I�m back to work which has become my refuge. It�s not that I don�t love my Beau it is that the mood has been grim in my home of late as the days string together and the job hunt drags on. His depression comes in waves and when he is trying hard to be optimistic he is close to his old self but when he is down he is hard to be around. I am bored much of the time (I have been able to read quite a bit and that is actually a really positive side effect of the situation) yet I don�t want to up and leave either. I feel uncomfortable about shopping for the new place because I know he feels bad that he can not contribute. I simply don�t know what to do. I listen supportively as he explores possibilities for employment (or making use of his GI bill) but I grow more and more concerned as the weeks pass. It is not that he is doing anything wrong; he has contacted all the right folks, is staying on top of things and his resume is out there. Currently he is in that awkward waiting period between the second interview and the offer and that can extend upwards of two weeks or more with the holiday factored in.

I know that this is his problem of course but there is no separating myself from the problem without separating myself from the man and for now I am not prepared to do that. The upside is that he is at least aware of his moodiness and how difficult it is for me, he has apologized on more than one occasion and I think the up times are really for my benefit. (My ex neither apologized nor recognized that he was at all difficult and any issue I had was dismissed as selfish.)

I would love to see him in school but I will not support another man while he gets a degree so that he can leave me. There is that too. My paranoid, whimpering child inside, who is certain that he is only with me because he has no other choice. My ex left me long before he stopped living with me. I am certain he would have simply packed up and left had he been employed but because he was dependent on me he stayed long past the time when he stopped loving me. I realize that this man is not my ex and rationally I understand that the joy we experienced as we decided to move in together taking the relationship to the next level was (and is) real. I want to believe that this relationship will go different but the fear remains in the back corner of my mind. I hide it beneath an optimistic blanket but it is there none the less.

So my home is not my home because of the emotional drag that it places on my soul. I can not stay there and I can not run away. It was not so long ago I was lamenting over having no space of my own. Now I have my own room but still I wait on the same pins and needles that my Darling sits on for the call that opens the prison door. I know that home is not a place but a state of mind but that is of course my point. I can�t find that state of mind; I can�t escape to that place of peace because of the horrible humming in my head, the vocal cacophony above which I can sometimes hear the scream �here we go again�. I already walked this path, I already mowed this field, I want to lay down and rest, I�m tired, achingly tired but I can�t rest until my Beau begins to work again and I don�t like that at all. Now who is dependent on whom?

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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