Thursday, January 24, 2008

Loss


I have spent a lot of time lately not allowing myself to feel too deeply about anything. Especially the fact that my marriage failed. Because when I feel it soul deep, the message I receive back isn't yet a healing message. The inner me feels lost, she is still telling me...I am the one who failed.

If only...if only...if only...

If only I had done things differently, if only I had been different. It goes on and on sometimes.

I remember when my sister's first marriage ended. As I sat with her trying to soothe her, listening to her sobbing, feeling so helpless, knowing she felt so lost, and unable to do more than hold her, at one point she began to repeat over and over how she had failed. Failed at marriage, failed at keeping the relationship with the love of her life together. My response to her was, "You haven't failed, it wasn't just you, it was the both of you, it was the circumstances you found yourselves in, it was a long history of inner angst inside both of you, it was his alcoholism." She didn't listen to me then. Just as I can't seem to now when someone tells me I wasn't alone, I wasn't the only one who failed.

What she finds the hardest thing of all to reconcile herself to, is she will never find what she and her first husband had in their first ten years together. They were a team, they meshed, they wanted the same things out of life. Most amazing of all, there was a palpable connection between them from the very beginning. Even when they fought it, the connection was there, even now it is still there. Today, they fight it even harder, they can only allow their anger to lead them in their contacts with each other. As alcohol and drugs took over, all but that ended as well. Their mutual dreams ended. Even their dreams for their daughter ended in many ways. Three lives FUBAR. Same story as so many others, only the details are different.


I was told today that I am grieving, that I will continue to grieve, there are years of grieving ahead of me. I was told I must live through all of the stages of grief. Fully dive into them, allow them to overwhelm me, to ride the grief out until I am wrung dry. Only then will I feel the healing power of real tears. The healing power of saying that final goodbye.

I am not ready yet.

I am two women.

I am the rational woman who knows there were many reasons her marriage became a magnifying glass that enlarged only our faults. A woman who knows it takes two to make or break a marriage. A woman who knows she made the only decision that could be made. A woman who would have only sunk deeper and deeper into depression, failure, guilt, and fear if she had not made the only choice she had left for the salvation of herself.

But, I am also the irrational woman who doesn't want to face her failure, the years and years of failures and fears. Who feels guilt filling her very marrow. Who is unable to open up completely to the pain of ending the one thing that was supposed to last forever.

It took me so many years to admit we would not grow old together, it was a hope that lasted longer than it should have. A hope that we would both eventually reach a truce between our two personalities, a hope we could create a cease fire zone, to find a mutually acceptable peaceful loving coexistence. A hope that we would find within each other the person we thought we once loved. Alas, it didn't happen, won't happen, could never happen.

So I keep reminding myself, I don't feel lonely anymore. I don't feel the deep abiding loss I felt for so many years. Maybe I am grieving, but it is not a new grief, it has been with me for over ten years. I believe I have already been through some of the stages, I think most of the denial is gone, the anger and resentment, but there is so much more I have to feel first before I can truly feel whole again.

For a time long ago he was my best friend, for an even longer time he was my ICE. I still miss that.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe your divorce isn't a failure. Maybe it's just a thing. Why does it have to be good or bad? Why can't it just be?

Sunny Delight said...

I hope someday it will "just be" something that happened.

But for now it is more, much more.

This was a relationship that involved almost two thirds of my life...there was pain being in it, pain leaving it, pain saying goodbye. As I begin to heal the pain does lessen. Today it is a lot less painful dealing with it than it was on this date one year ago.

But,(as several dear friends have pointed out to me), I have been conditioned to accept the blame, to be the one at fault. That lesson may be harder to unlearn than any other.

It is difficult some days, for no apparent reason I become very sad. Yet, there is still a part of me that is happier than I have been for years. 'Tis a confusing time for me.

X. Dell said...

Seems like it would take two people to make a marriage "fail."

As a single man, who sometimes wishes he could have found someone to wed, perhaps I'm being a bit insensitive in not seeing a failed marriage, but one that endured for however many years it did, probably more than it might have without a good deal of effort and dedication.

Then again, I've envied the married for awhile, now. So don't mind me.

Still, I hope the rational woman can mount a rally--just for little while at least.

S'mee said...

Have emailed.
You're far too hard on yourself. X.dell got it right. It takes two. Now choose a brighter 'signature', you're not a black and white person.
IanS X.

Fiona said...

Sunny, you're still in transition. It will take time, but as others have said, don't be so hard on yourself. I know I haven't been divorced after so long a time, I haven't had children uprooted by divorce, but I can see that good is able to come from these situations. Good will come from yours, just stay committed to yourself and your journey and let the sadness fall upon you when it does. But then shake it off and be glad you have your own life ahead of you hon.

Big hugs

Sunny Delight said...

x.dell,
My rational side does know it took two of us. In fact when I am allowing the self-righteous side of myself to have more control...I give him more of the blame...after all I am such a sweet giving person ~grinning~

s'mee,
You're right, I KNOW this, but I am so good at blaming myself...

I have a deal for you, if you don't think the black and white suits me...do me a favor please, go to the following website and pick out a new signature icon for me...and I will use it. Then email me the link.
http://www.thepinupfiles.com/AKGallery.html

I will tell you I have a preference for "classics".


fiona,
I am trying, really, there are many days in which I smile quite broadly when I think of the future...whatever it may hold.

S'mee said...

I know the site very well. I will give it a lot of thought. Promise