...my best friend received a devastating diagnosis.
...I found out I need a biopsy (it’s happening tomorrow!)
...I missed some major warning signs about a person in my life and really screwed things up.
...I continued to put myself last behind everyone else and their brother.
...I asked for help from people i didn’t want to help me, but had no choice.
...I helped someone i love learn how to commit someone they love to a mental hospital against their will.

it’s no wonder i have gotten NO work done and am so far behind that at this point, i don’t think i will ever catch up. 

my best friend wrote to me a couple of days again, and something she said really resonated with me.  she said: 

I’m changing a lot of the priorities and friendships in my life.  It just makes you recognize how petty and superficial a lot of the shit in life is.  I’m trying to clear that out and make room for what’s important.  And for that, I am grateful.  I think a lot of people live their whole lives trying to gain the approval of others and over the course of the past six months, I have just about totally eliminated a lot of the bullshit.  It also means I am eliminating friends, but that’s OK.  They weren’t real friends to begin with.

i’ve been going through that process for the last 8 months.  and even though right now it feels like the entire karmic universe is pooping on my head for sins i’ve committed that i’m unaware of (well, some of them, at least), another friend mentioned that “god is trying to get your attention”.  that’s possible too.  my attention has been gotten.  i’ve been faced with just about every nightmare situation i can come up with, yet i’m still able to hold my children at night and breathe in their sleepy scents.  even in the midst of what is most definitely a hurricane of epic emotional proportions, i continue to write about gratitude, model good behavior for certain people in my life, and attempt to balance on the fine point between supportive and enabling. 

i need to follow my best friend’s advice.  life really is too short.  you have no idea what curve balls are going to be thrown at you.  my life’s goal is not to be happy; happiness is fleeting.  life is hard and full of moments of joy or sadness.  being content, or secure in the decisions you’ve made, is what it’s all about for me.  learning not to get wrapped up in other’s issues, and help and hold the ones who deserve all that i have to offer, has been a hard lesson for me.  oddly i feel stronger right now than i’ve ever felt. 

as i changed the water filter in my expensive high-end refrigerator that will be left behind along with the rest of this ridiculous house, i realized it was the last time i’d ever have to change it.  the new refrigerator has no ice maker or water dispenser.  it sits on a floor of yellowed linoleum that probably should have been replaced a minimum of 15 years ago.  for the first time, i couldn’t wait to get onto that linoleum and back to ice cube trays.  i haven’t been on my own since 1999.  having my own space, being alone with the girls and the dog, getting some breathing room and figuring out why this all happened and why right now, seems necessary. 

i’ve reached a level of peace with my situation and for that i am most grateful.  our short sale may very well fall through; the second mortgage company is still dragging their feet, and the buyers are getting very nervous.  we are reaching month 4 of waiting.  regardless, i’m moving out.  mike has already left.  the house will sit here, empty, waiting for either a new family to come in and love it, or for the bank to come and take it.  i realize that there is absolutely NOTHING i can do about it - and i’m totally fine with it.  i can’t control what happens to me financially at this point and am making the best of an absolutely horrendous situation.  do i still have guilt that the father of my children is being dragged into this hell unwillingly?  i do, but i also know that he will end up much happier without me and with someone else than he realizes at this point.

i’m getting ready to say goodbye to dan and nicole, two people who have never hesitated to help when i’ve needed it.  hopefully i’ve been there for them as well.  there will be a legendary party at the house on saturday - it’s a graduation party for one of the few people i’ve ever known who graduated summa cum laude and know how to pronounce it.

(when i pronounced it, it sounded like the title of a porno)

they’re totally worth the drive to blacksburg, however, and i’ll be darkening their doorstep as much as i can, probably with two kids in tow. 

in the meantime, i’m going to keep focusing on the gratitude.  and trying to learn from my mistakes.