No heavy lifting required.

I'm turning into one of those bloggers. You know the kind. They write regularly for a while and then, one day, their posts start to taper off, apologies for staying away ensue, and eventually they fall off the side of the earth, never to be heard from again. It's tragic.

But... there's hope. Because I don't want to be one of those bloggers. I want to stay around. I want to share the thoughts that rattle around in my head and keep me up at night. I want to share with you the awesomely boring funk I've fallen into that is TOTALLY JUSTIFIED. I want to share how I'm seriously trying to get on with my life, but it still kind of feels like I'm trudging through thick swamp water.

I want to tell you all about my sadness, my anger, my frustration, my anxiety, my hope... even my overindulgence of all things sweet and overloaded with hydrogenated oils. (Let me just say this: it's becoming a problem.) (No, it is a problem.)

But, with all that being said, there's one person with whom I don't want to share. And you've come to know him well. You know... my Husband? It feels weird still calling him that because, at this point, he doesn't feel like my husband anymore. (Is that normal?)

The fact is, I can't be as honest or as open as I'd like while knowing he's still reading. And, sure, he could say he'd stop, but I'd always worry... and wonder... and I'd continue stifling myself and, before you knew it, my posts would taper off like they have been until you never heard from me again. It'd be tragic. Tragic. Trust me.

So, with all that being said, I'm seriously considering a move. (It'll be great! Just like old times!)  Okay, let's be honest. It'll suck. I won't announce my new digs so all of the lovely people who lurk, read, and comment on this here blog will be lost... at least until I get around to leaving comments of my own. (Which I'll get back to... any day now.)

Here's where I need your help. (Yeah, like I'd make a decision like this without consulting you first. Ha!) Is this the right thing to do? Or a huge mistake? And if I do make the move, any suggestions for a new title? (If it's left up to me, I'll go with my sister's suggestion of The Vamp Tramp.) (I'm not even kidding.)

This is the big one, peeps. Help.

Grateful.

1. Children. Yes, I want one, maybe two... eventually. But right now? I'm incredibly grateful I don't have any. I break out in a sweat every time I imagine what this whole experience would be like if we'd had children. Shudder.

2. Family. My mom, my dad, my sister... none of them have the least little bit of extra space for me, but all of them have opened their homes to me, rent free. Best family ever.

3. Work. I used one of my paychecks to open a new checking account a few weeks ago. The lady helping me looked at it and exclaimed in horror, "This isn't how much you make, is it?!" Bitch. But I'm grateful for the (apparently) pitiful amount of money I make. And for the distraction work provides. And for making life still seem at least a little normal.

4. Friday. No longer just a day of the week. My mom got a puppy and she's the cutest puppy that ever lived and when she awkwardly snuggles up against me I feel like everything is fine with the world. My mom calls her their little "therapy puppy." (Picture coming soon. Maybe. Possibly. Who knows.)

5. Hershey's chocolate. Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats. Laffy Taffy. Reese's Pieces. Red Vines. Amen.

6. E-mail. I haven't responded to any of them, but I am grateful for every single supportive, encouraging, how-are-you e-mail that I've received over the last few weeks. I continue to fall more and more in love with you people each and every day.

7. My super car. Sure, Toyota's been buried under a giant load of crap recently, but I love my little '04 Corolla. Especially when it gets me from Orange County to St. George on less than three quarters of a tank of gas.

8. My older sister, who, despite working and going to school and raising five kids, stayed up until two a.m. watching first Twilight and then New Moon with me.

9. And, seriously, if you've never watched the two back to back, do so immediately. It will make you worship the ground Chris Weitz walks on, because holy crap, he did such a great job on New Moon. I'm grateful for him.

10. And Stephenie Meyer. (Even though she's seriously lagging on Midnight Sun.)

11. And Edward Cullen. Naturally.

Regurgitating.

I wrote this post exactly one year ago. Please take a moment and go read it. I'll wait.

Peeps... I COULD WRITE THE EXACT SAME THING TODAY AND IT WOULD STILL APPLY.

What the hell is wrong with us that we couldn't work through our problems and prevent ourselves from making the same stupid mistakes again and again?

I knew what needed to be done... and I didn't do it. I became relaxed and complacent and allowed myself to fall right back into the same old destructive pattern.

Do I blame myself? Yes and no. It's hard not to. It's hard not to sit and reflect back on the last few years and think of everything I could have done differently to prevent us from getting to this point...

Then again, there's a part of me that feels it might be a simple fact of he just doesn't want to be married anymore.

Then again again... he hasn't put me first either and I still feel like the people he has chosen to surround himself with over the last year have played a large part in the way he feels now.

Been there, done that. I became friends with a group of people, all of whom were single, and I got caught up in their lifestyle for a while. I reached a point where I thought, I wish I were single. It didn't have anything to do with my husband. I wasn't thinking about him at the time. I wasn't trying to neglect him or hurt him or not be a part of his life... but this new life was fun and exciting and I wanted to explore it to its fullest.

It didn't take too long before all the "new" and "exciting" came crashing down around me and I looked at my husband, the one man with whom I knew I could be myself, the one man who loved me no matter what, the one man who would always put me first, and thought, thank God for you.

And since then, I have truly regarded him as the single most important person in my life. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to realize that it wasn't always people I had to worry about. I let myself get so attached to stuff that I forgot what was important.

And I've let it happen again... and again.

Isn't that the definition of insanity?

Of course, he's made the same mistakes on more than one occasion so maybe we're both insane and totally made for each other.

What I'm struggling with now is the whole "I don't know what I want" thing. How do you not know?

I know what I want. I want my husband. I love my husband. I want our marriage to last forever. It doesn't take me even a second to know this.

Why is it so difficult for him? Or is it not so much figuring out what he wants as it is figuring out a way to tell me? You know, that the sad truth is he just doesn't want to be married anymore.

Are all married couples happy all the time? Are they in love every moment of the day? Do they never, ever catch themselves wondering what life would be like if they were single?

Marriage is tough. It takes work. People fight and get irritated over stupid shit and sometimes they even go to bed without talking. But if you still love someone and you still have good, happy times together... isn't it worth trying to save your marriage? Isn't it worth taking a moment to realize that just because you've hit a low point doesn't necessarily mean you can't get back to where you were or, possibly, to an even better place than before?

And if you have realized that there's no way you can go back, there's no fight left in you, there's no possible way you can even try to make it work... then fucking grow the balls to say so because the sitting, the waiting, the wondering... it's pure torture.

Taking pathetic to a whole 'notha level.

I swear I haven't intentionally stayed away. I've sat down countless times and stared at this little white text box hoping something other than DIVORCE would come to mind. Unfortunately, I usually just stare off into space for unknown lengths of time before finally giving up.

I've been doing that a lot lately. Just this morning I knelt down to retrieve something from a lower cabinet... five minutes later I couldn't remember why I was kneeling on the kitchen floor staring at a bunch of cleaning supplies. I do this at work, too. In between procrastinating and playing Diner Dash. Yes, I am really turning into one hell of a model employee.

But somehow, I'm coping. I haven't cried in days and I've only felt that painful grip of panic a couple of times... which is a huge relief after feeling nothing but panic for weeks. I have a couple of theories.

One, the Prozac, of which my dosage was just recently increased, has kicked in and is having one hell of party in my brain.

Or two, this ridiculous hope I feel that The Husband and I will somehow reconcile and live happily ever after has taken the edge off of packing, moving most of my belongings into storage and taking up residence with my dad. Where I now share a room and bunk beds with my kid sister.

BUNK BEDS.

See, normally, this is where the fear and anxiety would come rushing in to wreak havoc on my emotions and my body's ability to function at all, except... nothing. It has to be the prozac, right? Otherwise I'm just the dumb girl who doesn't get it.

But I've thought about it and I've determined that while holding out hope for any sort of reconciliation is completely unhealthy, at least when reality does come crashing down around me, I'll have already settled into a new home and a new "life" so maybe it won't be quite so horrible when that hope I have such a tenuous grasp on is ripped away from me.

Anyone else buying this?

All right, I'm going to bed. Where I might possibly start reading Twilight again. (I'm totally entitled.)

Wake me when it's April. I'll be the one on the bottom bunk.