Unpopular Truths

Time doesn't heal. People don't need it to process. That doesn't actually make anything better. In fact, like a thousand cuts, time without care, action, effort, and changed behavior just allows a thing to fester. 

I'm straddling the chasm that time without effort has created and on one side, I'm leaning toward gratitude. I have spent the last four years living behind glass. I couldn't take a deep breath and my vision was cloudy. I lived within boundaries that I felt I had no choice but to accept because, when I made an unbearable choice, said the hard words, moved my entire life for the second time in six months completely alone with two hurting kids in tow, it took less than a month for the encroachment to start. It was less than a month before my house was no longer just mine, where my kids' vacations were no longer ours to plan, where the lines I had drawn where stomped on and ignored. I was still trapped. 

So I made the best of things. I chose acceptance so it felt like I had a say in it. I leaned in and offered my house, to accommodate so everyone got what they needed (but me), I gave and I gave and I gave until I couldn't breathe and couldn't see. So I'm grateful that the gravity of this betrayal shattered that glass. But there's the other side of the chasm....

I still ache. I cannot believe I live in a world where while I was doing life as I had been for the last four, ten, sixteen years taking care of my kids, going to my job, trying to be a best version of myself for ALL the people around me, someone who had been a part of that same life and its trajectory for TWENTY YEARS just took a left turn, got off the parallel road and moved to another planet, without a word. Blows my FUCKING mind. 

So yeah, time hasn't healed shit and I assure you, it won't. Aches dull with time, sure. Like a broken bone that didn't heal quite right, it will flare up with the weather (or the social media blasts). But time without effort changes nothing. I have watched my son give up any hope that it will improve. I have watched my daughter descend into fury (and amusing internet commentary) to mask her disappointment. And I'm over here feeling all of my feelings, breathing deep, and seeing things clearly. It is exhausting, not rejuvenating. Not healing. 


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