Again, I owe some people some apologies; namely, my in-laws. They are, without exception, some of the nicest people I have ever met.
They are also, the men especially, literally convinced they live under a family curse. A curse. A curse of bad luck.
I just don't know what to do with that. I was brought up to believe in God, and to have faith that all things work together for good, and... well... just that sort of thing. I pray before I go to bed at night. I quote Scripture, from time to time. I occasionally read my Bible.
And I absolutely DO NOT believe that the way forward, is to always assume everything is going to fuck up on you.
I understand that we all get slapped in the face by life, from time to time. I get that. I am reeling from blows that happened to me years ago.
Of course, I've ALSO been slapped in the face by my husband. That would be part of the point of why we're getting divorced. Because in the end, we're no good for each other.
He's certainly no good for me.
But I'm sorry that I've been angry and bitter about it. I'm sorry I want to blame his parents for his failings--it's just, I have spent so much of my life loving him, and although I don't anymore, I will always want to believe the best of him. That things aren't his fault. That with a fair crack at life, he would have been better, happier, healthier. Maybe he would have been. But NO ONE gets a fair shot at life. Learning to be an adult is about learning to just get on with it, in spite of life's crapness.
These last few weeks have been so hard. I haven't slept through the night once. I have doubted myself and doubted my ability to cope and doubted my motives. But deep down, I genuinely feel that this is the way to what's best for me and my kids.
We're gonna be just fine. And I'm so sorry that other people may be hurt to ensure that, but I can't turn away from what I believe is the right thing to do. What I can do is: lay off narky, snide comments, and expecting everyone to fall in line with my plans, and just doing what I have to do, with the least amount of hassle. Which is what I'll do from now on.
I'm sorry if I've been unkind to, or lost my temper with, anyone in the last few weeks. It's only proof that this isn't as easy for me as it sometimes seems.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Oh Dear...
THAT was a unique and special couple of weeks.
An update, to any and all who read this--THE DAY after I published my last post, my husband left abruptly, taking his computer, some videos, clothes, and a few books, and leaving me pretty much everything else. As a... gesture of goodwill?... he's replaced the PC, and I'm grateful for that. Even more, though, I'm grateful that he's gone.
You cannot imagine what it was like, living with arguably the most depressed man in England. He'd been treating it, with some effectiveness, through the magic of modern medicine, but the results were inconsistent, to say the least. And while I *know* that in these last few months, I've been responsible for some of his stress and/or suffering, I *also* know that our problems started years ago.
Like, the first time he lied to me. Which will have been about a week after we started talking... I've no idea how I got into a marriage like this, where the other party's greatest fault is chronic, habitual, unavoidable dishonesty. I detest liars, and everything to do with lying (mendacity... can't abide mendacity). But I digress. Lying is easily the root of the problems here, but in the end, there was a lot more to it than that.
Some people are just incapable of happiness, and it tends to run in families. I look at my husband, at his parents, his brother, and I see that sometimes, there are those who simply have no interest in the day-to-day business of just BEING happy. It's like they have no taste for it, they prefer to rage and scream and rue the day they ever did this/did that/were born. Miserable. Miserable, miserable people, who believe the worst before the best, and protect their own interests at the cost of everything else, and know nothing of forgiveness and openness and charity and generosity.
Isn't it funny how the word 'miserable' breaks down into 'able' 'miser'. I think that's the root of most misery, truly: an inability to be generous with one's heart/soul/consciousness.
They try. They do try, at times, to see the brighter side of things... mostly, all they manage is a vaguely philosophical shrug, before returning to the idea that they're better off alone, as a tiny, insular, antisocial little unit.
I will not be kept in their cage anymore. If they are happy living without friends, without interests, without the sparks of creativity and inquisitiveness and wonder that fire my imagination, then I'll just have to leave them to it. And even if they're NOT happy, the time has come for me to bid my farewells.
There are so many more things in this great wide world, than a feeling of dissatisfaction, and persecution, and general ill-wishing. I am going to find something else, something better, and I am going to spend every day of the rest of my life LIVING. I am through with the regrets that plague those around me--I will make a new life for myself, and by God, I will make it the best life it can be.
And I will learn (for I, too, was not fortunate enough to be born one of those perpetually cheerful souls) I will *learn* to be happy. To drink in each taste of life as it comes, and make the most of it. I will learn to savour the taste of all my experiences, taking the bitter with the sweet, yet not becoming bitter myself; and I will somehow, through some means, make something of myself.
I am hopeful. I am wide-eyed with wonder, at this new world before me. I can smell freedom, and it is the sweetest scent ever to tease my senses. The air itself feels like he gentlest touch of sunshine on my skin, and far, far away inside myself, I am... I am...
For the first time I can remember, I am, more than not... content.
An update, to any and all who read this--THE DAY after I published my last post, my husband left abruptly, taking his computer, some videos, clothes, and a few books, and leaving me pretty much everything else. As a... gesture of goodwill?... he's replaced the PC, and I'm grateful for that. Even more, though, I'm grateful that he's gone.
You cannot imagine what it was like, living with arguably the most depressed man in England. He'd been treating it, with some effectiveness, through the magic of modern medicine, but the results were inconsistent, to say the least. And while I *know* that in these last few months, I've been responsible for some of his stress and/or suffering, I *also* know that our problems started years ago.
Like, the first time he lied to me. Which will have been about a week after we started talking... I've no idea how I got into a marriage like this, where the other party's greatest fault is chronic, habitual, unavoidable dishonesty. I detest liars, and everything to do with lying (mendacity... can't abide mendacity). But I digress. Lying is easily the root of the problems here, but in the end, there was a lot more to it than that.
Some people are just incapable of happiness, and it tends to run in families. I look at my husband, at his parents, his brother, and I see that sometimes, there are those who simply have no interest in the day-to-day business of just BEING happy. It's like they have no taste for it, they prefer to rage and scream and rue the day they ever did this/did that/were born. Miserable. Miserable, miserable people, who believe the worst before the best, and protect their own interests at the cost of everything else, and know nothing of forgiveness and openness and charity and generosity.
Isn't it funny how the word 'miserable' breaks down into 'able' 'miser'. I think that's the root of most misery, truly: an inability to be generous with one's heart/soul/consciousness.
They try. They do try, at times, to see the brighter side of things... mostly, all they manage is a vaguely philosophical shrug, before returning to the idea that they're better off alone, as a tiny, insular, antisocial little unit.
I will not be kept in their cage anymore. If they are happy living without friends, without interests, without the sparks of creativity and inquisitiveness and wonder that fire my imagination, then I'll just have to leave them to it. And even if they're NOT happy, the time has come for me to bid my farewells.
There are so many more things in this great wide world, than a feeling of dissatisfaction, and persecution, and general ill-wishing. I am going to find something else, something better, and I am going to spend every day of the rest of my life LIVING. I am through with the regrets that plague those around me--I will make a new life for myself, and by God, I will make it the best life it can be.
And I will learn (for I, too, was not fortunate enough to be born one of those perpetually cheerful souls) I will *learn* to be happy. To drink in each taste of life as it comes, and make the most of it. I will learn to savour the taste of all my experiences, taking the bitter with the sweet, yet not becoming bitter myself; and I will somehow, through some means, make something of myself.
I am hopeful. I am wide-eyed with wonder, at this new world before me. I can smell freedom, and it is the sweetest scent ever to tease my senses. The air itself feels like he gentlest touch of sunshine on my skin, and far, far away inside myself, I am... I am...
For the first time I can remember, I am, more than not... content.
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