The Joys of Enlightening Epiphanies

Epiphanies abound these days. Epiphanies about my writing and what I am free to share and not. Epiphanies about my work and the role it plays in my life (spoiler alert: it does not define me). Epiphanies about money and what it provides and doesn't. How much I need. How I spend it or don't. I can now walk into a store and buy something - even a big something like a new computer - and not leave with the horror that the world as I know it may end or that the sky will fall, my bank account depleted. I can leave the Apple store and feel happy and excited about what this new purchase will provide me with - the opportunity to write stuff! I can walk into the street without crushing guilt, without feeling like I need to hide it in a closet or quickly save that money back. I am responsible when it comes to money and I can actually afford to have made this purchase. Joy!

Epiphanies about my children and how to build their confidence. My son Virgil walked home from school by himself on Friday, a mile and half through city streets. He made it easily, was beaming when he got here. I was a wreck. But he did it. And I fully understand - now - that they are not mine, that they are merely loaned to me for a time and I can only do the best I can to prepare them to leave me. Epiphanies about the nature of love and trust and kindness. And forgiveness. And the realities of my marriage and how to resolve them now that we are not together anymore. Therapy is a wonder.

In my last session, my therapist asked me why I believed all those years that I was married that my husband loved me. He said: you didn't have a lot of evidence of that. Why did you believe it? Gut punch. I clarified. I am focusing on the troubles, there were good times. We were in love. I love him still, in many ways. Admire and respect him. He is an amazing father. A wholly good human being with a giant intriguing brain. We had our great moments.

Yes, he said, tell me about those. I struggled to think of the right moments that provided the required proof. And yet, I know they happened. Mr Therapist said: but why did you believe? In the face of much evidence to the contrary in the later years? You believed, he said, wholeheartedly. You tried to love enough for the both of you. No we loved each other. We did.

But you need to consider the possibility that he didn't love you in the same way. Gut punch, #2. Well (he saw me flinch), the other possibility is that he did, but couldn't show it in a way that would be felt by you. Ok, yes. That is what I'd always assumed. That one. He loved me but we had different ways of expressing and receiving love. He'd chosen me. And that was enough. For a time.

Mr. Therapist then said, you obviously felt a deep connection to him. What was it? I think it was the darkness. He wore it on his sleeve when we met. I hide mine to the world. I am a stoic. I get up and deal and put on a happy face no matter what. But I feel the darkness, and I saw it in him, and I ran towards it, back then, when I was 24. Why do you respond to that? I don't know. I just do. I have sadness within me and I don't related to people that don't, though I don't live there now. Well, we need to figure this one out. Yes we do.

The following week involved some soul searching. I'd been struggling with the fact for some time, that maybe he never loved me at all, and I knew that I'd loved him. This contorted my gut, the potential one-way-ness of this. Made it so I couldn't sleep. It was ugly and rotting inside, this unease (understatement) was blackening my spirit, my mood, my outlook. Sixteen years that I believed and it was a lie? How to resolve this?

And then I reached an epiphany: so what? Maybe he didn't. Maybe he did. I won't ever really know. He may not even ever really know. And I have to be ok with either answer, because I can't ask now (not RIGHT now anyway, we are not there) and even if I did, the answer may not really be the truth. It may not encompass the entirety of the story. So I have to be ok with either answer, and I have to be ok with not knowing. And I can be. It is where we are. It is true. And it is ok either way.

The important thing(s) NOW are:

1. To be respectful of each other. We are the parents of two amazing boys. We must raise them together long after they are gone from us. Long after they not only walk to school alone. But when they date, and marry, and sire. We will be grandparents together. We will be connected forever through these incredible boys. But it's more than that. We will be connected through our shared experience in youth. And, I hope, through friendship.
2. To understand what worked and didn't and make adjustments in the future. I don't want darkness. I want light. But not so light that there is no understanding of the dark. A tricky balance, to be sure. I want communication and understanding and I need to be able to ask for these things as well as provide them. I was never good at asking for what I needed. I quietly built resentment over time (boy could I be a bitch) and held it against him that he didn't provide what I needed. Needless to say, that doesn't work very well. I need to feel I have the right to ask for these things. For things in general. Not a strong suit of mine. I feel I should be able to deal with what I get, and that if I can't, that is a weakness in me. I am working on this.
3. To wish him joy and love and an amazing relationship that he finds fulfilling in ways that I could not provide. Did not provide. And I am willfully doing this every day. Now. I wasn't. I hated seeing him with his girlfriend around the neighborhood. I've run into them several times and I still have no idea what she looks like. I black out, see stars, my head euphemistically hits the table and all is dark. She could be in my living room right now and I wouldn't recognize her. Next time I see them, I will say hello to her, introduce myself. Smile a genuine smile and hope that he is content. That he feels listened to and supported and also like a man in the ways that men need to; he often felt emasculated with me, and some of it came from his feelings of insecurity but some of it came from me and my unwillingness to allow myself to be taken care of in any way. I'm a stubborn one.

And so here I am. It feels like a plateau. A vista from which I can feel and see peace. I like it here. I want all goodness and happiness for him and for myself. And I think I may be ready to take that in.