Day 4 & MUCH more on my mind...

Day 4: Something You Have to Forgive Someone For

When I think of the term forgiveness, I think of the song by Don Henley called "Heart of the Matter." The words that stick with me most are "There are people in your life who've come and gone. They let you down and hurt your pride. Better put it all behind you baby; cause life goes on. You keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside." 

Wow. The forgiveness thing man. Why must the first few days of truth be about this? I'm not really sure being truthful about this on my blog at this point in time is really beneficial. It is however, the 30 days of truth so I guess I'll give it a shot.

Yesterday, I said I needed to forgive myself for getting a divorce. Today, I say I need to forgive my husband for things that occurred during our marriage. I'm not sure I'm 100% ready to do that, but in some ways I am. The reason I'm even mentioning this as my person I need to forgive, is because I don't have ill will towards him at all. I want no harm for him. I want him to be happy and healthy, which I have mentioned in recent posts. I know that some of the things that occurred during our marriage were indeed bc of the fact he was sick. Not just the MS, but other things I think are underlying that have not been addressed. Things that were out of his control. Things he should have never had to endure. Granted, we are what we make of things but I think he was put into countless crappy situations in his life, never really fully dealing with them in healthy manners. I want to forgive him and I feel I'm almost there. One reason why this divorce has been so hard on me is because of the fact I know 95% of this stuff isn't him. I fell in love with a good man and that man is still there inside. I just couldn't get to it anymore and in turn it made me hardened and not interested in fighting any further. Once I get the divorce papers and know everything has been finalized, I'll be able to forgive completely. Like I said, in a way...I feel I forgave a long long time ago. Even while these things were happening, I was looking through him and seeing the person I fell in love with. Totally confusing. Not understanding who this person was I was seeing in front of me. It sucks and it's sad.

Anyway, that's my answer for the fourth day of truth. And it is just that. THE TRUTH.

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Now, there's a lot of other things I want to write about tonight. One of them being the passing of Elizabeth Edwards. Regardless of which aisle you stand on in the political spectrum, losing a woman like Elizabeth sucks. Losing anyone to cancer sucks. I was always intrigued by this woman and how she carried herself with dignity and stood by her POS of a husband all while he was undermining her and treating her like garbage. Now, I obviously didn't know them personally so I cannot REALLY judge what happened in their marriage. As I've said countless times before, it takes two to tango in any situation. Divorce is no different. It just really sucks that all of this was going on while Elizabeth was dying of cancer. I picked up one of her books when I was living in Texas called "Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities." INCREDIBLE READ. I understand she updated it this year, so the version I read was last years. I encourage anyone going through a hard time to pick it up. This book shed some light on the type of woman she was. Incredible. I'm sad for her family but even more so for her youngest children. In one of the montages on ABC news tonight, they aired a video clip that stuck with me. I wanted to share it with all of you...

"One of the things I always say if you know someone who has lost a child, or lost anybody who is important to them, and you're afraid to mention them because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died. They didn't forget they died. You're not reminding them. What you're reminding them of is that you remember that they lived. And that's a great, great gift."

-Elizabeth Edwards-

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Lastly, I have to be really thankful to my therapist. I only worked with her @ my new home state for about 6-8 weeks but she helped me a great deal. Now that I'm losing my insurance, I won't be able to continue with her much more which stinks. I think I'll find great help with Celebrate Recovery, Divorce Care, & Grief Share in the mean time. Anyway, I wrote a blog entry a while back on boundaries and how they are SUCH a beautiful thing. I know a lot of people struggle with them because anytime you peruse the self help section...there are TONS of books on the subject. Sometimes boundaries are hard to establish and even harder for others to understand. 

I've made the decision to remove most of my extended family from my life. I realize not everyone reading my blog knows the circumstances or the history as to why that decision was made. I ask that you respect it however, as I know 99.9% of my readers do. I don't feel like re-hashing all the incidents that have occurred over the years nor the ones that have happened recently. I have always been the one to sweep them under the mat, show a happy face, and love the person who wronged me like there was nothing that ever occurred. I always preferred to take the high road, forgive, and move on. Unfortunately, I can no longer do just that. I can forgive those who have wronged me, but forgiveness does not equal justification. Forgiveness does not equal continuing to allow that person (or those people) in your life on a continual basis. Because someone shares the same blood line with you, does not give them permission to treat you with anything less than respect. I have endured this for far too long and I have enough wits about me to realize it's unacceptable. At almost 26 years old, I don't need to keep ANYONE in my life who causes me disruption, pain, or drama. It is unfortunate, but because of the nature of how things have been I have to honestly say I won't miss them. That may sound terrible, but it also gets to a point when there is a give and a take. There must be equal parts to any relationship. It cannot be just one person doing the loving and the caring. It has to come from both sides. I'm drained. It has actually been something I've struggled with for several years now. I've been debating on taking this route but only now do I have the courage to actually do it.