still happy...(brief interlude)....and still happy

A year ago today, I was still happy.  I was full of excitement at the coming holidays with my new husband.  I was still relaxed and tan from our honeymoon.  I was wistful and romantic and hopeful that I was at the beginning of a great marriage, a time of growing together in adventure, love, and sensuality.  I thought the puzzle piece had been found - my puzzle piece.

Not that everything had been perfect.  I wish it had been MORE perfect as maybe that would have raised some hair on the back of my neck.  My romance and love addled brain had rationalized away the small things.....the pressure.....the few disagreements with thoughts of how this would be normal for anyone in a new relationship.  Normal for anyone who had just moved over 1100 miles (not that I would have had those issues - but I am an explorer).  Normal for anyone whose father had just passed away the year prior.  You get the idea.  My happy-go-lucky self would wake up each morning thinking that those stresses and triggers would go away, and the happy-go-lucky partner that I had found would re-emerge, fresh as a daisy, and we would continue on our path of love, and singing, dancing, and cooking, eating, and kissing, and living.  For the first time in a very long time....I had let my guard down.  I had let someone in.  I was trusting another soul with mine.

I distinctly remember that a year ago today, I was blissfully unaware of what I had created for myself, and by extension, for my children.  My children that I had sheltered as much as possible in the years since their father and I had split up.  I had not introduced them to a single person that I had gone out with since 2004.  2004 until 2012.........and then the fateful day came when I did introduce them to someone.  But I am getting off track.  (My own brain just said to me, "Wouldn't be the first time" to myself in a sarcastic way in my head.  Lovely.  Thanks, own brain.)

Looking back at how I felt last year, I was brimming with energy and excitement at home and at work.  Still selling real estate which I have loved now for 15 years and launching a new business venture in wedding and event planning.  Our new home was coming together.  The boys were doing fairly well at school.  We had a fantastic dog (Chadwick is the best!).  There was some uneasiness - especially around the kitchen and food and cooking - and my mind rationalized that a person in their 40's and a person in the 50's that had been single for so long would certainly have some ruffling of feathers when moving in together.  Surely, that would fade away in the distance like a stomach flu soon forgotten.  I was so unaware of what was around the corner.

I am sharing this with you today because this is a bittersweet anniversary for me.  I remember the feelings of joy, satisfaction, excitement, pride, and relief that I had last year this day.  I had found the one, my one, and we were married.  And then, we went shopping for Halloween costumes.  Ethan was with us, ready to search for the perfect costume for his trick-or-treating extravaganza.  That shopping trip was the first time that things went very poorly.......horribly awry.......and I was so uncomfortable and confused and disturbed........and it is the first time that the little siren went off in my head, and I knew that something was really wrong.

And for the first time......I could not rationalize it away.  I did not rationalize it away.

Then came the fights over Thanksgiving and who would cook and what we would have.....then a downward spiral that threw me around like I was in a washing machine and shot me out of a cannon and has landed me right here.  Right here a year later, on my own with my amazing sons - the Three Musketeers again.

How do I feel about the whole thing?  Well, I know that when I fell in love in 2011 and 2012, it was a wonderful feeling that I have not really ever felt before in my life.  It made me feel good!  And it made me realize that I can have those feelings of love and lust and abandon and laughter with someone and be lost in the moment...lost in a smile....that time can play in slow motion in a kiss or a hug with the sound of your own heartbeat in your ears as music.  I had started to think I would never have those feelings again.  So I want to thank that person for awakening the exuberant lover in me again.  Even though things have not panned out - I can still leave those memories intact, and the way that I felt about myself and life intact and separate.  That is a choice I can make.  I am convinced that I can find the person that will make me feel that way again AND have all the other attributes, philosophies, and approaches to life so that we can sing together for years to come.  He is out there somewhere, and I will be in front of him sometime.

I am grateful as I pass through this anniversary that I was able to take action for myself and the boys and the dog.  That I am strong enough to let go of something that was not good for ANY of us involved, including my soon-to-be ex.  I am so appreciative that things got as bad as they did so quickly so that the choice was easier to make.  I would have died inside if things had stayed just a few levels better as I would have stayed for years...trying to make it work....losing myself in the process....never succeeding....and suffering emotional exsanguination before finally laying the relationship to rest.  God did not want that for me  - I am here as a lover of life and a doer of things and a dreamer of dreams.  That is one of the best outcomes from what has happened here.

I can honestly say to you all that after extreme heartbreak, bowel-shaking disappointment, and a soul crushing episode that I am whole hearted, and that I am still happy. :-)  Happy "Still Happy" Anniversary to me!

How did I get here?

There was a woman who has always been the strong one, the social one, the one with a smile and a laugh.  A woman who had a way of making hard times seem lighter, and tough jobs with reason.  Someone who could see the good in nearly all around her.  She adores music, and movies, and adventures.  She makes changes in her life that some would fear to do - moving where she wanted to live, having foreigners come and live in her home to help with her kids, changing careers, writing stories that no one would ever read aside from a few polite friends and her mother.   She is one of those people that others ask, “how does she do it?”  Some people described her as somewhat fearless, and as someone who spices up a party.   

She grew up in a home where her Dad and Mom were actually in love with each other.  She used to hear her father singing songs to her mother after she had gone upstairs to go to bed, and sometimes saw them dancing with each other with records on by peeking through the banisters of the stairs when they thought she was asleep.  And from a young age, her heart sought out the man that would sing to her, the man whose eyes would light up when he saw her smile, which happened frequently because being with him was enough to make her smile.

And life lifed along.  When she was young, she met a man.  And even though he didn't sing to her, or even reach through the veil she kept around her heart, she married someone that she thought she loved.  She cried on her wedding day - not tears of joy, but the heart wrenching sorrow of such a huge and public mistake.  Her parents begged her to get an annulment for almost two months, but she carried on, proclaiming that it was probably stress from so many life changes, and surely it would get better. 

Funny how one of the final straws in the relationship, one of the times she knew she had to leave is when she had left small love notes (certainly that would help!) in hidden places for her husband to find, and when he found them - he yelled and screamed and carried on in such a horrendous fashion that she shoved her delicate heart back into her armor and packed up and left.  As protection for the future, she added on several more layers to the armor of her heart.

She drove on a trip to Plymouth, Mass from Maryland when she left as her townhouse would not be available for about 10 days, and remembers feeling so free....singing along to the Offspring, Nirvana, and New Order on the I95 North.  Exhilarating.   She remembers looking in the rearview mirror and seeing all of the pain, abuse, and anxiety behind her.

And life lifed along.  She was a hard worker, doing well in her career, enjoying concerts and parties and deep friendships, traveling.  All the while keeping her eyes out for the man that would sing to her in case he happened to come along, kissing plenty of frogs in the process.  Usually disappointing kisses.  Maybe they felt good physically, but they lacked that spark, that magic that she longed for.  That I-could-melt-into-this-man feeling.  And then she met a solid man.  He also loved sci-fi, and shared many interests and beliefs with her.  He seemed like an anchor in a stormy sea, and he worked hard to get her attention, eventually stealing her thoughts and affections away from the man that introduced them.  To many, it seemed an odd match.  If she was having a moment of extreme honesty, she also thought it was an odd match at times.  But he was on a quest to win her over, and win her over he did. 

And although he did not sing to her, or really even dance with her - she did love and respect him.  So she followed her head more so than her heart and married him.  This was a much happier time than the first.  And as time went on, she could see the erosion happening.....the novelty of this exotic, passionate butterfly that he had caught was wearing away.  And he realized that he had married a woman, not a butterfly.  She could see the faint signs of reality wearing away the gleam in his eyes when he looked at her.  And she did not know how to stop it.  And she really, really tried.  She tried so hard that she pushed him away more because he didn't like Pollyannas.  While she thought she was making things better, he was commiserating with her buyer's agent and they both had their stories to tell about her, and somehow they made each other feel better by falling into each others arms.  Funny how a dream can fade away and turn into ashes that just blow away in a breeze rather than explode with fury.  Maybe we both knew it was inevitable.  We had the boys - the greatest gift ever - so we reached out to each other and were respectful and friendly and were parents together even if we were not lovers. 

So this strong lady, that people said just made things look easy and fun, faced the heartache of being alone, and being very hurt, but being who she was - very few people knew it.  And that elusive dream slipped away again, like smoke in a windstorm. 

And life lifed along.  The father of my sons had cancer.  Stage 4 cancer.  I went into an even deeper protective mode for my sons and myself.  Determined to help them through the inevitable loss that all four of us (their father, the two of them, and I) faced...and even more determined that they would still have as much of a life as possible in spite of it. 

There were a few (thankfully only a few) dark moments, when she was very confused about how this had happened.  There had been other proposals....what if she had chosen one of them?  What was she doing that was so wrong?  She had a much higher than normal (from what she had heard) sex drive, loved life and laughter.  She wasn’t a super model, however, she had her own type of beauty.  Isn’t that what guys wanted?  What was so hard?

One of the things that was so hard for her was the feelings of disappointment and devastation that occurred after she dumped someone or they dumped her.  So slowly but surely, she started to hide herself from others, and became the hunter.....seeking out men to play with but keeping them at arm's length from her heart.  It became fun again.  And although there was an occasional sting if things did not get off the ground, it was a superficial sting...more hurt pride, or mad that she didn't do it first. 

So she started to fold up her hopes and dreams of love and romance, of having a partner, someone that she could communicate with by just a smile or a look.  She folded them up like winter clothes that will be put in a box with mothballs and then placed in a corner of the attic, forgotten for years, and then given away to a charity when someone finds it years later.

And she lived life happily!  Not that “I am pretending to be happy but really wish I had a man” happy – she was really happy for each day.  She decided that maybe the man who would sing to her didn't exist, or that maybe he was in the UK and they couldn't find each other, and she shut down the radar screen that was even on the lookout for him.  She had great friends, men and women, and went out with them, and loved life.