If I was 23 months old and in a way, I am, I would be learning every day and know nothing. That is how I feel except I have a debit card and a job.
Pretty heady for a toddler.
But here are the hard things about being 23 months old.
1. Losing pets.
You split the pets.
I get that people split custody of pets but have you ever took a cat for a 100-mile car ride and put them in a new house every other weekend? Me either. It sounds cruel to the cats. Plus, your kids don't like doing it and they can deduce logic and reason. And they don't think that they are going to the Dr or never returning home each time they get in a car.
But you miss them. And most people don't get it. If I lost a pet to death, people would say, "Oh my gosh, I am so very sorry." When you're missing your pet, people just shrug and say, "That sucks." It's a lonely feeling that no one validates.
2. No perspective of normal.
Most likely, when you divorce, it is due to some unhealthy behavior. But like eating processed foods, you adapt and once you're out, you have no idea what is normal. You even gravitate to people who evoke feelings that are unhealthy because there is comfort in familiarity. Because you genuinely don't know how normal and healthy feels.
You also don't know what normal behavior looks like. So someone can be completely normal but if anything triggers your anxieties, you suddenly feel like running because NOW you have had a taste of healthy and you are terrified of ANYTHING that reminds you of your past coming into your life.
So, life feels very back and forth and confusing.
3. You feel isolated.
The only other person who really understands why you are in pain is your ex and you sure aren't going to them for comfort. You try to explain your feeling to others and they tell you that you need to stop having these sad feelings. No one wants sad feelings but no one can tell you how to make them stop. So you feel stuck at times.
4. Inadequacies.
As a wife, I busted my ass to be a good one but it still was not enough to make my husband stay.
That was a punch in the gut. Listen again:
You can give 110% and it won't be enough for someone. You can fight for your literal life and it will not be enough. And they leave you wondering what you COULD have done better or different? But the reality is that it wasn't ever about you. It was about them. But since you have no perspective about normal reality, you're mind fucked.
Now, how do you unfuck your head?
I met someone who I love very much. And he loves me. He is so very kind. And the deeper we get in, the more I look for reasons why he wouldn't want me because I couldn't live through losing someone again. Physically, I could. Mentally, I couldn't. So I feel the need to protect myself from all angles. And that is no fun.
5. Protective
Which leads me to this fun little tidbit. You want love, normalcy, less feeling like you're inadequate and less feeling isolated. You just want a normal fucking life because the other stuff is exhausting. But you can't stop protecting yourself from a regular life because you get scared that if you relax your guard, you will get hurt again. You go your entire life building security and someone knocks over your structure. Now when you rebuild, all you can think is this will be bigger, stronger, better and nothing like before because I want nothing to do with that life that hurt me. But you build the wall around yourself. And you are a master architect who cannot figure out how to build a door or window to let anyone in. And it just....sucks. You are building a self-imposed prison.
6. It is on you to get better.
No one can help you but you. And you don't know how to heal. And that is the most helpless feeling of them all.
6. Loss
Any loss, even little ones feel awful. Big ones feel overpowering.
I lost my dad last fall which was awful. If I lose anything, if something breaks, if I even lose non-tangible things like feelings for a passion or respect for someone when they do something, it feels huge. I haven't been to church for 2 months, at least. So while I know that the Big Guy has my back, I don't feel connected. And sometimes my church makes me feel lonely because we have different beliefs. And people talk poorly of my church and that hurts too. It makes me doubt my initial elation but mostly makes me feel like I need to isolate myself again from God. Like people think I was making a poor choice on where I worship and maybe they know better than I do. But the loss of that connection feels pretty overwhelming which no one really seems to care about but me. It is on me to fix that too. I wish that I had a church that felt like a family. You want that when you lose your family.
I write this because my life, although good and much better than it was 2 years ago, needs to keep moving forward. And I see glimmers of a really good life ahead of me. I just don't know how to get there without a map.
And there isn't a map for this kind of stuff.
But I am truly hoping that this makes someone else feel like they aren't alone or they are normal. I hope we are normal.
Good times are ahead.
Onward and grow.
