Where My Mind Is At...

Hi. 

Remember me? 

It's been far too long since I've used this space for the purpose it was created for.  My space, which has been protectively sheltered by my attorney and is now only viewable to a limited audience. 

As this divorce encroaches on almost every aspect of my life, it has not overcome it.  In my quest to remain positive and find the beauty in the changes life has brought me, I'm finding me. 

I had a conversation not long ago with a friend and she asked me a pointed question.  She looked me straight in the eye and said "But were you really happy?  Were you?"  The question, so bold and forthright, I could not answer.  What is happiness to me?  Is it stability, contentment, routine?  Do I know a happiness that out lies that?  This clearly was not his version of happiness.   My happiness was his boredom, or maybe I wasn't really happy.  Maybe. 

In the weeks that have followed since my last post, I've been doing my best to embrace this journey.  I'm doing my best to remember the reasons that I am HERE on this road.  I'm focusing on what I deserve.  I am creating a new normal.

I no longer miss my husband.  It's strange to write that; strange that after nearly 15 years together, and only 8 weeks apart, the heart begins to heal.   I am past the point of chasing him, past the point of reminding him how badly he screwed up our lives, I'm past the point of wanting him to feel a hurt that parallels my own.  I don't hurt like that for him any longer.   He no longer has that power.  My home is no longer empty without him.  I no longer have to keep his closet door shut, hoping the pain would stay locked inside of it. 

Life does move on.   

Instead, I feel safe; safeguarding my heart and my children and keeping my lifelines close to my chest.  I am realizing that when he left, he gave me back a piece of myself; the piece that was riddled with insecurities and doubt; the piece that couldn't trust and couldn't love and was paralyzed in fear of the future.  He shackled me with chains of self-loathing, and despair, and inadequacy, tearing me down at every turn. 

When the door closed behind him, those chains were broken. 

I am none of those things.

I used to worry that I would be too battered, too broken and wounded to ever move on.  I worried that there would be emotional scars, and trauma, and walls that would need to be torn down.  But, I don't think that will be the case.  I think what's here...what's left...what is being rebuilt, is far better already than what was there before.  My wounds are healing, with time my heart will be whole. 

And that's where the small glimpse of beauty lies in this process.