to my readers:

first & foremost i would like to thank each and every one of you who has commented on my last few posts. i have been through this before, and stupidly and blindly ended up in it again. we all want to believe the best out of people, but when push comes to shove, past behavior predicts future behavior and better safe than sorry.

i think i shall be swearing off men in my future. i don't know for how long. as long as it takes for the ladies & i to heal and move forward as mother & daughters with healthy perspectives and healthy approaches to the daily tasks that lay before us.

your comments really mean a lot to me. i really was afraid that i would feel so alone, but i haven't. many friends i wasn't even aware that cared as much as they do are stepping up and saying "how can i help you" and "what is it that you need?" that is a great feeling. especially for me, a girl with no immediate family in 1000 mile radius. sure i have an aunt that i'm not particularly close to in kansas city but she's lived there for 3 years and this is the first time i went to visit her.

there were only a small handful of people that knew what was going on. up until last week, only 2 people in my life knew details and they only found out within the last few weeks. i have known for quite some time that i could not continue this life with sir g. oh how i wanted to! i wanted to buy a house, get him his truck, his equipment, and have another child or 2. and i wanted to do that with him. but people are incomprehensible at times and emotions are toyed with and perspectives are changed and then at some point someone had to step back and say whoa. rewind! when did this happen?! how did i not realize this was going on!? 

every moment i spend without him is another moment that reaffirms to me that my decision was the best decision for myself & my girls. every day that has passed is another day without worry or fear. i have gone from a minimum of 4 panic attacks a day to none at all.

• to a special friend: your daily encouragement and your friendship means so much to me. you are unaware of how many times i was hurt, crying, devastated, or hiding in my closet when you messaged me and took me out of my pain. you and your incessant IM's helped me to get through some of the roughest days with sir g that i have ever had. you will never be able to understand how much i clung to our friendship because most days, it was all i really had. so thank you. from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much!
• to the unexpected ally @ 1 am while on my way to kansas city: you showed up out of the blue in my inbox on a day where i wasn't even sure if i wanted to respond to you. but that is my expertise and i love being a know it all and i knew you needed support and i needed something to be involved in so i could get my failing relationship out of my head. and an extraordinary thing happened! this beautiful, wonderful woman ended up being more to me in that particular time of need than i could have ever imagined. thank you for showing up. you reaffirmed to me that i did have people out there that thought about me and cared about me even though i didn't know it.