Tomorrow is the day, the deadline, the “light at the end of the proverbial tunnel”. Tomorrow...is June 3, 2010. It would have been my tenth wedding anniversary to Dillweed. I was supposed to be in Hawaii this week, celebrating life long love. Instead, I am celebrating summer number two without said dillweed. I am going to the theater with girlfriends, working and doing summer school homework with my sons.
I was so terrified even two months ago that this day would come and this blog would have been moot. Even under the circumstances of currently having a Significant Other, I was afraid I would search my soul and still find bits and pieces of things better left unsaid. But before I could start the “did I really reach my goal” soul searching, something even more amazing happened. This past weekend, I realized that I had made a peace I didn’t even know I was trying to make. And as I recalled the past few weeks, I realized I had done this over and over, unknowingly, which, to me, is all the better. It happened like this….
I was at a pool party with friends. Someone mentioned Disney World. My heart leapt. I love Disney World more than any one adult should. But when they started in about their luxury suite at the whatever-overpriced hotel, I said “You know, when @#$* and I would take the kids, we ALWAYS stayed at the value resorts. They are plain but clean and since you are ONLY ever in your room to sleep, who needs all the amenities? Who is paying $400/night to have a slide at the swimming pool? You are at Disney for Chrissake!” And I meant it. Earlier in the week, someone had mentioned remodeling. “When @#$* and I remodeled, we used the kitchen builder at the Home Depot in Newnan. It really maps everything out.” And I could go on with several more examples. But the point is, my conviction was within my statement. It had nothing to do with HIM or the fact that he was somehow tied and/or a part of that sentence/statement/belief. He is a part of my past and there is nothing I can ever do to change that. And it’s only the Dillweed that is a part of my immediate past. Most anytime his name comes up so effortlessly as previously mentioned, it is not Dillweed that I speak of, but the man I fell in love with, married and stayed with happily for at least a few years: the man who spray painted a wooden chess set with my son; the man who, if only once, but once was enough, made those little wooden race cars with my boys for their cub scout competition. …the man who took ME on a Disney Cruise for our honeymoon—this man I loved. . . . and though I may never fully understand what happened over the course of nine years to tear us apart so fully that after walking out we never spoke again, I will know and admit that it was not all bad. He was a good man at one point. We had fun at one point. We loved each other and believed in each other at one point. And if I learned nothing else from this blog, I want to know that I walked away not only admitting there was a glimmer of good somewhere in these memories, but I want to walk away knowing that even though nine years passed, and what started out as a sweet romantic ridiculous love story turned into an angry bitter mudslinging day in court, I will not be jaded by it. I will not give up on the next possibility, just because I thought this would work and it didn’t. I will not let opportunities for love pass me by just because I don’t want to be brokenhearted. Because at the end of the 9 months and 2 days, what I learned, ultimately, is that every relationship happens for a reason. You walk away knowing SOMETHING that you did not know before nor would you ever have known had it not been for that such relationship. The ride may be bumpy and I may run into a brick wall with the force of a mack truck in the end, it will not be for naught. Dillweed was not for naught, as much as I may hate to admit it at times. But I am admitting it now. Tomorrow will be my last entry into this blog. And I can say, at the very least, this blog was not for naught. I have learned so much, just typing the words that come into my head. My best friend was right about that. ..
