So, I realize its been a while and not much heard from me. Inside there has been chaos reigning, while on the outside I fight the battle of my life. Again, so much has changed in as little as a couple of months. If God were ever trying to underline the fact that nothing is permanent except change, He has certainly made his point with me.
Every day is a new day. Some days are better than others, but still one day at a time. Hell, sometimes its a moment by moment battle just to keep choosing to stay in the game. I had to seriously take a step back today and get a clearer perspective of my life and where its at....
So, I had this day-long regional Auxiliary meeting to attend yesterday. Somehow, some way, I was voted in as regional secretary almost 18 months ago. I am sure my efforts were well-meaning at the time, but my rollercoaster ride of a life during these months was ill-suited to serving a duty term in a volunteer group, no matter how good the intention. My heart and stomach clog my throat as I keep at it, hoping that I can stay on top of the requirements of the position long enough to finish my term without coming off as an incompetent placeholder. After all was said and done, I put together a pretty comprehensive set of simple tasks that will get both I and the organization where they need to be in the next two weeks to meet our next year's goals. It did feel good to be proactive and chase down what was needed, and to stick something out no matter the consequences. Its almost like I'm growing up, but not without the growing pains. Sometimes it smarts quick and deep then fades away, other times it is a dull and roaring ache that will not cease.
It is the same for advocating. I found during the meeting that Patient Advocates in the oncology program are sometimes called Nurse Navigators or Oncology Navigators. Interesting use of language. Navigating information and service channels to outfit patients with everything they need to go through a cancer experience, from testing and diagnosis to treatment and outpatient/inpatient continuum of care seems logical enough. I find that I care a great deal about those for whom I advocate. I've begun working with a lovely mother of four with muscular dystrophy who was recently served with a petition for divorce from her estranged husband. It feels really good to care and support her in gaining knowledge.
From May 12th...on to July:
I find that I am having a difficult time with this whole ex-husband coming back into my life thing. I went from hardly thinking of him at all, except fond memories of better times and the occasional dream/nightmare, to him coming back into almost every waking thought. It is not entirely unpleasant, but it is laced with a healthy dose of fear.
In the time since I learned why I divorced (around the 12th of May...after my last Census training in Missoula...and after spending two gloriously bittersweet nights with Todd...ugh...I am hopeless), it has been a stampede of emotions. What a huge fucking wake up call, to hear that the person you've loved more than life itself has abandoned you and the family for someone else. Even worse, someone who treated him like dirt the first time around by misrepresenting herself, then walked out on him and humiliated him by marrying another, while still claiming to love him deeply. To even share his company now is in violation of the vows she took with another...how can it be love? That isn't what you do when you love someone. Choosing to share your life with someone; walking through the trials by fire, and never letting go - no matter what comes....now that is true love. If you want to know what a tree of life bears, you have only to look at the fruit...
Learning about the affair, both while we were still outwardly happily married and living together, as well as after he moved out, but well before the divorce was forced upon me...well, it has been truly a test of the faith I have built in the months since his departure. The hardest part of finding it out was his deception and violation of my trust, but close on its heels was the pain I felt about his family's part in everything that happened. Excruciating. That family (I had loved so deeply I actually felt physical pain when things were tense between us) could openly deceive us all about the goings on with my own husband was beyond my comprehension. It was as if we were less than nothing...not worthy of consideration or loving kindness. We shared our lives with these people. It wasn't always easy, but we stayed honest and kept trying. Always trying. Although, admittedly with little positive result...but trying nonetheless.
The details of it all haunt me...the emails, phone calls, clandestine meetings, texts and pictures...the loving journal entries not directed at me...except mentions of how I was all wrong for him and she was all right...how I was the one in the way of their true love...which God had originally chosen and I was standing in the way of. Thoughts of them touching one another, sharing, being close and intimate in a way that was reserved exclusively for me through the vows we took. It is hard to put everything in its proper context to understand what is truly real in all this. It all haunts me...and may well for years to come. I have gaping wounds in my heart and soul...and the best I can hope for is minimal scarring.
Knowing now why it all happened the way it did does bring with it good. I can look at myself in the mirror, knowing that it was not some terminal flaw within me that pushed him out of our home; that it was something within him that was missing and out of place. I have learned it is okay to be a woman, but better yet, to fully embrace all that is feminine and make it mine. I love myself more than I did the day he left. I cry openly now, and laugh with abandon...feeling guilt over neither.
