suffer well

  So, I’m back.

Boy-o and I have officially taken up residence in adjacent second floor bedrooms of my parents’ house just north of Fort Worth.  This is not my childhood home…that was sold while I was in college, so I have never actually lived here before, only visited on school breaks, and for holidays and occasional weekends while I was married.

We’ve been here for almost a month now, sleeping on air mattresses, but my furniture was only moved from Oklahoma into a local storage unit last weekend.  About 5 minutes ago, I finished getting my computer set up and the wireless card installed so I can use the home network – yay for the Internets!

I’ve got a job already, working in medical records, or as it’s called now, “health information services”, at a local hospital.  This fits in well with my goal to go back to school in the near future for a degree in health information technology so I can be a medical records coder and you know, support myself and move out of this house.   I’ve got a post simmering away somewhere in the stew that is my brain about why what I perceived to be a vocation to the priesthood has been put way, way on a back burner.  Like on a stove in someone else’s house.  Suffice it to say that I have come to realize in the last few months that my search for God’s plan for me may not lie in ordained ministry after all, and that I latched on to it because it is the most highly VISIBLE way to serve, and I was in a marriage, indeed in a LIFE, in which I felt utterly INVISIBLE.  And of course, there is also the fact that I now reside in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, a diocese with leadership that does not and has never supported women’s ordination, and which is in fact on its way out of the national church over this issue, among others.  All I can say to that is, ABOUT FRICKIN’ TIME.  No, I’m not even going to make a plea for reconciliation and understanding at this point.  I’d rather it all just be done with so we can get on with whatever comes next.

I haven’t filed for divorce yet.   The paperwork is all completed, but he won’t sign because he thinks there needs to be some language in there about how if I win the lottery or marry a rich guy, he gets to stop paying child support.  And now that I’m back home, frankly, I’ve kind of lost my sense of urgency about the whole thing.  I mean sure, I wish we could fast track this divorce and be done already, but I have what I wanted most: I’m HERE.  He had initially said he would not let me move until we filed.  I told him we weren’t filing until he got his head out of his ass about child support.  Then I told him when moving day was, and he didn’t do anything to stop it, so here we are. I’m not in any rush to get involved with anyone again, and I’m certainly never getting married again, so there’s no pressure on me.  It’ll happen when it happens.

I feel sad and hopeless a lot, and I cry myself to sleep most nights.  But it will get better.  I know it will.  It has to.

So now for a little Motley Crue…

“You know that I’ve seen too many romantic dreams
Up in lights, fallin’ off the silver screen

My heart’s like an open book for the whole world to read
Sometimes nothing keeps me together at the seams

I’m on my way, I’m on my way home sweet home
Tonight tonight
I’m on my way, just set me free
Home sweet home…”