Is that you, God?

If you've been wondering where I've been, I've been avoiding all of you because I can't seem to write the second part of my story and I'm ashamed.

But I came running back to tell you about my weird day yesterday.

Despite all my recent dreams about moving on in the world of relationships, I spent the last week anxiously awaiting a letter from Jake. In my last letter, I told him how scared I was about the mortgage. I told him I wouldn't stay here and let the mortgage suck me dry, no matter how much I love the house. I told him he should think about selling it and that I was packing.

Around the time I sent the letter, I told his parents something similar. Kay seems to get it and supported the idea of selling the house, but Big Rev is classically in denial. He said, "Well, I think your moving too fast on this," and "We should wait to see what happens," and even "Are you going to leave the house to go into foreclosure?" And I, in my own classic form, get riled up, snap at him that this is not my fault, and then feel guilty about it for days.

Big Rev really did work on me and made me feel guilty. I was anxious about the letter  because I thought I had started a fight with Jake, like I always do with Big Rev. After all, Jake is the one that I really want to yell at.

But when I got the letter yesterday, it was so nice! It was full of suggestions for items among his belongings that I could sell. He even managed to get through the whole letter without any self-pity or excuses - unheard of! It was actually a pleasure to read and I my daydreams of a new man were quickly replaced with daydreams of a pleasant pen-pal marriage. (Yes, I'm so weird, I know.) I was almost giddy!

But there was one thing wrong with the letter. He said he didn't want to sell the house. I was totally expecting that, but it ate at me. It didn't make me feel guilty for thinking about moving. Somehow, it actually firmed my resolve not to go down with the ship. I was just thinking that I would put that in my next letter when my phone rang. A friend of mine invited me out to coffee.

This friend recently moved back to this area, where she grew up, because her husband was having an affair. We have a lot in common because we both were betrayed and suffered from our husbands' bad choices. We both showed up happy to the coffee shop, though. She told me she had just received a phone call from her husband the night before. He was crying (Crying! she emphasized) and asking her to come back. She said "maybe". I told her about my almost perfect letter. Then we started sounding off each other. I asked her if she could really trust him. I shared my doubts that a cheating man will ever change. She listened to all my options about leaving or staying and she said, "Evie, you could really be happy somewhere else. You could find love again." I wish I had said it back to her because it is true for both of us. Instead we started joking about how to properly screen a potential mate (more on that later). In the end, I think we left the coffee shop a little sobered by each other. I wonder if that's why she called me. Did she think I would understand her excitement over the phone call from her cheating husband more than her mother or sisters who are in good relationships? Did she know I would reflect my own pain back on her, reminding her why she really shouldn't go back? I wonder.

Oh yeah, when I told her about my current job search and how I was hoping I would hear from the job I'm really interested in before the job I just applied to as a back-up, she said, "I think the job you get first is the job God wants you to have." I don't usually think that way, but it sure would be nice if God would put up some big road signs.

That night, another one of my friends called totally out of the blue to tell me her man troubles. I explained my day to her and that all I would give her is negative opinions about the opposite sex. Then we moved on to financial stuff. She happens to be in the foreclosure business, so she has some ideas about houses and bankruptcy. I told her that my dad keeps suggesting bankruptcy for me and I keep ignoring him. She gave me the 411 on bankruptcy and told me that I'm a "good candidate" for it. As she talked, I thought, Is this a road sign, God? Is bankruptcy really my future? And then she also reiterated the idea that I deserve better, that I should move on, like everyone who cares about me says - except my husband.

So that brings me to the final thing. At 2:30am I wrote several pages to Jake about my anger over the massive credit card debt that I took onto my credit cards to save him from default on his own two years ago. I pointed out that he hasn't once thanked me or apologized for that gesture, as if that was just a normal task of a wife. I told him that I was considering bankruptcy and how unfair that it is me and not him since it is his debt. I told him that my credit score went from the mid-700s to the low-500s because of that, but he never asked or cared, although he was plenty concerned about his own credit score. It is all just so unfair and I feel so foolish for ever falling into it. And then I asked God to relieve me of my anger so I could sleep.

It was a weird day with so many abnormal occurrences that I feel there must have been meaning to it all. The letter, coffee, the phone call. What is the theme? What are the road signs? Leave now? File for bankruptcy? Or was it just another day in a meaningless, chaotic world?