[Elspode]

So, here I am, a week and two hours post-discovery of the hard left turn my life has taken. Thanks to the support of a whole lot of friends, most of my stuff is now moved (although most of it is packed away in Leslie's garage and basement). She and I are pretty much acting like newlyweds - okay, 50-something newlyweds, so we aren't keeping the neighbors up at night - and squeezing our households together, cleaning and culling as we go.

There are a lot of issues to be surmounted. I still haven't been served with divorce papers yet, so I don't really know what terms Selene is going to be asking for. We have no assets whatsoever. By that I mean that we are upside down on the house, we each own our own ancient cars, and the stuff she took vs the stuff she left me probably balances the scale pretty evenly. I expect the basic outcome to be that I have to pay all the outstanding utility bills (a considerable sum), some portion of the legal costs of the divorce, and any associated costs of short selling the house...as well as having to deal with the sale and presale cleanup of the place.

Overall, with the exception of the house, this is all going down a whole lot less painfully than my first separation and divorce, and for that, I am grateful, because I very nearly took myself out that time. I wish that was hyperbole, but it isn't.

I hate it when terrible things happen, and the victim survives, and people say "Wow, you were really lucky"...because how can walking out of a train wreck broken and bloodied be luck? But I *am* lucky. I have the love of my partner of four years, the respect and support of the community that I have served for the last fifteen years, and an ex wife who seems to not be trying to eviscerate me on the battlefield of divorce.

It could be worse. It could most certainly be worse.