Wow. Wow. I don't know how to start.

In the middle of January, Jason left me. He came home from work one day and said he thought we should separate, that he needed some time alone, and I cried and begged and pleaded and told him I loved him and wanted to be with him and Reed needs his dad and so on. That evening I went to Kristi's and tried to work it out in my head and couldn't come up with much. The next morning he told me he didn't want to separate, he wanted a divorce. I totally fell apart. I cried and puked and begged and cried some more. I didn't eat for days. I cried for days.

The only thing that kept me from totally falling off the deep end was Reed, daily routine, stuff to do. And being unemployed, there wasn't always stuff to do. I see-sawed back and forth between dealing and totally not dealing. Well, honestly the other thing that kept me from falling off the deepend was my collection of the best girls on the planet, my girls, who would answer the phone any time, answer my crazy texts at any time, and remind me that this, RIGHT HERE, is reality, and I can deal with it and move on.

And that right there, the fact that my only option was to deal with it and move on, was the hardest to grasp. I kept waiting for Jason to come to his senses, to realize that he couldn't live without me, to realize that he'd made a terrible mistake, to realize how terrible this would be for Reed. But over the weeks it slowly and painfully became clear that that wasn't going to happen.

It took about a week for me to nag Jason into admitting he was spending time with someone else, 13 days for me to badger Jason into admitting that he was fucking her. The night that he admitted that, he told me that I'm crazy, that I have problems, why wouldn't I just let him go, that I was abnormal for wanting to know what he was doing and who he was with.

Julia, the girl that Jason is with now, is someone we've had problems with in the past. I never wrote about it, because I wanted to keep some part of our lives private. Two years ago Jason and I were having some marital problems, and it came to my attention that he'd taken nude photos of a girl without my knowledge, and that he'd been talking to people he worked with pretty extensively about our marriage, to the point where a few girls he worked with were encouraging him to leave me. Keep in mind that these were girls who had only met me a few times and didn't know me or our marriage at all. One of those was Julia. Once all that came to light, I looked at our cell phone records and realized that he and Julia had been texting each other a whole lot for some time, sometimes 30 and 40 times a day. I told Jason that I thought it was unfair for him to talk about our marriage to his manager, who also was younger and had no children and had never been married and didn't know me at all. He claimed that all that texting was just about work, that they were just friends, that nothing was going on. He went on to make fun of her, to tell me that she had no sense of humor at all, that she was dull and boring and snobby, stuck-up, had no personality. He put a stop to the texting, even though she openly threw a fit about it, in front of other co-workers, enough that people were asking what the hell was going on.

It took me a couple of months, but I got over it. Jason reassured me that he loved me, would never leave me, wanted only me, was committed to me and Reed and our marriage.

Fast-forward to him telling me that he wanted to separate. I looked at our cell records and found that he and Julia were talking again. When I asked him about it, his response was, "She's just being there for me. We're friends, and nothing else." It was about a week after that that I found out he was spending the night at her house. It was a few days after that that he admitted they were sleeping together.

Then about two months later he started telling my friends that he "has deep, strong feelings" for Julia that he's had "for a very long time". About a week after he left me, he admitted that he thought about moving to California with her. Now he's pressuring me to allow Reed to hang out with her. I have to say, I have a lot of reservations. It's not because it's Jason's new girlfriend; it's because it's a girl who has been after my husband for years, a girl who has met Reed and knows we had a life and child and a history and didn't give a fuck about it.

Also, really, who would want him? Jason now has two divorces; he's left two woman and three children behind. Is this what's attractive now?

And this isn't even getting into all the bullshit he's fed me. Two weeks before he left, I could tell something was wrong, and I asked, "What's going on? Are you going to leave me?" His response: "I love you. I would never leave you. You're stuck with me. I'm not going anywhere." And that ain't paraphrasing; that's what he told me.

The day he left, I asked him if he could please not date anyone until after we were divorced, if that was what was going to happen. He said yes.

Anyway, here we are. We're signing the papers tomorrow. I've been through a lot in a short amount of time. I've cried and begged and despaired and grieved and begged some more and pleaded and lamented and feared and avoided and every other possible option. But I think, I think, that I've come to terms. I don't want to be with Jason if he doesn't love me any more, which I'm pretty sure is the case. I don't want an unhappy marriage, I don't want Jason with me out of obligation. My love for him was so intense and all-encompassing that it was hard for me to see out of it, hard for me to see a way to exist without him in my life. Fortunately for me I have Reed and my girls, so I've made it.

And I've made it to a really, really happy place. I know that there will probably be more sadness, more loss felt, but right now I'm able to truthfully say, "Okay, this if life, this is what's happened, and I'm better off because of it."

I've met a boy.

I've met a boy.

I'm not sure what to say about it right now. I can say that he makes me laugh, makes me feel light, makes me feel like there is a lot of life to live that I haven't even had a taste of yet. He makes me feel like I am lovely, have something to offer, am worthwhile, that I have worth. He makes me feel like the way I am is okay, is better than okay, is desirable. I am remembering that I am funny, smart, pretty, fun. I am remembering that I am good mother, that I am responsible, that I am good. I am remembering that I am good.

I am remembering that I am good. Goddamnit for it taking a boy to make me remember it, but isn't it good that I remembered? I think so.

We'll see what happens from here. I'm just happy to be happy. To be able to laugh and smile without feeling scared, guilty, about it. To be able to look forward, without shame. To be able to yearn in a happy way, instead of in a sad way. To be able to talk to someone who is excited about what's to come.

I'm back, for anyone who might still look here. I ain't going anywhere. Except maybe to Mississippi.