It feels strange that, for the first time in a dozen years, I don’t have a Valentine. So I have decided that I will be my Valentine today.

As a gift, I give myself a day of peace. Today I will not be angry. Today I will not be sad. Today I will not obsess over the wrongs done to me. Today I will remember that people come into my life for a reason and a season, to help me learn valuable lessons.

Today I will relish in those lessons… that I have finally learned to love and value myself.

It is the best gift a Valentine every gave me.

I’m done. I am so exhausted from fighting so many battles. I just want to be alone, far, far away from husbands and marriages and impending weddings and impending separations.

I hosted a bachelorette party this weekend. Planning a bachelorette party the same time you are planning the impending implosion of your marriage is hard enough, but try planning a bachelorette party for the one bride who is so completely self-absorbed that she considers it a personal affront should you have any thought other than how spectacular you will make her big day…

Exhausting. Utterly exhausting.

It took every ounce of energy I had to even make it to the bachelorette party. First and foremost, I was absolutely dreading hanging out with the two bridesmaids that had stiffed me the week before at the shower. On top of that, I had only slept a few hours and had a headache so severe that I was unable to eat all day from the nausea… but not going wasn’t an option.

Being a total adult, I calmed my nerves with too much wine. Coupled with no sleep and no food… Well, it was a stellar performance on my part. By midnight I was three sheets to the wind.

A friend scooped me up and shuttled me home while I was still in the way happy drunk phase. It was a good call on her part as I would have surely slipped into an angry, lippy phase with a few more drinks. I laughed the whole way home about how much fun I had.

The bride, however, did not share my sentiments and is not speaking to me now. For getting drunk, for leaving too early, for, whatever… There’s no telling, really.

I apologized to her, explained that my inebriated state was unintentional and that I was sorry to have gotten drunk and left early. She could care less. I might as well have been apologizing to a brick wall. It would have been more forgiving.

Worst part is, I knew there’d be drama at this shindig. There hasn’t been a step in this 16 month wedding planning journey that wasn’t rife without some slight – real or imaginary – to this bride. She’s been mad at (in chronological order) her sister, her father, her mother, my husband, my sister-in-law, her cousins, my mother-in-law, one of my best friends… and now me. I was bound to make the shit list eventually. There are only so many family members to share the wealth.

Truth is, I do feel bad. But it is what it is. A simple, unintentional perfect storm of bad calls on my part. And I can’t do any more than say I’m sorry… which I have now done twice.

There won’t be a third time.

I don’t care to fight this fight with her. I have such bigger fish to fry. On a scale of ”getting drunk at a bachelorette party” to ”separating from my husband and losing my home,” the latter wins. I don’t have the energy to deal with both.

On top of all of this, Bryan and I had a huge fight tonight. We haven’t fought in days, so I guess we were about due… every time we make peace and come to a comfortable exsistence, he says or does something really. really. fucking.stupid.

At the height of the fight tonight, Bryan accused me of being vindictive and screwing him over. Being called a bully is a trigger for me, and he knows that. But tonight, instead of shrinking when I heard these accusations, I literally laughed in his face.

I have supported him, financially, for more time than I care to admit of our marriage. I have taken care of him, cleaned up after him (even when he wasn’t working), paid his bills, and didn’t kick him to the curb when he spent months of wages and endless days at a strip club TRYING TO SCREW A STRIPPER. (consider the all caps vindictive if you wish) And, even after all that, when I finally tell him I want to separate, I have agreed to stay for a period of time until he can get back on his feet.

That, my dear husband, is not a bully. It is – WAS – a fucking doormat.

I have lived a pretty awesome life thus far. By sheer luck… by happy coincidence… on the shoulders of others who saw in me what I could not see in myself, I have been blessed in many ways.

And I am grateful for what I have, but I am no longer content.

In the past year it has hit home that, at age 41, this life could very well be half over. It is at this theoretical halfway point that that I look at my Mighty Life List and it dawns on me that there are items on there that will probably never be accomplished. Not because I don’t believe in my abilities, but because I didn’t properly prepare for them in my first 40 years.

I’m not one for regrets, but I am determined that the next 40 will be different. I will be purposeful. I will not be an idle passenger. My life isn’t going to just “happen to me.”

I’ve been very lucky that I’ve had mentors and positive forces surrounding me for the past 16 months. Their influence has helped me take positive steps towards self-fulfilling prophecy and away from “happy accidents.”

And I’ve seen the results of being purposeful. I am more alive now than ever.

“Things” feel different now. More intense. I feel like my senses have awakened after decades of being muted. I’m finally firing on all cylinders.

I am tune with my body. I can feel the connections, the cause and effect. I can physically feel the energy around me. Even simple things – like putting on a face mask tonight – feel different. I marveled in its cool sensation for 20 minutes. I guess this is called “being present.”

And “things” make sense to me now. I understand my emotions and subsequent reactions – not just psychologically, but physiologically.  I’m getting better all the time at reacting appropriately. I haven’t mastered it yet, of course – but I know I’m on the right track.

It feels good. Actually, it feels spectacular. So much so that I’ve begun to dub the next 40+ years of my life as my SPECTACULAR LIFE.

Deciding to live a SPECTACULAR LIFE is what has precipitated the impending end of my marriage. Because my marriage, while not bad by the definition of most, is not SPECTACULAR by my own definition. It’s comfortable and it is easier to be in it than not be in it right now, but I want – and deserve – so much more than simply “comfortable.”

I’ve tried explaining to Bryan how I am changing and what I need of a partner now. It is hard to do without sounding like I am passing judgment on the life he is living now – that I lived alongside him for ten years. Because of this, his defenses stop him from hearing what I am saying. He doesn’t understand my intent now – he thinks I’m judgmental and mean and (my personal favorite), “crazy.”

Which couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m more sane, more alive, more clear-heaed now than I have ever been.

Bryan told me today that he talked to his therapist about my idea of a “spectacular” life.

He told me she asked what it meant, but instead of answering her or trying to figure it out with her, he simply decided that her question meant that she agreed it was a crazy notion.

“She sided with me,” he told me.

“Sided with you?” I asked.

“Yeah. She thought it was kind of crazy too.”

God help me, this is exactly why I am ending this marriage. He thinks living a spectacular life is a crazy notion. And I don’t care if every therapist between here and China, every friend, every relative, every stranger agrees with him – he’ll never be able to convince me that I’ve got it wrong.

I know I don’t.

Bryan and I fit together perfectly for so many years. We seem so different to the untrained eye, but when you dive into our psyches, we are/were near identical. Do you know, neither of us remembers our childhood before our teen years except for highly traumatic snippets? It’s a coping mechanism to block trauma. And we didn’t discover this about each other until last year.

And there are a lot of others things we do/did exactly the same to cope and get by. What amazes me is that I was never consciously aware of these coping behaviors before last year, so it is phenomenal to me that I sought out someone whose coping mechanisms mirrored mine.

When I first started dealing with childhood trauma in therapy, I would stop by the bakery on the way home from session. (Carbs help deaden the stress hormones.) Today Bryan’s therapist decided to talk, in depth, about the trauma and violence in his childhood for the first time. He came home from his counseling appointment with a sack of goodies from the bakery.

I swear, it’s like he’s just a few steps behind me. I wish he would catch up!

And that’s where my real frustration comes in. We spent 10 years being “broken” together – I so badly want to live a life with him where we are both whole together. That is what would be SPECTACULAR to me.

I want him to be empowered, to be the creator of his own destiny. I want him to feel alive like I do now. I want him to believe that he is entitled to a SPECTACULAR LIFE too. He doesn’t understand that – he only hears me saying he’s “bad” or “broken.” I don’t know how to make him understand. And I have to consider that maybe he just doesn’t want to… or that maybe he has and that his definition of “spectacular” is just very different from mine and he’s afraid to tell me so.

Wherever he is, he’s not in-step with me anymore.

So, I surrendered. I told him that I wanted to end the marriage.

Right now we tip-toe around the subject for the most part. There is an impending deadline of April 1 for our separation, but we don’t talk about it in absolutes. We say, “If we decide to separate on April 1^st…”

But, honey, “we’ve” decided.

I love him, but I crave being on my own, in my own home. I don’t want to have to take responsibility for his part of the journey (or lack thereof) anymore. And even if absolved me of all responsibility for him, I don’t know that I can let go. We’ve been so intertwined for so long that I don’t know how not to smother him.

I need to turn that energy inward.

I’m scared of how it is going to feel when we finally do separate. I’m more scared that I’ll back down and not do it.

Stress makes the body do really funky things. Since last June I’ve run the gambit from not being able to sleep for 48 hours straight, to not being able to keep food down, to heart palpitations. The ailment du jour – well du jours, since Tuesday – I get extremely anxious after I eat, as if all my meals were made of pure caffeine.

It is the oddest sensation. I’ve always used food to deaden my stress symptoms and now it is doing the exact opposite.

Maybe it’s just another piece in the Month of Assholism pie (as I have so lovingly coined February 2012)… even food is being an asshole.

”I am surrounded by rampant assholism right now,” I told my counselor yesterday.

She asked me to tell her about it.

So I did.

”There have been weeks I have failed you,” she said to me 45 minutes later. ”Dear god, don’t let this be one of them. This is a comedy of errors.”

What she said…

I’ve officially hit a wall. I’m so exhausted I can’t stay awake… and when I wake up, I still feel exhausted. I think it is time to officially stop sulking and to move forward with a plan of action.

I need to take better care of myself.

I have three priorities for the rest of this month… Make and move on a plan to be healthy, physically. Get in to see a mortgage rep so I can start house hunting. Get my butt to Florida for a much-needed vacation.

Time for action…

Some days the gravity of my marital situation is such that nothing much else bothers me. Everything else is just a blip on the screen.

And then some days, like today, the little things pile on top and I just go into a day-long funk.

Today a few friends showed their asshole side. Today the two other bridesmaids stiffed me at a bridal shower, leaving me to pay the bill alone. Today Bryan kept trying to fast forward thru the commercials during the Superbowl, even though I asked him not to, every… single… time.

None of its a big deal. Sometimes friends will be assholes. I will get repaid for the bridal shower. I got to watch the commercials in the end. But, at the end of the day, I just sit here wondering why it all has to be so hard.

Dear universe, I could use some smooth sailing for a bit. I’m tired, sad, and have had enough of ”being strong.” I just want to be.

A mentor said to me a while back that real growth is propelled by a pain point. I get that. I know there are brighter days ahead, that this struggle is not for naught. I remind myself of that quite often.

But, for today, for this moment, I’m allowing myself to wallow for a bit. I want an easy button…

I don’t know what it is about weddings that bring out the worst in everyone. It is hard enough to try and maintain a smile in the face of the bride-to-be when all I can think about is how my marriage is falling apart, on top of having to deal with the poor behavior of so many others.

When the sister of the bride calls to shake me down for money, when she’s paid a third of what I’ve fronted thus far… When shower invitees text me the night before to cancel, when the RSVP date was a week ago and I’ve already given a headcount to the venue – which I now obligated to pay for regardless of who shows… When the bitching about who said what and who might be thinking what reaches a fever pitch… I want to tell them to all go to hell.

Because as much as any of them feel put out or fucked over, none of them are knee deep in a constant reminder of how their whole fucking marriage – the most important relationship in their life – is crashing and burning at their feet.

I want to slap them all.

I guess we can safely say that today’s stage of grief is anger.

I’ve been doing T’ai Chi and Qigong for the past few days. I think it is helping to relax me. I feel more calm, though my face betrays me. My skin is sallow and I look tired.

Hell, I feel tired. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to sleep anymore and do the things I have to do.

I’m hosting a bridal shower Sunday. I wish I was more excited – I *am* happy for the bride. She’s waited for this day for six years now. But I just can’t get excited about toasting a marriage right now.

Again, the universe and it’s timing can be so cruel..