I have learned to let the past go, and this blog is about the days upon us and the days to come not about the past. The more I think about the present and the future, the more that I realize that I have grown as a person and that I have healed. Still from time to time I think and write about the past just enough to provide perspective on today.
How did I get here? Is a question that has a sarcastic ring to it in my head from time to time. Tonight, I am winding down from a perfect Sunday with my Little Birds, and my favorite question does not ring sarcastically in my head. Instead, the question whispers gently in my heart. How did I get here?
I am not sure exactly. Like everyone else, I do not know how much of our lives is chance and circumstance versus fate and predestination. I am not sure if there really is a butterfly effect, or if the basic chapters of our lives play out the same regardless of the minor events and decisions we make each day.
I do think that there are turning points and moments that drive and define us. Like everyone else, I have had hundreds of these through out my life, and I can not necessarily recall all the ones of greatest significance for the different aspects of my life.
The short of it is that lots of things happened for me to find myself alone and the mother of two amazing little boys. There is no way to tell the whole story, but there is one major turning point that explains a great deal.
For nearly ten years, I was married with plans to be married for life. We had two children together, and we had been through me finding out about his frightening criminal past, his extra-curricular activities with a woman that did things I did not, and losing both my parents. I had learned to live with what his gambling problem did to us financially, and his tight control of our finances despite the above average income that I earned. I never thought that I would be divorced because we had made it through so much, and I was willing to accept the issues with the life that we had together even if it meant working myself to death and being broke. Gambling is a disease, and I took a vow of “in sickness and in health”.
The one thing I can remember about being married was being unhappy. I woke up unhappy and I went to bed unhappy.
Then I found a lump in my breast. I went alone to the doctor. If ever I have wanted someone by my side it was that day. I was terrified. I hadn’t been feeling right, and I could tell the size of the lump had increased considerably since I first discovered it. I was scared out of my mind. I remember crying the night before on the phone with my sister, and she had wanted to come to Houston. I thought to myself, why does she need to do this when I have someone that I have committed my life to?
The mammogram was incredibly painful, and the results weren’t any less painful. I actually passed out. They ran another test that day, and I could tell myself from the images of the test that there was a problem. I was scared and alone waiting for the doctor. Then there was a biopsy. That hurt too. I had to wait more than a week for the results.
Finding out that you may have cancer is worse than the day you find out that you do have cancer. I know first hand. Before long, I was in an operating room having my left breast scarred as they removed the problem cells, which would be sent off to a lab to determine what needed to happen next. The surgery was pretty painful. Waking up and my husband being no where to be found, was more painful.
I can’t remember anything that happened from the time that I woke up and was all alone in the hospital to the time that we were eating dinner at Lupe Tortilla. I am not sure why we thought eating out was a good idea. I was still totally drugged up, and I was bleeding through my bandage and shirt, but I was too out of it to realize that I needed to do something about it. The drugs started to wear off once I had food in my stomach and the fear began to set back in.
Did they get everything? Would I have to go through chemo? Was I going to die and miss seeing my children grow up? My mother and grand mother both died of cancer, and it was all too real. I looked over at Little Chirp, he was just over a year old and was happily shoving beans into his mouth one at a time, and I thought to myself what a beautiful sight that was, and that I did not want to miss out.
It has been just a few months prior that I held my mother’s hand as she succumbed to cancer. I finally spoke. I said, “What if it is serious?” I was thinking of Little Chirp, Brainy Bird and my mother.
My husband said, “Well if it is serious, we will get a divorce. There is no reason to ruin us both financially.” He meant what he said. That is the day that my marriage ended. I was devastated.
I was beyond lucky that I had gone to the doctor when I did. I was left with horrible disfiguration, and the drugs that they made me take left me sick for months, but there was no chemo or any additional surgeries, and I was cancer free. There was minimal impact on us financially. My husband had no reason to divorce me. He was ready to move forward with plans to build our own house, thus continuing to enjoy the life that I provided him with. I was on a different page.
Lots of crazy things happened in the days that followed, but I knew I was in a marriage without love, and I finally faced what everyone close to me had known for a long time. I had married the wrong man. It took some time for me to get up the strength to leave him, but I did before too much longer, and I began life on my own.
Nearly three years have passed since then. I spent these last three years in survival mode figuring out how to navigate life on my own, healing from the past and regaining my self-confidence. The past few years have been eventful. There have been major strides forward and significant steps backwards. My heart has healed, and I am sure of who I am. I am no longer ashamed to be divorced or a single mother. I make no apologies for the choices that I have made.
A new chapter of my life is beginning….