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It is the middle of the night here.  I am not sleeping well, have not for months and months and, then, a few more months.  I used to take a generic antihistamine to force my body to at least drowse.  It no longer works well.  Even one tablet a half hour before a decent bedtime and I feel drugged in the morning.

The stresses of the past few dozen weeks is showing on my face.  I have had one form of acne or another for the better part of fifty-five years.  The worst is the cystic acne I get now.  It seems to come from nowhere, causing lumps and bumps of considerable size, mostly on the lower half of my face and on my neck.  It is embarrassing to have, although it causes little pain.  Just have to wait it out.  The damn cysts show up at the end of stressy stuff, stay for as long as it takes them to heal or shrink or whatever they do and wherever they go.  I have only two left, just under my jaw, where some glands are. 

I am feeling kind of packed with life stuff.  I have come so far in my recovery and am doing so well in this new life, that when the bottom drops out of my good feelings and happiness, it is more disturbing and disorienting that it was when my life was not so great.

And, the thing is that now that I am pretty freaking well, I am expected to never have negative, sadder emotions.  There are some important people in my life who believe that since the worst is over, that I should be acting and feeling as though it were high noon, sun shining, birds singing, flowers blasting into being where the unicorns frolic.

Unfortunately, my life is not working that way.  It is now what passes for a normal person experiences as what passes for a normal life, with all of the ups and sideways and plummets.  And, for a while there I thought that was what my life was supposed to be like, because everyone kept telling me that is what it should be.

I knew better.  Better than anyone.  I know the difference now between a frozen life and one that gets to be what it wants and needs to be.  I know what it means to pretend that everything is fine, that nothing horrific happens when no one else is around.  I know what it is like to have to go out in the world and, just to be safer, act as though none of that crap ever happened. 

I was good at that.  Hell, I was amazing at keeping those secrets.  I was so great that I felt like the biggest liar in the Universe.   Nearly my entire public and familial life was one huge process of keeping those secrets.  An interesting result is that there are people, his family and friends that still believe all of the lies he told them and when I left he created many more lies to protect himself.  There are people who believe that I am the most awful person.  Ever. 

How do I know all that?  I know because, despite my efforts to keep to myself and avoid all of that mess, as soon as the divorce was final and I no longer had to stay in hiding that my dishonesty was over and I was always honest about where I was, where I lived and worked, even to having my current address used on the final decree paperwork.  I have come to regret that on a few occasions, as it made it possible for people to contact me.  I would not change that act of courage that made my information public.  As time passes, I feel safer and am less worried when I leave this place or leave work or shop at the market or visit friends.

Everything in its time.

I really do love my life now, even with CoolCat gone.  There is not anything I would wish to be able to go back in time to change.  Not a single moment.  Not the worst day.  Nothing.

I have what passes for a normal life.  I like it.  I like every aspect of it, even on days like today and yesterday and the day before that when I am not feeling all that noontime sunshine, cannot hear the birds singing and the unicorns are off somewhere, eating butterflies, or daisies or violets or whatever they eat.

It is all right to be full of sadness when it is appropriate to feel that way.  It is fine to be full of longing for all of the things I never was able to experience in that other life.  I get to wallow in all of that once in a while, and I get to do it in my own way. It occurs to me, once in a while, that being without CoolCat has something to do with this, some added layer of sadness and missing him on top of months of study and testing and trying to do everything with less and less money.  It most likely is that I do miss him so much.  This is the very first time in my life that I have lived entirely alone, no other living thing shares this space.  It is worth working through all of this, allowing the experience to work through me, to find out what is on the other side of this new part of my new life.

I am hoping that tomorrow...later today...will be better.  I am sick and tired of feeling sick and exhausted and sad.  I get to feel that as well.