an eviction notice - not mine

I served an eviction notice today. Not to my kid (don't worry, Pop, I'm not sending another one down for you to raise). I evicted some skeletons from my closet.

See... Heather Logic is sometimes hard to follow, even for Heather. I moved here almost two years ago... and yet... I'm still living out of boxes. I really am. It's like there was this fear in me... after moving to Woodstock in 2006... to Jacksonville in 2007... and here in 2008... there was this unspoken fear that this too, was temporary. And I realized... I haven't yet fully put down roots. There were still stacks of stuff that were waiting to be put away.

I need another dresser... but the one I have was a time capsule from Jacksonville. It was filled with medical bills that I was reluctant to look at from *that time*... I didn't want to see the lists of things they used on me to resurrect me. I had stacks and stacks of phone bills... *the phone bill* that set me over the edge with the proof of my greatest fears, that Michael was cheating on me. I saved them... in case Dean needed them in his custody case... and I guess, to some degree, for validation.

You know... there are times that his brainwashing returns and I wonder if it really was *that bad* and if he really did all those awful things because how could anyone who loved me ever hurt me that bad. So I held on to the proof.... for when things get tough here... when it's hard to stretch my diminished salary as far as it needs to go... when I need to remind myself that falling in love sometimes means falling farther than you meant to fall. I needed those tangible reminders to somehow guard against future evil.

Yet. Really. I don't. I was keeping my unmentionables in a rubbermade storage tote in the closet while the drawers were filled with skeletons. Today... I decided to evict the skeletons and trust myself to live life without having to reach back and validate my decisions. If I ever start to doubt... I know that God (and you guys) will remind me that I'm where I'm supposed to be. I know that my strength doesn't lie in a stack of old papers from a Pandora's box that I wish I had never opened. I know that my strength lies in the spirit within me... the spirit that brought me back from death's door and the same spirit that gives me the courage to get up every morning and live a life that falls a little short of the happily ever after I thought it would be.

Those drawers held some skeletons that went a little further back, too. Back to other loves that didn't deserve me and to skeletons of my childrens' childhoods that have slipped away like sand between my fingers. I grieve for those days gone by but rejoice in tasks completed.

Finishing things is never easy for me. I have lots of great ideas... I'm weak on the carry-through. I'm more of a "joy in the journey" girl instead of a "dance at the destination" person.

I carried that hefty bag of skeletons out the door to the dipsty dumpster on the street and stopped by the mailbox on my way back in, just on the odd chance that mail had run since the last time one of us stopped to check it. There was one piece of mail... a card... from the beautiful lady who has been teaching our Wednesday night bible study... and it said, "When joy is deep within us, we will walk through life with a lifted heart, soul and mind. - Patsy Clairmont" Inside it read..."you shine with the joy of Jesus and brighten so many lives- especially mine!"

Timing is everything. If I had checked the mail on Saturday... that wouldn't have been half as precious to me.

It's still hard. I'm coming up on the 2 year anniversary and it's still hard... all of it... Dean, God bless him, is still struggling to find a way to share his childrens' lives... he is still living with the every day reminders of what was stolen from him. Every time he misses a dime of child support, that evil woman drags him back to court and as a result, he can't even see his kids right now. It's been nearly six months since this devoted, hands on dad has even seen his children.

For me, it's far less tangible. What I lost was not worth having... the reality of it... but the idea of being married, the concept of sharing a life with someone, the dream that I thought I had realized, I still mourn those losses. And I mourn the innocence that was taken from me... not in the virginal sense but in the sense that I will never have the kind of blind, open, vulnerable faith in anyone again. I'm jaded.

Slowly, though, with baby steps, at a turtle's pace, I'm building my life on my terms. There are starts and stops. There are times that I'm stagnant and don't quite know which way to turn. But today... I leapt over a big hurdle and I'm proud of me.

Time for brunch and a shower and to squeeze the last precious drops out of this fabulously lazy weekend!