I can see 40 from here!

Tomorrow is my birthday and I turn 37 years old.  I was 33 when Toren died and if you had told me back then that I would reach 37 without having a subsequent baby I would not have believed you because I was so focused on making that dream happen that there would be no way I could fail.

Well...

Reaching the milestone of 40 without children seems quite possible now.


.....


A friend brought this sticker back from New Orleans recently

It makes me smile.  But seriously, this is something I'm struggling with.  My ex-husband outdid himself recently with a new act of douchebaggery and I want him to burn.  I am so angry.  But I also have a vow to harm none (because who am I to determine what someone else deserves) so I'm wanting bad things for him without wishing bad things for him (which is probably against my vow since I question if there is a line between wanting and wishing), for example, I may want him to have a terrible case of gallstones but I have not asked the universe to please send him a very painful gallbladder attack.  Or more directly, I may want all of the windows in his car smashed but I haven't asked anyone to hand me a rock.  Yet.

So I've been trying to stop focusing on how much he deserves something horrible to happen to him and instead focus on wonderful things I want for myself.  And here's the problem - I can't imagine myself in a situation different from here.  This is hard to explain and I don't know if it's normal, or a good coping mechanism, or problematic dissociation, but I don't participate in life as "myself" much anymore.  I wanted to be someone else, someone who was good at their job, someone who was supportive of their friends, someone who got up on the right side of the bed, someone who loved.  With this in mind I began telling myself to just act like that created image, to just be "her".  Like this: I used to like yoga, she likes yoga, if I do yoga I have to do it as her.  I can't do yoga, or anything mindful (or practically anything at all), as a person who has some of my experiences.  Toren is absent from her past, so is my ex-husband.

Maybe it's a normal way of coping and I don't think I'm hurting anyone, in fact my relationships with friends have strengthened, and I'm doing well at my job.  And I feel happy most of the time.  And my memory is improving so on some level I think I am more present than I have been in a long time.  But I don't feel present as myself - I can see her being present.

Even after all this time I don't seem to have integrated Toren into a comfortable place.  I can't function after that experience.

.....

Anyway, after that public moment of insanity, what do you think of the sticker?  I'll stick it on the car tomorrow to bring a smile to any divorcees passing by :)