Keeping Busy

If you're confused as to why I need to "keep busy," or are in need of greater clarity, please check previous entry. I don't have the emotional energy to re-hash it here.

Current Status: exhausted, emotional, but trying to heal

Went with my mom to the Biltmore House in Ashville, NC today. It was absolutely beautiful. We spent three hours touring the "house" (here meaning gargantuan piece of architecture that has no business deigning to call itself a "house"), I felt like I was back in England again. I desperately wanted to pitch a tent and live on the grounds. God only knows how long we spent in the flower gardens. My mom has been a huge help to me...I thank God almost incessantly for her and for my family. There's no way I'd be getting through this without them. All of them - escpecially my mother - have been a huge comfort to me. She's even coming to stay with me for a couple of days so I won't have to be totally alone those first nights back...

We took lots of silly pictures at the Biltmore. Mom helped me remember how to laugh and play: even bought me a new teddy bear named Dylan since I'm not exactly comfortable sleeping with the ones my former boy purchased for me...and they were all I had...

Dreaming Big: someday, if I find a man I can keep, I think I'd like to have my honeymoon there. It gives me something to look foward to...something to hope for when I seem to be so decidedly lacking in hope...

I also got my hair cut. I mean, really cut. As in, picture Mandy Moore in "How to Deal" short. Yeah. That's me.

I wanted to feel like I was in control of something...like my body, like my self, was mine again. He-who-shall-not-be-named always wanted me to keep my hair long. And the only reason I ever grew it out was for the wedding, so...hence the hackage. I really like it, though. It'll take some getting used to, but I feel like it's more "me"...little things like that are helping me re-discover the person I lost through all of this.

That and writing. Writing really seems to be cathartic for me right now. It's like I can't process what's happening to me unless I pour it out in print...

Speaking of which....

Once again, I'd like to reiterate a request: Please don't hunt my former boy down. We were both responsible for letting things get the way they were: not just him. I have my share of responsibility in this. So, to those of you who I've trusted with my story: I'm also trusting that you have the maturity and wisdom to let certain things be. Namely, he and I both have a lot of healing to do: please don't jeapordize his road to recovery by creating any additional pain or heartache. My sharing is meant to be a confession of why I'm where I'm at: not a condemntation for those who helped get me there.

At any rate...back to NC....

I've only got one day left here and then we're headed back to Fla. I can't believe Spring Break is already over. I love my kids, but I've no desire to get back to them. In fact, I'm absolutely dreading it. So much happened during this "break" that I didn't really get to rest the way I would have liked. That, and my children are not stupid: they all knew I was engaged. They will also know what a new hair cut and the absence of a ring means. I'm more than a little anxious about all of the nosy, well-intentioned, and highly inappropriate questions they'll be apt to ask me.

I just hope to God none of my flirty, "sexual harassment suit waiting to happen," teenage boys says something stupid. The referrals and detentions they recieve will not just be terrible: they will be legendary. I'm thinking toothbrushes for mops on the tile floors of my classroom.

Bring it, punks. I dare you.

Yes, I'm still broken. Yes, I'm still healing. But I remember a story a friend of mine once told me. She said that I'd developed quite a reputation in the FSC English Dept: "something of a legend." Apparently, my newspaper escapades are still merrily recounted. During one of these tale tellings, one student apparently said "You don't mess with her."

I like that.

I might be messed up...but I know with the love of my friends I won't be forever. It hurts now...but hope and healing will come. You don't mess with me...and you don't mess with us.

Love you all.

Belle out.