I know I’ve been neglecting my writing. I’m not even writing much for my class. I was looking forward to taking it; getting credit for my work, having it looked over by others and given criticism… yet here I am, wishing I had not registered for this semester at all.

Because splitting from my husband has been far more stress and upset than I had expected. Mind you, it’s not like I’m a newb; I’ve done this before and it wasn’t easy at all. It was hella scary and I was plagued with a tornado of feelings and regrets and anxiety etc but I made it through… came out better and began to feel like my life was my own again. After my first divorce I realized how much of my entire existence had revolved around my crumbled marriage. They say “a great weight was lifted” and let me tell you, it really fit me. What stunned me most, however, was rediscovering how much I loved myself. Giving that sociopath the boot was by far the most liberating thing I had ever done in my life.

So its not like ending a primary relationship was new to me. Hell I’d ended a couple of other relationships along the way. I had gone through more unrelenting heartache breaking up with my girlfriend than I had ever had in my life with anyone. I was fairly certain that this time, I had it down to a science.

Not to make light of the situation because even still, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy or drama-free by any means. I’m not splitting from him because I hate him, he’s threatening the security of the family or even because he hurt me. I split from him because I can no longer sustain the numbness. I learned too well from previous pains; I have feelings, desires, dreams and goals and I should be holding onto them. I should be working on the things that matter to ME. Not just the family, not just the primary bread-winner but ME. I’m important too.

So this split was supposed to give me back my self. It was supposed to remind me who I am and how to love myself first again. Stop the spiritual death that was darkening my soul.

But oh, disentanglement is not that simple.

You can’t go from over a decade of shoving your spirit down, bolstering up everyone else and denying the very essence of your childhood dreams to suddenly being a happy whole human who marches confidently through life.

Habits are hard to break, even when they are killing you.

So here I am, slogging through all this psychic fall-out, trying to separate that which is a real part of me I lost so long ago and that which I created to shield me from the reality I lived in.  Holy hell is it hard. I can separate things and I can separate relationships, but I can’t separate all the facets that shine from the shards of my past.

But today, I took enough steps back to finally see myself as a reaction, pure reaction, and I was amazed.

I’m reading words that I’ve read so many times before, I know every phrase that’s turning before the screen shows it to me in completion. I feel the husk of my self resonating in such a familiar way and out come the words I know I will type, as I’ve typed SO many times before. Just looking at the whole scenario play out makes me tired. Tired of my own impotence in the face of so much ingrained familiarity. How can I sit here, knowing exactly what is happening, exactly how wrong it it, exactly how pointless my own response will be and yet I do it anyway? Again and again, I do it while watching myself as if from another plane. I marvel that my own brain can split against itself so smoothly. I hear my own voice, in echo chambers of different timbres and altered tones, rail against my own automatic movements: Movements of peace-making, movements of placating, movements –frail though they are – of healing and hurting and hoping. Yet all through this artless dance, I also hear my voice, the thinnest, frailest of all my voices, calmly telling me to stop. And slowly, through the entrenched movements, I begin to rebel… I can see it happening as my fingers type the same words I would always type, say the same things and ask the same questions… my fingers stop and begin to use a key they never did before: delete.

I watch my hands, long graceful, I always loved my hands, for all the wonderful things they do for me, I watch my hands slow, stop and begin to turn back this script, turn it around and unravel the scarf of my reactions, thread by thread until I slowly, just as slowly as I turned, slowly realize I’m not choking anymore. I can breathe.

Because I changed. Not just my mind, not just my life pattern, but my view of myself was brought back by the power of my own desire to live. And that’s what I intend to do; to live in this person, with this spirit, this shard of The Light Within, and never, ever again, convince myself that someone elses love is worth covering it up again. My own love is enough. My love for me. I will never again become a banshee for “love”.

Because taking that first tiny step BACKWARDS, I discovered I was still here, just small and ignored. No “relationship” is worth denying the woman inside me. I have desires, wants, dreams and goals. One of those was to have a partner by my side, a family all around me, a network of love and support I could count on.  But I took one corner of that dream and forgot all the rest. Even though they were here all along. I just was too scared to join them.

With or without a partner, I will not forget again; my life ahead of me is for me. I can share it, I want to share it, someday I’m sure I will share it, but I will never again give it away.