Ok, so today was the first day I had on my own.  The first day my – actually, what do I call the man who is still my husband but isn’t? The man who I’ve known for 20 years, been married to for 10, who gave me three children, but no longer wants this life? What do I call him? He’s not quite my husband, he’s not quite my ex, he’s not quite estranged, he’s not quite anything. So maybe for now I shall simply call him my Not-Quite. So today was the first day my Not Quite took my children.  For, what shall now and forever more, be known as ‘his day’.   Five weeks ago I was married. Now I loose my children at certain times to ‘his day’. Soon there will be a ‘his weekend’. There is a horrible penciled in line in the summer called ‘his week’. And because I can’t write about just how shit that feels (see previous post on limiting overload of words on said topic) I will write about the smidgen of positive.

I had a whole day. I always imagined if I ever got a day to myself I would indulge in the luxury of nothingness, eat chocolate, watch the telly. But my mind is way too fragile for that sort of abandon. So I worked. And I wrote. For every minute of it. And it was amazing how much I got done….  I have spent years squeezing big amounts of work and writing into small amounts of time. Time so limited it never sucked up the lists. They spilled over into my afternoons, my evenings, my early mornings. But today I wrote and wrote and worked and worked and ticked and ticked until my whole list was gone and I felt full to bursting with the pleasure of stuff done.   And my mind was so packed with writing and work it pushed out all the pain and the sadness.  Words will save me. Work will support me. Friends will love me. And eventually I will get used to having whole days, and whole weekends, and horrible whole weeks to myself.  But for now, I just had my first day. A box ticked all of it’s own.