From 1 to 1000...and back to 1
A little over 9 months ago -- or measured another way, 999 posts ago -- I started off this blog with these words:
A Party Of One
We always laughed at that line. Now it’s going to be the theme of my life, at least for the next few…whatevers. Will I be laughing? Or crying?
Entry one for this blog comes on a day when I’m still reeling from her pronouncement.
Let’s see: how did she put it?
" I can’t lie and stay in a marriage that makes me unhappy…..I just can’t."
And so she won’t.
* * * * * *
I remember what I was feeling that day:
First of all: Shocked. Stunned. Dumbfounded. Blindsided with this turn for the worst in our 22 year long marriage.
Next came my anger. I was furious with X, the moniker for her that I had not yet even coined. Not in a ego-loaded "how dare she do this," kind of thing. But in the treachery and deceit of her seemingly unprovoked action that I only theorized about at the time. My suppositions were all confirmed later.
Probably on this day in June 2013 I was living out my own PTSD. I'm sure I merely existed that day, going through the hours in a semi-daze, pasting a pleasant yet vacant smile on my face while the rest of my entire being was trying to comprehend the disaster that my marriage had become.
I was living out the first of what would be 100s of days of playacting to the kids that everything was OK. Not great, but nothing really serious. I didn't say this so much as tried to keep up polite appearances to X in front of them. (Only recently did I realize what an utter waste of time this was, knowing now how informed 17 and 20 were by X, who practically gave them a play-by-play of the implosion of our family, completely behind my back.)
I felt lonely to be sure. The first realization of just how lonely I was to be started seeping into my brain that day. Being lonely was a familiar feeling I had already known for months -- maybe years really -- but her pronouncement felt like a confirmation of this.
I was terribly confused. Why? How? What could I have done to prevent this? Answering these questions would be a huge driver for me for quite some time.
I started to feel a sense of regret.Thinking about the accumulated waste of the past 22 years. Not all was wasted of course -- I have two very fine girls to show for my time with X. But really nothing else. I could have easily spiraled down if I had focused on my remorse. I think my 5+ years with my therapist Dr. W was responsible for preventing that.
And I felt guilt, as well. For failing my daughters. For failing X. For failing myself. Of all the feelings described here, this is the one that hasn't faded. If anything I feel it more today as my anger subsided and resignation set in. An emptiness that I'll never be able to refill.
The other feeling that hasn't diminished - in fact it's probably increased - is the horror I felt about her abuse in my trust. Of all my many flaws in my personal makeup, my enormous trust issues with everyone are by far the most severe. X was the one person I let inside - if not all the way in, then damn far. And then she rejected me - in part for some of the things I shared with her about myself. What's a word that's even more gigantic than "enormous"? When you think of it, please apply this to my new state of trust issues. She's left irreparable damage to this part of me.
Above all, on this day that was 999 posts ago, I felt sad.
I still do. There has truly not been a good day for me since she announced her intentions. Some of have been worse than others - holidays, going through my cancer thing alone, having to tell my kids.
It might take another 999 posts to thaw the perma-sadness that still blankets me. Or maybe 9999. And there probably aren't enough posts to be written before I'll be able to restore my trust in other people, even to its pre-X, closed levels.
When I wrote post #1, my divorce was in an embryonic state. Not only couldn't I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I couldn't see the damn tunnel.
Today as I post #1000, I'm finally in the tunnel and see this tiny little glimmer. I'm pretty sure it's not a train coming at me.
See, that last word on the previous sentence spells out the distance from post #1 to post #999. I used to always say: We. It was always about "we".
And now it's me. One. Who's not yet in the mood to have that Party just yet. We'll see about that in another 999 posts, if both of you are still out there reading this drivel.
