Same Sh*t, Different Day

Today, in between cooking dinner, washing clothes and cleaning the kitchen, I managed to spend a little time watching a film with my kids.  The film was quite good.  In a different time and a different place, I would have found it amusing and uplifting.  Sadly I found myself identifying with the character in the film and it just reinforced my feelings of hopelessness.

The film was "50 first dates" with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.  For those not familiar with the film, Drew Barrymore is the victim of an accident who has lost her short-term memory and Adam Sandler is the fickle womaniser who finds Barrymore to be the woman of his dreams, with whom he wants to spend the rest of his life.  The problem is that each day she wakes up, she has forgotten what has gone before - hence the title "50 first dates".  Each day she lives through the same experiences, the same day, over and over.

For me, since my wife left in March 2007, it's been 426 such days.  Cleaning, cooking, regretting, reminiscing, moaning at the kids, recriminations (at myself as well as at my absent wife).  While the regrets and recriminations have gradually reduced, the feelings of loneliness and loss of hope have proportionately increased.  The beauty of Drew Barrymores' experience is that, when she wakes up each day, it's a new day - what has gone before doesn't exist.  In the film this is a curse, while for me this would be a blessing.

No matter how I felt that my life was "in a rut" before my wife left, it couldn't even begin to prepare me for the drudgery that my life has become.  Drudgery in itself isn't the problem, just that the lack of any envisioned conclusion (other than an unhappy one) makes the drudgery all the more pointless.

I've always been a fatalist, a cynic, a realist, somebody who knows it's not healthy to let one's fantasies or dreams get too tight a grip on reality.  I'm not talking about ridiculous fantasies (sexual or otherwise). Just day-dreams that one day my life will return to normal, I will find somebody to love again, a little bit of happiness.

The trouble is that just recently it's been those fantasies and day-dreams that have managed to allow me to function sufficiently to do all the things that my children need of me.  I know that these self-delusions are not healthy.  At age 46, with four dependent children - even before we begin to discuss physical appearance (not that I consider myself ugly) or health - I'm not exactly a "catch".

The problem is that while trying to cope with the here-and-now, provide for my children, even just to "get by" each day, I'm not doing anything that is likely to change this situation.  Some of this is due to lack of money because of my present circumstances, while some of it is due to a total loss of self-confidence.  My plan of growing old and wrinkly with my wife has been so totally derailed.  There is no "Plan B".

Talking to people who have gone through (or are still going through) the divorce and post-divorce recovery process, time appears to be a necessity.  This time period seems to differ slightly, depending upon whom I speak to, but is definitely measured in years.  I suppose this makes sense.  We spend years building a relationship with our partners.  While that other partner moves on with somebody else, the abandoned person has all those years to undo before they might find peace.

I hope for peace sometime soon - and I wish it to those reading my blog.