I’ll say it once…

Sometimes we may wake up in the morning and painfully remember, (and realize again) all at once that this actually is your life and these things actually are happening right now. If you’re anything like me, this happens when waking up from an unpleasant night of roughly ninety minutes of collected sleep moments- For the eighth night in a row. It has also been that many days since you emotionally fell apart, into a blubbering puddle, upon the departure of your husband and daughter, while you were babysitting your friend’s kids…

As abundantly pathetic as the above image may seem, these days I am realizing that it is alright… I mean, it’s kind of not ok that I can’t sleep, or that I spent 4 days vomiting uncontrollably while simultaneously laying in bed in a deep, dark depression. It IS ok that I acknowledge where I am at and then authentically plant my ass there. Is it pretty? No. Does it hurt? Immeasurably. If I’m really there though, may as well be present and honest about it.

Towards the late middle of last year I found myself overwhelmed and dealing with family issues, as well as completely separate friend issues. Both involved tremendously deep-rooted pain, abandonment and other multi-layered junk that I’d successfully buried and ignored for twenty plus years. My therapist accompanied me on my tailspin, often saying such reassuring Gems as “wow, I’m speechless. This is too much for one person to sift through.” The moral of this confession is that for the better part of my life, I haven’t been present long enough to grieve, mourn or deal with anything at all necessary so that I didn’t have some volumes of pain festering deep inside of me. I inched closer and closer, during this dark and overwhelming time, to needing to run. I escaped for a weekend, but it was absolutely the opposite of cathartic. And then, the day after returning home I had my escape plan handed to me by the immediate needs of a friend and my husband- who’d been patiently waiting for an excuse to walk me to the door. Maybe it could go without saying, but I didn’t quite process any of that either, until about the time they left for the plane, here two thousand miles from where our life and marriage lived, just last week.

When we began hashing through the “what the hell happened” scenario I was shocked to find his portrayal of a flat-out evil version of me. I acknowledged as I packed my bag that I’d be the bad guy. I’d be the abandoner of my child, I would be the evil wife who left her husband to pick up the pieces of what was left. Was I emotionally prepared to accept such responsibility? No way. It was my gift anyway. My gift to him, my gift to the world and apparently my gift to me- someone to blame. We love someone to blame… And no one wants to blame him for giving up on me, out of the blue, nearly three years ago. No one wants to blame him for growing complacent despite my pleading and pleading and pleading for something. No one has the right to an opinion but he, myself and our amazing kids- yet the world is full of opinion. I’ve been called a cheating whore by people who don’t know the first thing about anything. I have been unfriended on Facebook. I have been messaged a reprimand and called a harlot. Was I a perfect wife? No. Newsflash: no one is. The truth? I was a great wife. I faithfully loved and supported my husband through all of his bits of life that shut me out, until the day I left. When he decided I was not worth loving, I stood by him, hoping he’d change his mind. When I grew weary of that, I still went through the motions of loving, supporting and lifting him up. I was never unfaithful to my husband, and honestly I cannot fathom ever being in a relationship with another man. When this known as kind man unleashed my shortcomings on me, I held my own. I shed a light on the truth, that I was not perfect but I was not the one who turned my back on my spouse. I may have gotten in my car on November 23rd, but that man left a long time before that.

I also had a really good reason for coming west… Not that it’s anyone’s business. When my kids understand and are beyond supportive, I have to consider that all of the haters are just consumed with their own selfish misconceptions and it has nothing to do with me. Hate on, if you must. Have fun with that, and take a second to notice you’re the only one who is miserable because every day I’m getting a bit better. I have a dream, I have a plan, I have a purpose. All three of these involve becoming someone my kids can be proud of. All three of these involve being someone who touches the lives of others and makes the world a better place. None of them involve a man, unless my husband wakes up one day and decides to fight for something that actually matters…

This is about as publicly personal as I’ll get. It’s a little raw, true, but it’s as personal as I’m going to get. If your opinion actually matters, you’re already in the know… I wrote it maybe because it’s late, I’m tired and I need somewhere to send the ridiculous naysayers when they start spewing ignorant nonsense.