Mrs T's last day at work

I may wind up deleting this post.  I'm largely writing to try and clear my head.

Mrs T's last day at her job here was today. This time next week she'll be frantically packing the girls' things and getting ready for the long jag back across the pacific. And I'll have a key to a room in a share house for the duration.

I feel utterly blue that she's had to have another "leaving day".  Even though I know it's part of what she wants, and that we'll be back together soon enough, I hate that she ever has to do anything that makes her sad.  I've felt in the past sometimes like I ruined her life.  When I met with S the psychologist earlier this week, she pointed out that it's difficult to think of a definition of a "ruined life" that applies here.  Lives don't get ruined this way, even if things aren't how you planned them.  Lives get ruined by childhood sexual abuse, and by violent assault, and by bad accidents, and drug addiction.  Too right.  I think of some of the people I acted for as a plaintiff lawyer and, yes, often they were people whose lives were not only wrecked, but irredeemably damaged.  Maybe it's just that the stakes are higher for me when Mrs T or the munchkins are involved.  With clients, it was right and proper to be clinical and objective.  But if I fear I've made her feel bad, or even had a 1% share in making her feel so, then I feel like I've hurt her worse than any of my client;s were ever hurt.  And like I'm a more vile, wicked and worthless person than the worst defendant I ever brought a claim against.  And it's then that I just feel guilty and ashamed if I even look at our darling daughters.

I know this sort of thing is a good example of my thoughts running away on me and making me exaggerate things way out of proportion.  Maybe in a weird way it's actually the easier option: If you already feel like utter scum, there's not much that will make you feel worse.  When you're at rock bottom, at least you know things won't get much worse.

It just hurts a little I guess.  I so want Joni to have the "happily ever after" she deserved to have when we married.  Maybe I'm stupid (maybe?), and want her to have something that human life and human fallibility doesn't usually grant us.

Or maybe the full "happily ever after" is still waiting down the road somewhere, and to give that to her, I just need a bit more elbow grease at work, and a bit more time working on my issues and getting on top of them too.

Well, that I can do.  It often takes me a while to get somewhere but I usually make it, even if I do have to go the long way sometimes.