Still on the journey 2

[princess_nic]

AK -

By simply letting go you prepare yourself for that eventuality; a life without your H. Try to find happiness alone and you will never fear being alone. Sure it would be great if your H jumped on the boat with you, but as I warned 1.5 years ago, this could take a long time. Call this negative if you will but I prefer to call it being realistic.

Thanks for clarifying. You are right, and that is what I am working on. This is taking way longer than I thought it would, but I am doing my best to just move ahead in my life. Some times are worse than others--and this holiday season has been harder than I expected--but mostly I'm doing well.

I would like to have a long-term R and eventually get married. I am no hurry and I will not settle for less this time as I did in the past.

I feel the same way. I'm actually glad all this happened in a way b/c my M was so much less than it could/should have been. Hopefully, we will reconcile, and WHEN we do(!), we will have a much better M because I won't accept less.

Happy NY to you too!

ISLH ~

I want to wish you all the best for your baptism today. This is an exciting time for you and know that your hope and faith will be renewed and stronger than ever. This is a great way to end what has been a difficult year and an even better way to begin the new year.

Thank you! It went really well. I will post more below.

You are truly an inspiration and an amazing person, don't ever doubt that.

This really means a lot to me; thank you for saying that.

My baptism
What an amazing experience! I had to write a little 3-minute speech, which I was pretty nervous about, but I came up with something. A lot of people complimented me afterwards, saying that I spoke very well, and they liked what I said. I guess doing public speaking every day at work helps!

There were 12 of us getting baptised, and I knew 3 others. Some people's little talks went on for more like 10 minutes, so the service took a lot longer an intended! But they were all so interesting to listen to.

After I gave my speech, I got into the big tub, and my pastor said a prayer for me about how I've been through difficult times, and asking God to keep working on me and helping me. Then he baptised me, and when I came up, I was just filled with so much emotion and happiness. It was wonderful! I'm so glad I did it. I'm also so very happy that I found this church; they are just a wonderful group of friends now.

H, of course, wasn't there, although he asked how it went. I don't know if he really knew how important a day it was for me. Even if he did, I think he would have felt too guilty to be there. He just cannot set foot in a church anymore (not that he was a big church-goer before). My parents and my brother came, though, and my children were there.

Some of the testimonies were incredibly sad. A lot of drugs, alcoholism, depression. Here is one I thought a lot of us could relate to:

A man talked about how he was very unhappy in his life and ended up having an A. He left his wife, son and infant daughter (he choked up with he said this), and went to live with ow. Typical of MLC [my words], he chose someone who made him very unhappy. He said it was a toxic R and he just felt worse and worse, but stayed with her for SIX YEARS! Finally, just this past spring, he prayed to God to show him what to do about this R, and he said God really does answer prayers and has a sense of humour: a week later, he found out she was cheating on him! He did what he could to salvage the R, but it wasn't going to happen, so they split up at the end of the summer.

He said that since then, he's been coming to church and getting closer to God. He's so sorry for all the things he's done, and he's trying to rebuild his life in a better, healthier way.

He said that his family never stopped praying for him--his mother (sitting behind us), brothers, sisters-in-law--and he finally came to God.

The really sad part is that it took the guy 6 years to realize that his R with ow was not the answer. He didn't say anything about XW, but she wasn't there. The kids were, though.

I'm certainly not advocating waiting 6 freakin' years!!! But still, here's a man who was just desperate, and extremely unhappy in his new R, even though it went on for so many years. I'm sure his XW had no idea how bad his life was.

What a story. I do hope that my H gets to that point someday. He is so unhappy, even when it seems like he's not. He just gets so irritated by the smallest things. And then the drinking. Anyway, there's still hope!

Happy 2007 everyone!