May I Be Excused?

No matter how badly I behave lately, someone thinks it's okay.

Everything I've done lately, from my campaign of revenge against Dear Husband and my email to his Next Victim, to my surly moods and self-destructive behavior, are apparently excusable. Because I've Been Through a Lot Lately.

It's an interesting development for someone whose behavior has always been inexcusable. According to my Beloved Mother, my whole life has been driven by a streak of selfishness a mile wide. In retrospect, some of my actions were perfectly reasonable reactions to situations no one, especially a child, should ever have to face. But while I now view the circumstances in a more reasonable light, the belief that I look out for myself at the expense of others remains like a bad aftertaste.

The three-year relationship I had with the Babbling Irishman before meeting DH only reinforced this feeling. BI had the endearing habit of taking a harmless comment and parsing it for hours to reveal my evil motivation. These marathon sessions always left me feeling like a verbal marauder who crushed feelings like buildings in a bad Japanese horror film.

Intentionally or unintentionally, DH has only reinforced the feeling that whatever happens is somehow my fault. He has steadily maintained that I'm the one responsible for the demise of our marriage. According to DH, a conversation I had with him two weeks before kicking his ass out of my life sounded the death knell of our relationship. His five-year betrayal and web of lies were just incidental.

Luckily, I have a gaggle of good friends who are helping me turn this around. You trampled someone's flower garden? That's perfectly understandable considering what's going on in your life. You made a baby cry just by looking at it? It's okay, you've had a hard year.

It's wonderful to be supported, but it's hard to get used to the idea that everything I do is okay when viewed in the mirror of my friendships. But I guess I should enjoy it. Because I've Been Through a Lot Lately.

Time for a Tune-Up

Self-care is a funny thing - if you're not giving any, you're not getting any.

I haven't been taking good care of myself at all lately. Despite my sometimes-good intentions, I've cut out nearly everything that keeps me healthy - mainly exercise, good food, and sleep.

And unfortunately, this kind of self-neglect seems to snowball. So does the emotional wreckage that goes along with it. This last week has been particularly bad - my self-abuse manifested itself into physical pain that grew nearly intolerable as the week progressed. By Friday, I had been nursing a headache for five days that was totally unimpressed by any amount of OTC pain reliever I threw at it, and was starting to fantasize about jumping off a bridge.

So I finally took some steps toward mental and physical health. I made an appointment with D, a fabulous deep-tissue massage therapist who has no problem digging nearly to China to work the kinks out of my muscles.

By the time D finished working his two hours of muscle magic, I finally felt like I wanted to live again. A trip to the Korean spa, a good dinner, and A's magical presence and fantastic body work sealed the deal.

It's time to start taking care of myself. The 18-hours-a-day-hunched-over-the-computer plan doesn't seem to be working for me. It's time for a change.

I Did a Bad, Bad Thing

After telling myself for weeks that I wouldn't, I emailed Dear Husband's Next Victim last night during a fit of pique.

I gave her a basic outline of DH's betrayal and lies, let her know that he's still advertising on the Internet for sex with men, apologized for disrupting her life, and wished her luck either way.

I am concerned about her, but that's not why I sent the email. I sent it because I'm totally disgusted that DH is screwing me over again after screwing me over so royally the first time. I did it because he is refusing to address his financial responsibilities. But mostly, I did it because I wanted to hurt him.

The impulse passed, but unfortunately I had already sent the email. I woke up this morning filled with regrets, and dreading a response. But there was none.

Finally, this afternoon, I received an email that completely flummoxed me. I had imagined several responses that NV might make to my email, including no response at all, but this sure wasn't one of them. It was a computer-generated email that said NV had invited me to join MySpace.

Was this NV's way of acknowledging my email without actually having to say anything? Did she even read the email? Has she suffered a head injury in the not-too-distant past?

But that's neither here nor there. Trying to figure out what goes on inside NV's head is even more futile than trying to puzzle out DH's thought processes. And why should I care about either?

But obviously I do. I wish I didn't. Someday I won't. Until then, I obviously need a computer chaperone.

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

As part of my ongoing campaign to get Dear Husband to meet his financial 0bligations, A offered to put a hex on him.

A is an ordained Wiccan priestess who, when she gets into her witchy mode, appears to be about nine feet tall and is not a person I would ever mess with. She explained to me that ethical witches invoke hexes that are designed to get stubborn individuals like DH to do what they should be doing anyway.

She compared her hex to a scene from the film "A Color Purple," where the beleaguered Celie finally stands up to her loser husband Albert.

"Until you do right by me everything you think about is gonna crumble!"

Sounds good to me.

My only fear is that DH's life is crumbling so much already that he might not notice the difference.

But I have faith in the process. I've seen A in action often enough to know that she wrangles with things that I can't begin to see or understand.

Now if only I could get her to work her magic on Cheap Landlord. But that might be pushing my luck.

I Hate Everyone

People are really getting on my nerves.

I don't really hate them, and it's not really everyone. But saying it seems to fit my angry, annoyed, self-pitying mood right now.

The last couple of days have been filled with one frustrating exchange after another. Dear Husband dodged my email about his unpaid hospital bill and then responded to another by calling me a whore. Again. My friend L, who hasn't had sex in about four years, pretty much called me the same thing. Again.

Cheap Landlord made me call him six times a day for a week before finally, finally sending someone over to fill the hole in my bathroom. My upstairs neighbor has apparently opened a daycare center, or a bed-and-breakfast, or both, directly above my home office, and refuses to tone down the noise even one decibel.

And my friend K has decided to move to Florida to live with his sister because he's tired of doing everything on his own and not being able to count on anyone here. I think very sick people are a little like toddlers - they tend to live in the moment. I've spent a lot of time and money over the past year making sure K's needs were met, but it seems to have slipped his mind.

So I'm frustrated. And very irritable. And I have a headache. And the most annoying thing of all is that all of these obnoxious people have only one thing in common - me.

I need to get out - outside of my head, out of this apartment, out of this funk. Life seemed so fabulous just a couple of days ago. Of course that's the good news - life will seem wonderful again soon. But until then I hate everyone.

Hallelujah

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I got a lot done today.

I woke up at the crack of dawn (7:30) and started working immediately. By 10 am, I had not only completed several pages of my current project, I had also washed the dishes and done a load of laundry.

I sort of lost momentum later, but it still turned out to be a very productive day. I got a lot of work done. I got the bills paid and took Cosmo on a walk and to the park. I continued my campaign of revenge against Dear Husband. I harangued Cheap Landlord about the hole in my bathroom. I even took some feeble steps toward cleaning out my nightmarish bedroom closet. And I still managed to squeeze in a nap.

This may not seem like a lot, but from my perspective it was truly an incredible day. For the last couple of months, it's sometimes been a struggle to even get dressed in the morning. And disciplining myself to work steadily has been a major issue.

I'm not that big on New Year's resolutions, but I hope the coming year brings the ability to use my time wisely, to balance work and play, and to take care of the things I need to accomplish before they become problems. If I have many days like today, 2007 will be a fantastic year.