I will have to comment here on the posts going on in Frank's thread. That is some deeply profound stuff. I hope someday I can stop wallowing on the surface of things and explore those levels of living life.
In reading the first of my two current books, Reinventing Yourself, the author presented the concept of being aware of one's life journey. In relation to what I just said about Kaly, Frank and others' posts, I think that is what separates the few from the many here, and everywhere in life. I admit that I have only recently become aware that there even was a journey, let alone that my active participation in it was important. I have been cruising through life, content with my family, career, spirituality, possessions, etc., never once taking stock and actively making a difference in what I was doing or where I was going. My W picked up on this long ago. Even though she has not been in the workplace since we were married, and was a "professional student" for much of the early part of our R, she understands what it means to be ambitious. Her family exudes ambition and energy for life. Sadly, I did not. Actually, she does not either, but I think it is her inherent understanding of what it means to be "alive" that she gets from her father especially, that at the same time challenges her and depresses her. I feel for her because I am finally getting to the point where I see the "light" and yet I am still in a victim's mentality of feeling I cannot reach it. With all that is going on that is negative in my life right now, I keep getting stuck (see: last several posts) in the seemingly overwhelming emotions and power that I GIVE THEM. There are times, actually many last night, when I would cry. I would know I didn't need to but something inside me just decided I should cry. It was totally unlike the crying I did the other day when I felt somewhat detached from my W and the sitch. This was self pity. It was deep, sobbing crying that came on in the face of things looking "ok" for once. Do my tears now come from fear? Am I afraid of what it means that my W and I get along better now than we have in years? Am I afraid of failure? I keep having this feeling in my gut that is really the worst feeling I have ever had and I don't even know what it is. IS IT FEAR? This journey to personal strength and happiness is something so new to me, and so full of hidden pitfalls that it's all I can do to stay focused on it. It would be so easy for me to just give in to this feeling in my stomach, or the feelings of loss, failure, anger, resentment, hopelessness and self pity. It is SO much harder to stand by the most powerful feeling I still have. Love. I see love in my boys. I see love in my W. I love so much and I want that love to be what carries me to wherever I need to get to next in my journey. I don't want anything to derail me. I want to embrace my love and truly let it be unconditional. As Kaly said (or my interpretation of it anyway), I feel strongly that in developing my self worth and making the conscious decision to love in the face of nothing in return, I need to begin to evaluate how much I am willing to endure for the sake of my M. Right now, I feel so tired. I am tired, but I still feel that my love is strong and more importantly, I am becoming stronger. What I am realizing is that by starting on my journey of self-discovery at the same time as trying to resurrect my marriage, I will most likely end up strong enough to do what I need to do, just at the time when I need to do it.
My W talked a lot of being trapped when she broke my heart a month ago. I know the feeling. I now also know what it feels like to be free from that. My time with my boys last night was SO fun and made me feel SO good. When she left to go to the OM, I barely even noticed. We took time out to give her hugs goodbye and that was that. I didn't stalk her while she was getting ready. I didn't initiate a hug. I didn't follow her out to her car to "get something out of the garage." I didn't stand upstairs, or in the front room to watch her car fade into the distance. Instead, I held my love for her in my heart and danced with my boys, played with them in the yard, made a great dinner of hotdogs on toothpicks, chips and coke, watched the Super Bowl, and really until the house was quiet, didn't give my W a second thought. I didn't light the candle... Oh, and through all that, she called 3 times just to make sure things were ok...funny how that works...
