In shock

March 31st is a recurring important day in my life. In 1992, it was the day I found out my divorce was final, freeing me from a very bad marriage. In 1997, I was laid off from a job I loved as a librarian after 20 years, which would be very sad except they asked me back in another capacity a few weeks later, and I still work there, someplace with a wonderful mission with people who feel like family. So it wasn't a sad ending, but a transition, although it felt sad at the time.

Fast forward to today, 2023. I just got a notice from MOHELA, the student loan servicer my account has been transferred to because I applied under the temporary limited waiver of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programme that after applying credits for all necessary payments, I have fulfilled the programme's requirements and my loans have been forgiven. I thought it was a spam email, so I went to the website to verify. My balance is $0. All $220,667 was forgiven. My student loans have hung over my head since I was 17 years old. I struggled to make payments, and over the years my loans only grew with capitalised interest, bringing the amount owed up by almost $100,000. I was on income-contingent plans that never made a dent in the amount owed. Now, because of working for all that time in a qualified nonprofit and credits plus the required amount of payments, they're gone. I'm in shock. I thought I'd be paying till I was on Social Security or my death. I'm incredibly relieved. Now I just need to know if Kentucky follows the federal guidelines on taxes (in which case, no taxes will be due) or not (in which case I may be in a world of hurt next year come tax time). But I'm not going to worry about that right now. I'm going to be happy at the moment. This is probably the best birthday present in recent memory.

This was a difficult read for me, because it brought up a lot of my own experiences

If you have any desire to understand what it is like living as a gay person who has been told all their lives that they are one thing, and denying their real nature, I'd seriously recommend reading the linked story. It's told from the Mormon perspective, but it could be many cultures or religions, really, and it discusses the harm of the negative view of homosexuality on real people's identity and mental health, whether outright 'you're going to hell' to 'love the sinner, hate the sin'.

When I was 18, very young and naïve, I met my future husband, whom I subsequently learned was gay. We eventually became a sort of 'triunity' by adding a third partner in our relationship, a man with whom is still together. But it did irreparable damage to me, and to them. The relationship wasn't good for any of us, because it was based on a lie, as he was still trying to build a home as a bisexual, when he was, in my opinion, quite gay and hiding behind my skirts, so to speak. He was, at one point, very Christian, although eventually, I think he rejected most of it. I realised for my own good I had to get out of the relationship, for some of the reasons the wife mentions, but also because of double standards and other issues that were secondary to the actual sexual orientation issues. I was 24 when I left. I had been the one who had pushed for the marriage because some part of me thought that would somehow legitimize what I'd been going through all this time. I was wrong. My leaving, divorcing was best for all of us. It was painful. I've never really dated anyone seriously since, and that was 26 years ago. I hope he finally came to grips with himself, that he and his partner (I don't know if they ever married) have a better relationship with my absence. My experiences are different than this couple's. Thankfully, I didn't have children to worry about. But these sorts of relationships are, I suspect, fairly common, where the pressures of society bring people together young and naive, who don't have a chance to really explore their own identity first. I wish this couple well. I certainly identify with the wife. But read it, it's very well thought-out, well-written, and even references a modern retelling of the Ugly Duckling story to help people understand. Like Stellaluna, you can't be a bird when you're a bat. And you can't be a bat when you're a unicorn. Be yourself, no matter what people say, because trying to conform to everyone else's opinion is maddening and sucks at your soul. And like I said, it's not a bashing of Christianity. When we were together a friend of the partner, an Indian graduate student who was being harassed by a local conversion therapy ministry group in the 80s, who were showing up at work and whom he desperately did not want contacting his devout Hindu family, committed suicide in response. These are lives and deaths we're talking about. If you can't be supportive, don't, at least, contribute to the problem, particularly in the name of religion or God.

TURNING A UNICORN INTO A BAT: THE POST IN WHICH WE ANNOUNCE THE END OF OUR MARRIAGE

Decidedly cranky today

My patience with people has worn thin today, although I don't know if it was evident at work. YKWIA and A definitely knew. So I'm at home alone after running some errands with/for them just keeping to myself and doing some computer maintenance/set up. Part of it is hormones. I'm also more tired than I really ought to be, I suppose. My blood sugar has been doing pretty well, so it's not that. I think I'll take a short nap and then get up and scan something for a friend and do some more computer stuff. I really am going to try not to sleep the night away.

Oh, I saw my ex today. I'm not sure if he saw or recognised me. Apparently he still works at the store. I'd gone there before work for something and he's the one who unlocked the door when they opened. I had not seen him since they moved the store and had wondered whether he was still there. Afterwards, when I was back in the car, the radio had Kelly Clarkson's song that goes, 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger....' I think we would both agree that it was appropriate. :) We had a very toxic relationship that has scarred me even though the divorce was 21 years ago. I am so glad it ended.

Okay, that's it for now. I'll try to write something more interesting later. :)

Equal marriage rights should also include equal divorce rights

But for same-sex couples, things can get really sticky, opening up multiple cans of worms for the parties trying to divorce, especially legally and financially, but even down to parenthood.

Denied divorce, some same-sex couples 'wed-locked'

But if a marriage should fall apart in a state that doesn't recognize the couple's legal status in the first place, that's when things get complicated.
Some states that do not allow same-sex marriages to be performed also do not grant divorces for same-sex marriages that occurred outside of the state's borders. It's a tricky situation when a couple wants to dissolve their same-sex marriage, and neither spouse is a resident of a state that recognizes their marriage as legal and valid.

Twenty years ago today

I took a step that utterly changed me life, for the best. I left a loveless marriage to set out on my own. I couldn't have done it without having a friend who questioned the double standards in my life and sat up with me late at night watching Star Trek: the Next Generation and asking me hard questions I couldn't easily answer. Twenty years later, that friendship is still deep, while the marriage--whose relationship lasted six years, although the actual time married was about six months before I left--is only an unpleasant bunch of memories. Sometimes I pull out the wedding photos to prove to myself that I was that naïve, that stupid. But on December 5th, every year, I thank the Gods for my friend and for the day my brain kicked back in.

I married June 15th, 1991. I'd been the one who had pushed for the wedding. In my desperation, I felt that it was the only way to make the last few years' experience valid, as crazy as that sounds. By September I sought therapy, but the social worker was more interested in childhood relationships than the one I desperately needed to get away from. By October, I'd had my epiphany, during the famous scene in Ghost while 'Unchained Melody' played, when I realised how I had something much more bitter and sick in my life than that simple love. I announced my intent to leave. By November I was actively looking for an apartment. By happenstance the apartment that connected to my friend's came open, and on the 5th of December I moved.

So here's to freedom, and to courage, and to good friendship. I hate to think where I would have been without it. My spirit had been on its way to dying already; I had handed my personality and my brain over long before. December 5th I took it back, and although thinks have sometimes been a bit rocky on my own, I am very pleased by how things have turned out, compared to what they would have been, praise the Gods, and thank you, my dearest friend.

Speaking of U2

I remember hearing this song on the radio during my divorce--although it had been out for four years--and at the time it really caught the conflict I had going on inside. I knew leaving was the best thing to do, but I was leaving the only relationship I'd ever had, one that had lasted 6 years, and that was hard, especially as I had given my self away, literally, and was trying to find my own personality and way again.


Thanks for helping me through the pain, guys.

Speaking of the divorce, there was one song and one scene in a movie that really gave me the epiphany I needed to leave, because I realised I was not in love and it never would be like this with that person:


I don't know why I'm thinking about it now--I left 18 years ago this month, but I guess it was an ending, and a beginning, much like the year's end and the new year. It was the best decision of my life, though, and my life is much richer for it.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me

So today's my 42nd birthday. Does that mean I get the answers to life, the universe, and everything now? (Sorry, geeky Douglas Adams humour, there.)

So far it's been nice. I'm off both jobs. I slept in until 10 am (normally I have to get up by 9). I took a nice long bath. I've been listening to meditative music and looking up some stuff online. My plan is to take a gift card Margaret gave me for Yule and go to the cinema and watch Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D. Later in the evening a friend and I plan to go out for Indian food. Yay for vegetable pakora, korma, and pishwari naan!

Last night I treated myself to two very nice African violet plants from Kroger. One is a dark purple; the other a pretty medium one. They were 2/$5. I think I'll keep them at home rather than take them into the office and see how they do here. They've each got quite a few buds on them. Violets are so perky and uplifting, don't you think? I have one at the office in rest mode (not-presently-blooming) that has white blooms with purple edges, so they're all different.

I came across this true-crime story today (it's several years old now; I think the killing was in 2004)--and yes, I'm a true-crime junkie, I know. I cannot imagine a jury convicting the killer at all. I think justice was served--she plead guilty to manslaughter, was given credit for time served in jail awaiting trial, and was put on five-year probation in lieu of a 10-year sentence. I certainly don't believe she deserved life in prison or the death penalty. In 'He Was Never Going to Harm My Daughter Again', they give the details of the case. It was also presented on the show 'Snapped'. Her teenage daughter had accused her stepfather of sexually abusing her, but he convinced everyone, including the social workers, that she was lying--so well that the daughter was prosecuted for making a false claim. But a year later the daughter, now seven months' pregnant, told her mother about a videotape which the mother viewed which did, indeed, show him to be abusing her daughter. The woman took a 20-gauge shotgun and shot him in the head whilst he slept. Once the police found the tape, they let her go, but prosecutors brought the case forward, eventually making the plea offer, which she took. I think she could have gotten out of it without any conviction--a jury would not have convicted her of either murder or manslaughter for that matter, in my opinion. Especially since 1) her lawyer interviewed his sisters, whom he'd also sexually abused as both minors and adults and 2) the DNA test on the son born to the daughter showed that the stepfather was the father. He was a sick, sick bastard and although I hate to say that some people just need killing, this is a case that would be hard to argue against. I hope the family has been able to get a great deal of therapy. I know there was a potential lawsuit against the professionals who failed to believe the girl and remove the danger of more abuse, but I don't know how that has come out.

I do know I'd never agree to convict her of murder if I were on a jury, given the evidence. Yes, she did it, but given the abuse--both the heinous nature of the abuse against the daughter and then also the isolation and abuse the mother had endured, I can't call what she did cold-blooded murder, although of course she did kill him, and given her mental state at the time, manslaughter is probably appropriate. My opinion would be to let her walk, but I'd have had to have gone with manslaughter given the evidence. One thing I've learnt through jury service is you have to very carefully weigh the evidence and not let emotions sway you. Still, I'm glad I've only served on a civil case and not a murder trial. Not all cases are as easy as this one.

She was just a year younger than me. I understand how isolation and abuse can mess with your psychology--I've been there, trust me--and she's right, emotional abuse leaves some of the worst scars, even though many people see physical abuse as worse than mere words. But that's not necessarily the case at all. In my opinion, sexual abuse is the worst, but emotional abuse is a close second. It erodes self-esteem, changes how a person thinks and interacts, and can make someone nearly incapable of taking their fate into their own hands. But it's so freeing when you do get out from under the abuse, let me tell you. I'm just glad that in my own past I've been able to walk away, cut off ties, and not had to worry about being pursued further. Most abusers are cowards. But then you get the psychos who won't let go and do things like shoot up nursing homes trying to kill their ex-wife, that kind of thing.

And it's not just men--I once got caught up in a scary divorce where the wife snapped and 1) presented a false claim of threat to get an emergency protective order, listing me as a witness when there had been no threat of violence at all, 2) stalked her husband all around town (that EPO needed to be mutual, or at least against her, let me tell you), and 3) she even stole paperwork out of the records office and scribbled madly over the divorce documents, then got the commissioner to try to blackmail me into giving her back a repossessed car (she'd not made payments on) before the divorce could proceed. Fortunately everything worked out well in the end and she was exposed as the psycho crazy woman she was, the husband was able to get his divorce/remarry, and I got to keep the car. Moral of the story, never get involved with crazy people's divorces. By comparison mine was a piece of cake.

Gee, I've known a lot of crazy people in my life, people who make me seem terribly sane and rational. Fortunately they aren't in my life anymore, and let me tell you, that's a blessing.

Isn't it strange?

I spend a lot of my time trying to avoid being adult and responsible. Yet I carry deep-set feelings of responisbility for several things I experienced as a child, even though I was in no way to blame. Things like sexual abuse, never measuring up enough to be wanted, my parents' divorce, that kind of thing.

I'm learning to take responsibility for all the little and big things I should. But maybe I need to let go of the guilt and responsibility that I have left over from my childhood.

Maybe I try to avoid more responsibility because of the feelings I associate with it.

I know now that I was a bright, trusting, and lovable child that most people would have loved to have as their own. A lot of trust was broken, I felt terribly unlovable, and I took refuge in being bright but never really developed it as I should have. My emotional growth stopped when I was very young. My intellectual growth stopped as a teenager. I've come very far in getting them further down the pipeline. But I wonder if I hadn't had some of the experiences I had--if I'd been encouraged and nurtured, and most of all, not harmed, what kind of person I would be.

I don't know, maybe we grow and evolve more in the presence of adversity. But we also grow when nurtured. I can't ever get the nurturing I could have had, but I can nurture myself. So that's two ways to grow. So now it's time to plant some roots and flourish, don't you think?

Today is year fifteen

since the best early birthday present I ever received--a divorce decree. And I have appreciated it every day since. Yay!

Oh, Gods, I married this

when I was very young, very naive, and very, very stupid, until my brain woke up after an intervention. Thank you, thank you to the intervener.

Profile for KyHorseHung at Resources for Bears

I saw him the other day at the store where he works. He looked my father's age; he's exactly a week younger than I am. Then I found this site. The pictures remind me of some sort of hick (I think it's the baseball cap, something I never saw him wear. He was into those little caps that snap in the front that old men wear, when we were dating). He looks like he's trying to look tough. He says on his website that he's embraced his redneck side. Oh, yes.

I look at him and I am totally repulsed. I really don't understand what I ever saw in him, either on the outside or the inside.

It even gets scarier if you follow the links (definitely not work safe, assuming you could get through any workplace filters--there's a nude picture involved). Maybe I'm a prude, but I just don't understand why anyone would post themselves online like that. Well, okay, in this case it's to get men. But you know what I mean.

I am so glad that a certain videotape was destroyed by both of us at the conclusion of our relationship. I was sure to snag that one when we left, then we met and together destroyed it. Never leave that sort of evidence about.

To quote Lovecraftian horror, it is squamous. It is gibbous. It is a horror worse than those of Great Cthulhu. I think my eyes may burn out of my skull. Eghhhh.

Anyone who wants to say I'm going to hell for ever divorcing him should look at this site. Their eyes would so be opened. And the site is very, very different from his pseudo-religious writings as Chandonn.

There was a time where I thought he had potential. No more. Soon he may be crawling around under their house crying, 'Precious, my precious', and there's no doubt what his precious is. He's always been rather fixated on it and more than willing to show it off at the drop of a hat. He once brought pictures of it out after dinner. I think that was the same dinner his live-in lover (did I mention I was stupid?) was sucking spaghetti up his nose. Gods, how did I wind up in that relationship?

I'd like to think that by comparison I've grown as a person. Leaving him (and his 'Husbear' as he calls his partner (Jordsvin)--they're still together, which is rather remarkable, I suppose), really was the best thing I have ever done for myself.

These are my opinions on the matter, anyway. Hey, he says in his profile he likes honesty. Somehow I suspect he wouldn't care for my honest opinion. It's actually much more scathing and loathing than I've expressed here. I'll probably get a nasty e-mail from him threatening action if I so much as mention him; I have before. Oh, well. The truth will set us free, right? If he's not doing anything embarrassing or wrong, he should be open and not upset by anything. I have witnesses to our relationship and the facts involved, so it's not just my word, so I'm pretty comfortable posting this. And who knows what else he's up to? Trust me, I've been exposed to some pretty lurid stuff. And that was 15-21 years ago. Now? Amputees, for example? I mean, it's great for amputees to have partners, but the fact that there are people out there attracted to amputation, some to the point of wanting to get one themselves or get their partner to do so, that's out there. (If you never have heard of this, try searching for it online. Your eyes will be opened. Even Active Living, a magazine for active amputees, addressed it in one issue.) And he lists that as one of his turn-ons.

I just don't get him. And I think that's a good thing.