7 posts tagged “healing”
I have an announcement.
Ahem...
I have a crush.
That's right. It's been a while. And it's an odd sensation, but, a verra, verra nice one.
Those of you who knew me when know just what that means. And those of you who've known me a year or less also know what that means.
For my part I'm damn glad for it...and enjoying it.
With a twinge of unhealthy satisfaction, I read that my ex-husband lost his bid for city council back home. The emotions are complicated...a split second moment of imagination wondered if he might reach out to me in his loss, just as I remarked in my head that his photo in the paper didn't look very attractive. I recognized his resigned expression though...if he'd put half of the energy of his political efforts into our marriage...but that's neither here nor there now, and really, I suppose he could say the same about me. What is the saying? That truth only exists in the moment...once it is observed and retold, it is no longer the truth but just a story of what the truth might have been.
...
I have always loved the scent and taste of honeysuckle. I remember picking the flowers from the playground walls and sucking out the stems when I was only in first grade. I've been using a honeysuckle perfume from Whole Foods for the last year. And my favorite part of the neighborhood is the long fenceline of the property behind my house, along the road, that blooms with yellow and white honeysuckle in the spring. Sometimes the scent is heavy on the air and sometimes you just catch it lightly on the breeze and can't tell where it's coming from. It always seems to lift my spirits, relax me, and make me feel...clean and pretty and just better. I thought it was just something I liked, but I read recently that honeysuckle is purported to have medicinal properties for relieving tension and clearing the mind. I went out and purchased some Bach's Honeysuckle Flower Essence and now I try to drink a couple of drops everyday, and have been doing so for a couple of months. I left it at home on my trip to Nashville and now I'm curious if that might have had something to do with my melancholy.
...
The little dog bite on my hand is healing, but it's ugly and it looks like it's going to leave a scar. I've started dressing it with lavendar oil in the hope that the scar will fade even as it's forming. In much the same way, my honeysuckle, my triathlon training, my new habits and rituals, and my pointed breaking of those habits, are not just a means of keeping busy, but a way of fading the inevitable scars that are forming over heart and mind. I know they're there...I think sometimes that I've escaped without them, and then I read about my ex in the paper and a little smirk of satisfaction drips into my soul, and I realize I'm not getting off that easy.
I was telling my best friend last night how I still truly believe that he could walk back in the door at any moment...how I do believe we could move past this and count this time apart as a great trial, but that divorce is not what was meant for us.
He left one year ago today. The pace of work had led me to overlook the timeline briefly, but he brought it back to my mind this morning.
Something compelled him in the last several days to reach out with a couple of brief email notes, the last one near midnight. He seems to want to commiserate on this as some sort of shared anniversary, a milestone if you will, and I'm not certain why. Perhaps it's just the nature of my still healing self right now, but I read his words and chafe again at his casual remarks..."hard to believe it's been a year...tomorrow will be a year, I remember where we were and how tomorrow would inevitably play out." I replied that inevitable is not the word I would have chosen, and I left it at that.
I'm not sorry I've believed...I'm not sorry I've been straddling past, present, and future with this faith...and I don't feel that believing, even as I do now, is wrong. Truly anything is possible, and what is a little misplaced faith in the long run. I still have my moments of anger, but they are almost always expressions of pride bucking against humility, followed by tears when I release the tension and just accept the grace that lets me say that I forgive him and I love him even as I disagree with his decisions.
I've lived as fully in this moment as I can, and I owed it to myself to do it, but soon it will be time to count the moment passed...and to live fully in the next.
i've gone out on a limb with something. upon the reassurance of a most unlikely individual, i have opened communication again with my husband. i needed to...the separation is painful enough...and while no contact was good for a while, as was the anger, it's not like me. not anymore. it was eating me inside. i needed to get rid of it. and i needed to reach out and see if anything of my friend was still there.
and i also need to be able to look back someday without regrets, without wondering if i let my pride get in the way. so i made it clear the door is still open. i don't want a divorce. i never did. and i won't file or be part of a joint filing either. it has to be his decision, his full action, his responsibility.
it was hard, but good, to talk again and to be in his presence. the first time in months i have felt that way. i still hope, i still pray...for patience, for forgiveness, for both of us.
i'm compelled to write about something other than the divorce in progress. it isn't entirely consuming my life. i just tend to head here when it does, to send the words out into the void in hopes they never come back. they do though.
but i digress.
i am beginning full-time work as a development director soon, adding making money to my saving money (read administrative) responsibilities for the non-profit i work for. i'm fairly confident it is a good move and i will do an excellent job, even if the art of the schmooze has not--in the past--been my cup of tea. i'm not bad at it right now, as you'll see below.
strangely, i'm fairly confident about everything right now. no, really. i look great. i'm working out. eating well. my house is well taken care of--neat, clean, with manicured lawn and colorful flowers in the yards and rooms. ("our mum is so house proud.") my pets are all currently healthy and well behaved, and a great source of entertainment and diversion for me. i have lovely friends who call and invite me over, and vice versa, and i'm oddly much more outgoing and friendly than i have been in years, chatting with strangers and neighbors alike. i live in a safe neighborhood with the most incredible texas sized views of the sky at sunset and before a storm. i have my favorite movies playing in the background all the time--my favorite romantic movies, no less. (nope, i haven't lost my love for love.) i enjoy my drives to and from work, singing along to the radio, and going to the grocery store for just the food and tea that i like. and it's so nice to head out to events in town on a whim, even if they aren't exactly my taste, even if they are something new. it's rather a nice life.
and there is so much less work for me to do at home! i still have 8 pets, but no husband has made a huge difference in the amount of upkeep i have to do (cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.), it's rather amazing. i daresay he feels the same living in his little cave--wherever it may be--not having to worry about the yard, the cats, the dogs, the wife, or be nagged by her about them all. but i quite enjoy having them under my purview. they've none of them ever looked better.
in other news, my grandpa's not doing very well. he's probably not going to make it home from the hospital--he's been there for going on 2 weeks. he seems to have given up long ago, and now he has no reserves to keep his sprits up on the inside. i've stopped calling my grandma for a while. i don't know what to say to her, and i'm not sure what she'll say to me. i do pray for her though. i hope she can move on with her life and enjoy the years she has left without him. make new friends. make her home her own. come and visit her granddaughters instead of worrying about manny back at home. i hope that she can forgive him for the things he's done that have hurt her, i hope she can let the past go long enough to enjoy the present. and i hope grandpa can find some peace before he goes. he is in terror i think, and rather than show fear, he chooses anger and sadness. i hope that he will get better, but i also hope that he can rest and be still and see his life for what it was, and be happy before he dies.
so strange, again, the thought that in all this turmoil and sadness i am still happy in moments and for long periods, thrilled by the little things like new blooms on my violets. quiet, at peace, and grateful for the whisper soft pink and white of the sky as i walk evita in the evenings.
it's a nice life.
back in the rain, just prior to the dialogue previously reported, he asked how i was doing. i lied a little, i didn't want to be the girl crying in the rain. so i looked up at him and delivered the line, "surprisingly well" in my best i'm-ok-you're-ok voice.
the truth would have been that i was doing better. just better. (in the interest of honesty, i thought i should clarify.)
some of what keeps going through my mind is that very last night and the next day when he said, not for the first time, that he just wasn't happy enough--that even when he was happy, it just wasn't enough.
and i've been thinking. and talking a lot. and will put down privately on paper the conversation i shared with a friend. but here is the thing, in the midst of this sadness and strangeness and shock, the understanding and clarity i brought back from my trip with me has only increased: i have so much in life to be thankful for...so much that i am grateful for...so much pain and hardship that i have NOT had to go through...that as much as this hurts, as much as i wish it wasn't happening...this is enough for me.
not that wanting more is a problem. it isn't. it's being angry that "more" doesn't materialize, especially when you have so much already. that anger, that "it wasn't supposed to be this way" refocuses your attention away from your blessings and instead of being happy and driven you suddenly find yourself miserable and longing. it's a big difference.
in order of bad to worse:
my mother and my husband have high cholesterol.
my 20 year old sister is losing her hair. really losing it.
my mother-in-law just (2 days ago) had surgery on her right foot that involved breaking and resetting two bones.
my sister-in-law is separating from her husband.
my father-in-law has blood pressure so out of control he's on medical leave in the hopes of preventing a stroke.
my 10 year old cousin is battling leukemia. his 4 year old brother is wending his way through autism. my aunt and uncle are simply unbelievable in their stamina and their determination to give both children everything they can. they are exhausted, and still they keep going.
the cousin was diagnosed with leukemia 3 days after this last thanksgiving. that seems to be the point when i decided i was being a pansy about all the "bad stuff" in my life. there are a lot of things i would have liked to go differently, but i'm grateful that they went at all and that i'm here and happy and healthy right now. i have no guarantee of these things in the future, but i'm hopeful and, again, i am so very grateful...for my home, my health, my family, my husband, my opportunity, my animals...even and especially these moments of thanks and reflection.
what are you grateful for?
