CHANGES
9 August 2019, 15:47
It’s been almost two years since my life took an abrupt, screeching crash into a wall. And I’ve written about it ad nauseum and what I thought happened, what was happening, what I wanted to happen, and what I thought was going to happen. I over analyzed everything, everyone, etc. until I was even sick of myself and all the bullshit. I went into a tail spin, wallowed on the bottom and started a climb to higher ground.
I’ve got a little distance, and experienced a little of a new life.
And I wanted to comment on everything on this side of the mirror. My life did not miraculously become a utopian journey to nirvana after divorce, because, as much as I’d like to think it, EX (that’s what we’ll call him) wasn’t the cause of ALL the unhappiness. He was the architect of a good portion of it, but, he wasn’t what directs my life or decides my fate. I didn’t get rid of problems, internal and external. I didn’t get rid of things that plague me, things that uplift me, and things that bore me. I did not find a perfect, better man, a perfect better situation or a perfect better life. His departure was only the solution to some very basic sludge that was clogging my existence. He was a fog that blinded me – but I didn’t bother to squint pass the haze and that was on me.
When I did do this thing. And I’m not proud. I was made to do this thing. This cleansing of the parasitical. It was not a cure all of the ills that hampered me. He was not the source of grief – he didn’t have the power to be that. He just had the power to inflame what was all ready there, what was vulnerable. When he was gone. I was left with me. But.
What I did find was a new and better me who gained a life with potential and promise of which I can make and remake anyway I want. I found a me that is confident and scared, mean and kind, quiet and rage-filled – in other words, I didn’t change much. I did change in one very specific way. I love me and won’t let anything bad happen to me anymore. My life didn’t fill with money and joy instantly, and it still isn’t that way. It IS a compilation of some really hard work, some really hard decisions, some really right decisions and some really wrong ones. It’s a life I really like most of the time and wouldn’t trade for anything. I would change somethings and am forever trying to understand things around me better, but I couldn’t think of a better path to be on for the most part. I lost a lot, some things I had to lose to survive, some things that needed to be lost a LONG time ago, and some things that are tragically lost that I can’t ever get back (Lila).
Nowadays, I work hard, try to be as honest as I can be. I be as true to myself as I can be, forgive myself for my mistakes and be proud of who I am and what I have done. Again, not much has changed. All this didn’t give me an instantly better life. I had to work for it and make mistakes for it. It didn’t give me the perfect man, because that doesn’t exist. But I got one astoundingly complicated and amazing guy who is very flawed and very fabulous – more than anyone I had ever met. He actually makes the good times truly good, and I don’t have to look back on those times and pretend they were better than they were. The bad times are bad, but they are an honest bad, if you can understand that. Bad, that isn’t a hopeless bad, bad times with solutions and endings that lead back to good. There’s a lot of truth to my new relationship, and I couldn’t ask for a better situation. There are things I would love to change about him, as he probably feels about me, but this feels like what it SUPPOSE to feel like. I don’t have to take bits and pieces and pretend they are a whole. This is what it was SUPPOSE to be like. This is how someone is SUPPOSE to feel about me. This is how I’m SUPPOSE to feel about myself.
I work hard at my job, and I work hard to make my life stay on track. Sometimes I try too hard to control things because I still have the fear that it will all fail spectacularly, but progress is being made in that, I don’t think it will be the end of the world if it does come crashing down. I have choices, I have wants and I have the needs. Nothing has changed except now I know I have these things and they can come to the front and be addressed. I get to be on the stage of my life and not be booed off.
I’m just happy to plod through these days. I can want what I want and like what I like. I can be. And I have so much love and kindness around me, it humbles me. I am the happiest I’ve ever been… ever. Scares me. Makes me happy. But, to make clear, I haven’t changed from the flawed, flawed human I was before, I just like her now and put her as a priority. I don’t think of her as something to be ashamed of and that’s how its suppose to be. I will protect and love her to the end of my days, and it was a waste and a fucking tragedy that it took this to make me realize my beauty and my worth.
So. Let’s get on with it. Day by day. Good days. Bad days. Your days. Our days. My days.
Because. As Lt. Disher said. “Happiness is a choice. You can choose to be happy.”
I choose to be happy.
