Fevered and calm

Being sick gets boring fast. Since I still have a fever, I didn't want to go into the office today. A co-worker's live-in mother has a compromised immune system and can pick up a bug that's just looked at her daughter. I'm still sleeping a lot. I feel like I've slept more this week than I have in the last month, but when I'm awake, I'm wide awake. I don't have the energy to do much, but I have the desire to be productive and the guilt that I'm not. Thus I blog, including this pointless entry that's even boring me so far.

This week, I've really noticed a change in my hands since I started my diet. You see, my wedding and engagement rings literally fell off my hand. I've been toying with not wearing them, but it feels strange after twenty years. The groove in my finger has been worn deep and is a very tangible reminder of the changes. It's funny that I want this, but just don't want to be reminded of it too often and still can't get it off my mind. Seeing that incipient scar, was one of those unreachable itches, and I had to put on a different ring, one I used to wear on my pinkie. Every time I looked at those red lines and the paler flesh in between, some old irritation would surface.

I don't like getting stuck in the past. I've released so many old hurts and disappointments this last year, garbage I've wanted to dump for a long time. I don't know how it happened, but it did. One morning, something I saw on TV reminded me of an old hurtful and embarrassing incident, and it didn't bother me. I hadn't forgotten it, but it had lost its power. It was such a liberating feeling that I wanted to see what else had fallen. I scoured the memory for other events, and what do you know? They were just things that had happened. They didn't hurt. I wasn't brought back to the pain of the moment.

That is where I want to be in my relationship with my husband. Divorce or no, we will always be connected because we have a child together. We've spent 25 years together. That's most of my lifetime. Severing the marriage won't erase those years. I just don't want to be angry or hurt most of the time. It's counterproductive. The whole reason I asked him to leave was to get back some happiness, and if that has meant separately, so be it. I've never expected the process to be easy, but I believe that it can be done with a peaceful, loving and still honest heart. Hurtful things have happened, and they now belong in the past.

So, tired, cold and sick though I may be, I feel like at least the intangible part of my head is clearing. That's enough to make this a decent day.

wedding rings, divorce, forgiveness