Roller Coaster

I'm tired.

This weekend I felt better.  I felt a little bit like me.  Monday, I received the communication from the lawyer.

The realization that she was still close by (I really had assumed that she would put some distance between us) hit me hard.  I spent way too much time Tuesday re-applying my Google-fu towards locating her.

I think I found a PO Box number that is her's.  I figured out what post office it resides in.  I also figured out how to find her address, once her voter registration is updated.

After work, I drove to that post office and parked nearby.  I waited there for an hour to see if she'd stop by and get her mail.  She did not.

I'm an idiot.  That exercise did nothing to make me feel better.  And did everything to anchor me to grief and shock of what has happened.

The ups and downs of my emotions are getting to me.  The lack of appetite and lack of sleep are getting to me.  I've lost over 15 pounds since she left.  I'm happy the flubber is gone, but I'm pretty sure the rate of weight loss is draining me.

All of my friends are married, and most of them have young kids.  There is only so much time that have for me.  And besides, hanging out with people who clearly love and respect each other wears on me too.  It makes me angry at myself that I have never been able to achieve that.

It makes me angry that I've spent more than the better part of the last twenty years with women who didn't feel that way about me.

I'm afraid of what comes next.  I'm afraid that it will be more of the same, that this is my destiny.  I'm afraid I'll never really settle into myself.  I'm afraid that my kid will grow up and leave and go live his life, and I'll be all alone.

The common thread to all of this shit is me.  I am extremely concerned that I simply am not good enough.

I'm just having a hard time adjusting to this new reality.  Most of the time, I don't even miss her.  But, the not knowing about so many things bothers me.  I haven't really been single in 20 years.  I know that the wrong thing to do would be to jump in to a long term relationship with the fist person I click with, but I was 25 last time I was single.  And honestly, I was no good at that then.

I'm a totally different person than that young man.  I have no model for how this should go.  I don't know what it looks like.  Everyone tells me that I need focus on me, and what's good for me, and what I want.  But I don't know what I want.  I thought I knew who I was and what I wanted, but now... not so much.  Even the things that have nothing to do with her no longer seem familiar.  I'm a stranger in my own life.

In the mean time, I ride up and down on an emotional roller coaster.  I want to get off, but I don't know how.