happy New Year?

I need the discipline of regular posting, or else I let too long go between posts. Also, when my life isn't in absolute crisis mode, I feel like my writing loses some immediacy.

I went back and read all my posts during the month of December, plus a few from the end of November. Good golly, there was a lot of anguish and pain and hurt. I think it will be a long time before I read October and November. I don't think I could handle that right now.

I wrote once that I was a natural optimist. It's very true, I always have been. I remember once when I was in grad school I was so sure I couldn't do it, wouldn't make it. I called my undergrad advisor and poured my heart out and he said, snap out of it. You're one of the most resilient people I know, and this too shall pass. You'll make it. It actually got worse - a whole lot worse - but I did make it with a masters degree. I think of that call often, actually, and try to draw upon that resilience.

Lately, though, I don't want it. Well, I want the resilience. I do want to know I'll make it through. I don't want the optimism, or the happiness. What I really don't want is the feeling when that happiness is crushed. I've been thinking a lot about Tash's most recent post, brought about by Meg's post. 2008 could be worse than 2007 was. It could be much, much worse.

Last night I asked my husband how he thought things were going. He said he thought there was a long way to go, for him, to grow up, to be a different sort of man, to speak up when he was unhappy, instead of burying it so that it all erupted at once. He said, though, that he was happy. Had been happy all week. The contrast between my family, and the forgiveness they offered, versus his family, and the conditions they set, was so extreme it really hit home for him what kind of life he wanted to lead. And it wasn't the life we had before, or the life he tried to create, it was a new family life centered around me and our daughter. I said it was so hard for me to understand where we were after all that had happened - it was almost like he was flipping a switch - from me, to affair, and now back to me. It seemed effortless to him. He said it wasn't effortless, and everything that happened this fall was terrible for him, too. That everything he did to break up our family always felt wrong to him. He had decided he didn't care, and he wanted to leave and wanted "something better," but every step of it felt wrong to him. But he kept pushing it, because he thought it would be better for him in the long run. When he finally set aside that feeling - that determination to leave - he gained clarity that he didn't want to leave at all.

I'm not entirely the pushover, eternal optimist I seem to be here. I have a strong cynical streak, and, um, yeah, not entirely buying it. But I have no way to process what happened or why.

I was pretty checked out of this marriage much of the summer and early fall, wrapped in baby regrets - the lost pregnancy, the secondary infertility. Those things are still there. I am still so sad about my fertility, or lack thereof. Right now, I don't know what to do with that sadness. Where to put it, or how to process it, or what to do with it. I turn 40 in 8 months. 40 in 2008. Not really looking forward to this new year.