4:24 a.m.

It is 4:24 a.m.

I had trouble falling asleep. That's an old, familiar problem that I've not experienced in a long time.  I fell asleep around 11:30 p.m. with some concern that my 5:00 a.m. alarm would be really unwelcome

And then I found myself awake at 3:45 a.m.  I've tossed and turned and now it's 4:24 a.m.  I've decided to give a cup of hot tea and some emotional purging on these pages a try.

Put on your seat belts because this is going to be a rollercoaster of emotions.

This weekend was not "my" weekend.

When you get divorced, your days aren't all "your" days.

Every other weekend, my kids' days belong to their dad.  We're sort of a weird post-divorce family, so up until now, a lot of "not my weekends" were still spent at my house with my babies still within arm's length of my mothering.  The girls' busy schedules and my relatively cordial relationship with my ex-husband allowed for really odd situations where my he slept on my couch, I shared my bedroom with my boyfriend, my boyfriend's son slept in his new room in our house, and my girls' slept in their very own beds.  But, things have shifted and I get the sense that these kumbayah weekends are not really going to be a "thing" anymore.  I suppose that's a good thing.  Boundaries are always a good thing.

Anyway....

On this "not my weekend," two of my three children packed up overnight bags and set off to spend the night at their dad's girlfriend's house.

I hated it.

The girls were fine.  They were excited to go, actually.  They like his girlfriend and her daughter.  And, also, my kids are pretty awesome.  They have weathered every damn storm their father and I created to still, miraculously, be pretty great kids.  They bicker with one another, "forget" to clean out the litter box, and roll their eyes when I wonder aloud about how my dining room table became a closet.  I mean, they drive me crazy sometimes.  But, thankfully, it's all a normal kind of crazy that just comes with adolescence.  So, I can't even argue that my hatred of this weekend was justified motherly concern.  The kids are okay.

I am not.

I am currently awake at 4:30ish a.m. because of jealousy.  Burning hot, all consuming, ugly jealousy.

And that is, like, the dumbest thing ever because I have a boyfriend who now lives in my house with his son.  I have zero right to feel jealous or begrudge my ex-husband this time to cobble together whatever family life he can with the very few days that are actually "his" days.

I don't want to be married to him ever again.  Ever.  Put all the other stuff that happened aside, we are now different people.  The life he lives is not one I would want to live. I get the feeling that the life I'm living is not one he'd want to live either.  We are done.  That's a good thing.

So, what the heck? Why am I up at insanely early-o'clock with jealousy raging throughout my body? Oh, friends....  I am such a horrible person.  I am an ungracious, horrible person because really it all boils down to this.

I get to be happy.  He doesn't.

I mean, not really, because I don't actually get to make all of the rules, but if I did that's how it would go.  I get to have this new life I am creating with this amazingly kind and beautiful man.  He gets to be miserable.

And, I am evil.

I know, I know.  One of the last blog posts I wrote with tear-stained cheeks talked about my hope that we can create new lives with new loves.  I meant that.  I really did.  I still do.  Except for when it's actually happening.

I've had a few zillion hours to stew about this and I think I know what the crux of the problem is and of course, it all comes right on back to insecurity.

Oh, insecurity...  Beth Moore tried to convince me to ditch you years ago with her amazing Bible study.  And yet, here I am.  Insecure.

This is all really ridiculous because I don't want to be married to that man anymore.  That's why I got divorced.  My logical brain tells me that it is normal and good for him to move on, just like it was normal and good that I moved on.  When I don't have to think about his new love as an actual person and she's just an abstract idea, I'm super cool with that.  But, when I catch wind of evidence of this actual "moving on" process, I am super not cool with that.

Because, why her?

Why not me?

What was so awful and unloveable about me that I didn't deserve that best self that I assume she gets? Of course, through internet stalking (yes, yes...I did that), I've learned she's beautiful and appears to be younger than me.  She runs fricking marathons for gosh's sake.  She's probably cool and not into politics and not one giant feeling walking around all of time time.  She's probably all the cool and beautiful that I know I am not. So, I guess, I get it.

But, once upon a time, he picked me and I thought I was going to get that kind of devotion and love and fidelity and coolness.  But, I didn't.  I got a giant shit show and a broken heart. 

Of course, I wasn't perfect.  I can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.  All of my lovely friends, who are well acquainted with my "pain in the ass-ness" assure me that, despite my numerous flaws, the demise of my marriage wasn't really actually about me.  They tell me I'm a lovely person who deserves exclusive affection and honesty and devotion and quality time.  That's what people who love you are supposed to tell you in situations like these.

I also know that new relationships are hopefully "do-overs" where you take the lessons learned from past relationships and do better.  I can tell myself in my more logical and centered moments that this is probably the case.  That's definitely the case for me in my new relationship.  So, maybe it wasn't really because I'm fundamentally un-loveable.

Except right now it's 5:00 a.m. and at 5:00  a.m. I worry that I am actually un-loveable.  I worry that some day this could happen again.  Maybe some day I could be loved by someone and have them un-love me.   I know this could happen because it did already happen.  In this dark moment of self-doubt I worry that my sweet friends are just doing what sweet friends do and that it actually was about me.  I'm afraid that I will once again be hurt by someone who was supposed to love me best.

And, also, my kids like her.  That's a good thing, I know.  My kids are such awesome people.  They have the most forgiving, beautiful hearts.  I don't know where they got that from because I apparently do not have a forgiving, beautiful heart.  Because this weekend when I knew they were going to go sleep at her house and they were excited about it, I felt perfectly awful.

Because if their dad could like her better than me, maybe they could too.

You see, "my" days are approximately 98% of their days, really.  And that's lucky.  It also means that I'm the one getting mad at them for never cleaning the damn litter box and who nags them to get their dirty laundry into the hamper and who begs them to just, for the love of God, stop fighting!  I get to have a starring role in most of their days, but it's not a real glamorous role.  I don't take them to thrift stores finding cool hipster treasures and catching lunch in a kitschy dive bar.  Our days are mostly me telling them I can't afford the fun items because we have car insurance and sports fees and freaking dental bills to pay.  I'm reminding them that vegetables should be consumed and dirty socks don't belong on the dining room table.  I'm not cool.  I'm not fun.  I'm their mom.

I know.  I'm their mom. I am their mom.  My brain knows that. It argues with my heart all of the time.

But, this insecurity?  It's a real bitch.  It whispers in my ear that if one person can un-love you, then so can all the people.  It tells me that I am not actually worthy of love and fidelity and respect and kindness.  It tells me that all the worst parts of me are the most important parts of me.  It tells me that I deserved all the hurt.

My brain knows that's a lie.  It really does.  But, at 4:24 a.m. when I began this post, my heart wasn't so sure.

So, what's the conclusion?  I don't even know.

Mostly, writing stuff down helps me process all the things and I needed to do that.

And, also, I feel like I've presented myself as a pretty good person on these pages and I feel kind of like a fraud right now.  All the thoughts and feelings I've written in the past were true in the moment.  They're true still, really.  I guess I just felt like I had to be honest with myself and with the world.  I fundamentally believe in unconditional love, grace, mercy, and kindness.  I just don't actually always live according to my own actual values.  While I strive to be the person Jesus tells me to be, I fall so short all the dang time.  I know I should want everyone to be happy and whole and to feel loved...even, and perhaps especially, my ex-husband.  Most of the time, I do feel that way.

But not today.

Not at 4:24 a.m.