"I want to make this work!"

You do a lot of packing in the days and weeks before a move.

I was putting things into moving crates when I reached under the bed and pulled out some boxes I'd packed up years before.

One of them was a plastic box filled with beeswax candles. I love beeswax candles (as opposed to smelly candles, which light the deepest chambers of Hell) and used to burn them every night as I read alone in bed years ago.

But that was years ago. I stopped lighting them when I realised they were bad for Son's asthma.

I opened the box. The sweet smell of beeswax billowed out. It was a strong smell that had been trapped inside for years. Nestled among the candles, I found two scratch pads with notes in his handwriting.

I want to make this work! I LOVE you Let me know what I can do.

and

I love you and want to be with you. I want to grow old and grey with you. You mean the world to me I AM truly sorry for all the pain I have caused and the lies I have told you.

I stared at them for a while.

Had he put them there to stop me from moving? Why now, of all times?

But no. They were years old, from the last time I tried to leave. He had put them next to my candles for me to find one night, and I had boxed them up and put them away years before.

"I am sorry for all of my lies" is something he used to say years ago. He hasn't said that in a very long time.

You don't realise what your core values are until someone violates them. Honesty is a core value for me.

He lied to me again yesterday. The details don't matter.

I pondered why I was upset, because the details don't matter. I wouldn't have cared about the facts either way. But it was the casual nature of the lies that bothered me. It wasn't important, and he lied anyway.

Over the years, he lied and lied and lied, and I believed the lies, no matter how improbable. Thinking he was a liar was just too much to bear.

My friends would say I was naive, gullible, a sucker. This was all true.

But honesty is a core value for me. I had to believe he was being honest.

He hasn't apologised for his lies in a very long time. In some ways, that's more honest. Because he wasn't actually sorry.

I think I like this one. It reminds me of a snake wrapped around a thyrsus.

One week down.

It's been a week since I moved out. I went shopping for a ring today.

I stopped wearing my wedding ring in June. Since then, I have thought several times that I needed a ring for my left hand. Something to signal to the wolves and associated hound dogs: BACK OFF, I'M NOT AVAILABLE.

I'm not available, you see. And I am not at all comfortable with the "plenty o' fish" situation in town.

So I need a ring to ward off the unwanted attention.

This, I hasten to warn you, is not the sort of thing you should muse about in mixed company. There are too many ways that conversation can get out of control. (Whoops.)

No, there's no point in artificially increasing your own troubles when all you really need is a magic ring.

I really liked my old ring. It is not, technically, my wedding ring, which is far too big for my hand now that I've lost a lot of weight and which I haven't seen in a while. I had to buy a replacement a few years ago, and I found a tiny leafy ring that did not look like a wedding band but that suited me just fine. My mother chastised me for not getting it blessed, as is the custom for wedding bands. I just didn't bother.

The other day, I took it out of the drawer and stared at it for a while.

It's just a symbol. But symbols do mean something. It doesn't matter that I really like the ring. I can't wear it. I need a new one.

Facing freedom with a little fear

Well, I made it through the first week.

It's been an utter wreck of a week emotionally. I joked that I should give my salary back, because I have mostly been sitting and staring.

And taking long walks. Always taking long walks. FitBit tells me I did 16 miles yesterday. That explains why my legs hurt this morning.

I do not like to think of myself as the kind of person who just sits and stares at work. But then, it has been a very odd year. My life has completely flipped over; I need to steady it and carry on.

There was a Boy Sleepover at my house last night. It was a refreshing return to normal. Complaints about stomachs that hurt after eating too much candy. Giggling and shuffling late into the night.

Son is disappointed because our new housemate's cats do not love him as much as he loves them. No cat could, I'm afraid. But I'm sure they will warm up to him. It's only been a week.

When we told Son we were going to live in different houses (we didn't use the word "divorce") he immediately proposed a custody arrangement. We ended up modifying it slightly and then completely reversing the days so he would be with me and not Ex on Friday nights (*grumble*), but the principle is intact, and we'll try it out this week. He is with Ex Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, with me Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights, and Saturday nights rotate. The idea is that it is a 3/3/4/4 split and that the weekend changeover evening will be a "family night". Tonight is the first Family Night. We will see how it goes.

Whew.

I woke up this morning in my new house.

Things are still in boxes, but I am partly unpacked. Most of my clothes are in the closet or in the dresser I took from the other house. I need to go through the boxes the movers put in the basement to figure out what needs to be unpacked and what needs to be put in a box that can be taken to my next home, whatever that may be.

The new house is a temporary stopover. Son and I have moved in with a coworker who has also just gotten separated. She may sell and move in the spring; she's not sure. Which is perfect for me, because the one thing I know at this point is that I cannot make any decisions. I can't buy a place. I don't even want a yearly lease. I need to take a good, long break before I even think about what to do next. In the spring, I will have a better sense of what Son and I need. We will talk about it then and decide together. Right now we are both too raw and vulnerable.

I'm thumbing this on my phone. I ran away from the office and am hiding in a coffee shop with my back to the door. It is very unlike me.

Some people say there are no winners or losers in divorce.

They're right.

But they're also trying to talk you out of a problem that doesn't exist.

Nobody thinks there are winners or losers. They're not looking for a winner. Anyone who says there are no winners is just making noise, because nobody actually thinks otherwise.

People look for a good person and a bad person. They look with a sense of desperation, because the identification must be made before any support can be offered.

They are easy to identify. The bad person leaves.

It doesn't matter what happens up until the moment of leaving. The time that elapses is meaningless. The effort that is put in is inconsequential. One person will leave. That person is the bad one. The other is the good one, the one who needs your support.

This has been explained to me several times. The good person is the one who is trying to make the marriage work, the one who is doing the right thing. What the good person is doing or has done is irrelevant. He or she did not leave. In the end, that is all that matters.

My own family members have said as much.

It is in moments like this that I am glad I have a blog only a few people know about.

I can tell you that anyone who leaves has already tried and tried and tried to make the marriage work, and given up from exhaustion. He or she might even have tried far harder than the other, although I won't guarantee that that's true. What do I really know about someone else's relationship?

Nothing, that's what. And that's sort of the point.

The difference between the good person's trying and the bad person's trying is that you didn't see the trying the bad person did. It happened behind closed doors, or in a way you didn't really notice because you weren't paying attention.

You're not helping when you say the bad person should try. He or she has already tried. You're not sustaining a relationship, you're making your own neglect clear.

And when you ask who left, you can be sure that I know you never cared enough to notice until the day you decided you needed to identify the bad person.

I woke up, and all was quiet

There is no Katy Perry ringing in my ears. No Carly Rae Jepsen. No -- well, I honestly don't know who the "singers" are, but the point is that it is morning, and I do not have to listen to dance music. He has gone.

And when he comes back, I will be gone.

These are my things now. Well, most of them are my things.

I have been packing. I brought some old newspapers back from the office to cushion the glassware. It was pretty simple work. Tear newsprint. Stuff inside glass. Wrap glass. Place in box. Stare at inky fingers, tut-tut over the impermanence of even the physical representation of today's journalism. Consider a rant but think better of it, because there is work to be done and Son does not really care. Repeat.

Sherry glasses: packed.

Wine glasses: packed.

Rolling tumblers (for very drunk people): packed.

I stopped at a set of champagne flutes. They are pewter and glass, clearly decorative and clearly for a special occasion. I don't remember ever using them. But then, I don't normally drink champagne.

I think they are from our wedding. I think they were a gift from the woman who was my best friend at the time, who served as my maid of honour and loved pewter. We spent many a moment in the pewter shop in Halifax as she drooled over the things that were for sale.

I don't normally drink champagne.

I'm going to leave him the flutes.

The last day

He leaves for Florida today.

He has told Son he's going to a conference in Toronto. I suppose that'll do. At least he told him more than a couple of hours before the plane left, and he made it clear that he's coming back. Neither of those things happened the last time he ran off to Florida.

He has been melancholy, talking about the twenty years we've spent together.

I've been thinking about those years, too.

The twenty years are hanging on me. I feel like I've been waiting twenty years.

I have wasted my life.

I am surrounded by boxes. My clothes are packed up; I only have enough left to last through the weekend, and that's all I need. I have a stack of old newspapers to wrap up the ruby glasses I've bought at flea markets in Maine over the years.

I do love ruby glasses.

We have a calendar with "M" and "D" written on each date, the result of an emergency negotiation session earlier this week when he announced he didn't want Son with him on Friday nights as previously agreed.

It's OK. I think it's better for Son to be with me on Friday nights anyway. And I was expecting him to say he didn't want Fridays. It was only a question of when.

I tore the sheets off the bed this morning and hauled out the duvet we've never used. His mattress is full-sized, but I am leaving the queen-sized sheets behind. I can't take them with me. It is hard enough to take the bed.

He asked me to take him to the airport. I considered telling him I couldn't do it because I have a party to attend, which is what he told me when I asked him to take me to the airport for Grampy's funeral, but I decided that would just be rude. Besides, Son should be able to say goodbye, and Son should be able to go home with me afterwards.

Four days to go

I move in a week. Three guys are going to come in a truck to take all of my stuff from my house and move it to my new house. Deep breaths. I can do this.

I moved some boxes yesterday.

In July, I packed up most of my clothes and put them in a friend's basement. They've been there, gnawing at me, ever since. I felt bad about leaving them there. I'd put them there in a near panic, hoping to move immediately, but was told that was a bad idea.

So I stayed in my house. And my clothes stayed in my friend's basement. Until yesterday.

I unpacked some of them into my new closet yesterday afternoon. It was a glimpse into a panicked, get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here packing session. I didn't take clothes off their hangers. I didn't even take them one at a time. I grabbed entire armfuls off the rack and put them into boxes. They came out in groups of five or six, rumpled and still on their hangers.

I'd spirited some books away, too: the leather-bound prayer book my dad gave me twenty years ago, the copy of Mere Christianity I've been looking for for the past week, and the Myths book a loved one gave me for my birthday this year. My party dresses are still in the box I kept under my bed, ready to be put back in its place when the bed arrives. My hair clips are in a small plastic bag, ready to be unpacked into my jewelry box.

I slumped over. My new room is empty, for now. My sobs echoed off the walls.

I can do this.