Back in the day

My phone shows me photographs I took from years ago. I was the family photographer, so pictures show up on my phone of my kids and ex all the time. I haven't bothered to delete the pictures of my ex yet, I don't have the energy to do that. He, on the other hand, only has a handful of pictures of me on his phone to delete. I bet he has move pictures of his new girlfriend on his phone than he has of me and the kids put together. And I am not kidding. I never saw his phone roll, but I rarely saw him take pictures of his former family. I, on the other hand, have thousands of photos.

When I look at the pictures from years ago, I see a woman who never thought her marriage would end, who didn't see what was coming. I look at my innocent self, not knowing the future, or what it would hold. Not that I wished that I could see my future, now or then. Back then, I was waiting for things to get better, to resolve, but they never did.

I look back at those pictures, and I see a woman who had no idea what she was doing, but she was doing the best she could at the time, even though her best wasn't that great. I wish that at the time I could have let go and enjoyed what I had instead of making everything a struggle. I wished that I believed everything was okay as it was. I wish I had enjoyed what I had. I wish I had better acceptance. I wish I would have acted with less reactivity and more kindness. I wish I would have listened more.

Would any of that have saved my marriage? I don't know, but I'd certainly feel better about myself and the way I acted.

As you all know, my ex very rapidly moved on, and within a few months after I asked for a divorce he found a girlfriend and has been in a relationship with her for more than two years. They both are successful professionals, run marathons and travel the world together. Many therapists have told me not to compare someone's outsides to my insides. Nevertheless, I am sure he treats her with more kindness and patience than he did me. I bet he doesn't flip his lid if her paddle board loses a screw like he did with me, blaming me for not attaching the screw that locks the fin in place properly. The fin didn't fall off, but the screw got lost in the seaweed at Green Lake. 

The fact that he was rapidly able to dive into a new relationship while I am languishing makes me wonder if I was root cause of the failure of the marriage. Maybe I was a nagging shrew. Maybe I was unkind and unloving and angry. Maybe he lost his shit about a paddle board screw because he didn't feel loved. Maybe there was a way I could have been kinder, more loving and patient, without being a doormat. Maybe I could have as Richard Rohr says, "offer the wicked no resistance," meaning don't get defensive or reactive when confronted with things that are upsetting.

Here I am, pounded by holiday weekends, one after the other--Easter, my birthday, Mother's Day, Memorial Day--that I am spending alone. I have friends to hang out with the rest of the year, but the holidays are a special form of hell, and my mind wanders to miserable places. But this is okay. I need to feel all of my sorrow in order to heal, so I can show up better in the future.