January 6, 2023

Last night I had fears about leaving, that I was a leaver. I left my family straight out of high school. I went out of state for college. I never moved back. Even now when I visit Colorado, I go to the Fort Collins house. It's nicer than the one I grew up in, and there are fewer memories. I watch other kids from the camping group leave the state, rebel against the rules and beliefs of their upbringings, to eventually come back. Some come back home physically, while other seems to return to their parents' life choices or ethics. I keep going. I don't want to return. I go out and out. I keep thinking of a science fiction story, barely remembered, about an astronaut who is going out into the universe forever. Straight into the unknown, never returning. I feel like that. When will I want to return? When will the appeal of what's out there what's next fade for me?

I'm worried about leaving my husband. What's to stop me from leaving everything? I want to have a home. I want my commitments to mean something. When will I learn to stay? Is it a lesson worth learning? 

December 30, 2022

I really miss J today. (And I did yesterday.) Talking to him makes it worse. I don't want to lose or lessen our connection, but I also don't want to get bogged down in that sticky emotional swamp. It's been hard to focus on other things beside Relationship. Granted, I think relationships are one of the most fundamental and important things in life, so focusing on them to some extent is Good. But... I've got the rest of my life too. My writing and soul-searching and exercise and search for autonomy and... self-actualization? I just want the skills to know I will more or less be okay. Maybe that kind of assurance isn't available in life though. Life being this scary vast ungoverned thing. 

The scariest part of getting a divorce is the fear that I might not find someone I like to sleep next to every night. That's my favorite part of being married. 

October 21, 2022

I talked to a friend who got divorced a couple of years ago. He was saying that a big thing to get over was the thought that his wife (now ex-wife) needed him, that she wouldn't survive without him. In my experience she's a hyper competent, fiercely independent person, so that was surprising to hear. 

Another of my friends, a long time ago, was telling me that in general he feels happy when a former partner starts seeing someone else. That's when he knows she's really okay. Small sample size of men here, obviously. But it was interesting to me. Part patronizing, part sweet. I don't know, for whatever credit they're not immediately giving their former partners - in the categories of strength and ability - it seems they're making up for in care. Some (maybe biological) urge saying "protect her" "take care of her." I don't hate it (at least right now).