The Divorce Is Final

Laura Liston and I never even actually got married... but she came over on Saturday (Sweetest Day, coincidentally) to pick up the last of her stuff and haul it away back to Pennsylvania.  I'd packed most of it up carefully ahead of time, and I helped her and her two roommates carry everything out to the car; she did thank me for making myself available (though not for the work I did), then just got in the car and drove off without so much as a goodbye or even a little wave.  :::sigh:::  The closest she got to the old Laura was when she found and picked up Preeti, but it was a fleeting moment.

So, yes, despite how much I loved her, despite all the sweet things we did for and said to each other, despite our engagement (and the ring, which she gave me back, even though I'd told her to keep it), despite her having elicited a promise from me that I wouldn't do this to her, Laura has flounced out of my life.  Presumably forever.  Tonight would've marked one month of marriage, but instead it feels like I've been through a divorce, and while I'm glad to have custody of the "kids" (furry though they are), I still can't make much sense of what's happened.  I knew, getting into this relationship, that she had some emotional baggage, but then who among us has not?  I had some myself, though I like to think that it was only a carry-on at that point.  I seem to have underestimated how heavy her baggage was, however, and as a result, I've found myself with quite a lot more to carry around now.  Please bear with me as I adjust to the weight, and build the Wall back up...

The kids still love me, at least.

I really like the Google Nexus 7 I gifted myself for my birthday.  :-D  The fact that I can tether it wirelessly to the iPhone (when there isn't open WiFi around) definitely helps, though I've got some books and some music on it that don't require Internet access.  It came in handy for showing my dad my "honey-less-moon" pictures while he was in the hospital, too.  He spent two weeks in a HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital after that, and is home now, but he's still not doing that well.  We've heard talk about fibromyalgia, or possibly polymyalgia, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and anemia, but no one has really helped him with the pain, or the weight loss, or a definitive explanation and treatment plan.  It's been really frustrating, for all of us.

Hopefully, I can channel some of my depression and anger and frustration and loss into art.  In addition to working on a few new songs (lyrically, at least, for the moment, although the music is coming, too), I've decided to try NaNoWriMo again this year, in spite of the fact that I failed miserably at writing much of "They Might Be Roses," my intended novel last November.  I still intend to write that one eventually, though it'll be bittersweet now; but this year, I'm thinking that the novel's going to be titled "The Divorce Is Final."  It's not going to be about a literal divorce; it will be flavored (seasoned?) with some of my recent sorrows, but it's not going to be the story of Andy and Laura, either.  If you're interested in what it is going to be, well... stick around.