it's a girl

This has not been a good week. On the surface, it's been good, normal at least. It's what has been happening under the surface that has been so difficult. I have been carrying too much lately, trying my darndest to figure out how to throw some of the weight off.

 There was the lingering sadness of having what *could have been* something potentially awesome with Mr. Perfect end before it really got started, and the accompanying doubt of whether or not I am ever going to be good enough for someone I think good enough for me.

Then there was the sudden $3000 in medical bills I racked up for cardiac work I was ordered to have done back in December which my insurance (which I paid dearly for, being self-employed) decided not to cover, and which I now have to cancel my insurance for in order to pay.

And then there was....this other thing. This thing I wouldn't let myself think about.

*So, I spent the last week eating comfort food and candy like a bottomless pit--a tactic I haven't tried in three years. And while that was delicious, it left me 4 pounds heavier, hating the way my pants fit, and realizing that trading one kind of out of control for another wasn't helping.

*I also started to write a new story: a great, quirky un-love love story where I can take all the elements of my life, mix them up with fiction, and make them end however I want. That usually helps, but not so much this time.

*I weeded my whole yard and planted my garden. Usually fresh air, sunshine, the smell of flowers and herbs, and dirt under my nails works miracles for my soul. Yeah, again, the weight was still there.

*I threw myself into my job, taking on the social media assignment I was given with the determination of a prize fighter. I impressed the heck out of my two bosses who couldn't believe I wasn't a business major--but kudos didn't help.

*Scripture study helped for about an hour.

*Text yelling at poor Ninja for abandoning me as my best friend these last few months really, really didn't help.

*Then tonight, I ran 5 1/2 miles, not at my usual pace, but as hard and fast as I could. I wouldn't let myself stop. I ran until my side seized with a sharp pain and it felt like my heart was going to burst open. I finished, glazed in sweat and heaving, unable to go another step--my legs trembling and weak with fatigue. And still--it only brought the sadness closer to the surface without letting it go.

* So finally...I gave in. I did the thing I didn't want to do. I acknowledged the source of the pain and I let myself fall into it, hoping I could do so and still come back out the other side.

Brad went into the hospital with his new wife today to have their new baby. A girl.

Before he moved his stuff out of our house after we separated, I took one of his shirts and hid it. It was a Bugle Boy shirt I gave him for our first Christmas together 17 years ago--made of soft corduroy, cream with small, mossy green checks. I loved him in that shirt. In fact, the November day in 1997 when we went into the hospital to have our first baby, I told him to wear that shirt. It was comforting to look at, and I liked the feel of it. I still keep a picture by my bed of him holding newborn baby Z. You can't see Brad's face, but you can see the shirt. 

Tonight, after the kids were in bed, I pulled that shirt of the back of the closet where I had tucked it away, and I examined it: the elbows worn thin from wear. The shirtsleeves still rolled up the way he used to do for work. There was even a crusty spot over the pocket that I knew must have been spit up from J--a reminder of how little he still was when Brad left.

Then, I just hugged the empty shirt tight and remembered all the good times. All the hard times we got through. Remembered the four times we went together to the hospital to have our boys, the concern on his face at seeing my pain, how proud he looked holding the tiny blanketed bundles, how he would kiss me and tell me, "good job, sweetheart." I let the anger surge and die. Let the disappointment in the way his whole family seems happy for him and oblivious toward me get cried out. Just sat with the sad truth that my own marriage and family had to go away in order for this young girl to start hers with the man who was our husband and daddy. That the miracle of birth would no longer be an experience that only he and I shared together. That the man I loved so very, very dearly could be so cruel, so unlike everything I believed him to be.

It wasn't the same as not letting my husband go. I know he's gone. I've known it for a very long time. I have accepted and made peace with it. I've been comforable, mostly, in my life just as it is. Which was why it was so hard to visit it again tonight. But necessary. Very necessary. I finally feel...empty. Like the weight is thrown off.

And tomorrow I will take the boys to the store and let them pick out something girly to take to their sister. And I will try to ignore the surreal feeling of all of it. And I may even be brave enough to look at the new baby, which I'm sure will be very cute. As babies are.