Waiting to Exhale

In therapy (which I began around the same time my husband and I started marriage counseling), we've been focusing on the things I'm feeling in connection with the impending separation. Fear and anxiety about being alone in the house, sadness at the loss of the hopes and dreams and the life I'd planned with him, sadness at losing my go-to person for things like apple-picking and the like....and a feeling of holding my breath. Like I'm just waiting to exhale.

I've never seen that movie, so I have no idea what the main character is going through. But I feel like I'm perpetually holding my breath, just waiting for this holding pattern we're in to end. For him to move out, so that I can finally let go and exhale and move on.

This past weekend I went out with friends and spent the entire weekend out. At one point, I turned to a friend and said to him, "Ever since I started going out on my own, I feel like I've had more of a social life than I did before [when my husband was still coming out]." And it's true. We didn't go out often because, despite me being an incredibly social creature and loving to spend time out and about and with my friends, my husband became a recluse after marriage and never wanted to do anything but watch television. I thought I was compromising by giving up my life, even though I thought it was a life I'd share with him because he told me he, too, was a social person. Not so.

Anyway, this weekend reminded me of what it was like before. I met someone who liked me, who actively tried to pursue me. It was nice to feel attractive, to feel wanted - especially by someone that I was mutually attracted to. Nothing happened, because another friend was attracted to him as well, and of course, I'm still married. But...it gave me hope. That after all this, I actually CAN rise up again, live my life on my own terms and meet someone who is willing to share that life with me instead of taking it away from me. Like, when I am finally able to exhale....I'll be able to breathe in again, and keep on breathing.

It was a good weekend.