I rarely have large amounts of time home alone, so today while avoiding work, I reread my last 20 or so blog entries as it tends to give me clues as to where my head was, where my head is and where I am going and I realized that along with a three part blog posting that I need to get to, I never made my poppet of The Wife Who Was.When making that post, I was v. full of piss and vinegar as I was trying to psych myself up into letting go of her. After last weekend, I realized I really am ready to let go of her, more over, it's time. This month, I would have been married for three years, would have been with Wasband for ten years which is a third of my life. It didn't work out that way. He left a month before our first wedding anniversary, leaving me an abandoned bride with a half frozen wedding cake on her balcony and no one to eat it with.
It honestly frightens me that in only two years, I've become such a different person that the life I shared with a person for nearly my entire adult life is a distant memory. It doesn't seem like it should work that way, that two years can erase eight. But it does. Fragments do remain of course, but for the most part, besides having to inopportunely see him unexpectedly at various pagan/alterna events, it's almost like it never happened. He's a shadowy figure of a past that often was not that happy.
I suppose what also really frightens me is that I thought that I was happy. And maybe I was, because I didn't really know any better yet. Nothing in my life had yet led me to believe that happiness wasn't found while living beyond one's means with a heaping helping of codependence and near constant antagonism.
In writing, you are constantly told to show through a character's actions how the character is feeling, not simply having the character tell. And . . .before I was telling and now I'm showing.
I thought making my little straw bride, the one who was left, the one who wasn't good enough would be a bra burning liberating experience. But after forming her from straw with red roving hair and a paper wedding dress with a tiny heart and putting bits of me to her so that she would be me, I was sad. No. Not really sad, more . . .melancholy.
I broke the link, chanting I don't belong to you anymore, piling basil on top of her for our transitioning away from that self and into who I am settling into, burning the whiskey he won't drink in a caldron sized funeral pyre.
But, I felt sorry for her. Sorry for my little straw bride that I once was. I'm sorry this didn't work. Even though it's better for us now. I'm sorry that you got hurt so badly when all you did was try to love someone, if not perfectly. I'm sorry that your voice wasn't heard when you were honest before the ring even slid on your finger about how you feel about marriage. I'm sorry that you didn't have the tools to realize how really and truly awful thing had gotten so that it was a surprise when he took everything and left without any warning or face to face discussion. I'm sorry that you thought even when things got as bad as they did, that that was love, not some mangled damaged version of it that neither of you were grown up enough when meeting to not fall into. I'm sorry you were so broken and didn't even realize it. I'm sorry you kept thinking things would get better even though by the end you had no reason to. I'm sorry you were so desperate to not lose what was familiar that you were willing to beg for him to stay on your hands and knees over the phone like a fucking dog even though he didn't even want to take your call. I'm sorry about how much he hurt you throughout the divorce process, that you had to act like a trained fucking dog on his command or he would take away things you needed. I'm sorry you let him have the level of power and control over you that you are still breaking away from even though now he is a shattered shell of an insect. I'm sorry you never had a chance. I'm sorry I had to burn you to be free of him. But it is necessary. It is needed. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea culpa.
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8 comments:
sniff. I'm sorry too. Divorce is a greiving process. One that takes as long as having a death of a loved one. The marriage and your bride were loved ones. It's Ok to grieve. It's normal to feel sadness and loss. It sucks.
I've read and re-read this post since you put it up. It sounds so familiar, so much like how I've felt and what I've thought over the past two-ish years after my own break-up (much different circumstances, but some similar emotional responses). Thank you for putting these words out for others to read, because I could never figure out how to do it for myself, or how to apologize and heal the me-who-was.
My heart hurts for you and your little bride.
I've been there too. I was married a short time to someone who I'd known since I was 3. We'd been together since school and I thought it was forever. Divorce does hurt but it does get better and you do emerge like a phoenix from a flame.
Hugs
Lyn
Thanks for this post, I have been trying to find different ways to heal and this is a wonderful way to help move on and heal. Letting go of the me-that-was, is something each of us has to do at one time or another. So again thankyou for sharing your process, making a little straw poppet and embuing it with all our hurts then allowing ourselves to let that person go, what an amazing way to heal.
HI, just stopping by to tell you I gave you 3 awards. Stop by my blog to check them out.
http://collegewitchexperiences.blogspot.com/2010/10/unheard-of-3-award-night.html
Wow. I was married for 15 years, been divorced for 5. Our 20th wedding anniversary would have been last month.
Even though the divorce was the best thing for me and my daughters, I *STILL* grieve, 6 years after the debacle started ending. I see friends with their partners, and wonder when/if I will have someone to share life with, besides my growing children. I do not regret the leaving, but miss the future-that-could-have-been that I had invested so heavily in, that meant nothing to him in the end.
Thank you for sharing your story. I think I may have a clue how to finish mine and move into the next episode :-)
Your post has made me wonder how many past versions of me I need to let go of. Thank you.
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