Wishing you courage

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying 'I will try again tomorrow'."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Thursday, February 9, 2012

I can see 40 from here!

Tomorrow is my birthday and I turn 37 years old.  I was 33 when Toren died and if you had told me back then that I would reach 37 without having a subsequent baby I would not have believed you because I was so focused on making that dream happen that there would be no way I could fail.

Well...

Reaching the milestone of 40 without children seems quite possible now.


.....


A friend brought this sticker back from New Orleans recently


It makes me smile.  But seriously, this is something I'm struggling with.  My ex-husband outdid himself recently with a new act of douchebaggery and I want him to burn.  I am so angry.  But I also have a vow to harm none (because who am I to determine what someone else deserves) so I'm wanting bad things for him without wishing bad things for him (which is probably against my vow since I question if there is a line between wanting and wishing), for example, I may want him to have a terrible case of gallstones but I have not asked the universe to please send him a very painful gallbladder attack.  Or more directly, I may want all of the windows in his car smashed but I haven't asked anyone to hand me a rock.  Yet.

So I've been trying to stop focusing on how much he deserves something horrible to happen to him and instead focus on wonderful things I want for myself.  And here's the problem - I can't imagine myself in a situation different from here.  This is hard to explain and I don't know if it's normal, or a good coping mechanism, or problematic dissociation, but I don't participate in life as "myself" much anymore.  I wanted to be someone else, someone who was good at their job, someone who was supportive of their friends, someone who got up on the right side of the bed, someone who loved.  With this in mind I began telling myself to just act like that created image, to just be "her".  Like this: I used to like yoga, she likes yoga, if I do yoga I have to do it as her.  I can't do yoga, or anything mindful (or practically anything at all), as a person who has some of my experiences.  Toren is absent from her past, so is my ex-husband.

Maybe it's a normal way of coping and I don't think I'm hurting anyone, in fact my relationships with friends have strengthened, and I'm doing well at my job.  And I feel happy most of the time.  And my memory is improving so on some level I think I am more present than I have been in a long time.  But I don't feel present as myself - I can see her being present.

Even after all this time I don't seem to have integrated Toren into a comfortable place.  I can't function after that experience.

.....

Anyway, after that public moment of insanity, what do you think of the sticker?  I'll stick it on the car tomorrow to bring a smile to any divorcees passing by :)



5 comments:

Reba said...

i adore the sticker!!!!
(i sent it to my ex :)

Alexicographer said...

The sticker made me laugh and I showed it to my DH and said, "I think that's funny and I don't even have an ex" (maybe you have to be here, but I am his 3rd wife so there are jokes made about exes as well as about my being #3), and he said, "...Yet." So there's that.

I think you are right, philosophically, but the sticker still made me laugh.

Beyond that, no words of wisdom, just a hug or a glass of wine, your choice (or both!).

Sophie said...

I love the sticker.

Happy birthday! A lot can happen in three years Anna. I am just gonna focus on that.

What did that douche do? GGgrr I am already hating on him...

xx

Catherine W said...

I also love the sticker. I'm sorry that your ex has proved himself capable of such douchebaggery.

I'm wishing many wonderful things for you but I think I've reached the same conclusion, the only way I can integrate this is to pretend it never happened. Which isn't really a solution? Or maybe it is, what would I know?

Belated happy returns xo

Anonymous said...

Hi Anna,

It's me, your old blogland buddy. I know I've been far removed from my blog but I have thought of you and Toren often. My life is running parallel to yours again - I'm dealing with an early mid-life crises as the damn biological clock ticks away and the window for a baby grows smaller. Hang in there friend. Hugs.