THE QUIET

There is a line in the song SOBER by Pink that has been running through my head for the majority of today.

THE QUIET SCARES ME 'CAUSE IT SCREAMS THE TRUTH.

Too much has happened this week. I am in no position to blog about it right now. In a nutshell, in addition to what happened in my Monday post, my husband read a text message from Steven later that night. A text that said, GOODNIGHT I LOVE YOU MISSY, or something close to that.

Conversations have happened. Tears have been shed. It has been a hard week of being honest, being real, and accepting what our marriage has become. We are both at fault. I can't stress enough what a good person my husband is. What a wonderful father he is. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body. We simply don't make a good team in marriage.

My emotions have been all over the map. I am happy. Sad. Scared. Excited. Nervous. Confident. Calm. Tense. A fucking mess, in general.

This has been hard on Steven. He doesn't know what to make of it all. He is being thrown into the blender that has my life in it, spinning and spinning...

I have had too much quiet today. I needed it. Yet, I didn't. I took my kids and made them victims of therapeutic photography...the end result was great pictures of them with the beauty of fall in the background...and it allowed me to catch my breath. To not think. To simply relish the beauty of being outside in gorgeous weather, with my children that I could stare at for hours. Their eyes, their hands. The awkwardness of my pre-teen. The confidence of my 7 year old. One with baby teeth, one about to start orthodontia. One with intensity, one with a glint that scares me.

I need to get my head straight though. Once my kids were in bed this evening, I was alone. With my thoughts. My husband had made plans and wasn't home. I was sitting here, in a too quiet house, the kids asleep.

THE QUIET SCARES ME 'CAUSE IT SCREAMS THE TRUTH.

And I started to have a panic attack. A real, honest to goodness panic attack. I haven't had one like this in years. And I didn't know what to do. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I couldn't be calm. Sitting, crying, feeling helpless. It scared the shit out of me. And in that quiet, I had to get it together.

The logical thing would be to talk myself down. Think realistically. Try to be rational.

And you know what I did?

I turned on the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader tryouts and ate Teddy Grahams.

I felt my heart stop racing. My muscles relax. The tears stopped. And as I am watching these skinny cute girls compete to make the first round of cuts, I gathered my thoughts. Found my strength.

And when I had found it, all by myself, my cell phone went off. And what I read surprised me. It was one of my best friends. I had finally confessed my marital issues to her this week. It was hard, I got the reaction I had expected. She is a hard core TILL DEATH DO US PART kind of girl, and if she even had a clue that I was having an affair, well, that friendship would be over. I left her house the other day feeling relatively unsupported, feeling like she just didn't understand.

Yet...this text I got from her tonight said: THINKING ABOUT YOU. YOU CAN CALL ME ANYTIME. EVEN NOW IF YOU NEED TO. YOU HAVE BEEN ON MY MIND ALL DAY. I REALLY WANT TO BE HERE FOR YOU.

I texted back, asking if she was psychic because I had just had a "moment".

I needed to hear that from her. I need her to unconditionally love and support me, even if I am taking a path that she can't fathom. And while I am not sure that she will, I feel more confident about it. She is trying. She is stretching. Something made her grab her phone and send that to me at 10 PM tonight.

Sometimes we are so busy, so wrapped up in our lives, that we don't allow the quiet to ever be there. I am so guilty of that. There is never quiet. I am never alone with my thoughts. And because of that THE QUIET SCARES ME 'CAUSE IT SCREAMS THE TRUTH.

I am listening to the quiet. Trying to hear the truth. MY TRUTH. Trying to maintain my relationships with those that I love, while taking care of myself as well.

And I won't lie. It is fucking harder than anything. Case in point...I popped 3 Tylenol PM and wrote this. I am trying to escape right this very second. However, by writing, I am processing. I am thinking. I am sorting. I am finding calm in random things like cheerleaders and toddler snacks.

And waiting for clarity.