There are a few recent dates that haven’t receded from my head and I’m working on getting out. I don’t need these anniversaries clogging my head and reminding me of what kicked off this sequence of events that brought me to writing out loud. (I’m mainly trying to focus on the road in front of me.)
So let’s purge…
October 22 was the date I found my husband’s affair. We had been fighting and thinking about ending the relationship seriously for several weeks already. But on that date I broke apart and lost something of myself. Something I gave him 24 years ago and he crushed willingly and knowingly. It was followed by a week of pacification and lies about his actions in the affair, taking further toll on my fragile state and amping up my fears to record heights.
December 13 was the date Stephen told me he didn’t want to be with me. He exercised the opt-out function of our relationship that had been in place for those 24 years. (I had asked that this be done before any type of affair was even contemplated, but that’s not how things unfolded.) I didn’t think I had anything else to break but I did. I was decimated. I crashed. I was done.
Life as I knew it was over. In fact, it still is.
This was followed by me leaving Chicago for Northern Michigan and the first time I started to be kind to myself. I was able to understand what led to the above actions and forgive a lot — but how I’ll deal internally with these anniversaries remains to be seen.
Time is my friend in this. I think, I don’t know for certain. But it’s also the enemy with its dates and record. How to reach an accord in my own mind is the work to be done.
Forgiveness and understanding are vital to whatever comes next.
The girl who mistook her chair as a pulpit for the soles of her shoes 