Powerless

It's taken me all day to come to grips with myself.

Anger, bitterness, sadness, longing to live happily ever after, disgust... I've gone through them all about a dozen times each. I think I was trying to get myself to stick with one and get on with it, but now I'm convinced I'm going to have to just let them come and go until they have less and less meaning to me.

Patience is the biggest thing I'm lacking. I have no patience with all this emotion, and I have no patience with not knowing what is coming tomorrow.

Joe did offer to let me remain living in the house. I got a text message late morning saying he didn't want me to go through the pregnancy alone and that he wouldn't ask me to leave. Lots of responses game to mind, like "Oh, that's fucking big of you," "I wasn't planning on leaving anyway, asshole," "What on earth makes you think I'd want to stay here," and others. But ultimately I just typed back, "Thank you."

The truth is, if I want to take time off with the baby, I'll need to be here. I can't afford to otherwise. And as painful as it will be, I think it will become less painful and even bearable. Like it did throughout the evening.

Joe is lying on the couch sleeping with the baseball game on. I've been up and down doing a few things and finally stopped to do what I've wanted to for a few days: I just looked at him. I took a few minutes and just looked at him. He's just a man, lying there sleeping, and he'll wake up and go to bed and have to check the baseball score in the morning, like he always does, because he couldn't make it past the first couple of innings. Just a guy.

It was good to be near him and not get all anxious or mad or sappy or anything. There was nothing. He's just a guy. Balding on top, getting grayer, getting a little wider in the middle. Just a guy.

Just who the fuck gave him all that power over my emotions?

No more!

I hope.

How did I get here?

"I'm just wondering why I feel so all alone,
Why I'm a stranger in my own life."

-- Every Day is a Winding Road, Sheryl Crow



About 20 minutes into our counseling session today, I took of my engagement ring and declared that I had had enough.

Part of me wanted to slide it across the table at him, but luckily I had the peace of mind to place it on the table in front of me. After all, since he was the first one to declare HE had had enough, that might constitute breaking off the engagement. I have all the intention in the world of keeping that ring. If he insists on having it back, I'll offer to sell it and split the cost with him.

I'm going to be a little angry for a while, even sad. I'm going to have a baby by myself and I think I'm entitled to be a little bitchy about the fact that he led me up to the open gate only to close it behind me. But my goal is to let it all go and focus on the positive. I don't have to spend any more sleepless nights wondering when he'll start talking to me again. I won't have to worry about how much worse things will get between us with the added stress of a newborn in the house. I won't have to feel cautious about enjoying the good times, just waiting for him to clam up and retreat again as I wonder what it's all about this time.

I came to the conclusion that I just don't understand what makes this man tick. He seems to have it all figured out though, and I have to pay for what anyone in all of his 52 years has done to him. God, I hope I'm not like that when I'm his age.

I'm going to take a few days and just mope. Then I'll decide what to do next. I'm already feeling stronger. I actually smiled just a little while ago when I thought about being allowed to live under the same roof as my dogs again. Ah, freedom.

I keep looking around me wondering how I let it get this far. I wonder where the hope went. I wonder why I don't feel more relieved.

THE FIRST World Series

I stood on the very spot of it.

We are doing a story about Exposition Park, which was the ballfied the Pirates used before Forbes Field, which is the ballfield they used before Three Rivers Stadium, which is the ballfield they used before PNC Park.

I didn't know anything existed before Three Rivers, mostly because I didn't exist before Three Rivers.

I am enlightened now. The first World Series was played in 1903, after Pittsburgh challenged Boston to a postseason championship. I think the Pirates were called the Pirates then, but Boston had some funny ass name that I can't remember now. Anyway, several of the games in this series were played in Pittsburgh at Exposition Park, which used to be somewhere between where Heinz Field and PNC Park are today. Three Rivers may have been built right on top of where this old park was; I probably should have read the story more carefully, but I was so excited to learn that some survey crew had actually located the bases of Exposition Park and painted them in some parking lot on the North Side that I was beside myself. I mean, I grew up here, but I never heard of such nonsense!

I walked over... it's practically outside the back door of the building I work in. And it wasn't hard to find. There were the bases, painted in the parking lot. The site of the first World Series. And I stood there at home plate. How cool is that? Any idiot can go over and stand in the same spot. Tailgaters park on top of the site all the time and probably never realize what it is they are pissing onto.


The worn paint marking where home plate was in Exposition Park.

I had taken Joe over to the parking lot with me to check it out, and he was skeptical. "I bet it's some wiffle ball thing." Back at the office I dug up some actual proof. You can read more about it here. If I remember, I'll come back and link to our story when it's published.

Joe is a baseball buff and he's never heard of these marked bases. In fact, I haven't been able to find anyone who knows about this. Nor do I understand why I'm so fascinated by it, since I couldn't care less about baseball. Though I did go to a couple of games this season, including the last Pirates game, when Freddy Sanchez secured the batting title. And that's way more than I need to be knowing about baseball.

While I was sad to see Three Rivers go, my first trip to PNC Park left me super-impressed:



It is a marvel in its time, much like Exposition Park was for its time.

The Pirates, by the way, lost that first World Series.