Saturday, January 16, 2010

Little Earthquakes

   I have been back and forth for the last week on whether or not I should even blog about the current status of my life. And because I haven't been able to decide, I couldn't seem to find words for anything else either. Instead of faking it, or denying it or avoiding it altogether, I have just kind of put the blogging on pause.

   Ugh.

   This last summer, I became reunited with a dear friend of mine from my sophomore year of high school. One afternoon, while we sat in a sushi restaurant in Portland, we tried our best to get caught up on the past 13 years of our lives that we'd missed out on. When it came time for me to ask him if he had any questions for me, he said, "No. I read your blog. I know everything I need to know."

  Since then, I have been wondering where to draw the line. What to keep posting here and what I should leave for the pages of my paper journal and the ears and shoulders of my friends. In the past, I have felt from time to time that acquaintences knew a bit too much about me because of what I wrote. They spoke to me in a knowing fashion that I wasn't comfortable with, simply because I didn't realize they knew what they knew. Of course, anything that I have written about was something that I felt like sharing. Still, when you are standing face to face with someone who recalls the nasty posts you wrote when you were 23 and still bitter about being dumped by an old boyfriend and decide to take it out on him and his new wife, well . . . where is the delete button when you need it most?

   However, what I am going through right now definitely is shaping and defining maybe rapid changes coming in my life. I only see it as fair to explain here, (because I do intend to try to keep updating more regularly here. I promise!) why these changes are in fact coming.

    My husband and I are separating. Divorcing, actually. Though paperwork has not been drawn up yet, the furniture and (more importantly) the DVD collection have been verbally split and by the end of the month, we will be living under different roofs. In the past week and a half, most of our conversations have been through text messages and the most time we have spent in person, in the same room together would be that one evening we were able to discuss the furniture and DVDs.

    It is a decision that I have been wrestling with for months and an issue that we have been both working on together and separately since the beginning of the fall. While I will provide him and myself with a bit of privacy as to the nature of the demise of our marriage, I will say that things just did not progress in the linear and positive manner that I had hoped it would for us when we took our vows two and a half years ago. Some of the fault is his and some of the fault is mine. I'd like to leave it at that.

    I have struggled through many ideas and feelings that held me captive for a long time. Guilt, for one. Guilt that I am unable to live up to those vows I took. Guilt that my parents paid as much as they did for our wedding. Foolishness, for another. I am a fixer, a mender. I wanted to fix him in ways that he didn't feel he needed to be fixed or wanted to be fixed. Foolish for not noticing things that were or were not happening around me. Fear as well. Fear for jumping back into singlehood, trying to make it in this world alone again (though my amazing circle of friends has not let me feel alone for even a second). Fear that I am ruining the only chance of love or happiness that I have in life. But I haven't been truly happy in a long time.

    The phrase "Fool or Failure" has been ringing in my head since August. A fool if I stay and a failure if I leave. Which is worse? I still haven't completely figured that one out, but I am hoping I can swallow failure and turn it into some other form of success later in life.

   So 2010 has begun as a year of massive and rapid change for me. But I knew that the moment I opened my eyes on January 1st, greeted by Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" on my 7am alarm clock. I am currently finding much comfort from my parents, Emily, Sarah, Kate, the girls at my salon and many other friends and solace in Sugarland, SheDaisy, Lady Antebellum, Crystal Light, sleeping and hour long workouts on the elliptical. I am hoping that come August of this year, I will have transformed my body, my personal outlook on myself and my life and the direction this adulthood is taking me in.

   In some ways, it is a tragedy. And in others, a rebirth, for both of us (though I know right now, that is the last thing he sees it as). But if nothing else, I just hope someday, we'll both be able to look back and smile, even if just faintly, recalling the good times. They are what I'd want us to remember most.

3 comments:

  1. Betsy I wish you all the best and it sounds like you are heading in the right direction for yourself. I wish I had a great quote or words of wisdom to share with you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Betsy it was brave and so beautifully honest of you to put this out there. I wish you all the best in life and love. Keep your head up.

    Sarah P.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hope you are doing well, Betsy. I am not lying when I say that I pray for you every night before I go to bed. I've been there and I know the many emotions. Each day will get easier although you may not feel it right away - one day you'll look back and want to hug that sad girl and tell her it gets better. At least that's what happened to me.

    Your friend.

    ReplyDelete