I'm grateful for: meditation and soul-searching; having sufficient faith/courage to do whatever the next right thing may be; successful shopping today.

Waaah! I feel all miserable now. I don't know why. Just a little while ago I was a total stress case. Tension in every part of my body, unable to relax, for now reason I could see or guess. Okay, today and tomorrow are shaping up to be very hard. I have that a lot of the time. I don't generally get completely wired about it.

A while ago the dogs went berserk. A while - a few minutes, one of those. TH got up, and came in here and brought me some salami and brought Kitten some tuna fish, and shut the door with the right animals (Kitten, Chamudah) on the inside and the right animals (Balta, Peppito) on the outside. I was kind of bitchy to him - along the lines of 'I'm incredibly tired and overwrought, I've been in pain all day, it's 2am and It's not looking likely that I'll sleep, and you are being a bit of a dickhead' bitchy. He was.

He got Kitten all riled up (which is why I needed her to have some tuna) and made a mess of things in here, and didn't listen or ignored it when I practically screamed (it IS 2am and I have sleeping children - I couldn't *really* scream) when Kitten hit a way-too-sensitive area in her spazzing about.

And after just sitting here for a bit, with Kitten sleeping on me, hooray for that, I find myself wanting to bawl my eyes out. Nothing is coming that way, it's just that feeling that I want to. I've no idea why.

Maybe it has something to do with TH being a dickhead again so close after the last fight. He didn't stay the 'good' husband very long, did he? Maybe the thing to do, in the quiet between the storms, is to start taking the steps that will allow me to move out, instead of waiting for things to become unbearable again. It is so hard to know what to do.

***

So, it's now 3am, and I've been doing some praying and some soul-searching, and it seems to me that I really must commit to finding out if/how I might be able to move out. Just information gathering. I really can't/don't want to continue living this way. It's just reached the point, for me, that either TH commits to changing - more than little bits and only when I blow my top, but actually working on dealing with his issues, getting over himself, figuring out what he *really* wants, and so on ... Or, I can't continue with him.

I am not interested in presenting this to him as an ultimatum - even if I hadn't tried it before. Either he's too smooth, I'm too gullible, or Hashem had something else in mind ... clearly he has promised and not delivered. More than once. Time to stop playing that game.

I don't want to move out. I certainly don't want to end this relationship, on which I have spent more than half of my life. When I promised 'til death do us part I meant it. However, I am not the only one in this relationship, and I cannot do it alone. I don't want to, I'm not willing to, I can't be bothered, either.

Moving out means losing all the animals except Kitten. TH may choose to keep some or all of them, but I cannot have them anywhere I can imagine being able to move to.

It means losing any hope of a new computer. So pray Hashem keeps this one limping along. It means no television (no tears over that), no car, and no one to help me physically - unless Hashem has a miracle or two up His sleeve. Always possible, but I can't act as if it is so - not while there are things I can do on my own account.

Moving out means sort of abandoning S1. He's either stuck staying here with TH, or he's completely on his own. I can't afford to support him, can't afford a house/apartment with room for him, and he can't stay where he is and be able to get a 'real' job. He is 21. He is reasonably functional. He could do this - move out, get some sort of apartment, find a job, and make all the sorts of mistakes a young man makes.

Moving out means sort of abandoning S2. He is in the army, so he's largely taken care of for the next three years. But, he couldn't have his stuff and address with me - I couldn't afford the space in a house/apartment and have no way to provide for him on weekends. He would be coming home on leave to TH, not the end of the world, but he surely wouldn't be happy about it.

Moving out means D2 having even less financial support for school and all. It is her choice to live in an apartment, and to have to work to provide for herself. She *could* have chosen to live at home. If I move out, she may not have a choice. It may be a choice of living here (with TH and presumably S1) or giving up on school.

Moving out means that RS, who is planning on moving here in the fall, either has to come and stay with the brother-in-law (TH), or else she and I (two cripples) and D3 and S3 will have to set up housekeeping together, willy-nilly. We don't even know if we can live together - a serious question as the last time we tried it was something of a disaster. We've both come a long way, but that doesn't mean we should leap into anything if we can help it.

Moving means not having the V.O.I.P. phone, which means not being able to talk to RS very much, and probably not to talk with or hear from D1 at all. Letters and email work, for me, but she doesn't seem to be able to (or is it interested in?) maintain contact that way.

Moving means losing that majority of my books, cd's, furniture, and 'stuff.' Moving means starting over from scratch. Moving is big. Moving is scary.

Staying without concrete change is condemning myself to a life of petty. It's not that bad, really. It's not good. It's little and petty and mean and just not what I survived my atrocious childhood for. Not the example I want to set for my children. Not (I sincerely hope) what Hashem has in mind for me ultimately.

So where does that leave me? It leaves me, I guess, investigating my other options. A house I could afford to rent in a love moshav just showed up on the homeschoolers list. I don't know if I could afford to live there because I have to be someplace I could survive without a car as a cripple.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that moving out means the end of S3's and D3's horseback riding lessons.

But, having discovered one possibility, it remains that there must be more. Maybe I could live someplace where there was a swimming pool I could use? That would be a huge quality-of-life improvement for me... ;-)

I can't help having this feeling 'why can't TH just stop being a dickhead and then I wouldn't have to do this?' Why, why, why. That is the question, isn't it?

I love where I live, I don't want to leave it. I love how I live, mostly. I love the animals and the space and the quiet and the freedom.

*sigh*

Tomorrow is a big day. A birthday party in the morning, then picking up FB in Modi'in, and the kids riding show. Dashing home to get there (hopefully) with time to shower and cook something. I am not going ot hold my breath on that. And then shabbos. With S2 home for a long weekend. THAT thought makes me happy. ...

Good night, must move laundry and then try, maybe, to get some sleep? A person can hope. Be well, all, and Gd bless.

I'm listening to The Beatles: Get Back - from the 2003 'Naked' album.

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06