Thanks for making me think more. Or for sticking the stick in the hornet's nest. I spent most of the time in the background of conversations mostly because everyone we were around had common history with W. We live in her community, these people are her friends. All connections to these people were through her. My family is broken and spread out. I never spent much time around extended family while growing up. When we married, we moved into her community, because I wanted to. I didn't have many ties to the community where I lived, because there was no family there and my parents had D when I was 21.
I think I have failed to make connections with lots of these people in our community because they were all her friends first. Then I went to work in a different community 10 years ago. I have a large group of friends and supporters in that community. These 2 worlds do not mix however. We have lived in 2 separate worlds. W did not make strides to integrate into my community that I work in, because we don't live there, the kids go to school in her community, etc.
I described myself to W way back in April (long before BD) as Alone. My father died of cancer in 2007, my mother lives 1.5 hours away from us, I work 35 minutes away from home, I have no family within 30 minutes of us, and there has never been a real connection with my working community and my home community. I felt like W had this great network of friends and family that she enjoyed, while my network of coworkers and true friends were only Monday-Friday people.
I had resented W for not making an effort to try to go to social functions with my friends. This was one of the things that came up on BD and has been thrown back up at me since. There has been a real disconnect between our worlds.
Sour and unfriendly? All of the above. Plus stresses of job, running kids around, keeping schedules, maintaining a household, paying bills when money is tight, etc.
We had a serious of unfortunate events that really put this all in motion. Started with our home being broken into last October. At one point, we joked about what we could have done wrong to deserve it all. We both had car accidents, her grandmother passed away, one of my close friends died at age 37 of cancer, son broke his arm when one of W's friends kids pushed him down. I could go on, but lots of stressful events over a year's time led both of us to being very unhappy.
Sour angry disposition resulted from me letting all those things dictate to me and disrupt my life. I let these things define my mood and my own well being. Today, I think that I would understand better that my attitude and outlook don't waver from one event to the next. No singular event or moment in time will change who I am.
Quote:
How will you know when he is gone for good ???
The test of time ???
I think that I will continue to grow. Throughout this process, I find myself learning more and more each day. It's not like Zen Buddhism. There is no flash and shining moment where one reaches enlightenment. It is the process of maintenance every day. You can go pull the roots of the dandelions up and that will suffice for this season, but you will still have to put out pre emergent weed control before the next season because the seeds are there and will continue to be deposited there by outside sources.
If we as human beings aren't trying to be better than we were yesterday, we aren't living. That means forgiving people for actions that hurt us, helping others grow around us, walking the walk daily.
Our journey as the LBS is similar to the MLCer. We must go back and close the doors on all those things that have created our own personality deficiencies. The BD has awakened us to who we are and who we need to become.
I won't know if I have succeeded in putting away that man until I am gone from this earth. One can never put their own personal growth on cruise control.
Both 40 T-22 M-18 S13 S11
Bomb, ILYBINILWY-7/10/13 EA #1-confirmed 7/10/13, ongoing since 5/13 EA #2-9/13/13
