So last night in group, Kathleen forced my story out of me. It looked like I was in denial because I was explaining things left and right. I stewed on it and realized that I felt betrayed. I knew she and Genelle talked and knew my stuff. I had watched Genelle ask others' permission to share their stuff and I was totally caught off guard. I was 'defending' myself not because I was denying my part in the demise of my marriage, or in my behavior/choices leading up to it, but because I was exposed without my permission.
I had relayed that things had been rough. Aren't we all entitled to have things rough affect us? My son was turning 21, my daughter had faced some big disappointments, my life is exhausting and it's not what I thought it would be.
That was the lesson (or at least part of it). That I could have told her "NO!" but I didn't.
There was a lot about my seeing myself as a victim. This morning I lay in bed trying to use the 12 steps to state what it is I am powerless over. I've lost everything I wanted, what is my role?
Truth is I felt stuck because I was dying, like Mother, believing that I was powerless to leave. Divorce is wrong, but somehow I was supposed to go through this. I've faced that before. Part of me was glad he did it? I see all of these things I am facing - issues that my kids are having, and I see my part in it.
And I blame myself. If I had only been "a" then "b" wouldn't have happened, right?
Everything seems to be cause and effect. Or does it? My faith tells me that I am constantly presented with lessons.
I am powerless over believing THAT? Powerless over believing that there is nothing I can do, that all I ever wanted is gone. That I am not meant to be loved by someone else other than friends and family?
I believe analytically that I am supposed to learn how to love myself. I believe that if I could have done things better I would have. I did what I knew. I am perfectly imperfect. That I am worthy of being loved.
Is it self loathing that I am powerless over? Is it my life that I am powerless over? I learned that I must not try to control others, to control outcomes. So I stopped. So now what?
Am I powerless over seeing myself as a victim? Yes, the world tells me I am a victim, a tragic victim over George's shocking choice to leave me and break up our family and be with Faye. Of my friend, who I didn't really trust, who I did all these nice things for for some devious reason, to control her maybe? Because I felt powerless to stand up to her?
I feel powerless to stand up for myself with my kids a lot of the time. I feel lost and very scared. I feel scared of being myself, (at least right now). I am better than I was, yet right now I feel scared. I am powerless over thinking I can direct an outcome? Am I afraid that the 'truth' about my marriage will come out? I can freely admit that I made mistakes, that I was hard to live with. The world says, "But he didn't have to do what he did."
I am powerless over others, I get that.
Where is my faith right now then? Where is my belief that God is in charge? Why can't I let go of this foreboding feeling of doom? I keep thinking about my college class, my favorite one, "The Supernatural in Literature." The teacher said she often heard Connie Lee singing, "Is that all there is?"
So can my life be fulfilling as I face it alone? It feels so unfair sometimes. I felt unhappy because I wanted George to be better - a better husband, a better father. I believed if he could only be those things, do those things, then we could be a good, close, strong family. I worked hard to let God make me a better person and then he left - before the miracle, like Genelle says.
Now I see him being/doing all those things I wanted him to do with me, but he's doing them with her. Others tell me blah blah, he's not doing the work, blah blah. But I can't base my strength over someone else's failures.
I have good days sometimes, and bad days. So they tell me I am stuck. But when you're stuck, I know you're getting SOMETHING out of it, some 'reward.' What is my reward? Is it my ego, my one up-manship basking in the world's sympathy? Except the sympathy is evaporating. My four years are up, it's time to move on. Why am I clinging to that?
Or am I? I mean last night was this big f-ing drama. I argued that I am making progress. They said you can be different NOW. WTF? Ok, so HOW? What is it that I am clinging onto for dear life that is stopping me from moving on?

The Start

Three years, nine months after the announcement, three years five months after the departure, one week after receiving the gold seal, I begin to write. And I had to change that because I started to write TWO years, where did I lose that year? Or have I lost all four years?

I'm not sure I should go backwards, start from the beginning, or start today. Ok, today it is.

I sit in my kitchen, wallpaper ripped off the wall with notes in ink, pencil and marker ranging from "Way to go Nick! 3rd place Winner" (it came with the house), to various autographs, "Just Do it!" from me to Taylor (18), "Mothers of teenagers know why some animals eat their young," (did that one myself a few months ago) and most curious to me because it's written in disguised squared letters, "Better to be hated than loved loved loved for what you're not."

I need to investigate that one. As a mother I feel compelled to find out which of my children feels hated for what he/she is.

It's on the list.

So is making blondies for Taylor (chocolate causes migraines), Symphony brownies for Caroline (partly to make up for the last batch she made and I, ahem, contributed to my waistline with), as well as gathering the Easter baskets (have we used them since the move?) for tomorrow's 'visit' for the evening meal, as stated in the custody ORDER as I am so often reminded (it's not an AGREEMENT, it's YOUR CUSTODY ORDER.)

I named this blog Resurrection After Divorce because my pastor told me to "Believe in the power of the resurrection" when I was crumbling in those early days.

I've spent the last three years writing. Writing to vent, writing to 'wrap my brain around' the insanity of a divorce, writing to God to be rescued, writing to a man in an effort to be rescued, and writing to friends and loved ones just trying to understand how my life can be what it is.

What exactly IS my life anyway? I have a thousand blessings to count, and lately that is my practice, to force my eyes to view them instead of the sometimes frazzling thoughts that stir in my head, and yes, you did read that right, almost four years since I laid next to my husband, my body facing his back, as he told me he was leaving me.

So today, or maybe tomorrow, since it IS Easter after all, I am choosing to believe in the power of the resurrection.