grace

GoBlueBlog – 2014 in Review

Z. looking ahead, making my way , , , , ,

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

August 2014 I started goblueblog hoping to just have an outlet in what I intended to be an open letter to M. A letter I was going to share with him the day our divorce was finalized. I never did share it with him and just 62 days after our divorce, sharing the blog link with M became a moot point.

Blogging has been an amazing experience and I recommend it (along with therapy!) to anyone looking to find their voice. You’re not as alone as you may think or feel and you never know the folks that will walk along this path with you…many never to be known.  WordPress provided me with my little blog’s year in review which I will share for a bit with you too. May 2015 yield God’s blessings upon all of us and all the love we can absorb from friends and family.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,000 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Blessings

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…..And what if trials of this life, The rain, the storms, the hardest nights, Are Your mercies in disguise? Blessings by Laura Story

I was recently challenged by a dear friend to write about my goals, dreams, and plans, no matter how lofty they might seem. I have given it some thought and I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t have any right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve considered those for myself. They always took “us” into consideration and the question was pretty much what do I need to do to help our family?

For so many years, any goal or plan I had was to help improve our station in life. My goal was to have a good job so that we’d have insurance that was sufficient to meet our needs. I wanted to return to school to improve my skills so that I could get a promotion to get more money for us, when people liked my handmade cards enough to pay for them, I worked to find events and stores that would carry them so that I could bring in extra income to help us.

Now that its just me, and I guess its time to take her sage advice to heart. She so eloquently shared that now its my turn. It’s time to make choices for my future, choices that don’t include you.  So today, while I don’t have an answer for future plans outside of just remembering to breathe, I am going to choose to focus on my blessings and maybe soon I will be able to share some goals, dreams, and plans for my future.

  • I am blessed to have a Savior who loves me no matter how many times I present myself as unlovable with my words,  actions, and attitudes
  • I am blessed to have an amazing network of friends, many of whom are traveling this road with me, quietly holding one hand and handing me tissue with the other
  • I am blessed to have the most supportive brother who upon hearing the news started the conversation with “First of all, I love you and you are strong enough to get through this” and ended it with, “Its a good thing he wasn’t there when I was”
  • I am blessed to have a Pastor who upon hearing the news of your infidelity immediately called you out on it, made you take responsibility by telling you that you had 24 hours to tell me or he and his wife would be over to tell me themselves
  • I am blessed that my new route into work allows me to pass the cows that I love
  • I am blessed that my job includes a boss who immediately says “Yes!” when I walk into her office and say, “I need someone to be angry/sad/mad with me, will you?”
  • I am blessed to have an outlet with this blog. I’ve received some very sweet comments that have encouraged my soul.  I love that my first comment was from someone who called you an a$$hole (even now that makes me smile–thanks Pabloswife) And that so many others are willing to share their story and make me feel not so alone. Be sure to check out their stories ———>
  • And lest you think I forgot them, I am blessed to have amazing parents who have taken me in not just once, but now twice to help me get back on my feet. The first time was four years ago when they helped move us move across country so that we could find our balance after losing everything in Arizona. And now they are letting me occupy a small slice of their homelife again all the while never making me feel like a burden or a failure for the life that I somehow seem to be living.

As I look back at my list, it’s really about all the people that seem to have MY back, something you wouldn’t, didn’t, or couldn’t do. Thank you J for the challenge. I really am blessed.

Running Numbers

Z. looking ahead, making my way, new way of life , , , , , , , , ,

I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring? Tom Hanks, Castaway

I’ve been asked a lot of questions, and I ask a lot of questions myself. We had a joke for it when we were together – you said I was “running numbers.” Well, I’m running a lot of numbers lately, trying to figure things out and having moments of clarity accepting that there are things I will never know.

You left me to deal with our church family and our friends. When asked Where are you? I now reply “You have made some choices and decisions that mean you will not be around anymore.” For a period of time, I contemplated simply saying that you had an affair, you didn’t want to reconcile and we are getting a divorce. I struggled with trying to protect you and I don’t know why. You didn’t have an affair, you are having an affair…we are still married and you are still with her. There is no effort to show me how much you are sorry regardless of what you say.

What hurts the most, the fact that he said those things on D-day or that you are no longer his woman? This one took less time to answer than I expected. It really is a combination of both. In recent months, your actions were more cooled towards me. I attributed that to your extra work schedule and the stress you were under while working two jobs, albeit part-time jobs. I didn’t realize it was the stress of living a lie. One of my concerns that I shared directly with you was that you didn’t make me feel like I was a priority to you. If you wanted me to sit next to you at church, then you would have saved a spot for me, but you didn’t. You wouldn’t withhold affection, you would want to hold my hand, you wouldn’t walk three feet in front of me, you wouldn’t jump at the offer of a friend to go hang out and leave me at home. So hearing you say that there wasn’t a spark between us, that you weren’t “in love” with me, that there wasn’t anything in me worth fighting for would have only been words if they had not been validated by your actions. So what hurts is that your actions backed what you said and that’s why I can’t accept your apologies right now. They aren’t just words to me.

How are you? (Meaning me) Well, at this moment I am (insert assorted answers.) At any given moment I go through a range of emotions. I realize that I’m like the Georgia weather…don’t like it? Give it five minutes and it will change. One lesson you taught me is an old AA technique: if I don’t have a beer right now, I can have one in an hour. I’ve applied that technique a lot lately but sometimes I can’t wait an hour and I have to just get through the next minute. If I don’t cry right now, I can cry in a minute. And the next minute, if I don’t cry right now, I can cry in two minutes.

Why are you paying for the divorce? Well, I’m not paying for it, but I am paying half. And after that, I really don’t have a reason.

How can you forgive him? Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV)

How can you not hate him or her? Love… And I don’t mean my love for him, but rather the love of my Heavenly Father for me. ….And walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:2 (NIV)

Where is he going to live? I don’t know but yes, I do care. The Lord has blessed him with a great opportunity at a new job and whether he succeeds or fails is up to him.

Are you going to move back to Arizona? Tempting but no. I have created a life here that will go on even without him in my life. And now maybe I will be the one taking the opportunity for the one available ticket.

Now what? Well, I guess I will continue to rise up each morning and breathe in and out and pray that tomorrow will be a bit easier than today and I won’t have to remind myself to breathe.

Can you Repeat the Question?

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It’s hard to ask why, but even harder to ask what now? 

Seeing you at our meeting with the lawyer last week was different than I expected. I really thought that the site of you might make my heart fall or leap, I wasn’t sure which, but I certainly thought that I would feel something. But when I arrived, you barely looked up from your phone. We made small talk and chatted about your new job. You were cold… and I realize that while I am heartbroken, you may very well be the one with a broken heart.

And yes, to answer your question that day… I did feel better repeatedly saying to the lawyer that you had an affair, and by repeatedly, I mean repeatedly. I now realize that it wasn’t nice and I’m sorry. You should know that I truly don’t hate you but my heart hurts because you don’t seem to care.

I remember telling you on D-day that I wished you would just tell me you hated me because then there would at least be some emotion, not just the blank stare and clenched jaw. This is going to end; nobody wins. There is no race to the finish to get the gold medal. In about 45 days we will no longer be husband and wife. In 47 days we would have been celebrating our anniversary.

Eleven years ago, what drew me to you was the way you “played” life. You had friends with whom you had fun and you were your own person. You know that one of our biggest compliments we had of each other was that we had our own friends-we were our own person. We were not each other’s half—we were two wholes who came together. We each had our own source of fulfillment that complimented the other.

Your friends have now lost you as fast as I did, but they don’t get the courtesy of a goodbye or a why and it’s hard for me to know what to tell them. You understand that the facts remain, you had an affair, you didn’t want to reconcile and we are getting divorced. But I don’t want to be calloused in my responses, I can’t, that’s not me…anymore.

Maybe when I was still resentful towards you at the way that life was not getting any easier. You were taking trips out of state to see family and trips to chaperone youth events and fishing trips with your buddies. I would get up and go to work everyday to make sure things ran smoothly here. So it was very frustrating to hear you say that the final tipping point for not wanting to reconcile was that one of the littlest family members said they didn’t remember what I looked like. You took that as a sign of disinterest on my part. The part you easily forgot was that only one ticket was available and any extra funds were used to make sure you had travel and spending money.

Nevertheless, my heart found forgiveness for you and for that situation and I think that prepared me on some level for what was to come just a year later. I do forgive you, I forgive her, but forgiveness is for my benefit not yours. It is what is allowing me to carry on each day and go to work. It is what is allowing me to maintain a civil relationship with you and to look you in the eye and say very honestly that I do wish you well. It is only by the grace of God and the prayers of many friends and family that hold my heart right now that I can ask the question… why? And it is only that same grace and those same prayers that help me to understand that I will never get the answer that satisfies my soul but still begs the question. Now, all I can do is ask the question, “what now?” and step out in faith that I will get that answer.