To Love, Honor and Cherish

I feel compelled to write because the month is now over, and I have been faltering on writing, as I often don't have the words or courage to even put something down. But I don't want the month to pass without getting at least 4 entries written, as if to almost adhere to a simple goal to keep my sanity.

Where am I at? The words "I adored him and I was a good wife" ring through my ears, as my counselor told me she has heard me say this more than once. She is right. I am not sure which one I want to emphasize more. Tough call. But if a gun was held to my head, I guess I would go with "I adored him." How did I. To depths I cannot even comprehend. And it does not matter.
And I am left with that, like standing at the edge of a cliff, with the only choice to jump off, and leave it all behind. And I was a good wife. How I loved being a wife. Love it. Love the idea of being a "wife" love being someone's wife, so much. To love, honor, and cherish, until death do us part--I love those vows.

While I am quite independent and don't need a guy to take care of me, at the same time I love being part of a union, a sacred partnership, the words husband and wife portray--although there are millions of husbands and wives, each relationship is unique and special unto itself, and how I loved being part of that. Now I am alone, utterly alone in a relationship with myself, and while every single self help book and well meaning person says how important and wonderful it is to have a relationship with yourself, love yourself, and on and on and on..let's be honest, we live in a world of couples, and almost all single people are looking or hoping that they one day again will be a couple, really, it is the truth. For the most part, very few people just want to be with themself. Are we indoctrinated into this by society, or is it a deep yearning we are all born with? I can tell myself I am pretty, successful, funny, sexy, whatever, all I want, but having a partner tell me that will have 10x the weight it will if I tell myself that, it is just the way it is. So now I am alone. I yearn for my best friend.

Again, perhaps all just an illusion for so long, but does it matter, I don't know. It was my reality, and the lines between what is real to us and what is real can be quite blurred. The mind might indeed get it and everyone else sees it, but the emotional heart is always behind, like the student always a chapter or two behind, and that is the tough part. I can say all I want that I am past all of it, but it would be a lie.

Walking the Trail

I read the other day, that if everything is good in your life, be grateful, because one day it will change. If everything is bad in your life, don't despair, because one day it will change. The cycle of life I suppose. But it seems that we are only programmed and able to really accept the good times. Those are "the" times. The times that are painful, and stumbling and all encompassing grief, are times we are not really trained for. It is like everything just falls apart. Things don't fall apart when life is good. It is only when we start to fall, that we begin to fall apart, and then seemingly cannot catch ourselves and we keep falling. It seems that after the amazing amount of time man has roamed this earth, that we would cope better. People generally don't seek guidance and counseling and support when their lives are great, but watch out when their lives are going bad--they cannot find enough support, looking anywhere they can--I know this too well. .

As I write this, I see dozens of photos go across the screen on my other computer. So many of me, smiling away. These are all happy times. It is so easy when things are good. The smiles just leap from your lips. You don't need to think ahead of what will make you happy, how to side step difficult subjects, how to make it through, because there is nothing you are hiding from. But watch out when things fall apart. The day will stretch on for an endless amount of time, you will yearn for sleep and quiet and steer clear of social settings that might expose you, might expose the sadness that lives just underneath the facade of the happy face to make it through the day. The tears that will spill over if the slightest memory is invoked in the simplest conversation.

It is like this section of a trail, that is endless, with nothing to do but walk. The first part was brutal, rugged, one could barely breathe. Then it opened up to nothingness. There just is this trail, endless, and there is no way back, only forward. That is where I am at these days. I often feel lost in thought, thoughts that do not serve me or help me, but spring up all over the place. I live in kind of a place of past memories and present upset with no future around the corner. Just this endless trail. It is hard to know unless one has been on a trail like this. Even though I have, it is not like I resort back to my "survivor training." It is like doing it all over again for the first time. The mind seems to forget these things as quickly as they are over. It is like we are all alone with ourself. Helpful guides do pop up along the trail if we seek them, and they are useful, so loving and helpful, but as the day fades and the next one starts, the guides too have their own trails to attend to. At some point every day, the trail must be walked alone.

Grieving and Grieving

I sit here and stare at the screen. Like the mother tells the 2 year old "use your words," I find myself saying that to me. But I am overwhelmed these days of what words to choose. The other day I was outside doing some yardwork, and listening to music in my ears. I was suddenly overtaken by sorrow, just struck down, and I found myself on my knees on my patio in search of solace, as I felt my life had just passed me by, like a bus driving by that I did not catch in time. I could see myself there on the patio, and I felt sad for me. I had to go inside to catch my breath, and I was able to find my way back. I realized I am still in grief, but now I am grieving for a life I thought I had, but never really did (before I was grieving for a life I had (but did not know I did not have..if that makes sense.) So grief just engulfs me these days. It is so hard to be almost 45 and feel like life has not turned out. I cannot escape the legacy I have created for myself, or was created, whatever, it does not matter. I wish it was like school, and I could do some extra credit, and raise my grade, and erase the old grade. But not so in life. No matter what I do, I now have this legacy I do not want, that I cannot never get rid of. I have a legacy for my two children about their mom, that I do not want them to have, and it really bothers me.

If I go on to write a best seller, run a marathon, scale a mountain, make tons of money and live the life in a tropical paradise that I have always envisioned..I would give it all up, IF I could just have the life I thought I had, just have it work, not even perfectly. If I could just be with the one I loved, so much, if it was real, that is what I would do. I hate the idea of putting so much time, and effort and trust and love into something, to have it never work out, basically blow apart in a million pieces in my face, and just be nothing. This is hard for me.

I am very envious of all the married people I know, who are making it through. Who are creating these amazing legacies for themselves and their children. Who are standing the test of time. I don't want to be a 2x divorced woman of 44, I don't want that. I don't want to start over. I want what I thought I had, and see that it was all an illusion and it makes it so hard to deal with on so many levels. It just leaves me feeling so alone and lost and failing. There is just no way around these feelings. I am alone on this path, it is my lonely path for now. I am open to it leading to brighter days, but at the moment find it hard to imagine not being stuck in failure on so many levels. I never wanted to be a member of people in their 40s getting divorced.

Shattered

I have not cried so much lately, and it has been a welcome relief. But as I cry a bit now, I resent having red puffy eyes again, and it is like a whole other thing to deal with.

This past week may have been the most brutal of my life. I found things out, that I would never in my most wildest thoughts imagined. It was like being steamrolled. I could barely get to sleep the first night. I felt there was “no place to go.” Tears were not the answer. I just could not escape me and the information I had discovered.

You think you know someone, at least you hope what you knew or believed was pretty close and then you are so blown out of the water that you cannot even catch your breath.
Beyond people you cannot live without, but must let them go, there is also learning things you did not know but must find out, and that pretty much sums up last week.

And while I have been so blown away by it all and angry on some level, but also have had to remove myself from the picture without really falling apart, there is now a part blending in a bit that truly has been let down, betrayed to the highest level, and I have to say it is a pretty tough cross to bear. I wonder how someone who “loves” someone and stood up and took vows, could so crush that person, so crush them, beyond what even seems possible.

But I realized that vengeance does not serve me, it just takes me down a path I do not want to go. It almost becomes like an addiction which is so not what I want to continue to have over someone. I realize I must let so many things go. I must let them go. I must realize it is not about me, but it is a pretty hard pill to swallow. I am overwhelmed again, maybe just so much reality is so much for me, and processing it all and still keeping myself in high regard and moving towards the future, it is a lot. As I may have written before, my sister in law wrote me that people are such disappointments and she is so right. It is just so hard to get past it all. To have reality or just an illusion so crushed, like a snow globe just being crushed on the sidewalk in a million pieces, it is a lot for the human heart to handle. But we all must keep going, what else is there to do.