True North. Returning to Me.

After I knew I was leaving my marriage, after I had told him, but before I figured out what the coming weeks and years would look like, I tried to start to heal. Healing when you're living in the thing that broke you is...challenging. I kept two jars on my desk, one tied with twine, open at the top, and labeled "truths," the other covered in dark tape so I couldn't see inside it, with just a narrow opening at the top, labeled "lies." I spent the weeks quickly filling those jars with tiny folded pieces of paper that told the story of how utterly broken I was by the emptiness that was my marriage. Truths "I deserve to be happy." "My children will understand one day." "We will be okay." "I am loveable." Lies "This is all my fault." "I am destroying my children." "I am unlovable."  Sometime around this time, I began reading Glennon Doyle's book "Untamed." I had no idea how much I...

Today is one of those days.  My children's 46 year old father is posting pictures of his 34 year old girlfriend posing on a bed, the bed my16 year old points out she used to sleep in as a child. It's not nefarious, no. Just her surrounded by some running shit I presume she got for free or that they're using to try and get other shit for free. Or money. Whatever. It honestly doesn't matter to me anymore. I see him for who he is choosing to be. Mostly, I'm embarrassed for him that he's acting like someone who doesn't have children, property to pay for and maintain, responsibilities, a job, etc. All of the things he's apparently turned his back on to play house like a teenager.  I saw it, I made fun, rolled my eyes, and moved on. Until I saw my (actual teenager) daughter's post today. Despite his claims that he will do better when he's "back home" in Colorado, where he's lived this blissful new existence for a whole 2% of his life, and...