The Reinvention of Me

I just read a blog by a woman who lost her husband, suddenly, a year ago. She talks about the grief process and things other widows & widowers do that 'regular' folk might find strange, little survival rituals. Like keeping clippings from his razor or reciting your vows, aloud, with your wedding DVD, just to relive the moment. She says that those of us who haven't lost a spouse or life partner can't understand the depth of the pain. I'm sure she is right. 

I understand the survival rituals though. When my dad had his massive stroke, 13 years ago, I went right to my parents house. Without thinking I went to their medicine cabinet and took his shaving brush. I did all this on auto pilot. I HAD to have that. There was no thinking. I just did it. I carried it in my pocket for months. When things got upsetting or he had a set back, I would reach into my pocket and flick the bristles a little until I calmed down. I have no idea where that came from? I used to watch him shave when I was a child. I remember him getting mad at me because I took it once and used it to put Noxzema on my face. It must have been a bigger memory than I realized because my subconscious HAD to have that. I had it in my pocket again for the few days he was in hospice. I had it in my pocket at the funeral home and on the day of his funeral. I actually wore slacks instead of a dress so I could have it in my pocket. Again, there was no thinking, I just did it. So yeah, I get these 'odd' rituals. 

But to say that those of us who are divorced don't get 'it' is not entirely true. As my marriage fell apart I grieved the things I would not have. I grieve the thought of not having someone at my side if I became ill in the hospital. I grieve that I will never celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary, with a big party, surrounded by my children and grand children. Hell, I'll never celebrate a 25th either. There is no one to share the private joke that only he would understand after 25 years together. Even though the marriage was awful in the end, there is no one in my life who knows me as well as he does and maybe never will. I grieve that. I grieve the loss of friendships with couples that we used to know and now I have awkward relationships with. I grieve no goodnights. There's a line in an old Barbara Streisand song from her 'Superman' album that says, "in the tub a hand to scrub my back is all I haven't got.."

I was never one pining to get married when I was in school. I had friends who would talk about how many children then wanted when they grew up. I used to curl my nose and say, "I'll have kids when the sell them at Sears!" I never got upset about not getting asked to a dance, even the big ones like homecoming or prom. I honestly didn't care. I kinda wanted to be asked but I didn't pine for it like some girls. Even dating a boy for two years, I never hoped, waited for or dreamed of him asking me to marry him. Then, of course, I got pregnant at 19 and that single hood I dreamed of went to the crapper. Actually, right now is the longest time, since I was 17 and had my first boyfriend, that I have not had a man in my life. I never got to live on my own before. I got married a month after I turned 20. I was married to him for 3 years, moved back to my parents, then moved down the road into a house that used to be my grandma's. By then, I had met my second husband and he started living with me. I remember Mondays was his laundry night so he stayed at his mom & dad's on those nights. I remember hating that. See with him, my second husband, I was consumed with him. I loved being with him, night & day. He was my best friend. That's what I thought our marriage was going to be like. So I have grieved over my loss of youth, of love & innocence and all that the girl I was at 26 thought her ever after was going to be. I had fireworks. When the marriage ended badly, it destroyed those memories too. It tainted them, made them sooty and damaged, like finding a photograph after a fire. The image is there but it's water logged and smells of smoke. Not as precious as it once was. 

There is a raw hollow pain that only betrayal of trust can bring to your soul. It burns cold and intense. I can't compare it to the loss of a spouse to death but the pain is real and raw. It can be brought up in an instant. It can sting like a sharp slap across the face. It can also just hang there, a dull numbing ache that resonates with each breath. Divorce is a death all of it's own. 

I have this thing I do when you screw me over. When I am done with you, I am done. I bury those feelings down. I'm told that's not healthy. I'm told that ONE day those feelings come to the surface. I assure you, that is not true. You bury them deep enough, they just decompose. I have been hurt, so many times, by family, by husbands, by lovers that this is my coping mechanism. I don't just tuck them away and cry about them when no one is listening. I bury them, they are gone, I cannot retrieve them. The sad part of that is a piece of me gets buried with each emotional burial. That part of me that loved and laughed, hoped and dreamed with that person, the person I was with that person, gets buried to. I then have to reinvent myself. I'm of an age now that my rational brain knows that there are other ways to handle emotional damage. I can process these events, work through them and move on. I have had to except several losses, permanent losses, in the past few months. I am losing the desire to keep putting people in my emotional cemetery. You'd think that would mean I have gone to lengths to mend a few current broken relationships. No, it hasn't. They are buried you see, along with the me who cared about them so there will be no sweet resurrections. I am just not adding anymore to the bone-yard. Am I more open and forgiving or just not letting myself be effected negatively? I don't know. Well, I do know...

I don't have anyone 'in' that close anymore. I let a few get near the entrance but made them keep their distance. They obliged. I have questioned before, what if I simply don't have the capacity for those type of emotional entanglements anymore? I haven't had a best girlfriend in years. I have some girlfriends but not a best friend, not since high school. Truth is I never really have gotten along well with women. I am not close to my mother or my sister. I think that is how my second husband became my soul mate, he was the only one I needed for so long. I was VERY content with just him for years. I don't see myself having that in my life again. 

I won't compare the next 'big' thing in my life to this. There will be no comparison. It's just a fact. Oh, I don't doubt I will have love in my life again. It will be nice. It will be wonderful and I will be happy. It just won't be what I thought I had, which will be good, because what I thought I had wasn't real. It's like finding out the actors in your favorite love story didn't like each other in real life. Kills the on screen chemistry you thought you saw. 

I think the set backs I have had this year, my losses, have been to make sure I don't get too tough. Women who have been burned tend to do that. I've never wanted to appear as a woman in need of a man, desperate and clingy without one. I've also never wanted to appear like a woman who could do without one. I like men. I like them a lot. I don't like the ones who hurt me but I'm not ready to throw the man-baby out with the bath water. Maybe I just don't have any fight left in me to keep my guard up anymore. I don't think it's because I am emotionally well or ready for a new relationship as much as I am surrendering to the fact that I need people in my life. I need them close to me. I need some very close. I need one even closer. Yeah, I said need. 

“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.” 

― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars