GImme a Break

 

via theredpillroom.blogspot.com

Sunday, my husband is leaving.

I've asked him to leave for a week -not a punishment, not as a trial separation, not as anything except I prayed about how to handle and deal with my present state of life, and the answer I got was: it's time.  It's time to spend some time apart.

I fought it at first, but I've learned the hard way just how devastating it is to ignore the Spirit.

He took a week off of work, and off he's going.  What will he be doing exactly?  I haven't the foggiest.  And I'm okay with that.  I feel the Spirit telling me to back off from him.  

"I only want to know when you slip," I said to him two days ago, "That's all.  If you feel prompted to tell me more, go for it.  If not, I think it's time for me to take a giant step back."

I expected him to rage a little, push back, fight it... but he said, "I agree."

And that's that.  for today.

His recent disclosures have revealed some more work that I need to do.  I thought I had certain issues sort of  "checked off" and now I realize they're plaguing me as much as ever.  And my codependency is so much a part of me that changing it is a big process.  I need some space.

For starters, I'm fixing the lights in my cars.  I backed my jeep into my truck and broke one headlight and one taillight.  My husband hopped online and bought new ones, and he was texting me...

"I found a taillight for $25 -sweet!" 

and it suddenly hit me.  What in the frack was going on?!  I hit the truck!  I broke the lights!  I should be the one fixing what I messed up!  So I texted him back, "Thanks for finding that -I should be the one to do it."

They came in the mail yesterday, and today.  I'm putting them in.

Thank goodness my Dad is a mechanic.  I'm going to go to the shop while I do it -that way if I start to mess up or have questions, I can go to a mechanic for answers -not my husband.

My grandma has a solid oak table she picked up at a second-hand store.  My current kitchen table is aching for the dump, and so I'm working side-by-side with grandma to strip the table of stain and paint.  I'm going to sand and stain and all that jazz -a great project while my husband is gone.  

My grandmother is probably the least codependent person in the world.  I think I can learn a lot from her, staining and otherwise.

I'm taking organ lesson from Grandpa, every Tuesday night for an hour I sit at his organ and he sits on the couch and I play and he sits there silently, injecting a quiet, "try the piano stop on the upper" or a "try that again but with your right hand on the lower." And just when I start to think he's sitting on the couch silently cringing and hating every slow, drawn-out song I'm playing, he says, "You've got a nice touch -real nice touch."

I'm secretly aspiring to be the ward organist someday.  Grandpa can't be there EVERY Sunday.  The man has to be allowed to get sick (though he never does).

I will find time to dance with the kids, and I will find time to encourage them to face their fears as well.

My week apart from my husband will be a week of empowerment -a week of pioneering it, fixing it, parenting it, doing it my own way.  And I'm going to take a week "off" from the Internet -at least, certain and most parts of it.

I will still host the online meeting on Tuesday.

I will still use my email.

I will not be facebooking or blogging here.  I will remove the facebook app from my phone (I only put it on my phone at the end of my pregnancy).

And my prayer is simply this, "I've only got a week -work in me during that week.  Let it not be for naught."