There are hard learned lessons in life. One of my biggest personality flaws is dwelling on the things I can not change about other people. I am in the middle of a separation from my husband and one of the hardest pills to swallow in this whole mess is that I can’t make him do the right thing where his kids are concerned. Oh, he makes the big gestures, but what I can’t get him to comprehend is that it’s the little things the kids look forward to. Those phone calls or video chats with him where they can feel connected and tell him about their day make them happier than the presents he brings when he sees them once every month or two.
I get fed up and think, I shouldn’t have to remind him to talk to his children. I should not, but I have come to accept that I have to do so in order to make my children happy. I am slowly learning to let the rest of it go. There are reasons my husband and I separated to begin with. Those reasons didn’t go away in the 5-6 months since we parted.
What has changed over those few months is me. I have changed on the inside. I have grown as a person. I have decided that there are things in my life that I refuse to allow to happen anymore. There is a life out there where I can be happy, where my children can feel comfortable, loved, and secure. That is what I am looking for. Part of my journey there was dwelling a little deeper inside and working out some of my own flaws and issues. I understand now that I can’t make people feel my emotions. I can’t make them respond the way I think they should. I certainly can’t change someone else when it took me so long to work on the parts of me that were less than stellar.
I feel like I have gone through the stages of grieving for a life that was making me absolutely miserable and now I am in that Zen place where I can see things so clearly that it almost hurts to look back. I spent months compiling a blog of my 2010 year. The worst year of my life to date. In doing so, I was forced to see the worst in myself and those who were around me. In examining the worst of my life, I have come out the other end with a new found appreciation for what I am willing to bend on. I’ve debated long and hard about posting the blogs as a series online, because I think there are things in them that will be helpful to other people out there. My 2010 year had me dealing with special needs kids, mental illnesses, deaths, a cancer scare, pregnancy, and the collapse of my family. It wasn’t pretty by any means, and I know hearing it from someone who lived it can help. At the same time, these things are so personal, so painful, that I am not sure I can bare my soul like that... yet.
What I am sure of is that we go through these things for a reason, and how we come out on the other end of them is entirely up to us. It is my life and I have taken it back.
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