Hello Dear Readers --
Warning -- this is not a lighthearted post.
I apologize for my absence. A few things have come up in my life that have given me pause, so to speak. They are not huge, heavy things in themselves, but I made them heavy, much more than they needed to be. I got stuck under the weight I gave to them. I will discuss some of them in later posts, but for now I will say this:
I am coming up on a year since the day I knew my marriage had to come to an end and I had to remove my now-former husband from the home due to his addiction to street drugs and his deception about it. I know deception is a big part of addiction, but that does not make it easy or less painful to deal with. While I had absolutely tremendous support and love from my friends (especially from my solid-rock friends Rich, Nan, John, Jan, Dave, and Jay) without whom I may never have gotten out of bed again, and while I have made a LOT of progress in changing my own mindsets, building new skills, and just keeping on going in my life and my business, this particular anniversary date is bringing a lot of inner leftover, unresolved muck to the surface. It has caused me to become frustrated that so many facets of that ending are not resolved (and may never be) due to necessary communications that have not taken place. My former husband has not reached a point within himself where he can step up to having those communications. We do connect via text or email or phone sometimes in regard to practical matters, and we are genuinely friendly (after all, we did really love each other for many years and he truly was my best pal), but the unresolved things remain unresolved.
While I know I made the best choice I could when I removed him from the home, it is still a traumatic and sad remembrance and an anniversary I would prefer to forget. But isn't it interesting how, even when our minds understand that the event is past and we are moving on, our bodies remember such traumas and seem to have to experience the same confusion, heartbreak, and pain surrounding those traumas a year later? I don't know if I will experience similar feelings and emotions every May from now on. I am sure it will decrease a lot after this first anniversary is past.
I know this is not a happy post, but I desire to be honest about what is going on. With the coming of this anniversary and the building of emotional muck that is happening, many other areas of my life are being affected. At first (well, as recently as today), I really panicked about this -- a lot of emotional ups and downs, feelings of failure and anger, feelings of inadequacy and grief, feelings of "getting it all wrong," but now I see that I need to ride it out. Sometimes that is all we can do, just have patience with ourselves and sit tight and ride it out.
I am relieved to finally understand what has been going on with me for the past several weeks, why I have been experiencing such sudden and intense feelings of fear and failure, why I have felt so alone when I am really not alone. Now I understand. At first, I thought of this anniversary as just an isolated entity that could make me feel sad, but would not really touch my entire life. But it has touched my entire life. It has affected everything about me. I cannot fight that; it's like trying to stop an avalanche with a little umbrella. So I need to let it roll on through and be at peace within myself and be patient with myself. I know I will emerge from this event having been changed yet again. I trust the change will be good and helpful and deepen my heart and deepen my expressions of love through my life and my art.
Thanks for reading. I hope that if you are experiencing pain from past events in your life, that you will be patient with yourself, be very kind to yourself, and let the experience roll on through. Do be kind to yourself, though. And open your heart to your trusted friends. They are worth far more than gold. Avoid those who will needle you, question you, make demands of you, who use your difficulties to try to elevate themselves. I am serious -- AVOID the ones who will hurt you. Caring for your own well-being is serious business, and you must protect yourself. Watching out for you and being kind to you and surrounding yourself with support and genuine love will help you heal and move on.
I cannot overstate the importance and the wonderful healing impact my trusted friends had upon me. I never would have gotten through all this without them. They are gems and jewels, pearls of great price, each one of them.
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