Calendar

Last week some time, back at my mom's house, I woke up after getting about 3 hours of sleep spread out over the night- again. I was exhausted to the point of tears and started crying. Now that's worse than getting up on the wrong side of the bed- just lying there and crying. My mom heard me at some point and came in.

"I am just so exhausted. Sometimes I don't think I have the endurance to make it. How long am I going to feel like this?"

"About a year," she said, stroking my hair.

A year from when? It's been two and half years since I had the first flash revelation that my marriage might not last. It's been a year and a half since I became pretty much certain that it wouldn't. It's been a year since I started setting timelines for leaving the relationship "If X doesn't happen in X amount of time, than I am leaving." It's been nine months since the first temporary separation. It's been six months since we decided to separate. I've been in Utah for three and a half months. It's been three months since I knew for certain he was never coming to join me. It's been two months since we officially decided to divorce. How much longer can it be until I can go more than three days without crying, until I don't think about this every day, until I have as much energy as I used to, until I can concentrate for extended periods of time? 12 months, 10 months, 9 months, 8 1/2 months, 6 months, 3 months?

Yuval used to bring home travelers like stray kittens. We would take them in and feed them, do our best to spoil them, love them, and send them on their way. People from Australia, France, Israel, the US, etc. would end up camping on our couch, in whatever country our coach was located at the time. There was an entire 6 month period where the coach went unoccupied for only two weeks. I am still in touch with a few of these kittens, who became friends during the time they stayed with us. One of them wrote me and today I wrote her back with the news that I am getting divorced. She wrote me back crying and confused. I know the feeling well. Here was her advice for me:

"linsey you are one of the most beautiful loving gentle kind patient generous and warm people I know. Really. that is true.just one day at a time. and what my brother said when he lost his wife to cancer, 'if you cant do the day, do the hour, and if you cant do the hour, just do the next ten minutes.'"

How many more ten minutes are there left in my countdown?