December 20

     Earlier in the week, I was driving home around midnight and I stopped my car to sit on a stacked rock ledge and watch the snow fall. I actually hate winter, cold, and snow, but my cousin keeps telling me that if I learn to embrace it, then maybe I won't hate it so much. So I try.  I take advantage because at night, alone, I can think. I am rather sad, though, as I spent the end of the evening talking about Him to someone; something I promised myself I would never do. He will always be the father of my children, and I always  found it so tiring to hear women talk disparaging about their former spouses. I will never talk that way again to anyone; there is just no reason, and no good can come of it at all.  That is why I have my support, to help me with His ultimatums, demands.  Again this weekend, He went skiing. My front door remains unlocked whenever He is gone; kids wander in and out of my house. I've made a big dinner so everyone gets fed. I picture my life in the future without these kids and their constant needs.  I just draw a blank.  But I don't guess this is what He thought about on his vacation to Hawaii, or his ski weekends. The choices He presents are centered upon his happiness; I wonder to myself when or if He is ever going to consider the collateral damage of the collapse of our family.  Will He ever be able to think about them before Him? And I begin to question my professional advisers who have been so adamant about so many things -- I am asked for a drink by someone who I find fascinating at, of all places, in front of a car parking meter in Georgetown.  We talk for quite a long time, me in my odd yoga clothes, looking disheveled and rushed, but I can't go for a drink. "It's complicated," I say. He looks down at my hand, no wedding ring. "Are you married?" "Yes, and it's complicated," I say again. So he stares at me and smiles, and actually seemed to understand, taking quite a lot of pressure off as he hands me his card.  "I don't mind complicated, so call me when you are ready."  And he walks away.  Of course I can't keep his card, because if we were meant to meet, we'll meet again. When it's time. And then I realize why I have been following the advice of my attorney and others, because I don't want to be the cause of unnecessary hurt-- of being seen with someone that my kids could unintentionally hear about before it's time. I know that when the time comes, and it's coming fast and furious, it will hit them hard. And although my children are plenty old enough to understand, they still won't like it. Undoubtedly, no more big house with a pool. Having what they thought was their security, pulled out from beneath them.  Then I think, they've seen and heard so much over the past few years as His filter fell away. I use to try to explain things away, His outbursts, His unexplainable behaviors. But after so many years, there is only one way I can fix it. Friends watch, many offering opinions. Some say just stay, reap the benefits of what I've put up with for so long. How can you explain it has so much more to do with just "cashing in".  And why would anyone think happiness really can be found in just money? If that's all my life was to be about, I'd just shut up and stay. But if I've learned anything this year, it's that there's just so much more. And if I am to be any kind of role model to my children, there is really only one way to show them...