cleaning...

Yesterday, Beloved looked at me for a long moment and smiled. I haven't seen you look this close to content in a long time.

A bit of a change from the last post, and all part of the roller coaster ride I've been on for a while. So what changed this time?

Friday afternoon, I made a very hard phone call, wrote a very hard letter, and ended a relationship that had become increasingly impossible for me to maintain. I'm so sorry...it was killing me and I had to let go. If you have lost someone you loved very much but knew it was time to let them go, you might know where I am. The restorative grief mixed with a guilty sense of relief.

Friday night, I chatted for a while with Futhark. Life experiences, while usually painful, tend to mature us and I appreciated his frank point of view. *wry smile* Sometimes it is hard to hear the outsider's view of "truth", but he didn't have anything to add that surprised me. Generally speaking, I've gotten to be a cold and nasty piece of work, and it is going to take some effort to undo bad habits. Let go of those little hateful thoughts, as Beloved put it.

Saturday afternoon, I took advantage of naptime to come clean about my insistent thoughts of leaving. Since we managed to pay off all of the credit cards, the only mutually held debt is the house. We each have a small monetary nest egg from our grandparents, and nursed carefully, I could probably land a work-study program at a college and reboot my life. I would not challenge his primary custodian of the kids. He would have Sunshine's support with the kids, and perhaps even a teacher-break by sending the kids to her school. Real and solid considerations.

He didn't challenge it. He talked about how hard it's been the last week since Tryst, his concern that I fall into the "no matter where you go, there you are" syndrome. He said that he would support whatever I *needed* to do, and encouraged me to work through some of this with my counselor to determine if it was a *need*.

He didn't downplay my feelings, didn't tell me I was being silly, didn't guilt-trip me about how hard it would be without me. He listened and he validated me. THAT did more for my soul than I can possibly express.

Sunday morning, we...Beloved, Boy, Girl, and I...we cleaned house. (In the midst of all this crap, our roommate bought her very own condo and has moved out to start her doctorate program. Bully to her!) The carpets were cleaned last week, we have a quote for filling the cistern in the basement, and now the whole house has been scrubbed down. There's still a mess of crap on the pool table...a hurry-up-and-wait with the basement and moving furniture down there...but it's CLEAN. We had finished up and were eating lunch when Beloved commented on my state of almost-content.

Today, I got some long-overdue garden work done. The lupines and alliums had dried and I harvested the seeds (If you are interested, I have TONS to share!). I wasn't so sure yesterday, but today, yes, I am feeling content.

Enough so that although there was an initial clutchly-clinging "don't go!" when Beloved left to spend the night with Sunshine, I am actually relieved that I had the time to do my own thing. I got the kids to bed and then finished up some pruning work and sat on the steps, enjoying the cooler evening air. Then I got some much needed work done on my own room...enough that the mess is contained and not spilling over everywhere. Then I took a long shower and scrubbed and shaved.

I haven't felt this CLEAN in the longest time.