It's fitting that the good deed I stumbled upon today was to "let it go". Ouch. How on earth is that a good deed? Letting "it" go means thinking of "it" and all the pain that goes along with "it" and choosing to free yourself of it. Which is so unbelievably hard that I'd almost rather face my fear of heights and cross a tight rope across the Grand Canyon.
It has almost become the core of my existence for the past 2 years and so to simply let it go...well it means in a sense that I need to completely overhaul myself and the way that I handle life.
It has become like that piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe that you had no intention of stepping in whatsoever, but as many times as you pick away at the sole of your shoe, a part of it still lingers.
It is so many things. Insecurities. Doubt. Fear. Shame. What ifs. What could have beens.
I sat on my floor the other day, zoned out, staring at the wall, caught up in a flurry of random thoughts and emotions and I tried to snap out of it but I just couldn't. I had just gotten home from spending time with some friends that I grew up with and a part of me was struggling. I sit in rooms with people who know me and are close to me and I wonder what they're thinking. I feel like a walking statistic sometimes. That one who just couldn't get it right. The flashing neon sign that says "Failed Marriage".
So many days I battle the army of "What Ifs" and I find myself lacking in weaponry.
What if I had just listened more intently that one time at dinner?
What if I hadn't nagged him so much about what he did with his free time?
What if I had found better ways to show him I appreciated him each day?
What if I had stuck with it and graduated college?
Poison. It's all poison. It just feeds into my insecurities and convinces me that I wasn't ever enough. That this person that I'm currently discovering and unlocking and learning to love, that person would have been less than for him. That is not okay.
We can all look at life in retrospect and have moments of shoulda, coulda, woulda, but the reality is that this is now and that was then and we have to manage. But more than managing, we can overcome that.
In the beginning of it all, I remember trying to fall asleep in my friend Jess' bed, and I remember just feeling such self hate that I would feel sick to my stomach and I couldn't stand to look at myself in a mirror.
How could you, Audrey? How could you let it get this bad?
Everyone in my universe was looking at me and I felt like they were expecting me to magically make it all okay. But the problems were so much deeper than any illusion could ever cover up.
My marriage fell apart. The man that I loved (and still do) had become a stranger to me. I had created in my head a world where we would live in a rustic home that slightly resembled a home from The Shire, he would find an incredible teaching job that he loved and that inspired him, I would take care of our beautiful children and snap pictures of beautiful people on the weekends, and we would see the world. Even if we had to wait until the kids were grown up, we would see the world. And then we would grow old together, wrap ourselves up in an afghan on cold winters' nights and I would rest my head on his shoulder and breathe deeply and feel love.
Shattered to pieces. I would cut myself trying to pick up the shards of this life I had dreamed of.
This may seem uber personal and to some, too much to put on the internet. But being vulnerable has its risks, of course, but there's also a beauty in it and if by telling my story I can help myself heal, all the better then.
I despised him at times. I despised parts of his world that I felt had stolen him away from me. I was angry that my marriage wasn't the marriage I had envisioned. I was ashamed before my mom and dad that I had let something so valuable just slip through my fingers. I was ashamed before my friends that I couldn't be an example of what a loving, successful marriage was.
Yet in all of this pain and anger, I discovered something so beautiful. Love.
You can never fully achieve perfect love. Love is a learning process. Love can be painful. Love is giving up the core of what you are or what you wanted for the sake of someone or something else.
My mom and dad exemplified love. Shedding light on what it means to love unconditionally and revealing to me that whatever I may have "failed" at pales in comparison to their devotion to loving me and being there for me.
My friends exemplified love. They took me in my ugly and revealed to me the parts that are beautiful. Parts that I had chosen to ignore or not believe any more. They held me. They encouraged me. They didn't make me feel like I was a failure.
I discovered a love for my husband that I no longer was living with, that I never experienced in our marriage. It wasn't even my love for him, it was God's love and it was so perfect. The anger still lingered and the disappointment crept up, but I just wanted to show him love and if that meant letting him go so he could learn to discover love again, it was worth it to me.
Today I still battle with it all. I dream about him. I dream about a world where none of this has happened. I wake up with a twinge of pain and even now I write this with tears in my eyes. But I am not without hope. I know that all of this mess, this beautiful mess, will transform my life in a way that I can't even imagine. But today, I want to let it go. I want to hold dear what it is that I have gained from this all...and I want to take that and run.
This has been a messy experience and it's not without fault on my part. I have made plenty of significant errors, but as a human being I can either dwell on those short-comings or learn from them and press on.
I have seen grace in my life. I have seen provision. I am peeling back layers of myself that are so tattered and worn and I am discovering that I can overcome those lies that I started to believe about myself.
I am strong. I am beautiful. I am capable.
I can let it go. It does not define me. I will discover that even pain can reveal the beauty and resilience of life.
Along with sharing my heart, I want to challenge you to find something that is poisoning your world and begin to let it go. We gain nothing from holding on to bitterness and resentment. We gain nothing by dwelling on the past. So let it go. Whatever it may be.
5/365
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