Peace

One of the best things about this website–something more careful and less whiny than a journal, but less phony than an article written for pay–has been the ability to go back and see what I was thinking a year ago, two years ago, and so forth. (Or, at least, to see what the more careful/less whiny/less phony part of me was trying to think, trying to articulate.)

Two years ago in November I wrote this:

I am weary of the old thoughts, of the old chin-up pep talks I give myself when I feel low.  There are days I feel hopelessly over-extended, and days I feel terribly lonely and bereft.  I know this is not divorce, per se–it is just life, it is like this for everyone, it was like this for me when I was married, too.  But I wish I did not have to tell myself again and again that this is a difficult stage that I will pass through.  I know it gets better–I have seen things get better myself. Will it ever get all the way better, though? That’s what I need to know. Is it foolish even to expect that, to keep waiting for that?

A clever and especially prescient commenter responded with this:

What does “better” mean to you? Wealthier? With an all-new residence with no vestiges of the old life? In a better romance? Remarried? Finding some other way to be with a person than legally married? Traveling? The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind? Changing into a completely different person on the outside? Or on the inside? Or does your idea of “better” just change from one setback/annoyance/sorrow/low point to the next?

I then wrote:

Those are damned good questions. What I want? Well, it’s not money, for sure. Not remarriage. Not even living together, though living nearer might be nice. Travel will come, and I’m freer now with my days than I have been in decades. I don’t want to change into anything or anyone (possibly unwise, but there you have it.) I want–well, I suppose I want a clearer vision of what I want, which is a conundrum. I want not to miss my kids when they’re with their father. I want their father not to bug the living shit out of me on a regular basis. I do want to move, but that’s out of my hands, more or less. I want contentment instead of these violent swings from glee to misery. I want a bit of my life to be rote, and not to feel always that I am barely getting by.

I want, I suppose, to accept what I have now with the grace and gratefulness my situation deserves. I want to slide quietly out of view and into calm acceptance. I want to sit down, as it were, and take a load off. To stop worrying, and stop fighting the worry.

These are all abstractions, and will come with time. Having wrenched myself out of a rut, I’m bouncing along the surface. I’m terrified of becoming re-(or newly) entrenched, so for now I skitter nervously here and there, a bit rudderless, I suppose.

I want that old feeling of rightness, of seeing the future stretching ahead of me, happy and full.

It makes my spine tingle to read this. I remember how I felt back then, and yet I can’t feel it any more. It has been quite some time since I felt so lost, so unmoored, so desperate and bereft. Back then, I really did feel as if my life hung by a very thin thread. I had no idea if what I was doing was right; I was like a rat in a cage, pressing levers in superstitious and wholly random sequences, being rewarded and punished (or so I thought) at the whim of an incomprehensible universe. Well, that’s melodramatic. But worse than the feeling that I was lost was the feeling that I didn’t understand how to find my way again, didn’t know whether or not I ever would.

And now I have. Life isn’t perfect; life never is. But I’m here at my mother’s house, the night before Thanksgiving. I just read Days With Frog and Toad to my three year old niece, who was fresh from her bath in clean pajamas, cuddled between my boyfriend and me. My kids are with their father, and somehow that’s completely fine. My mother and stepfather are going to sleep across the hall. My sister is in the living room. Tomorrow my family and various friends will all head to my grandmother’s house–my grandmother, whom I’m named after, and to whom I’m very close, is 93. That’s something to marvel at, something to be happy about and grateful for.

I am, most of the time, quite content. I do not worry so much. When I do, I don’t fight it as desperately. I do not feel as if I’m perpetually bouncing along the surface of things, and I do not feel rudderless. Most importantly, I actually do see the future stretching ahead (a different future than I’d once imagined, to be sure, but no less exciting for being different). And the future I see stretching ahead is both happy and full.

I owe a real debt of gratitude to all of you who have been kind enough, since I started writing here three years ago, to read and comment. By taking the time to do both, you have helped me find my way. Thank you.

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