Friday, February 20, 2015

self loather from way back

i went to get my hair cut last week

i am not sure what was said but i began thinking earlier in the day about my first love.  i don't know why i went down that memory lane, but it wasn't to think of would've, could've, should've.  It was to ask "what happened to that girl and her self esteem". 

my first love was abusive, not really to me.  Unfortunately, his first wife seem to take the brunt and when the cops had to continually show up at his house, it was evident.  when i heard that i remember looking back and seeing all of the signs, i wasn't used to that and since we had been friends for many years, i didn't understand it.  i would just leave or tell him that we needed to discuss whatever when he calmed down.  i was leaving once and i thought he was going to tear his front door off the hinges. 

i wondered where i had lost that self assuredeness and starting allowing people to invade my boundaries, treat me badly, and make me feel responsible.  most importantly, when did i start staying.  i think it was because of this relationship.  he went away to work for the summer and i cruised town, dated another guy, and knew that he would never forgive me and it would be over when he came back. I went to go and see him and he said the exact opposite, he said that he loved me and wanted me.  I was thrown a curve ball, didn't know how to react, so i needed some time.  He didn't take that too well, we did get back together for a short amount of time and then he cheated on me at the high school football game.  I lost the love of my life and my best friend that year, i had no one really to lean on and i just spiralled into my first really bad depression.  I was living with my mother who was working all kinds of strange hours, my dad was going to law school (something he didn't really want to do) and you could really tell the strain that was taking on their marriage.  i am sure that i didn't really help since my mother and i had a relationship that was to one extreme or the other. 

i beat myself up for not staying for many years afterward.  i think i married my first husband because he reminded me of my first love.  unfortunately, they were way too much alike. 

i never talked to my first Love's ex wife about what had happened.  i know they stayed married a long time, i am not sure who left who.  thankfully they never had children.

i did feel a little twinge of jealously when i heard that he had gotten married, had a child, and they owned two houses in two states so that they could be close to both of their parents.  i pray that his new wife will never have to see the person that his ex wife and i did. 

the defining moment of self loathing was when i had convinced myself that he would never love anyone the way he loved me.  then i was sitting on the stairs during lunch one day, him and her were standing in the foyer and i saw the way that he was holding her hand and looking at her and i told myself right then and there "see, i am not that special" and carried it for far too many years. 

lessons learned, earned, and shared

so my little app from history reminded me of last year, my mother dying, getting divorced, getting married, having a step daughter, god removing some toxic people from my life. 

it all happened so quickly, the divorce was something that i needed to do years before.  we were just roommates.  i can remember when we first split up and i think it was my first month paying bills by myself and my car payment was to automatically drafted from my account.  I wake up to this email and it was from my bank about how my automatic payment was denied because i had insufficient funds.  I felt like a failure, like maybe i couldn't do this on my own.  I was out of town on a business meeting, had no way to look up my account, when i knew there was more than enough money in the account to cover my car payment.  I was determined not to call him and ask him for help.  I called the bank and it was a glitch in the system and now every month i get the email, i just smile and remember how my faith in myself was shaken that day. 

Now i use my beloved spreadsheet and make up the budget, pay the bills and thank god that we find a way each month.  We are still paying 2 house payments and all of the bills that go with that, it has been 6 months since my husband and daughter moved from that house and we made a home together.  I can actually say that for once it seems like home. I know that the house will sell when it is the right time, my husband gets caught up in "when the house sells".   Where i only know to deal with the here and now.  I call it our "new reality" and maybe that is what the last year taught me.  I still don't think i know how to live in the moment, but i have gotten better at "being here" for the sake of my daughter because i don't ever want her to feel like i felt.  She is so beautiful and smart and sure of herself and so willing to put herself out there, playing softball listening to coach get on to her.  I see that and i am so wishful for that mentality because i would be standing on that field crying.  I tell her my stories of failure so that she knows that it happens.  Try to explain motives of boys and how she should be treated and she should never expect anything less.  I hope her father and i show her somewhat of a healthy relationship (the healthiest that i have ever been in). 

I just try to be the cool step mom who listens, tries not to judge, tries not to intrude on her personal boundaries, and hopefully she can learn from my lessons. 

vdays of the past

so they have this little nifty app that takes you back in to time and shows you past fb posts from 1 to 5 years ago

so my "timehop" was

"well didn't that just stink?  If it were Christmas i would say bah humbug, what you say when your vday was horrible?"

this was 4 years ago, skippy was mad at me and kicked me out of the car on okmulgee, he came back and picked me up.  If there was a defining moment for my marriage being over that was the exact moment.  I can remember the way he looked at me, it was the look i had seen on too many guys faces when they snap.  I had to fight with him for two days to get him to apologize and then i heard the motto of every guy that was ever mean to me "I am sorry BUT you made ME do it".  I was so broken hearted because i never thought that he would ever do that to me, i never thought he was capable.  I should have known better, he had treated everyone else in his life like they were beneath him.  I don't know why i thought that i was special.  I guess i was still stuck in my bad boy, i can change them cycle. 

this is how twisted i am, i read that last week and just laughed.  i suppose it was because he couldn't hurt me like that anymore or it was just another learning lesson from my past.  How much that hurt at the time and now it was a joke.

i was watching "married at first sight, the first year" and i could see skippy and i in one of the couples.  She had a really bad childhood to which i cannot compare.  Her husband is beaver cleaver and he really struggles to see where she is coming from. dejavu.  she wants a family so bad and they are very inviting right now.  Please do not expect that to last forever, the moment you hurt their baby boy, they will turn on you like wolves.  Now, you have built your life around them, depending on their encouragement, and one day it will all be gone and you will be lost. 

i saw my ex father in law the other day, said good afternoon, walked on expecting nothing else and he actually sounded happy to see me....i just kept on walking. i don't need anymore heart ache, i think i have enough.  I can finally talk about his parents without crying.

what was it that oprah always says i wouldnt take a nickel for my journey now.