Not Sad

When I think of my divorce, I don’t think about the person I was in that relationship with. I think about the way it ended- so suddenly. I think about how I had poured more of myself than I had to give into a relationship that didn’t want to continue existing. I couldn’t see that it was over, maybe from the beginning, the thought never occurred to me. I tried so hard to keep that marriage afloat but the other person didn’t want to be on the boat at all.

What I think about most is; after I was told it was over. I had to be told. I didn’t give up, but I knew that as soon as it was said, there was no hope for the marriage to continue. So I just stopped. I stopped trying. I stopped loving that person (if what I thought was love, Was love, and I’m not so sure it was). But I also stopped living. I stopped sleeping. I stopped tasting my food. I stopped dreaming. I stopped closing my eyes.

After he told me it was over, I knew exactly How over it was. It was completely and solidly over. Aside from a few text messages or emails to get some details taken care of, I never saw him or heard his voice again. Maybe he thought it was kinder. Maybe he was scared of me and whatever wrath he assumed I’d have. (I was never angry) Maybe he was just selfish. He was always selfish.

Of all the things I thought during my months of nothingness, I never thought ‘I want to go back’ or ‘I miss him’. I only questioned myself and my flaws. What I had done wrong. My faults. All the things I must have done wrong to end a marriage. I also mourned for the life I thought I had and the family members I had lost (his family) and I missed our cats. I still miss the cats but I accept that I’ll never see them again.

I only think of him and what we failed to do (have a lasting marriage) because of the love I have now. Somehow, after all the months of false living, of not facing myself, of running away from my thoughts; one day, I started living again. It was small and slow at first, but it was completely my own life. It had been so long since I had lived for just me, that it took me a long time to relearn. But I did and just in time too, because almost the day I decided I was fine again and was happy with me just being me I found someone who was happy for me to be me too.

This man, Justin, learned me like he had a secret code book. He knew me from the first moment our souls touched. I didn’t have to explain who I was, he already knew, I didn’t have to tell him how I felt or what I wanted, he already knew, I didn’t have to tell him to be careful of my heart, he already was.

Impossibly, after I was still warm from my person fires of hell, I was met on the road of life by someone who was walking at my pace. I never dreamed that there was someone outside myself who could know me so well as Justin knows me. I never dreamed I could love someone so completely, I love Justin more than I’ve ever loved a person before. I never knew I had so much to give and still feel so full of love.

Sometimes I worry I have scars, I don’t know about, that will ruin what I hold dear to me now. I worry the past was not destructive enough and will somehow destroy me again. This time for good. I finally accepted that what ended was not because of me, was not my fault. If something happened to end the life I live with Justin now, how could I walk away faultless this time?

I try to tell those thoughts that they’re silly and a) nothing will end the love I share now with Justin and b) only the thoughts themselves are destructive and I carry nothing bad from the past forward. I only carry what I learned about myself.

I like to picture my life as stepping stones across a deep pond, each stone is needed to cross, every experience is necessary in order to reach the next step. I would not be who I am today without everything I learned (about myself and others) from my past. I would not have been ready to meet my Justin and I may not have been capable of loving him so deeply. Maybe I would have been too scared of loss and too self absorbed, but with hard lessons learned I was ready to meet him and walk forward next to him forever.