This journey is interesting for a reflective person which I believe that I am. The healing that needs to happen, the forgiveness that needs to occur, the closure that I am forced to accomplish, the pain, the sadness, the other raw emotions; they all ebb and flow. It would be easier if they went in cycles or set time frames. I would be in the depression phase and that would last for 3 months and then I could move on and be done dealing with that. Or I could forgive my ex and that would be the end of it. I could heal from the wounds caused by the: words that were spoken, the betrayal that occurred, the judgment that was so freely passed down, the holistic rejection, etc. And those wounds would just fade away perhaps leaving a small scar. Yet this doesn't seem the way it is occurring.
Every day is a new adventure in what is going to rear its ugly head. Just when I feel like I have moved past a feeling something happens or a memory surfaces and I am plunged back into a reality where the emotion is raw. They truly feel like un-healing wounds. I can cover them and hide them, but they do not really seem to be healing. The realistic/scientific part of my brain assumes that this is just because the healing journey is rolling along much slower than I would like.
(And much slower than my ex's is occurring. Maybe we just deal with pain in a different way? I believe that I had a much different pain to deal with than her. She for the most part inflicted pain, (not that I am innocent I am not claiming that) so she had to deal with the shame of what she had done. If indeed there was shame or pain felt deeply. I believe there was some type of remorse, I know her too well to believe that she is not remorseful for causing such catastrophic pain to me...a person she claimed to have loved once upon a time, when we were much younger and dumber I guess.)
I am frustrated by so much of this journey. Everything seems to be a one step forward and two steps back kind of thing. I hate this. I want to blame someone, I want to have a scapegoat, I want to escape it....but I know better. It is my journey, these are my set of problems, this is my life. There is no escape, there is no one else that will complete me/heal me/help me forgive. I must walk this road alone and own each step and each choice along the way.
In dealings and conversations that I have with my ex I have been asking two questions: where is God's love/heart in this? and What would be best for the girls(my daughters)? This has helped me keep my focus. I am trying to ask myself and thus be lead in all of this journey by similar questions.
Sidebar: Friday I had a sad day. My ex emailed me and told me she sort of introduced the girls to her new boyfriend. She introduced them just didn't tell them he was the new bf. I went to pick them up after work in our old house and my ex was happy and.... it just came crashing down on me. I am so alone, so rejected, so lost...I took the girls to this fun night thing at school but they were with their class for about 40 minutes and then performing for 10ish so I was alone for about an hour. My ex had gone to her father's 60th bday party, a man that I love, a man that I respect, a party that I wanted to be at, and as far as I know the new BF went. It was just a lot. So on the way home, I hadn't eaten yet so we stopped at mcD's which I hate, but I didn't have much in the house and got some food and my oldest asked me what was wrong. I thought I was hiding it...I was wrong. I could have lied, instead I told her I was having a sad day and left it at that. They proceeded to give me their Father's Day gift when we got to my house in hopes it would cheer me up. It was a nice sentiment and so sweet, but it was just another reminder of the hole, of having a wife that found me so detestable she wouldn't even try to stay married to me, who was so ready to move on that she couldn't wait to get me out of her life. It was reminder that the family that I helped create no longer exists. All in all not a great Father's day weekend, although I spent it with my daughters and I cherish those minutes and it was good to have them here...it was just all wrong.
Holidays at least how I have experienced them are a time for celebrating family....mine is gone and not just gone but intentionally destroyed. Add this to the list of pretty shitty holidays this year. I moved out/was kicked out on Thanksgiving, one week later was my birthday. I didn't really get any Christmas presents, and desperately missed the family traditions that were ruined. I spent New Years Eve with my girls and some families who were all whole, husbands and wives kissing at midnight and laughing and telling stories that they stop in the middle of because I am alone. New years day I spent alone. Easter I was alone. Without fail during each of these I was visited by a text or personal wish from my ex to have a nice _______. She doesn't know this but that just digs the dagger in deeper. Today when she was picking the girls up her last words were I hope you had a good Father's Day...as she drives away with my girls leaving me alone in the driveway.
There are days when I feel as if I am not going to make it, days when I feel like I should have listened to that little voice that just told me to step in front of one of the cars when I was running or twist my steering wheel a little to the right on the highway. I am glad I didn't, my daughters need me. But this pain is almost to much to bear at times. I met a guy in my divorce care class I took, he has a very rare disease that was once labelled fatal and has since been downgraded to chronic. He body grows masses that are sharp and like concrete and they cannot be treated. They crack ribs when he coughs, they cause his eyes to bulge, they have lots of side effects but the worst is constant pain. I asked him what his hope was? He said to live long enough to get his youngest through high school and then be able to let go and die, because every day was agony. And here I write a post about how unbearable my pain is... I feel like a wuss compared to him, yet this is my story and my reality and the truth is that life is just painful and wrong and nothing this side of heaven will ever be whole or right or complete again. That was always true I guess, but now I understand the depth of that a little more. I know it goes much deeper, but this is as deep as I can understand now.
Father how would you use this pain in my life to minister and walk alongside others. How will you use this to mold me into a better man, a better father, a better co-worker and friend. I know you will not leave me here as despair's doorstep and that you are with me now, but I hope for better. I hope to find the smile I was born with. You made me in a way that my smile will never look like anyone else's and it literally had to be crafted. When I remember this I remember that my joy comes from the relationships with the people around me. Joy feels forced these days. It used to come so easy, I am the proud bearer of wrinkles at 38 from all the time I have spent smiling and laughing in my life. Now they are fading, along with the memory of what real joy feels like. Help me find that again.
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