I was sick yesterday-splitting headache and stabbing abdominal pains. I tried to ready myself to go through the day, but gave up & went back to bed, fully clothed,in make up, hyperventilating, and moaning, and suffering beautifully.

Then, I reached for my laptop, and opened it and mysteriously continued my spiral downwards.

What perversion made me google my ex when I already felt like crap? Is it like when one goes downhill, the tendency to snowball becomes irresistible? It was an ill-advised search into the life of someone who should (and mostly does) remain nothing, nobody to me. But some morbid curiosity kept me googling. He has a son that shares his first, middle and last name who just graduated from high school-the kid's name does not surprise me, everything was always all about HP, we were even married on his birthday. HP had always told me that if I became pregnant, he "knew the way to Canada and the way to Mexico," and I would be on my own. One of our final fights, I yelled at him that he never wanted kids as he couldn't take the competition. The look on his face when I said that let me know that I had hit the nail on the head. I always wondered if he had kids with his next wife to prove to himself that I was wrong.

HP is some kind of chairman of that dog sled race in Alaska, the Iditirod, and similar frozen tundra dog races. The Alaskan folk seem to love him, writing about him, quoting him, and everybody glad handing him as the adventurer with a heart. Most folk in San Francisco loved him, too-but they really didn't know him. He still is a respiratory therapist working with with Neonatal babies...schooling that I paid for so long ago. Such an old, trite song...at least I didn't put him through medical school like so many other women I read about. He always wanted to move to Alaska-I always hated cold weather & had no desire to leave California, especially the beautiful Bay Area. My desires never entered into it. He was going with or without me, and thank God, it was without me.

I think when one is sick it is just too easy to keep getting get sicker. Why would I spend the morning researching someone who I allowed to almost ruined my life? It was a very sick thing for me to do to myself back then, and yesterday, and I have to take definite and deliberate steps not to have not fall prey to whatever whacked out brain chemistry that put me in such a sick frame of mind in the first place. Never again!

I kicked liquor, HP, and myriad other bad habits by trying really hard to take good care of myself and to live a worthy life.

The smartest thing I ever did was to write my mother once and ask her for pictures of myself as a child. Then, when I looked at that little girl in pigtails and braids, I swore I would never let anyone hurt her again. I forgot that I have the tendency to be my own worst enemy yesterday, but I won't allow this to happen again. Life is too short, and I need to spend as much time feeling good about myself as possible.

My life is good beyond my wildest dreams now. Sunday, my sisters and their spouses will join Bubba & I celebrating his 57th birthday at Grindstone Charley's. It will be a nice dinner, with no power trips, no ugly name calling, no head games. I will see my mother tomorrow (couldn't do THAT from Alaska), then visit my sister, and have a session with Cecile to try & figure why I'd do such a crazy thing to myself as I did when I was already sick. I think things will be OK as long as I don't pull any repeat performances. I am determined not to waste any more time going down that road...it is just too sick.