One of the MANY questions that I have been asking myself this last year is how am I supposed to stop caring? After so many years of truly and deeply loving how am I supposed to stop? How am I supposed to get through this? I don’t hate him. I should, I could (I dare say that I definitely have the capacity to hate him), but I don’t. I don’t think I want to, but since I am still struggling to figure so many things out I may be wrong about that. I also don’t see the point in dwelling on what I could have or should have done throughout this whole mess. I don’t deny that I have those moments or that there are things that I would hope I would do differently if I were ever forced to endure this hell again, but again there is no point in dwelling on those things because I can’t change what is or why it is. I just can’t continue as I have been. I can’t. I can’t allow myself to continue to be hurt by all of this. He’s not. He has had no trouble with moving on and he certainly doesn’t care how I am feeling or how much he is hurting me.
My problem? How am I supposed to not hurt? How am I supposed to protect my heart and my emotions from all the pain that he can and still does inflict every day? 100% sole custody of my son? Currently not an option. (He’d have to do something pretty significant or my son would have to be old enough to say that he doesn’t want anything to do with his father and that isn’t going to be for several years if my son ever feels that way at all.) Ending all non-essential communication and contact? Not an option. Forgetting how I feel about him or actually starting to hate him? Not only are those not options, but I don’t even think those things are possible.
I need to grieve. I don’t want to be going through this, but since I do not (and apparently never did) have a choice I have to figure out how to grieve. How am I even supposed to begin figuring out how to do that? How am I ever going to have the time and/or energy to process and come to terms with all of this?!? The only answer that I can come to is: I can’t. There is no way. I’m stuck. I’m in limbo between fighting a losing battle against something that I don’t want and getting used to something that I don’t want. To me both of these emotional places are at the very bottom of the ladder in this situation and they aren’t necessarily on the same ladder.
For 12 months I have been struggling with this (among so many other questions) and feel like I am no closer to an answer than I was at the very beginning. Throughout this struggle two quotes/sayings have stood out to me. The first is from Rose Kennedy, who said: “It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” The second quote is one of my own. It is something that I have believed for many years and have repeatedly and pointedly reminded myself of, which is: “Nothing worth having is easy and even if you fail it does not mean that your effort has been a waste. All that matters is that you tried your best.” These are things that I agree with and firmly believe, but they provide no comfort and no assistance in knowing which way to go and I am back where I began.
I do not want or need to be numb. I do not want or need to rush the grieving process. I just want to know where to begin and with that thought I suddenly feel like Dorothy in that moment of watching Glenda float away, not knowing where or how to begin with no more assistance than “It’s always best that you start at the beginning”. Unlike Dorothy I am still looking for my Yellow Brick Road.