How to Save a Life

Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend.
Somewhere out there in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known
How to Save a Life

That song was on the musical episode of Grey's Anatomy last night (along with several other songs, and the unmistakable sploosh of jumping a shark, but that's another post.....) and I can't stop singing it.

Funny how you can be aware of a song for months, years, and then suddenly understand the lyrics in a whole new way.

I could not save my marriage. I could not save it's life. I didn't know how. I didn't know he was gay. He didn't either, apparently, but this post is about me. I didn't know. I didn't know how to save our life.

And I have lost him as a friend. There is an ocean of bitterness between us now. Part of me thinks it is well deserved. His underhanded actions and his cowardice are HATEFUL and there is a big part of me that really and truly realizes that he does not DESERVE to count me amongst his friends.

And there is a quiet, sorrowful part of me that realizes that a lot of the bitterness is mine, my reaction, my creation, mine. I contributed to the air of hostility, of anger, and of alienation. I did not meet him halfway. I was too busy playing the victim role. I was so busy railing against what he didn't give me that I didn't spend a lot of time counting up what I do have, and being grateful.

Mostly the song just makes me miss my friend. The old husband I had. The one that made me laugh, was so amazing and charming and smart and nice. I fully realize that he disappeared years ago, behind a curtain of depression and lies that no one could reach, even doctors, but still. I miss my friend. I miss the idea of him. The solidity of knowing I was part of a marriage. That I wasn't alone. Realizing that for a lot of the time I was does help, sure, but not much. I totally get it. There are no rose colored glasses here, people.

I just miss the companionship of marriage. The shared history. The stories that only we could understand, because we were there, together. Little moments with the children, building the house together, trips, experiences, small wonders and bigger hurts and triumphs. I got really, really morose looking for a file the other day. We had twenty years together. Twenty years is a long time to live a lie, and it's a long time to be lied to, but it's also just....a long time. And I mourn the loss of that. For him, and for me.

Because if I had known what his real issues were, we could have forged a new future, in which he could live honestly, and openly, and we could have still been friends. I could have still had my friend.

And I realize that my actions in the past few years have not always been stellar. I absolutely know that. I acknowledge and fully take responsibility for the choices I have made that have hurt others, and hurt me. And hurt him.

I wish he had been honest with me all along.

I wish I had known, how to save our life.

The Difference?

What feels different, now that I know Mr. Hate is gay?

The realization that there was NOTHING I could have done to save my marriage. Even if I did every single solitary thing the counselors said, we would have failed anyway, in the end, as he would have figured out he was gay eventually. This feels like....relief. Justification. Almost "I told you so." You see, inside I knew I was trying like crazy to fix us, to fix me, and I knew he wasn't trying. Not as hard as I was. And he continued to blame me, label me a failure, and I bought in to that. His accusations fit my insecurities, and made me feel totally unworthy of love. But I need to own that I bought into that, because I did. But now I feel relief. It wasn't me.

Justification is the part of me that sees now that not only was it not me, but that adult voice inside of me that knew he really wasn't trying has been completely vindicated. And the war inside of me between my childish, unsure self and my calmer, much more knowing adult voice has just found its clear winner. After 45 years!

LISTEN, girl! Hear what you now know. Your adult intuition has known all along what your childish self refused to relent. He didn't try. He lied, again and again. And you weren't too stupid to figure it out, you were too scared to stand and say "No!" But you lost your marriage anyway, and as it turns out, it's a financial hardship, but that's all. Almost every part of you lives in more truth now, and that can never be anything but a blessing.

Why does it feel different? My voice is different, it fears no lie now, but demands truth. My eyes are different now. Mr. Hate is not some hero, some out-of-my-league prize to show off to my high school enemies and thus refute their dismissal of me. He is no more than a man, and a pretty poor example at that.

In this moment, warmed by the thin winter sun and feeling the first stirrings of real power and knowledge inside, know that there is NO FEAR. Safe and warm and grounded in the knowledge of truth, feel your strength. Seriously. Hold on to this feeling, and use it to go forth and be better than you ever thought you could. No. Wait. Turn that around. Go out and be exactly who you have always known you could be. It's all in there, and it always has been.

Why do I feel different? Because I see now that my childish self didn't believe in me, and I married someone who didn't believe in me either, and in all honesty, I used him. I hid from what I was afraid of anyway and I hid behind him and blamed him for blocking me.

He's not there now. What's blocking me now is me, and knowing that, not being willing to hide anymore, makes me feel different.

What else feels different? The idea of dating again feels different. I won't have to present like someone else's reject. It's not that I failed as a wife, it's that I wasn't a boy.

OH MY GOD. "Dr. Freud, paging Dr. Freud...." Did I just write that? Mystic crystal revelations flying today! My father didn't stick around because I wasn't a boy, and neither did my husband. Seriously?

But for the first time I can see that it's not so simple. They left because they needed something else. And really it has nothing to do with me, who I am and what I did or didn't do. It has to do with them. No judgement, just different needs. But how many years have I spent wearing a horse hair shirt, flogging myself for not being enough, not feeling wanted, or chosen? Being chosen isn't about the offering, it's about the chooser. Giving these men so much of my energy and emotion was my choice. Knowing that it was me all along makes me feel different.

I feel different because now I know I can parent how I want, spend money how I want, decorate how I want, LIVE how I want. I feel different because seeing how deceptive and just plain WRONG Mr. Hate was in his choices punches up how right so many of mine have been. But not in relation to his choices, that's not exactly what I mean. I mean that now, today, I am standing firmer in my choices and realizing that in a lot of ways I am very, very smart. Very smart. My intuition is quite sound, and I feel I have proven it.

How is it different? How can it not be? I see my life entire now. I did not fail at my marriage, I was deceived, and I chose to deceive, and I do not choose that anymore. Truth brings a clarity and with it a tidal swell of strength that I have sorely needed. At first I was upended, carpet pulled out from under me, terrified. TERRIFIED. Blind, thrashing, wounded.

Now I am stood upright, grounded, blinking in the sun. Not abandoned, but definitely "left alone" in the "stop getting in my way leave me alone and let me get on with it" left alone. Let go. Freed.

I feel different because I am free of the burden of his happiness, free from the shackles of his limitations and insecurities, and released from the ropes of my own making. Not only can I run the race set before me, but I will run it. With focus and with purpose.

Because I am different now.

Thankful for Thanksgiving

So, yeah. The holidays still make me a little sad. I miss being married. I do. Sometimes I even miss being married to the man I was married to. Before he lost himself, and lost his way, and lost us. But -- to quote his favorite phrase, "the reality is...." (and how ironic is THAT?) that I am not married anymore.

But you know what? I am still thankful. I am! I am thankful for the many messages of support God, the universe, Mother Earth, Love, has given me since the day Mr. Hate left. I am thankful for every day I get to tell my children "good night" or "I love you!" and I don't have to phone them to do it, because they are right here. I am thankful that I have a warm bed to sleep in, and food on the my plate, and people who really, really love me. Maybe not the same people who were willing to sit in my home and eat my food three years ago, but people who love me, just as I am.

I am thankful for the new muscles I am flexing, the new strength I have found, the things I have let go of, and the things I am learning to let go of. I am thankful for the new boundaries I have found, and the old boundaries I have broken through. I am thankful.

And, like Red.....I hope.

Thank you.

a gun shot or a starter pistol?

I don't know why I even focused of the sound of the gavel. But oh, how that became the center of my thoughts. I obsessed over how my marriage, which started with a kiss, in a church full of people we loved, and who loved us, would end in a room full of strangers, with that bang of the gavel. I fixated on how it would sound like a gun shot, the shot behind the barn that would finally put the tired horse that the divorce had become to rest. The sound of ice cracking on an unsafe pond, and down I would go, submerged in icy terror, sure I would not survive. The sound of a shock, a rip in the air, death.

I was terrified of that noise. I thought about it all the time. How its sharp staccato would rip a hole in what was left of my heart. Finally tear in two the what was not totally broken. Not. just. yet. I was just sure it would echo in my head for years.

Except, someone asked me a tilting question. A woman I have never actually met and I can't even say for certain that I know her real name. She is a "friend" from an internet game I play, not even someone I really know, but all it took was one question from her to change the entire game.

What if it's not the sound of a fatal shot? What if you hear it as the sound of a rocket launching, fireworks going off, or...a starter pistol?

And that was it. Suddenly that sound I dreaded became open with possibilities. Could it be that I had the power to decide how that sound would, well, sound? The idea that I can have power over ANYTHING is still one I am getting used to. For 20 years I thought of him first, to the point where I could not even figure out if I was hungry, thirsty or tired, unless I thought of how he would feel about first. But maybe it's on me now. Maybe I could decide it was a starter pistol, and I could set the pace I run at. Wow.

I grow almost giddy with the opportunity, and more than a little overwhelmed at the responsibility. I DON'T WANT to be in charge, I whine. Oh feminist me, I must admit - I liked not having to worry about the 401k, the trash going out, the tax return. I thought that is how it went - you divided things up according to your skill sets. He did dead things in the yard and retirement savings, I did funerals and school visits (ofter indistinguishable, btw...). But if this is all up to my to decide - quelle horreur! What if I choose poorly? I am not always so sure which is the cup of a carpenter (and if you get THAT reference, congrats - we are now best friends, you and I....word!). And it won't be Elsa screaming whilst I turn into dust, it will be the children, my family, the other members of the coven. Didn't I see it coming? Everyone else knows, what's your problem? Suddenly I am 14 again, and hopelessly hopeless and just WRONG. No one to turf in onto, it's all my fault. I chose, I must deal with the consequences.

Interesting to note that in the movie in my head I am only ever wrong. Can't say I have spent a lot of time mulling over scenarios in which I get lots of things right and people admire "how well I have done." That one? Ummm.. ....feh. Not so much.

Of course the biggest joke of all is that in the end, no gavel. A simple nod, as the judge recited the line I am sure she has had to say too many times- She pronounced our marriage dissolved and that was it. No bang. No gunshot. No starting gun. I remember I watched the clock. Time of death: exactly 10:30 am.

But I have decided it was my starter pistol. If we accept that I have the power to decide what it was, I should also have the power to decide if it was. And I say it was so. A starter pistol announcing the start of my new life. The one where I decide what the sounds are.

....and she's off!