Made It Out Alive, But I Think I Lost It
Said that I was fine, said it from the coffin
Well, it has been a while since I posted. I promised myself when I started this blogging adventure that I would not have any gaps like that, but here we are.
Life has been good. Dare I say, it has been very good.
Life Updates:
The girls, Nate, and I have moved. We are in the Bluff and in a beautiful house that is in a great neighborhood. We all love it, including KitKat and Izzy.
Izzy my little voidling has grown and continues his shenanigans around our home. Right now his primary focus is the Christmas tree LOL
We moved a couple of weeks before Halloween, so I was finally able to buy a couple of yard inflatables, which is something I have always wanted to do. And now that we are in the Christmas season, I have gone crazy decorating our front yard for it. It’s not too bad, just some inflatables, shrub lights, and a projector light.
On the school front, I aced my ethics class in summer II. Now, I am currently taking my first accounting class and my last elective (which is music). Music is going well, I just need to complete 3 more modules. Accounting, on the other hand, is KICKING MY ASS. I dislike accounting very much and I still have one more to take for this degree plan. Which, I am grateful it only requires two accounting courses and not more, because let me tell you….accounting is not my jam.
On the work front, I have moved up and moved away from the Music department. I am now the head admin for the Kinesiology department. It was difficult to make the move away from a group of faculty and students that I had become comfortable and familiar with, but for my career track it is a move that made sense. Plus, not many of this caliber of admin positions become available, so I had to take the leap. It hasn’t been a month yet, but I have to say that I am settling in nicely. I am on the opposite side of campus and I have a window!
So, you might be reading the updates and thinking “Everything sounds like it’s good. What gives with the title?”
This will piss off some people, but, although I have been doing well with my healing and I am so unbelievably lucky to have Nate, sometimes thoughts will creep in and begin to fester and I don’t do festering. I don’t do holding on to things. This blog is my space for that.
With that said, it’s time to jump in.
The one major thing that I was able to overcome quickly with regard to my relationship with Nate is lack of trust. I don’t have that issue with him because from day one he has never done or said anything that could or would call his commitment into question. I guess it helped that I was already seeing my therapist and was able to separate Karl and Nate very early on. I could not have a healthy relationship if I carried all the insecurity and distrust with me. But, like I said, sometimes the memories come back and they, quite frankly, piss me off. They piss me off because I put up with so much unhealthy behavior for so long. I should not have. I should have had the strength to leave, but I didn’t and that is ok. The important thing is that I am where I am now and, while it’s been a journey, it’s been a good one. I don’t want to lose sight of that in this post. I want to make it clear that this is for me to express my anger.
I spent all 11 years of my marriage to Karl as an unbelievably insecure person. I was told many times that it was all in my head, there was nothing to worry about. But, if we start from the very beginning of our relationship, the element of betrayal was always there. After a month of dating, he unexpectedly called it quits with me to take advantage of an opportunity with an ex-girlfriend. While I was pregnant with Sophia, about halfway through my pregnancy, I found messages exchanged between him and the same ex-girlfriend, that included times they met up with each other during work on his lunch breaks. He didn’t really say anything besides sorry and expected me to trust his word. Ok, I let that go and tried to move on. But I was always suspicious of his general phone activity. He would often lie about quitting smoking. I would find cigarettes tucked away in the vehicle or smell it on him. He had no issue lying about small things, so I knew he would be comfortable with lying about bigger things, but never had solid proof. Whenever I would bring up “his sancha” he would always get defensive and say that he barely has time for work and home, there was NO WAY he would have time for that.
———- He would never say “I would never do that to you.”
Any time there was an infraction of trust he never believed he had to repair things or earn that broken trust back. He always expected forgiveness and a blind trust simply because he was my husband and I loved him.
During our marriage he left twice - once in 2016 and again in 2018. Both times I was made to be the problem. Yes, I have flaws. No, I do not believe that I am perfect - neither is he. However, he would never take accountability for his part and it was always me taking the blame and doing everything he needed me to do and say in order to keep my marriage and family together. I never felt truly secure and that is no way to live. Who I was changed to the core during those years and that is the scary part. I have been working very hard to retrieve my identity, which, to be completely honest, I really don’t know what it is anymore.
I’ve been rediscovering things I enjoy. I’ve been tackling obstacles and projects. I have done some things I have never done before: I cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving and fixed our kitchen disposal. Things that may seem trivial, but they are a big deal to me. I have been juggling the kids, work, and school. I’ve been acing my classes and moving my way to better and better opportunities with my job. And among the list of things I have learned about myself over this last year and three months is the fact that I have the strength, now, to overcome hurdles. I am capable. I am not fragile.
Sadness is easier because it’s surrender. I say make time to dance alone with one hand waving free. - Claire Colburn, Elizabethtown (2005)
