24 years ago today you proposed marriage to me. We were at a fancy restaurant somewhere in Southeastern PA on Valentine’s Day; wine, flowers, a ring (THE ring - the simple and elegant antique I saw prior at a local jeweler), how apropos. I happily accepted. There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to grow old together. There was no doubt in my mind from the moment I fell in love with you that we were supposed to be together. We were going to have a family and live happily ever after.
24 years later I’m cynical. My heart hurts for all the years we’ve spent apart because we were too stubborn to face our own traumas, see our own triggers, and find the tools necessary to make it work for us and our children. All the anger and hate, all the fighting and court battles, all the passive and outwardly aggressive pay backs. For what? All the unhealed resentments; the broken little children that we were inside and didn’t know how to help or nurture, and now our children who’ve watched us, are grown. I worry about them and their future because of all the bitterness, and because we couldn’t show them a better way. We couldn’t show them what love truly means or looks like.
Before my 2nd marriage (short lived rebound that it was, in a desperate attempt to meet the status quo and ‘provide’ what society says I needed to for my children and my happiness) you told a mutual friend you now had to “watch the love of my life marry another” - all these years later, I still wonder why you never told me that.
Do you remember after we split up I reached out to you? We met for lunch. Well, I ordered lunch and then couldn’t eat because my heart was so broken I thought I'd puke - when I asked you, if after some time apart, you were ready to figure this out with me, you told me “nope, this is what we said we're going to do”... Well, y’know what else we said we were gonna do? That thing we did while our family and friends watched, legally and spiritually bound? Oh never-mind, I don’t blame you really. My face hadn't been the same since that car accident, my body carried, birthed, and nursed two children... You had a thin, tall, beautiful, young, shiny new girlfriend.
It’s just that it seems we re-created a situation very similar to your own childhood for our children which is the last thing I ever wanted for them, or us. It's not like my parents were perfect, but they stayed together and despite their imperfections and their own mistakes, they chose each other every day until my mom died. I certainly would've preferred that to what the kids and us got. There have been moments over the years when I see you. That smart-ass guy with a big heart who used to laugh at my antics, hidden deep down in there. You don’t let him out very often, or at least not for me to see. You usually turn around and pay me back again in some unkind way if you let him out for moment in my presence. Yeah I could make a list of all the spiteful things you did over the years, but I know too that I could’ve reacted differently; that’s one of my biggest and hardest lessons.
Instead of celebrating 24 years of marriage (almost 30 years together) this year, I’m reminded of our 17 years of divorce, a handful of broken relationships for me, several girlfriends for you and the one who stuck now for maybe even more years than we were together, and our grown children with similar issues as our own. I'm grateful for the lessons and all my strength, which I would not have any other way. Nonetheless, just know that my head spins every time I wonder how you do for someone else what you could not do for me. I must accept that even if I find a great love tomorrow, and we spend 20 years together, it’ll never be that thing I so wished for all the years until now, when I finally have to come to terms that I don’t get that dream this time around. My heart aches when I see a couple who vows their love for each other after 20+ years. It’s like a kick to my stomach every time I see a father admire the mother of his children. And my soul will forever yearn when I see an old couple who didn’t give up when times were rough. So there’s your sweet revenge. There it is. And it's far worse than any of the hateful things you threw at me over the years.
They say the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference. Yeah, sometimes I think I'm there but, if I'm being honest, there are still those occasional moments when I fantasize that you’ll show up at my door with big red flowers, apologies, plans, and love in your eyes... That we will somehow be that happy ending everyone roots for. But then I remember the harsh realities of this life and who we each are. Here I am almost 49 and I can’t go back and fix anything. If we'd stayed together maybe we wouldn't have learned a damn thing. Then again, maybe that was my last real shot, reality is, I got no one but myself to blame.... "Married me a wife, she's been trouble all my life, run me out in the cold rain and snow"... What is it they say about cynics? Oh never mind.
Now I need to put a smile on my face and go have "family" lunch with my youngest and his dad (cause that’s best for our son despite my personal feelings - see, I have learned something as I navigate this single co-parenting thing round 2) on this other anniversary; the one of the day that he moved out 6 days before I gave birth to our child. February 14th. What a joke. Happy fucking Valentine's Day.
~All we ever wanted was to learn, and love, and grow~