Remember I mentioned the crazy mind? I'm only three days into this and I'm doubting. I feel like I'm complaining. I feel egotistical and I DON'T feel happy and witty and gay.
Isn't that the point? This is my place to vent. This is the place where those little truths will be disclosed, eventually. The ones that float on the fringe of my consciousness; the very ones that I'm always so afraid to give a voice to because they will become real.
Don't get me wrong, I know my reality. I just know that at the moment I give voice to it I have to deal with it. No more pretending it will go away without address. No more waiting for the skies to clear and the sun to shine just because I wish it. I'm an apathetic person but I'm not a stupid one. I realize that in order to have the life I want I have to make it happen. No one can give me it. I am in control of my destiny and I make or break it. 2011 was a year of thought for me. Who am I? What would my life be like without all of these constrictions? If my first concern wasn't always not rocking the boat so that my children stay the great kids they are and continue to thrive what would I be doing? The picture in my head is very different from my reality.
The saddest part is, by fretting about keeping everything the way it should be in order to keep my kids happy, I was creating a war zone. I usually just chug along. I can repress like nobody's business. However, the more I thought, the more I realized I'm invisible. My husband could prop me in a corner and dust me off once a month and he wouldn't even miss me. We have issues, SERIOUS issues and I have been trying to help solve them for over five years now. It's like I don't speak. He looks at me with such a look of disgust and then completely ignores me. I'm a stay at home mom. I'm not uneducated. I do have valuable opinions and ideas that can actually help benefit our family. I would never suggest something that would hurt us. Do you have any idea how it feels to be the matriarch of a family, half of a couple and have absolutely no say in the destiny of that unit? I think I was going insane, literally.
I couldn't repress any more. I wanted to hurt him like I was being hurt. I spoke to him so hurtfully and with absolutely no respect. It was only a matter of time before the children began to emulate me. In my attempt to keep this family together I was keeping us all tightly packed into the dysfunction that had become our reality. Our communication with one another was something I cannot begin to describe. The kids and I were on one team and my husband was the enemy. I would never intentionally turn my kids against my husband. My father was my hero, the sun rose and set in that man and I want my children to feel the same about their dad. Kids are so much more aware than we ever give them credit for. They saw the change in the way I was acting and I think they gathered around me like a pack and guarded me with ferocity. They sensed my pain and anger and reacted to the source. I saw it happening, I didn't like it and yet I didn't have the energy to stop it.
Ending a marriage is so scary. How do I support myself? I haven't had a full-time job and supported myself since I was 24. Can I do it? How do I leave his family who has become mine? Who gets the friends? Do we each take two cats and one dog? How about the rabbit? Is it mine because I'm the only one who knows it exists? My kids are perfect. I know, I know, cue the eye roll but I cannot say that enough. When I had these kids I never knew they would be such a joy. I envisioned terrible toddler tantrums and tumultuous teens. They've been none of that. They crack me up, literally. They are witty and my daughter has a heart that could swallow up the Grand Canyon. My son loves to start political debates and argue the opposition. We discuss things that matter. I can actually have more intellectual conversations with him than I can with half of the adults I know. Will ending my marriage change them? Will staying change them more?
There was an incident and I was done. It was the wake-up call that I'd been needing. That's another post for another day but suffice to say, things were going to change from that point on because living in anger and fear is like not living at all.
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