Okay... So I'm getting ready to move next week and I'm finding myself feeling a lot of different emotions that seem like they might have just been waiting there for me to find them. I've had a couple devastatingly sad days in a row - and am waking with this terrible pressure in my chest again...I know it has a lot to do with the many changes going on in my life - move, job, marriage, packing, unpacking, etc - but there's also something else to it that is really catching me by surprise - namely, that I still love B very much. I am not "in love" with her - but I am feeling a lot of sadness over the loss of her - and the symbolic meaning of my moving out of this house.
I hadn't missed her since she moved out - though there was sadness and pain - I didn't actually ever find myself missing her...these last couple days, however, this feeling of missing her has crept into me - and has caught me utterly by surprise...and I'm trying my best to understand it and process it.
I know that part of it is still the fear of losing my marriage -of this really being so final - and also the buried idea in my head that she couldn't possibly want to be the person she has allowed herself to become...the person she is now being...but that is not up to me - and so I have to set that thought aside. I know that there is nothing I can say or do to change her - and I'm very open and willing to lose her and move on with my life. I even know that I'll be fine no matter what happens - and that I will be okay in the end...I can just look back on my life and see evidence of that over and over...no matter how bad things have been, I've come out okay...and so...I'm just trying to make sense of why I have these sudden feelings of missing her...perhaps it's just that moving out really makes the death or relationship all that more real?
And I have to measure those feeling of missing her against the memories of how she was toward me and my S11...the person she was is not someone I could be with - and not someone I want around my S11...and yet my mind has this capacity to remember so many of the good things about her - the laughter, the playfulness, the compassion...and perhaps there is a part of me that wonders still if she does have the capacity to overcome her past - or the issues that have brought her to where she is - or if she's just going to stay this way (as her father chose to do). Perhaps she can't change...something she accused me of over and over - and right now, while I'm trying not to spend or waste any of my energy thinking about what needs to change in her - I can't help but think that...
Wait...something just occurred to me...this isn't about her at all...this is about me...and the change I am going through and what it means to me. I am about to go through a profound, painful change in my life - and my thoughts about her have nothing to do with what I have to do. My work is not done - clearly - since I have already started to falter a bit here in forgetting that I am in charge of my life and my happiness - not her - not anyone...Only I can complete me...and that's what I'm processing now...the parts of me that I gave over to her - that allowed my happiness to depend too much on her - and the FEAR that when I move from this home, when I accept this R/M as over, that those memories of happiness will take with them my happiness...but that is a false fear...since my happiness is not attached to my memories...rather, my happiness is in me and dependent on my willingness to accept my life and take action based on what has been presented to me as my journey.
I get it...I think...yes...I do love B...and that's okay...since the woman I fell in love with, the woman I married is still in her somewhere - but loving B does not in any way mean that I should allow myself to be stuck where B is stuck - nor that I should stop working on being whole by myself...I have a lot of change ahead of me - and it causes me some anxiety - but I have got to step up and face it head-on - and insist on seeing it for what it truly is - not for what my fears would have me believe it is...change is an opportunity for growth - and even the destruction of so much - as is happening now - is not about destruction - it's not about living in the rubble - it's about clearing away the rubble and building something better...I've been forgetting that...and I have to stop doing that now...I have to remember that this pain and sadness that I am feeling is normal - and healthy - and its part of how I am clearing away the stuff that has crumbled in my heart...since there was a lot of a shared life built on that shaky foundation.
Okay...My head is feeling clearer...it really is true that sometimes I just don't know what I'm thinking until I write it down...
