Today’s flashback is a hindsight, a picture drawn with words if
you will, rather than a real photo…sorry for the downer.
My Papa died in March 2000, my sister died April 5, 2000, I
graduated from high school in May 2000, we moved to a different state in August
2000, 2 weeks after that I started college, a few months after that I broke up
with my high school boyfriend and started “dating” someone else that was
serving in the Air Force (he was an ex-boyfriend that I reconnected with). He
came home from deployment shortly after we reconnected and I promptly fell in
love with him and he promptly dumped me. I was so hurt, so pissed off, so
utterly broken from all the change and stress that defined my life in that
year.
I didn’t realize it at the time but looking back, that is when I
started building walls. My childhood was relatively carefree and happy. I never
dealt with any major issues (beyond which activity to play with my friends that
day) so I didn’t know how to deal with all the stress and pain I found myself
in. I’m a happy-go-lucky type of person, and I bet if you ask anyone who knew
me then, they’d be shocked to hear I was having such a hard time. I smiled and
sucked it up and went about my business. I even fooled myself. It’s only
looking back now that I realize how traumatic that time really was. To make it
through the day I ignored my problems. I didn’t analyze anything or give much
attention to my feelings. And I started building walls. These walls kept me
safe. How can anyone hurt you if you don’t let them close? I learned to keep
them just far enough away that they think
I’m letting them in but really there is a big, strong wall right in the middle.
I was safe behind my walls. The best part, no one knew they were there…and I
ignored the fact that they were. They just became part of me.
This really worked great for me. That is until I met my husband. We
fell in love very quickly (we were engaged after 6 months and got married about
9 months after that). Yet, I still had my walls. I knew I wasn’t giving my
husband the love he needed or deserved. I knew it but I had forgotten about my
walls (they were so deeply ingrained that I didn’t see them as separate from
me) so neither of us could see what the problem was. I don’t want to say I
regret marrying him, because I don’t. He really is a wonderful person and a
great father to our children. But my walls were causing hell. And then he got
stuck in a job that sucked the rest of the life out of him and he changed. He
became miserable and all the little negative parts of his personality became
amplified. I’ll sum it up by saying our marriage sucked.
We almost divorced a couple of times but neither of us really
wanted to. I knew it was mostly his job that was making him miserable but all
that misery just reinforced my walls. I would not let him hurt me. I would not
let him bring me down. He needed love and affection and would push hard for
that, all the while being miserable in every other way. I worked under the
premise that he can go on and be miserable but I am going to keep smiling and I’ll
just do whatever I want to do with little regard to him. That worked splendidly
for about zero seconds. Yet, we continued on like that for that entire time. It
was a vicious cycle of him pushing for what he needed and me running as fast as
I could in the other direction with my walls safely between us.
In October of last year he FINALLY got a new job. The hours weren’t
great and the pay sucked but he was out of that hell hole that was his previous
job! Things started to look up. Especially when he was offered an even better
job a few months later, with better pay and MUCH better hours. Things were
good.
And then they were not good. I will not go into detail here but I’ll
just say that even my walls weren’t protecting me anymore. It was all just too
much. I became miserable. I found myself driving home slowly because I didn’t
want to be there. I stopped smiling. I started being mean because I didn’t care
to make an effort not to be. I fell out of love.
With my walls no longer being effective and my realization that
they really weren’t helping me anyway I decided I couldn’t pretend anymore. I
couldn’t go on as we were, just pretending everything was ok. Everything was
not ok. But now what? How do I cope when every coping mechanism I’ve ever used
has failed me? I didn’t know what to do, what to think, how to act. Then the
anxiety attacks started. I didn’t know what it was at first but after a couple
of times I realized that’s what was happening. At that point I knew we hit
bottom.
During my…breakdown (I guess you would call it that, although that
sounds awfully dramatic) my husband had his own transformation. From what he’s tells
me, he realized how good he has really had it, realized how miserable and
horrible he was to us all and he is now looking at things in a whole new way. He’s
happy. Don’t get me wrong, he is under no illusion that everything is ok, but
he’s going forward with a positive attitude.
That brings me to my next problem. I don’t know how to handle this
new, excited, optimistic person. At first I figured it was his way of trying to
cheer me up and get me out of my funk. I appreciated his efforts but I just
kept waiting for the old husband to come back so it wasn’t having too much
effect on me. Then yesterday he responded to a chain of emails between me and
my cousins (planning our upcoming trip to their house) and his response was
cheery, upbeat, and completely frightening for me. That’s when I realized, not
only do I have to get over the hurt and all of our past issues, but I also have
to figure out who this new guy is. I feel myself trying to build more walls to
guard myself against this unknown man trying to get me to love him. While part
of me is enjoying this new guy, with his upbeat attitude, great suggestions for
fun things to do on the weekends, helping around the house, the other part is
reeling from the absolute change of direction. Who is this man and what has he
done with my husband?? I have the urge to poke him with a stick (think the
large poking device that the “Friends” gang fashioned so that they could see if
Ugly Naked Guy was really dead or not) to see if he’s real or not. I just do
not know how to cope.
The good thing is I’m facing the issues now. Really facing them. I
don’t know where it will lead or how bumpy the road will be but that is where I
am coming from and this is where I am now. Part of me can’t wait to see how it
turns out, the other part…scared to death!
Lily
