The past few years have been some of the most challenging years of my life. This is not where I imagined I would be today. This is not who I imagined I would be today. Eight years ago, I celebrated the last valentines day I would with my husband. I remember, I made his gift. I used a deck of playing cards and wrote, decorated, and varnished my way through 52 reasons why I loved him oh so much. It was a Pinterest win in my book and I was so excited for him to get it even though I had a feeling he might think it a bit cheesy. A coworker of his snuck it into his office so that he would find it on Valentines morning.
Little did I realize that about a week later I would find myself sitting across from him in our living room while he listed the numerous affairs he had been having not the least of which was with one of my closest friends. I don’t recount this to evoke pity or attention but to say that during that particular February, my life changed.
I had been a housewife, a substitute teacher...a space-filler. I packed lunches for my children, ran errands, went to PTO events, and picked up messes from my closest allies. I hid myself under long sleeves and poetry written on scraps of paper, keeping my mouth zippered to save myself. My backbone disappeared and was replaced with sticky sweets and mouthfuls of gluttonous decisions. While I had never achieved a dancers physique, my collar bones, once a prized possession, were lost in my shame.
It has been eight years. Eight valentines days. Eight Christmases and Thanksgiving Dinners. Countless sleepless nights stressing over bills and kids and how to do it all on my own. Phone calls with new found friends, who have become a source of hope and life, where tell-alls and tears went hand-in-hand. Eight years of watching him move on and knowing that I am so much better without him. Eight years of wishing him happiness without malice because I know his is joy is tied to that of my children’s. 2,919 days (approximately - accounting for one leap year) of independence.
I miss the me before I had to hide. Time has passed and the dark shroud that has surrounded me is no longer needed. I can shed the cloak and break free into the light. It is time to fight for me again.