I'm in my childhood home for the holidays until tomorrow and, as I tend to do when I'm home, I started looking through my old stuff in my childhood bedroom. I came across this beautiful, old French chocolates tin I bought at an antique shop in Red Bank with my former best friend.
When I opened it, it was filled with all the cards my first boyfriend ever gave me. I started reading them, and a lot of them were Christmas/Valentine's/birthday cards, as expected, but a few were 'just because' cards, or silly cards 'from' my dog, which was nice. And then there were a couple of "I'm sorry" cards - just two of them. I could go into a long, drawn out description of what happened each time, but suffice it to say - remembering what happened and what prompted those cards reminded me what it was like to be in a healthy relationship. I'd completely forgotten what it was like to be in a relationship with someone who could recognize when he was wrong, and apologize for it - and mean it. Not "I'm sorry" and then 2 days later do it again. Actually not. do it. again.
It was nice to go through all these cards and remember what that was like. I'm looking forward to experiencing that again
Monday, December 26, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
On hurt, and healing.
And I'm back! It's been almost a month since my last post, which I guess is a testament to how busy I've gotten since my husband left and moved to Dallas. My social life has taken off. Not to say I didn't have one before, but I often didn't have weekends booked well in advance the way I do now. I've come to learn that this is because many of my friends didn't like my husband all that much, so they didn't go out of their way to make plans with me as often as they would have liked. But now...well, let's just say that I've been on two dates with Waldo in the last month, and we have a third coming up this Friday - despite his aversion to Fridays because my next available Saturday would have been 3 weeks after our second date.
Anyway, I've been going through this strange realm of emotions. I'm enjoying life and having fun dating and spending time with friends, but at the same time I'm existing under this blanket of guilt because I feel like I'm 'supposed' to be mourning - I'm not supposed to be having fun! My therapist has helped me realize that I really did already experience all my grief - when I started realizing that the marriage had no real future. All the crying, all the begging and pleading, the doubting that he even loved me...I've already mourned. And now I'm healing.
The healing process is a weird one. I wanted to put my Christmas tree up last week before I went to Chicago for the weekend, and then I remembered the "Our First Christmas" ornament that I had custom made last year after the wedding, and then the owl that we selected together to go on top of the tree...and I couldn't bear to bring everything out. And it's always little things like that. While in Chicago, my friends and I were at a holiday party and Shania Twain's "From This Moment" came on - and I started crying. It was horrible! I have no idea where it came from. It's not even a song that's ever meant anything to 'us' - we never danced to it, we never listened to it together, it never made me think of him...and honestly, I don't even remember having heard it a single time during our entire relationship. But it still set me off. My friend's husband was gracious enough to take me out on the dance floor and build me back up again, which was nice, so now I'll have that memory instead of a tearful one. But still.
I do know I'm healing, though, because my upcoming third date with Waldo has made me realize that I actually like him, and I'm afraid of being hurt. And if I'm able to be hurt by him, it means I'm able to love again - and that means my heart IS healing.
Silver linings, I guess. Right?
Anyway, I've been going through this strange realm of emotions. I'm enjoying life and having fun dating and spending time with friends, but at the same time I'm existing under this blanket of guilt because I feel like I'm 'supposed' to be mourning - I'm not supposed to be having fun! My therapist has helped me realize that I really did already experience all my grief - when I started realizing that the marriage had no real future. All the crying, all the begging and pleading, the doubting that he even loved me...I've already mourned. And now I'm healing.
The healing process is a weird one. I wanted to put my Christmas tree up last week before I went to Chicago for the weekend, and then I remembered the "Our First Christmas" ornament that I had custom made last year after the wedding, and then the owl that we selected together to go on top of the tree...and I couldn't bear to bring everything out. And it's always little things like that. While in Chicago, my friends and I were at a holiday party and Shania Twain's "From This Moment" came on - and I started crying. It was horrible! I have no idea where it came from. It's not even a song that's ever meant anything to 'us' - we never danced to it, we never listened to it together, it never made me think of him...and honestly, I don't even remember having heard it a single time during our entire relationship. But it still set me off. My friend's husband was gracious enough to take me out on the dance floor and build me back up again, which was nice, so now I'll have that memory instead of a tearful one. But still.
I do know I'm healing, though, because my upcoming third date with Waldo has made me realize that I actually like him, and I'm afraid of being hurt. And if I'm able to be hurt by him, it means I'm able to love again - and that means my heart IS healing.
Silver linings, I guess. Right?
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