When you can't sleep.

Awakened.

It was 1am. What to think about? Going back to sleep.

Ahhhh, but there is so much to do, so much to process, and so much to consider. 

I wonder how many people it has happened to - You wake up from a very clear dream and just know the answers. Your life is suddenly so clearly available to you. 

Most of all I try and focus on what a lovely time I had talking on the phone with a friend half the night...

But...

Also, I'm remember the night before last I had awakened at 4am I knew my marriage had ended, it had been over for much longer than either of us were willing to admit to ourselves let alone to each other. I think for the past 3 years. It is sad, but only because any marriage that ends is sad.

New facts came to light under this new found confidence of knowledge from my dream. One of which is positive. I should trust my instincts, and I have a sound mind.

So I have new beginnings to look forward to. These will be scary, but also so very exciting. Life is an adventure, and if you can fill your thoughts with positive thoughts you just never know where they will lead you.

I am already grateful, though it's a bit wobbly from time to time, for the learning that will come from this experience. I wonder how many people are out in the world right now feeling what I am feeling, wondering at what I wonder at... Many would tell me I think too much, but I believe I seek to understand. From understanding, knowledge and wisdom grow. I sooooo do not want to get to the need of my life and find that I have gained little knowledge and wisdom. They are two different things...

Short-term there is just so much I want to get done, and there seems only the shortest amount of time to get it done, as I am also processing complex emotions. Loving my kids, and protecting them, helping them in what ever way I can to heal, though it would appear that the best way to help them would be to help myself become strong again. All the while battling, fear, mistrust, anxiety, and the greatest of these self-doubt, but also, there is much relief, relaxation, comfort, joy and love of good friends. I have even laughed throughout it all with my best friends. Oh how wonderful it is to know support. I have not had it before quite like this, and it feels so uplifting. Here's to not knowing... Scary and exciting all at the same time, but I truly believe the best is yet to come. xo

Silence

The pain of an uncomfortable silence, and the bliss of a comfortable one.

The discomfort came from disconnect. It was deliberate and the rejection was enormous. It was overwhelming, and troubling. 

Simon and Garfunkel sing:

"fools, said I, you do not know, 

Silence like a cancer grows"

And 

A Great Big World sin:

"Say Something"

Say something, I'm giving up on you

I'll be the one if you want me to

Anywhere I would've followed you

Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I... am feeling so small

It was over my head

I know nothing at all

And I... will stumble and fall

I'm still learning to love

Just starting to crawl

Say something, I'm giving up on you

I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you

Anywhere I would've followed you

Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I... will swallow my pride

You're the one that I love

And I'm saying goodbye

Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you

And anywhere I would've followed you (Oh-Ooh)

Say something, I'm giving up on you

Say something, I'm giving up on you

Say something..." 

Rejection

In life, we travel this road.

Sometimes, we are so lucky to find friends and someone special that will travel it with us, and sometimes they are the love of our lives.

That love can be permanent in you, but can change for the other person, and when this happens one of two things usually happens. They leave you, or they treat you with rejection.

Rejection hurts, it hurts eveyone that has ever felt it. It is the basis of school yard hardship, it is the basis of teenage angst, and it is why some young men find it too hard to cope when a pretty girl says to a boy that he is not the one for her , right now, AND it is the basis for all separation and divorces.

That ache inside your heart that says "why don't they love me anymore?" "what is wrong with me?" And "how did this all go so WRONG?" There's are many many reasons why it went wrong, but ultimately rejection is at the core of the feelings. And it is excruciating to face.

Any mother who has held their child who is sobbing from the name calling they took at school will tell you how cruel rejection is, and look into her child's eyes and you will know how it feels.

It's a dull ache, that just doesn't pass away easily. When it's rejection from a marriage, it's insidious, cruel, malignant, and relentless. 

For those that are going through it, you know, that it is behind every distracted conversation you have, trying oh so hard to find a happy topic to find a brief moment of respite, you know it is a ruse. It is raw and it steals your smile. You look know that your whole world is upside down, and the places, and ways, that used to make you happy are not open to you anymore, and you have to find new ways, new places and new people to create your happiness again. It is so hard, and it hurts so much. 

You want to cry out "I am sorry" and you do, when you're alone. "I am so very sorry, for what I did and didn't do. I have lost my way and I cannot find my way back..

Rejection is insidious. It permeates every part of your day. It makes you feel lonely within a relationship, if you stay... How can one be rejected but also in a relationship? Ask any domestic violence victim. They felt the cold hard sting of emotional and or physical rejection, yet they stayed. They loved, they forgave, they did everything they could and somehow kept trying to do more. They know rejection. It is so incredibly difficult to have your significant other walk in at the end of the day and grunt at you by way of hello, or worse, to feel their bad mood as they open the door permeate throughout the house. You just KNOW, tonight is NOT going to be a good one. No matter how nice the dinner you made is, no matter how clean the house is or how well behaved the kids are... You KNOW tonight is not going to go well. You KNOW that the past few months/weeks/days of respite is coming to an end, and you will do ANYthing to stop that from happening... All the while KNOWing that you cannot possibly be perfect enough.

It doesn't matter, they HATE themselves, they hate everything they are, and you are "just" part of them, and extension of them. So they get to hate you too. They don't ask about your day, they just don't care. So caught up in their own hatred for themselves and their own life they are seeking to reject something in a tangible ay. So they reject YOU. They do it in so many ways, they are cold and don't talk, they might take themselves away from the dinner table and sit away from the family, or you might sleep in until 8am on a Sunday morning or because every Sunday for the past 3 weeks dinner has been a left overs night. Heaven for bid that they do one thing, just one thing that they don't want to. 

Yes, you learn to do anything it takes to stop them from getting upset. It is toxic. You are so afraid that they will reject you - you forget that you can reject them. You forget what it is like to feel free to do what you want to do. You forget how love is supposed feel supported, nurtured, and care FOR. You also forget that they need you, because you are their release of self-rejection. Then one day, they say or do something usually something big, something obvious that makes you wake up from your nightmare and you run. 

 You turn up on someone's doorstep and you are an emotional mess. In today's day and age, you are required to make the split as friendly as possible "for the kids" or to "keep the peace". What a cruel twist it is that you now HAVE to be nice, when before you didn't have to, but you were nice anyway...

Love vs Fear… random thoughts

Some days are diamonds, and some days are stone, is that how the song goes?

Some days, some bad things happen, and it rocks your foundation and you wonder how that is so. Is it possible that the foundation you have is built on such shifting stuff that it is like sand? That one comment, or one reply is just too many to cope with and you just fly off the handle? It rocks your world and your protective garments of ego just unravel and shred, and you are left naked, exposed and vulnerable?

No weapon formed against me shall prosper. We are promised that - did you know??


Love covers our mistakes, while yet holding us responsible for the consequences of our choices... Love is humble, Love is enduring, Love is so strong, and Love is yeilding and Love is so bright. Love shines piercingly into the darkness and conquers it. Love connects us to each other. Love overcomes all hardships. Love is a powerful journey.

This too shall pass.

Ok, so it's been a few months, and each month I feel like I am taking 3 steps forward and 2 steps back, but that's progress isn't it? ... Yes, indeed it is.

As I get to know myself all over again.
As I learn there is so much good in me, and I don't have to get it right ALL of the time.

Not whispering "I might be wrong" in the dark of night to myself, fearing ridicule, from myself or any other who might hear it, but to bravely state it at the outset.

As I understand my intuition is rarely wrong, and my conscience is clear, based in love.

I grow and I learn, and I learn as I grow.

Things are slowly and gradually improving. So I will quietly whisper "yay" and express my gratitude to those of you who are sharing my journey. Thank you for your patience, thank you for your support, and thank you for taking the time to read this :-)

That's all I've got to say really (for now anyway).

The worst Day - 6 months on

That last post was 6 months and one half day ago. (Written on 03 July 2013)

My life got even worse after that, can you believe it? Not even 8 hours after I wrote that I was in my bathroom calling 000 for my own husband, and had to have the ambulance take him to hospital. His heart was fluttering, brought on by an anxiety attack... I had caught him in a deceit... One that rocked the very foundation of our marriage, and ultimately my own foundation.

This means that I cannot separate my grief. My grief for L passing away and my grief for my marriage. 

So I had to re-establish my by own foundation. How could I help my kids through this awful time? I had to be strong, but how do you be strong if you have NO foundation? None. I was stripped bare and broken, I was in pieces, crumbly fragile pieces...

I don't even know how or why I told people what was going on, but I did tell F and she said "only God can put this back together, we want this marriage to work, and we need divine intervention". She was right, she got me to read a book "The Power of a Praying Wife", and to pray the prayers contained within. Then news filtered through the grapevine and I get a private message on Facebook from another friend T. She tells me she's been there and done that too, here read this book "ACT with Love"... Acceptance commitment therapy. These two books changed the direction in which I was headed, changed my feelings and changed my ability to cope, and brought out my original me. Wow! That was no small feat! God truly was working a miracle in my life... Well not just one miracle really but lots of them.

See I am by nature a happy, bubbly sort of person. Always looking on the bright side of life, and finding the silver lining... There is always one there somewhere, but at my darkest moments I had lost the ability to find it. I had lost so much of what was me. I spent my life trying to rescue those close to me, yet forgot to rescue myself. I've got to remember to put on my own gas mask first, before helping those around me.

Today I think of L, of how her little family seems to be coping, or at least getting through her not being there. It's still not easy. There is not a day that passes that I don't think of her, or her kids. I got their ages wrong they were 16, 13, and 10 (I hope I've got that right now).  There have been milestones to get through, and I don't see them getting any easier. I'm watching quietly and waiting, just in the background, ready to help, or lend an ear. I hope they know that. I hope they know that just because I'm not in their face about it so much now, that I am still here, and I've got my act together now, so I really can be a support.

I think of how much has changed in my marriage, and how much hasn't and I wonder what the future holds. We had weeks, then months of yelling and talking and fighting, and yelling and talking at, to and with each other. Are we stronger together today? Well compared to the worst day, yes, are we strong like we used to be? I'm not sure yet, its all too soon, and yet its been an entire lifetime! Why is time like that? 

So today I have more questions than answers, but I'm less fearful, because I truly believe that there are small miracles being worked everywhere I look, just like the song that's playing here while I sit and type this in an airport... "Summer Paradise" Gymclass Heros.... How on earth do I remember this song? Well last year for my sons birthday party, 

A moment from the midst of the turmoil...

I feel like there is so much I want to tell you , but because I am stuck inside the drama I cannot get it out without sharing yet more personal information.

I am not sure if I am yet brave enough to just blurt it all out here... for the world to read, at anytime.

Today there is a scorching day outside and there are fires burning out of control in our state. Yet I cannot turn my mind to them.

I am up at times and down at others.

I know that if I give the negative too much attention, that is what I will bring into my life. If I concentrate on the positive then that is what I will bring into my life.

But how does one learn from ones mistakes, if not by investigating them, to see where things might have gone wrong.

So what do I want?

I want the past week to be rewound. I want to go back... and yet because I have faith that everything happens for the best, I have to look to the future, while just living for now. Pushing through the days as one pushes a bogged car whose engine won't start... digging the mud and putting down the wood to give it some grip.

There is a difficulty separating one crisis from another, and there is a long way to go yet.

Does it need to be a long time though? Or does it need to take a long time, to be sure of my decisions and feelings?

Of course, there isn't just me involved. I have to wait for the other party to work out their stuff too. Five years of habits can be hard to break.

Humans are by their very nature habitual, so am I hoping for too much?

The funeral is tomorrow, so maybe something will click into place then.