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!

Marriage, love, hopes and bubble bursters

Earlier this week, I was sitting in my son's violin recital looking around the room at all the other parents.  Well not really all the other parents.....I was mainly looking at the couples.  What are their lives like?  When they were getting ready for the concert, did they smile and laugh with an easy going affection that naturally made them a team?  Did they argue with each other over whether they were late, where they were going to sit, and what their child was wearing?  Were they really here together.....in love.....in "like" even....with each other?  Or were they putting on a show of togetherness now that they were in public, after tension, dissent, and bickering in private?

Of course, I will never know.  None of us really ever know what goes on between two people unless their distrust, criticism, and antagonism spills over....over the boundaries of private life, out to the public world.  When I see that happen, it brings sadness to my heart, even if they are strangers.

I find myself longing to reach out and interfere.....to remind them both that what they are arguing about is amazingly important to both of them in different ways at the moment, however in the grand scheme of life - it is meaningless.  That they should stop, take a step back, and allow themselves to come back together naturally rather than forcing a false perception of togetherness, of partnership that is belied with distrust and anxiety.

I am especially baffled by arguments about something that "almost" happened.  As in we were almost late.  Really?  Unless the sentence goes something like "and then she almost had sex with the naked man in her bed" this should be a moment of joyous celebration, a mini-victory in the race against time by you and your team family.  High fives all around!

I found myself trying to look into their eyes.  For some reason I feel like I could tell if I could see in there eyes.  Is there the relaxed look of someone who knows they are loved, that knows they are safe, that knows that all they would have to do is give a quick glance or a half smile and their partner would instantly smile back with a knowing look.  The secret, unspoken language of two people bound to each other through their love and acceptance of each other.

How often do lovers burst the bubbles of their partner with sharp words, cutting looks, a sarcastic tone?  How often is the focus on what went wrong rather than what went right?  How often do we let happiness slip through our fingers like sand?  It seems like love is a solid, tangible entity at the beginning of a relationship.  We can hold it in our hands, press it to our chest, say to everyone "Look at this!  Look at what I have found!  Look what I am creating!!"  The it seems to get softer, more distorted.  Without the proper care and attention, it seems that it can become a globulous thing, a slippery tube of goo that you can purchase at a souvenir shop for your kids to entertain them for hours.....trying to hold on to something that is slipping away.  Not so entertaining when we are grown up.

I realized that I was not even really hearing the music as I had become lost in thought and observations of the body language of all the couples around me....and I had to call myself back to the moment, much like a mother calls out the backdoor for the kids to come home and have dinner.  I had to tell myself to be in my own moment, to listen to the slightly too slow rendition of "William Tell" that the children had practiced for months.  To look at the nervous head of my own child, my beautiful son, who was lost in his own moment at the time.

He has nice bowing....