Realization

I think it's time to begin a brand new blog.

The other day, as I was driving home from somewhere, I was thinking about the latest guy whom I met online and how I'd explain my divorce and my past to him, should it get to that point. How would I make him understand what happened? How bereft I was, how disappointed and shattered, how vulnerable I still am now? But then I suddenly realized, "That's all over, why do I have to make a big deal about it at all?"

It's all over. Why DO I have to make a big deal about it?

My ex husband left over three years ago. Three years of holidays, three years of work, three years with other relationships, other accomplishments, other births and losses and milestones. Sure, it was a big deal. It's been one of the most painful things I've ever undergone. But it happened three years ago. Yes, while I had him I loved my husband wholly with my wholly sincere imperfection. It was a marriage in error, perhaps, but while I had it, I did my very best to make him happy and to be happy. Then he chose to leave, so it's over, and it's been over FOR THREE YEARS. I am sorry it ended on one hand, because I believe in commitment and meant to honor mine for the rest of my life, but he made sure it didn't work out that way. Three years ago. On another hand, I honestly cannot imagine being married to him now, today, Easter Sunday. I cannot imagine it.

I realized in the car that afternoon that I'm different. The last three years have changed me. Like, I told my friends that I can look around my house and find it almost impossible to believe my husband was ever here; I look at myself now, and I can't imagine that the woman reflected to me is the same woman who was ever married to him. I can only assume my husband has learned and grown in the same amount of time; we are most likely not recognizable to one another now. The forms are probably the same, such as how we drink our coffee or what we think is funny. We'd certainly find one another familiar, but the two people who were married from 1998 to 2004 have evolved and changed, and the door, I see now, has shut on them.

I remember once talking to my husband about what would happen to me if anything happened to him. He traveled a lot, and there was always a chance something terrible would happen on the road (and he also drank a lot, which is never a terribly smart combination, a thought I kept in the back of my mind). I knew I'd be okay financially, and we'd intentionally bought a house either of us could afford alone (what a prophet I turned out to be), but I remember looking at him and saying, "If you went away now, then in my whole life, you wind up being just a drop."

He nodded. "A blip," he agreed.

It was an almost incomprehensible thought, because he took up so much of my present, but logically, I knew it was true. If he went away, he'd turn into little more than a blip for the rest of my life. He'd be a blip I loved, a blip that totally consumed the attention and focus of my life for that duration, but if we spent a handful of years together, and I lived until 94 (as the online death-predictor projects I shall), then, indeed, he would turn into little more than a blip.

What a prophet he turned out to be.

So, I think I'm done with this blog. The divorce recovery is not over, certainly, as losses and challenges merely graft onto our existing personalities, they are not something we resolve altogether and put into a decorated box on the shelf of our mental closet. But I realize now that the divorce does not define me. The divorce is not the barometer of my welfare. It's not a litmus test of my worthiness to be loved. It's a bad thing that happened in the midst of other bad things I've weathered, and admist all the good things, too.

So... I will begin anew. Today!

Forgiveness... Even If You Don't Love Me Anymore

I'm watching a TV show right now where the daughter (the product of her mother's affair with a married man) is angry with her mother for depriving her of the large, noisy, boisterous family that was her father's other life, raising her in isolation. It's fictional situation with contrived responses, but the actress playing the mother had hurt in her eyes, and I thought, "Why can't people be gentle with one another's feelings? Why can't the daughter respect that her mother did the best she could knowing what she knew? Where's the respect?"

Hurt feelings know no respect. Feelings know no respect. We can't control them, though we can sit on them, suppress them, or otherwise ignore them, at least for a time. But they don't go away... "The Law of the Conservation of Feelings." We can resolve them, however, but putting an end to the damage they do to us in our decision-making and futures. I don't understand the process of how this happens.

When my grandmother died in 1994, it was the first time I ever felt crashing around me. She was an anchor in my young life, a presence as irrefutable as the sun coming up in the east. Living without her was incomprehensible; it was the most frightening thing I had ever done to that point. But I was able to do it because I remained convinced of her flawed yet encompassing love of me, and I knew that in a way, her death didn't change the love. But then, so much of what happened in the two years that followed... my dysfunctional relationship that led to a decade of fears... meeting my ex-husband... moving to Texas... all positively correlate to losing her. Am I over her being gone? Of course I am... it was her turn to go, and I can't blame someone from dying against her will. But used to her being gone... that took time... and it hurt... and it doesn't hurt now, but I still wonder about her sometimes... where she is, what she'd think about how all of us have changed. But death... death is guaranteed, death I understand. Death is an equalizer, and nobody can take it personally, not really.

Could I rush that? No. And it didn't happen positively. It was a struggle. It involved a great deal of time. It wasn't a conscious effort. It wasn't reflective or introspective. I did a lot of dumb and stupid things that I could not have possibly done had my grandmother been there. And then I left town entirely and started over in a place that had nothing to do with my grandmother or the life I'd lived before.

How do people get over things? Maybe some are masters of their feelings. Some are devoid of feelings, I guess. Some become victimized by their feelings. Some learn the hard way. I'm in that group. Why is it always so freaking HARD? Why do I have to be afraid at all? Why are my feelings betraying me? Disrespecting me? Stupid disrespectful feelings.

So there's finally a guy online whom I want to meet... however scared I am. I need to just damn the torpedoes and GO FOR IT. I finally want to... if I don't think too much about it. Damn torpedoes, anyway.

Ideas

You know, it's as though I've gone through so many little divorces as I try to acclimate myself as a single woman again. The HL lasted for two years, TCMT lasted for maybe three months, and the guy from internet dating lasted just one date, but hey, I'm getting over the fear of being left, when you thnk about it, and it's all actually been quite productive; each time, I better understand and get further over the fear involved in finding someone again. I was reluctant to pursue dating for real any guy from the interent until I was confident enough to have a grasp of the whole concept and was comfortable with it. I didn't realize it would present quite the challenge it did, but it did, and maybe I kind of got dramatic at the time as I had a meltdown after my first date, but ultimately, that's okay... that's healing. Of course, my pattern of freaking out first and settling down second is not necessarily okay, especially when I involve innocent men in my relationship arc or beleager my ever-patient friends with the same story yet one more time, but it is a recognizable and familiar pattern. I need to learn from it and manage it, not cater to it.

I've met two guys from the interent which has allowed me to create a frame of reference, and the fear is receding. Apparently, my pattern is to struggle through the feelings and emotions first before I can master them and then manage them. Now that I've met more than one man from online, even though I met one entirely platonically, I can meet additional ones, having avoided the pattern of settling on the first one whom I meet.

I told my friend B that A and P are supporting me in finding a counselor, and she gave me a funny look. "You don't need counseling," she said starkly. "You're fine. You're just older, wiser, aware of what you can lose, and very good at seeing the wrong guy." There's a point to that... the guy from the internet whom I wanted to smack was the wrong guy, and I knew that continuing to date him would go the route of TCMT. Maybe I wasn't freaking out without good reason, therefore. Besides, there is no value in dating a guy I don't much care to see again. Doing it just to prove I can date again seems not only unwise but mean.

Today is my ex-husband's birthday, so I bought cupcakes for my yearbook class, and we renamed the day after me. Though I don't discuss my personal life with them generally, they know most of the story in the way people learn such things in large organizations. At first they didn't understand why I'd want to celebrate my ex-husband's birthday, and I said, "Well, just because he's not around, why should I deprive myself of a party?" They're kids, and that made sense to them. So we polished off a dozen cupcakes and an apple coffee cake, shot the breeze, and turned the day into an altogether great one for different reasons.

Seventy

This is my seventieth post since I began this blog roughly 27 months ago. I hoped, when I began it, that I'd be able to keep myself honest in given moments as to what I was thinking or believing as well as to chart my own growth through divorce recovery. I think it's done both things. I do wish I'd be more recovered than I am at this point, but perhaps I'm where I need to be, and there's no "more" recovered. It's all a process.

I am watching Adam Chandler on my soap opera, curled into a fetal position because he's realized his wife cheated on him. I felt like that in the beginning, and I remember when each moment was a struggle and a burden after my husband left. Sleeping was a burden. Eating was a burden. Existing was a burden. It's not like that anymore, and it hasn't been for a long time. That's recovery.

I have entered into one longish and one shortish relationship since my divorce, and that's recovery.

I've conquered my life in many ways, if not all. And I see where there is work yet for me to do in becoming the person I want to be. That will take courage and patience (everything depends on being ready!), but I recognize the hurdles and mean to shore up my courage to face my fears. That's strength. That's recovery.

Courage isn't an absence of fear; have I said that here before? Courage is acting in spite of fear, because action is necessary.

There are so many games I play in my head about the divorce that nobody knows about. "Am I wearing any clothes my ex ever saw?" "If I log onto the messenger program, will the HL leave me a message (that I won't return, of course?)" When I play those games, it clarifies exactly how different life is now, despite of living in the same house and going to the same job, caring for the same cats and seeing some of the same friends. I forget that I have new furniture, new and marvelous friends, new clothes, new students, and even a new position at work in coming months. I have a new degree. I've taught new subjects, welcomed new family members, begun a new gym regime, and grown three years older. Everything changes. I forgot that. I forget that. I fear finding love again for fear of what might change, but I forget, it all changes anyway. Whether I change it or the world does it for me, everything changes. Choosing to move forward means action, not reaction. Deciding what I want and behaving accordingly, not living below the radar and hoping nothing happens to hurt me. More strength. More recovery.

It's all going to be okay. You know? It is. I'm so scared sometimes, but it's really going to be okay. I've learned so much more than I never knew I didn't know.

Defining Barriers

I was reading an article that describes the alleged-three stages of dating after divorce; I found it on a website I most closely resemble stage one, which I suppose shouldn't surprise me as much as it does, considering my traumatic attempts to undertake dating again recently. However, the article got me thinking, why exactly is this whole dating thing so difficult this time? Non-divorced types (abbreviated hereafter as NDT's) seem to embrace, vicariously, my opportunity to find someone now as an older, wiser, seasoned, established woman, a "real" woman with real power to do things right. A. claims she sees how much I have to offer, and she yearns for me to find happiness with someone, as she seems to feel I am meant to do. Other NDT's seem almost envious of the chance to find real love, as though their intact marriages are somehow letdowns. As though my "opportunity" is one for which they themselves are ripe. Or as though my marriage was "sham love."

Understanding... still, I am searching for real understanding.

So, what are the barriers to finding happiness this time around? Can I establish understanding for myself, and then for the rampant NDT's?

1. Personal Commitment. On some level that I fear the NDT's won't support, I think my own sense of loyalty and commitment to my marriage is something of a barrier to finding a new, real relationship. I was supposed to be married forever. I am supposed to be married now. I made that promise, too, and not just to him, but also to myself. Yes, my husband ended the marriage, not I. On a cognitive level I know that there's no remaining obligation to him in any legal or moral sense (our marriage was a civil one, and he wasn't baptized; the religious morality is clear), but at the same time, I myself made a promise. I myself made a commitment. I myself meant to honor my word for the rest of my life. While the law, my religion, and the rest of the world are prepared for me to wipe that slate clean and move on, does doing so compromise my word? On some level, I feel like I'm betraying myself. Just because he opted out, it's hard for me to embrace the idea of finding a new love. He can live as though our marriage was a "thing" and not real, but to me it was, and to me, perhaps it's a bit of an issue.

2. Trust. This is easier for the NDT's to understand. My ex-husband betrayed me. He left without explanation or effort. The person who was supposed to love me forever, whom I trusted with not only my worldly goods but my heart and soul, whom I adored in all his flaws and imperfections, found it possible to get up and walk out of our life together without a backward glance. While I can tell myself that something broken within him had festered too long and too deeply to save our marriage, at the same time, knowing that such a thing can happen is deeply troubling, deeply frightening. I never believed it possible before, and now I know all-too-well how possible it is. How do I learn to trust another person again so fundamentally? My online friend C, a divorced-type, has supported me by saying anyone who's not scared after something like that is looney, not stunted. I appreciated the support. Yet, I want rigorously to believe I live in a world that can support such a love; to find it will be a huge act of courage for me that I accept as necessary and will take... when I am prepared to lose everything.

3. Loss. Those fortunate people like my parents, my aunt and uncle, my friend P and her husband, my brother and sister in law... most of the intact marriages that began in people's twenties... those people all found one another and threw themselves into marriage as relatively young adults. They began together and built their lives together, as my ex-husband and I did, largely. Now, beyond the disillusionment and conflict of promise, I recognize that I already have a life. This time-around, I'm not building so much as merging. I have baggage. I have a history. In all likelihood, so will the man with whom I decide to take a chance. That's uncomfortable... that's somehow frightening, actually. These aren't kids I'm dating like they were before, these are honest-to-God men... some are fathers, most are professionals, almost all are accomplished men in their own right with expectations that I have no idea if I can meet. Maybe I'm still emotionally the younger girl I was when I married in 1998; the men aren't. Frightening. And with a fairly good life of my own, I have something to lose this time... I have more to offer, perhaps, and more to lose. But I guess, so has he. And I'm stronger; I'm not that girl anymore. It's so hard to feel brave, when I feel very small.

Trying Too Hard, Chemistry, and How Things Change

I'm "processing" this week and its misadventures, according to A., and I'm also getting somewhere, in her opinion. I think I still need the benefit of a counselor right now to finally work through the disillusionment, betrayal, and anger from the divorce and find a context for what's happened over the past three years since. But, I think I'm making some discoveries on my own, getting used to what I'm discovering, and fitting it together at least rudimentarily. That's pretty good.

I went on a date Monday, and by Wednesday, I'd told him I couldn't see him again. I've thought so much about this. Yes, I'm outrageously afraid of being vulnerable, and I'm not terribly ready to jump in with both feet. That, I knew, and that's definitely a part of it. I could tell he liked me, and I wasn't quite ready for unequivocal liking so quickly. At the same time, after having had a week to think about it, I don't see that there was much Chemistry there on my half. I wasn't comfortable with him, and as a result, I was forcing myself to Try Too Hard. I thought I should do this, make myself give him a chance. But I didn't feel "it." I need a comfortable person, an attractive man with self-confidence. Comfortable with himself. Relaxed. Calm. Willing to get to know me and "make" me interested in getting to know him. This person was very nice, very gentlemanly -- but also somewhat hyper and frenetic, a big talker who not only produced a volume of words, but at a volume. Reaction? I wanted to shush him. I was exhausted when I went home.

I'm scared, and that's huge... and also, I didn't see this going anywhere.

Would I see him differently if I weren't so scared? That's possible.

But you know, I am starting to give more credence to the viceral reaction to someone. I had an instant visceral reaction to the HL when I met him. I was hysterical about him too, in retrospect, but never enough to shut it down in the early time. I had one with TCMT too, and over time, our incompatibility emerged... but at least, I gave it that time.

So, things are different now. I am different now. I'm not young and idealistic. I am mature with a sense of the potential for relationships, both for good and for ill. I have lost my native innocence, and I have a gun-shyness I didn't have before. The men are different... they are older, more accomplished, and bear their own relationship baggage and/or scars. They've done things. I've done things. Instead of meeting like so many dewy twenty year olds and establishing a life together, the process now is meeting with a sense of who we are and what we're all about and merging lives together. That's something I never tangibly understood before this week. It scares the hell out of me.

But maybe caution isn't all bad, and with my new understanding, perhaps I can begin to manage my fears.

Accomplishments

Okay, okay. The woman here is tied up with much "kaka," as my grandma would call it... realizing that dating at 35 is not the same thing at all as dating in my twenties, which was the last time I in any way dated. I Will Be Scared -- and that's okay. You know, dammit, the right kind of guy, with understanding and a giving heart, will GET that I'm scared, and it won't freak him out. And in turn, I won't freak out either.