One day without crying- yippee!

I'm still sad and upset but I finally went a day with out crying. I took the day off of work and spent part of it at the dog park and the other part reading. The past two days have been really difficult, it all has been difficult. Monday night I was angry at the people who were telling me to get over it and probably was a little more mean than I should have been but I have since apologized. Yesterday evening I spent the entire night hiding in my room. Typically, I enjoy being around people but after receiving an e-mail from Josh that in actuality wasn't mean at all but for some reason I read too many things into the e-mail and pretty much freaked out. My dad was having his softball buddies over for a large party and I couldn't stop crying because all of my guilt came back so I decided to hide in my room for the rest of the evening. It was nice because I talked to a couple good friends and was able to finish some reading but I still felt quite guilty by the time I finally went to sleep. One of the friends I was talking with said something that made me really start to think about how I live my life. I haven't seen this friend in over a year but I talk with her quite often and she said "Maryanne, when I met you two years ago, you were so quiet but you had this positive spark that just shot from around you. Then,I got to know you better and you are one of the most positive people I have ever known, you try to find the best in everyone and I never heard you say a negative thing about anyone, you were never stressed out and never let the little things bother you but now I talk to you and I can tell you have lost that spark, how do we get that back?". This line really struck a chord with me because I haven't been the true me for quite a while and I'm trying to figure out how to get it back. Part of me thinks that it will come once I'm in a positive work environment instead of the environment I'm in now, part of me thinks it will come when I'm finally able to heal. I don't know how long it will take to heal but I know with how emotional and sensitive I am, it will be a long time. But, the conversation made me put trying to figure out what I want with my life into high gear.

Yesterday, I also received an e-mail from Josh that made me feel all of that guilt all over again. I really did try to be a good wife and had he told me any of his thoughts and feelings before he left, I would have tried to improve. Today, in a random conversation a person I was talking to described what she thought would be a "crappy wife". Her three statements of what a crappy wife entailed are 3 of the long list of reasons that Josh thought I was never in the marriage. It's this stuff that makes me feel bad, even though I know that he has been able to move on, that he is already in a relationship, that he is having a good time and is the "happiest" he has ever been makes me feel horrible. I never wanted to hurt him and knowing I did tears me up inside and I'm not quite sure how to stop feeling that way.

I'm also reading the book Mid-life Crisis at 30. The book makes me go back to feeling like I wasn't a good life and doesn't make me feel all that great as they define success as making money in the corporate world. I'm a former teacher, have a Master's degree in a human services field and work in education. If I stay in education, I will never make a lot of money but that has also never been a priority of mine. I have done a lot of thinking about switching careers because I do need to make a little more than I make now if I want to be back on my own again and not at my parents (the sooner the better!) and I want to work in an environment where my skills are utilized, where I talk/see my boss more than once every few months, where there is opportunity to meet other people, to present ideas, to use my creativity, etc. If I could be a professional student the rest of my life, I would be elated but I can't actually do that for a job so I've been trying to set up some informational interviews to try and figure out my next step. As my soon to be ex-mother-in-law told me, my self-confidence has always been linked to my job and how successful I've been and I've been in a job where I have been depressed because of the lack of work and the solitariness of the job and know I need to find a switch, I'm just not quite sure what that means. Do I go back to school for an MBA so I can be at the management level, do I take a couple classes in Human Resources Development to tie in with my counseling degree and start looking at Organizational Leadership, do I take a year off and teach abroad while I try and figure out life, do I just stay where I'm at and take classes for fun, do I apply to random things and see what comes of it? I don't know but I do need to figure out something as I'm definitely not looking forward to tomorrow but I do have to think positively, at least I do have a job.

Who knows how long it will take for me to heal from Josh, I did send the letter, I don't know if I should have, it wasn't mean but it did let him know some of the anger I have but also a lot of the things that I wish I could have had the chance to work on. Who knows how long it will take for me to figure out my next step in regards to career, but maybe I'll have some type of epiphany or at least realize that there really isn't a right or wrong decision and that it's okay to make mistakes. Hmmm, I need to figure out a way to get to that point.