forgiveness and hope the instructor will let me take it late.

At this very moment I am laying in my bed alone, dead tired, and unable to sleep because I am alone.  Despite the circumstances for why she came out to visit, having L here was a nice treat and now that she isn't here I am more aware of her absence than ever.  This damn long distance crap hurts more and more every time I say goodbye to her even though I know the time that we will finally get to be together for good is getting closer every day.  I'm not sure what I'm feeling even qualifies as inpatience anymore. 

L is my person and I need her here.  I don't just need her here to help me cope with the hard stuff, or help with the kids so I can do my darn schoolwork.  I just need her here to share my darn life with.  Simple things like snuggling on the couch, talking about our day in person (such a novel concept!), or even just doing chores around the house together.  That is how life with somebody you love is supposed to be, not split up by thousands of miles for days, weeks, or months at a time.  I have no idea how my military friends handle deployments because this is absolute torture.

And, as if saying goodbye to her at the airport isn't normally a teary-eyed affair when its just the two of us, this time we had the kids in tow (so I could take them to see their dad on our way home) as well.  They were not happy to say goodbye to L at all and after we'd all said our goodbyes and I pulled the car away from the curb of the departures area, the kids started bawling.  C was begging me to go back and get her and R was just inconsolable.  Way to make a mommy's heart crumble guys, you completely shattered it.  They don't get that worked up about anybody but L.  Not me, not their dad, not their Mimi (my mom), not even their friends.  Only L.  To say that they love her is a huge understatement.  The day I don't have to explain to them why she had to leave again is going to be amazing.  Hell, the day I don't have to explain to myself why she had to leave again is going to be amazing.

How do I deal with this?

Without going into all the background of it, the Ex attempted suicide this morning and if I hadn't called the cops on a hunch (wasn't sure if he was serious or trying to push my buttons when he told me he was going to do it) the kids would no longer have their dad.  As it is I'm still not sure if he's going to make it because the ICU docs just don't have any answers for me yet because they don't even know how his body is going to handle the large doses of meds he took.

I wanted him in my life less than he was insisting on.  I was honestly hoping he'd wind up a dead-beat dad and just move away, maybe calling on birthdays and holidays.  I never wanted this.  Never.  He always joked about dying at 35, and his 35th birthday was a few weeks ago so he's actually been joking about it more but that's all I thought it was.  Apparently not.

Right now my emotions range from angry at him for being so stupid, to devastated that I may have to someday explain to C & R that their daddy killed himself, to just absolutely lost.  I was walking around in circles earlier trying to figure out what to do and had to just make myself stop, breathe and focus on one thing at a time.  Get left overs out of the fridge for dinner.  Get a bowl for the food.  Get a fork....  You get the point. 

As of right now the only thing I know for certain is that if he pulls through this I'm going to try and get the parenting plan modified.  If he is not even capable of taking care of himself he sure isn't capable of taking care of two small children on his own for half the week.  If he wants the same plan we have now where he gets the kids for half the week he's going to have to work for it.  He is obviously in need of some kind of psychiatric help, he needs a stable home (is getting evicted from his apartment tomorrow), and dang it he needs income so that he can keep his new place so I guess that means he needs a job since his college/financial aid fell through.

I'm not sure what I'm going to request the modifications be except for no overnights, and no alone time until all of the stuff I listed is met.  I absolutely can NOT risk him taking them with him the next time he decides life is too hard.

I think for now I'm not really going to deal with any of this.  I'm going to drink my glass of wine, aimlessly browse tumblr or pinterest until L gets home from her night of not dealing with all this, and then I can hopefully get on skype with her.  A little visual reassurance that she's in one piece and healthy (if a bit drunk) is much needed at the moment.