So I continued to lie to D about the whereabouts of the emails he'd asked me for. Missed your chance, buddy, I thought spitefully. I tried to give you those emails way back when we had the Jay Daniels chat. But you couldn't look at them then, and your bellydancer girlfriend or whatever you call her certainly can't have them now to make her divorce easier. Sorry.
Part of me didn't like that I was lying. But the rest of me was appalled - appalled, I say! - that he'd even asked me for them, especially in the context of her wanting to met me but not wanting to talk about her part in my divorce. Yeah, sorry, lady.
[Sidebar. Yes, I remembered that D had been lying to both of us. But in my mind, she had taken on the visage of the villain. See, I was still royally pissed about what a douchebag D had been during the marriage, during the divorce, and now - after the divorce, too. But I had to play nice with him, because, well, I had to. Little One needed me to treat him well, so that her world could be as normal as possible. I was hell-bent on giving her the dad she deserved, and not the one she actually had. This was how I justified my generally pleasant demeanor towards him. It was also how I justified my rage at the bellydancer. That rage had to go somewhere, I figured. Best that it fit on the head of the person who was not someone I had to deal with everyday. That would change, eventually, however. More on that later. Fini sidebar.]
I relished the fact that I could still control one aspect of D's life, namely, whether he was spending time with Sally and Little One together. I wasn't ready for that. But I knew it was coming, and it was. It was a freight train, and while I couldn't really point my finger at what exactly was bugging me about it, I knew myself well enough to know that principle and pride were two giant factors for me.
In September, which is now a year out from me filing for divorce, I decided that Little One and I needed a Disney vacation. What better way, I reasoned, to spend her couple of days off from preschool around Veteran's Day, than to fly to Southern California, bask in the sunlight, and chase furry animals around the park? So I planned out the most exquisite of Disneyland trips: a stay at the Grand Californian Hotel (built in my favorite architectural style, Craftsman), airline flights which worked with our sleep schedules, a car to drive us to the park and back. I mean, I totally worked it. I was proud of myself for having made enough money to treat us both to a dream trip like this, and I was even more proud of myself for thinking that I might just be brave enough to pull it off.
So I planned it all, paid for it up front, and thought, Okay, I'm really doing this. And yes, I need to prove something again, but this time it's more proving something to myself than to D. And I guess that's something. I guess I figured that, if I was brave enough to get a divorce - and have survived that - well, then, I could certainly take my Little One on a trip all by myself. This would be the first time ever - with flights involved - but I had a feeling I could do it. I was emboldened by my suddenly-discovered balls. And I enjoyed the feeling.
[Sidebar #2. In late June, I had tried to do a beach weekend for us which, for four glorious hours, actually felt like a beach weekend, because that's how much sun we actually got during the four days we were on the coast. The rest of the time, we rolled around in the damp, cold sand, flew kites, tried to keep our hoods from flying off our soaked heads, and watched movies in the cabin. All in all, not a bad trip. But certainly not the ideal that I'd made up in my head.]
In September, I also decided I was ready to change jobs at my company. I'd worked on the same team for 5 years - nearly unheard of in my industry - and I realized that I needed to clean out that last vestige of my married life. So I found, applied for, and, eventually, got a job in an area of that industry which I LOVE. Things were firing on all cylinders. I was starting to feel really steady, rock solid. I had successfully damped down the need for male companionship, about which I felt really good. (I mean, honestly, who needs them. Right? [crickets] Right.)
It was a really good thing that I had that Disney trip to look forward to in November, because one event that happened in October...really kind of sucked. Hard.
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