No longer afraid

It has been 10 years since my life was turned upside down and I lost the person I use to be.  It is not like life didn't go on and I haven't accomplished a lot of things. Losing the life you thought you were going to have is hard to get over.  It took 13 years to create that life and for me to feel like I could actually trust that the relationship would last.

Merging with another person is a gradual at least on an emotional basis years of interaction. I have to admit there was a lot unsaid. When you live with another person for that long time you tend to take for granted that you know what the person is thinking especially when there isn't any visible conflict.

In my case it wasn't from lack of trying and for many years I was mining for feedback. Hoping for one nugget of actual honesty or emotion would show itself. I eventually gave up because this need for truth was interpreted as emotional assaults and I never wanted to be the person that hurt someone like that so I retreated.

I got my emotional eruption when I was told "I don't love you anymore and I am in love with someone else".  Ironically almost the same words my husband said to me when he left.

In the past this is where I got stuck thinking I should have been different. If only I had been more something I wouldn't have suffered so much. Someone once told me my picker is broken. I don't really believe that.  You pick the person right for you where you are in that moment. Sometimes  you grow and change together and sometimes you don't.

February is a month of anniversaries and birthdays linked to people I don't know anymore. My mother also died the day after Valentines.  Together these things make me at least think about my life and my choices.  I don't really feel any deep regrets and I probably wouldn't change much about my life experience.

The above statement isn't true. I would change a lot about the past but mostly about myself. The person I am today would not accept the lack emotional intimacy that my younger self accepted. I gave willing until there was nothing left hoping for just a little emotional consideration.  I was loved and treated well but never let in and therefore I felt alone.  They were both shut down and so was I to a point this was why we were a good match at the time.

I heard yesterday from a speaker.  Those who are spiritual seekers get left because we are always trying to be better and we are never enough for ourselves and this is reflected back to us as never being enough for someone else.

I know that sound harsh but there is truth in that statement. I have spent 10 years getting to know and love the person that I am today. Forgiving myself for being human and for once in my life not sweeping the trauma I was feeling under the carpet.  I looked at all that I was and saw how I had done best and what has happen to me is just life.

Today I maybe alone but I feel whole and happy.  The love I have for myself isn't dependant on whether other people love me.  I don't intend to be alone forever and I now feel strong enough to just live and be happy without judging myself and my progress.  I have gathered the best parts of myself and I am making plans. I am no longer afraid to be who I am.

Just a dream - Facing the anniversaries of my life

I have been off - line this week evidently my cable modem needed to be replaced to enable me to have a higher and faster life. I remedied the situation yesterday and went to the big box electronic store and bought a sensible modem.

I am against the invasion of electronics into every minute of our lives. I do love accessing a wealth of information when I want it but I don't like being assessable to anyone anytime. This does hurt my bottom line at work sometimes but I am willing to make the sacrifice.

While I was in the store yesterday I felt like I was on another planet. I thought I am old but I know even when I was younger I was resistant to whatever everyone else was doing. A rebel at heart I like life on my terms and have always gone against the norm it has been part of my identity.

The update for this missed week is that I had record sales last month and worked about 12 days in a row which I am going to try to avoid doing again anytime soon. I also had a few personal anniversaries from the past to deal with.

I wrote a post that couldn't be posted since I was off line at home and too busy or not that motivated to post from work. I would have been married 31 years. Why do we do that? Why do we long for what might have been and waste our nows on these dreams. A side note my ex put the wrong marriage date on our divorce papers so I am sure this date doesn't come up for him.

The reality is that relationships don't end because they are healthy and happy. Mine was emotionally abusive and living with someone drinking and cheating and blaming me for everything and was never going be a dream a nightmare for sure. My self esteem was so low living isolated with this person.

I found new love that worked for a long time. It did end but it was never abusive it ended because we both had changed. There was cheating involved but that was a symptom of something else a catalyst to give one of us the courage to change our minds about being together. I hold no resentments now and I am really grateful at this point. THIS TOOK A LONG TIME.

To embellish the sadness this I watched the last episode of Parenthood. Big family messed up but they held it together and had each other. That is a life I will never have. This does get to me sometimes I am human sometimes.

When my marriage ended and I was thirty there was still a chance of children and the family. I made a conscious decision to not take that route. I knew it would be a push to meet the right person and get things started. I wanted to choose someone for the right reasons.

I was tired and I didn't want to make another plan. I just wanted to let go and see what happened next with out expectations. I met someone three years later who loved me and love me well that was enough for me and I was content with my life. It was 10,000 times better than what I had experienced before.

So here I am alone again and six years have passed since that relationship ended. I am happier than I have ever been before. I am a whole person for the first time and not looking for something outside myself to solve my pain.

I want another relationship but I know that it won't complete me I don't need to be completed. It would enhance my life and make me a little less selfish but it isn't a solution. I have spent 23 years in committed relationships or at least I was committed and I know that alone or with someone else life is the same with one you just have a little more time for yourself.

I expect that I will find love again and I do expect that stories about big happy families will always make me feel a little sad around my would be anniversary. The dream of what could have been, lets face it, is just that a dream.

30 years - Living without applause

I found the new person crying in her office today.  She was hired after me to assist the designers and eventually become a sales person.  The person that is responsible for training her has been acting like her buddy and now he is telling everyone she is incompetent. He keeps telling her to do one thing one day and then saying he didn't the next. He told her today that she will probably be fired soon.

This kind of treatment makes me so crazy.  I think it is because it reminds me of when my step mother played head games with me. Changing the rules constantly and pretending to be my friend one minute and punishing me the next.  Her behavior made me think I was going crazy.

I learned early in life that there are people that just don't play nice. They get a lot of pleasure out of playing with peoples emotions and creating drama where there doesn't need to be any.  Your best defense is to not react then they get bored and move on to someone else. You can show no weakness or the game continues.

With my stepmother I thought if I was only good enough I could please her. I would do everything perfectly and then she would see how wonderful I was and love me. My perfection worked sometimes and sometimes it didn't which made it even more confusing for me and made me try even harder.

What I learned from my experience with my stepmother  made me a perfect match for my favorite alcoholic. It set up a pattern of me trying to do everything right while living with someone that was my biggest fan one day and my worse critic the next. It produced the same results as before I thought I was crazy.

I married that man 30 years ago today. It lasted nine years and reinforce the idea planted by my step mother that I wasn't good enough but I should keep trying that with a little work I could win back their love.

What I know now is what I told my co-worker today. Nobody can make you feel bad about yourself. You feel bad because you think what they are saying is true. Believing what someone says about you good or bad is a mistake because it is their opinion and opinions change.

We give the people in our lives the power to define use with their opinions. If they love us all the time then all is well if they don't then we feel lost and unsure of ourselves. We spend our lives looking for some one's approval and we depending on whether we get it or not determines our happiness.

The answer for me today is to just do my best and live with the consequences. A life without applause just me doing the right thing for me and leaving it at that.  If I accept the applause then I have to accept the criticism and I am just not that interested in either any more.

Dream Dream Dream

The song goes whenever I want you all I have to do is dream, dream, dream dream. Today would have been my 27th anniversary if my husband and we had stayed married. We made it 9 years but the effects of alcoholism in his childhood an ultimately in our marriage could not be overcome.

We didn't have any tools to work with back then. He is married and has a couple of kids now. I don't know if he is happy in his marriage but I do know he is happy being a father. We didn't have children because his childhood was volatile and he thought that bringing children into this world would be a mistake. By the time he changed his mind the drinking had escalated and I knew I would be on my own with taking care of kids. I wasn't willing to take on that responsibility.

I loved him in a way that doesn't come often. Our childhood was similar in that we both lost our mothers at the same age. The difference was that his father went on a three year drinking binge and four out of six kids were farmed out to relatives. He and his younger brother, the middle kids, were left with dad. It wasn't pretty and a lot of things happened that made them adults too quickly.

Our bond wasn't healthy basically two halves don't make a whole. We were inseparable and never spent a night apart until the last year of our marriage. He was my best friend and I thought it was going to kill me when he left. The drinking took him from me little by little and ultimately he was a stranger to me in the end. When we met at the courthouse he was at a drinking peak, a case a day was the information he offered. He had grown a beard and was wearing sunglasses indoors. He put the wrong wedding date on the papers he prepared, another blow to me.

I am sure he isn't thinking of me today and that is ok. I believe dates come up subconsciously so you are better off to acknowledge them for what they are. They are a part of your history and for me I have made peace with this relationship. I have forgiven myself for not knowing what I know now about the effects of alcoholism on relationships. He did write me a letter of amends that went along way towards me forgiving him for finding someone else during our marriage.

It is hard to get over those extreme co-dependant relationships where one breaths out and the other breaths in and I think that is why I still miss him. Distance makes the heart grow fonder and the reality of the situation fades in your mind.

I can wish him well today and I think that he has worked through his issues with his dad. We emailed a few years ago and he seems pretty happy being a father and he said that he hoped I had found the happiness I deserved.

I do deserve happiness and I am starting to find it on my own now without someone to share my life with. I still want a relationship and I intend on finding one but for today I feel good just where I am, but I do still dream.

footnote: My husbands father did get sober right after the three years. He met someone and did it without a program and without amends. My husband was angry at a man that everyone thought was terrific. He felt guilty for the way he felt. The program works and helps families deal with the resentment even after sobriety.