I can keep moving every day from home to work and back, filling all my hours with actions and thoughts of keeping the family working, alive, fed, schooled, clean. Most nights I can fall into bed so exhausted that I have no thoughts other than the lovely feel of the sheets and the weight of the blanket. But sometimes I stop. There is blank time or a blank mind. Or even worse because I haven't dealt with my feelings and personal thoughts for quite a while they pop out while I'm doing the routine things.

Today was one of those days. In trying to make a quiet thankful place for myself I had to feel. Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. This is the first time I've ever been away from him on this day. Last year at this time he was home and I had hope. Hope for our relationship, hope for him, hope for our family as a single unit. I don't have that kind of hope today. I have hope that the kids and I can forge something stable. I have no expectations that my husband will ever integrate with us or work with me to co-parent, even from separate homes.

At church they remember our birthdays and baptism or wedding anniversaries in the epistle (announcements and calendar) and with prayer on that day or week. Our anniversary had been removed or forgotten. I didn't ask for that to happen. I'm not sure what I would have done if I had been called on to come to the font for a blessing but I was also shocked and grieved to have it left out. I wasn't happy either way.

Tonight before she went to bed my 15 year old told me she felt alone and it was all I could do not to crumble into a weeping mound. I was able to tell her I understood to some extent and I often feel the same way.

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. Shoot, I'm not looking forward to the next week or month but tomorrow is a black well.