And Another Brief Chapter Without Any Answers Blew By

I thought I was fine. I've been ready for this day for a long time. I sorted through the feelings, I did the work and the support group and the therapy preparing for this. I'm ready to have my father's name back. I cannot believe to this day that I gave it up. I can't wait to change that status on Facebook and change my name back. All of those people who also could not believe it. I never gave so much of who I am and I don't think anyone I ever gave a damn thing to ever saw it less. 

Funny how divorce and death feel the same. I never expected that. Grief is grief. What am I grieving, precisely? I'm not sure this time. His mother said to me that the night he proposed, he looked at me like people are supposed to look at Jesus. It was mutual. It was that way since a week in. I loved him so hard and so powerfully. You can't wear  that as armor no matter how much you want to. Love won't save you and you can't use it to save anyone else.

I thought this one would take. I guess I'm getting a brand new perspective on what that even means. So maybe that's part of what's happening. I feel like everywhere I look, there are the relics of that life that I once thought would be the last one. Yeah, I'm crying. I feel so stupid. That seems to be a pattern lately that I cannot say I enjoy.

I take comfort knowing that it's not. Life doesn't end with this. Even if some days I wish it did. My own sister doesn't remember what happens tomorrow. It feels like it doesn't matter to anyone but me. And I guess it really doesn't. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to feel about it. But I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't have any effect. Funny how I really could not stand company at this moment. I don't want the phone to ring tonight. That's probably a good sign that I should not be alone.

I went to the gym. I had a great workout. I went thinking to take it easy. I did not do that. And when it was over, I stripped off my t-shirt and took a selfie. I look all the things I can't feel today. Strong, confident, capable. I needed to see that in the mirror. Then my gym buddy told me not to  stop selling myself short. I needed that so fucking much too. I went to the grocery store and got all of my favorite things. Fresh pineapple and chicken tenders and grilled veggies and carrot cake. I haven't managed to eat any of it. I'd probably cry less if I ate. I know this about myself. Sometimes you need to cry a little. I have had a beer and a half. I'll stop after this one. I've had a good handle on it lately. Sometimes the wrong company can encourage bad habits. Sometimes in the depths of that self-destructive bent, that's what you want.

I keep reliving that scene in my mind. That shrug. "Okay." I had seen the end coming at me for a long time. But that was the moment when I finally accepted it. The moment of clarity that always comes to me in these times. When I hurt myself. When I break my own heart. When I keep letting it happen, though I know better. Living through the times that are just surviving. When I "vanish so she can go drowning in a dream again." It does feel that way: like I vanished. And the ugly part is that so did he. Or so he says. Anything I felt, he felt harder.  

I've refused to write about this. He hates the idea that I might write about it. But let me focus here on my feelings and less about all the ugly that led me here. I'm mostly relieved. Unfettered is the word I keep using. I've felt so heavy. So dragged down. And I'm not blaming a single soul for that. I do this shit to myself. Again and again and again. I wonder if there isn't something in me that chooses the worst possible people because I know that it will implode and that I'll never have to give myself over entirely. I'll never have to let go and trust completely. If I choose people who cannot do that, then I'm justified for not doing it too.

I'm going to be okay. Long ago, I dated this seminary student briefly. He was beautiful. These gold eyes and matching freckles across his beautiful, open, kind face. I have the worst soft spot for freckles on a man. Back in those days, I wore my own hair color and he called me "the girl with the sunshine hair." Imagine. I made him a vegetarian curry. He said the last time we saw each other "You're okay. You're always okay. It's part of your charm." I wonder where that beautiful soul is now. In a different life, I may have been a minister's wife. That was a decade ago. I'd have never made a minister's wife. I wouldn't have done that to his sweet self. But yes, the point was always okay. I'm always okay. And I've carried that with me for all these years. I wish I could thank him. Maybe buy him another cup of coffee and lay on the grass in Piedmont Park and tell each other about our lives. I'd like to do that with several of those good ones that I just was not ready for. Apologize. That one in the blue cashmere sweater with the French restaurant who wanted to love me so much. That one MMA metal singer. I'd like a second chance at that one.

Funny all these things that surface, huh? The memories repressed because they might hurt someone else. The ones that holding in hurt me. Hurt myself to not hurt someone else. That's kind of my modus operandi. I have to stop that. I think that's the lesson I have to hold onto tonight. That this is the best thing I can do for me. And that is what really matters here, whether it feels that way or not. I'm going to be okay. I'm going to make it to a beautiful future with sunshine in my hair. I'll see so many better things and I'll know them for what they are now. I'll do better and choose better. It's only up from here.