I believe that in the past five years, some sort of awakening has occurred in me, as if a veil has lifted, a road has cleared, or a piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. Where once I dreamed in clouds of make belief reality, I am now awake to blue and open skies, that can also turn to shades of grey. For so long, I led a life of self inflicted numbness, only to awaken to a real and tangible life.
I remember all the tears that flowed, the bouts of panic that struck every single night as the lights faded and darkness set in. I felt complete and utter distress, fear, anger, loneliness, jealousy, happiness, thankfulness, and all of them bound together producing tears of pain and regret for all that could have been, or maybe all that should have been. Or so I thought.
It is now a while back since my then-husband announced that he had fallen out of love with me, and in love with someone else; a gorgeous 23 year old, tall, skinny and bursting with enthusiasm for life. I, on the other hand had turned into a thirty something nagging wife and mother, obsessed with the nitty gritty things in life, because I so believed that life was all about rules and regulations, the facts and figures, and all the 'should-be's' ....forgetting about actual enjoyment, spontaneity and jest. I was more willing to live an unhappy life with him, than believing I may stand a chance at a happy life without him.
It was as if I had only certain 'fixed moments' of 'forced' pleasures; time together or dinners with friends were supposed to be good and happy occasions and therefore I forced and expected myself to enjoy them, but to be honest I never savoured them, either on my plate or that what life was offering me in so many other ways, I had simply forgotten. Forgotten how...and mainly why it was important to do so.
And when you live like that, the price you end up paying is sky high. You find you lose yourself, everything about you, and sometimes (like in my case) even those that love you.. That's exactly what I let happen. I let 'me' disappear into thin air. I became see through, without any substance of character; lost in the ruins of me. Until the shock of abandonment jolted me out.
It is taking forever to put back the pieces of my puzzle ...recovering all that was lost, and trying to undo the silly revival mistakes I made; but like a vase that breaks, some pieces are irreplaceable and you find you have to look for new parts to rebuild. This process is not an easy one, and one I would not like to go through again, yet I am extremely thankful it happened and confident I will flourish.
The strange thing is, no matter how hard you try to succeed at this, there is always room for improvement. We never reach perfection, all we must aim for is inner peace and I have to admit, I just can't seem to find it so often. The head keeps over thinking, the heart wants to be loved, but dares not, and this cycle is one I cannot stop or escape from.
What I have realised is that all was not in vein.... I really believe that we have been put here with a certain plan, we choose the lessons we want to learn and the people or souls to learn it from, each of us with a certain task to accomplish. Some of us braver than others because we have to play the 'bad guy' in order for others to learn. If my marriage had not ended the way it did, I would not have taken responsibility for my own life, a difficult task, when you've leaned on someone for so very long and expected them to carry you. So however weird it may seem, I'm grateful for the difficult choice my then-husband made, as I'm sure the pain involved was plenty on his side too, and even though it looked like he was home-free from the outside, it must have taken all the courage he had left on the inside. I'm not sure he will ever know the true impact it had on me, as he gave me a very valuable gift, the quest to find myself, while he left the stage.
It is only now after 5 years that I find myself looking for my own purpose and significance, to others, to friends, family, my children, but especially to myself.
Thank you, for the purest of lessons.... 'the meaning of me'.
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