I Don't Know What It Is About You, I Just Know It's Not What It Was

Eleven years ago this month, I was leaving my marriage. It wasn't a snowy February like it is this year, it wasn't even that cold outside, but it was cold enough. He'd left his ring on the kitchen table one morning, and I took that as my sign. Truth be told, I don't know why I felt I needed a sign, after the past six months, but apparently, I needed a push to leave.

Our marriage didn't last long at all; we took our vows in October of 1995, and by February of 1998, I was back home with my parents. There are people who know me now, possibly even people who read this blog, who have NO IDEA I was ever married. And, if they ever met my ex-husband, would marvel at the fact that I married him. I don't know what it is about intelligent women that we often marry the completely wrong men for us, but it happens, more than you think. Maybe we're so used to having to prove something to everybody that we don't listen when those somebodies are telling us to stop, and think. After all, we're smarter than that, we could never be wrong, right?

I said yes too quickly, and I don't know that I ever really loved him. I know I loved the idea of him, self-employed, blue collar, seemingly independent, witty. Full of bravado which I mistook for deeper intelligence, to match mine. Not a bad guy at all, someone you'd be happy to call friend. He just wasn't my husband. I don't know that he ever could have been MY husband. I needed something deeper, and once the novelty wore off, we had nothing to say to each other. I behaved badly, and hurt him terribly. We tried counseling, but when he looked at the therapist and asked, angrily, "why should I have to change anything just because I got married?" I knew it was only a matter of time. I'm glossing over a lot of arguments, bad decisions, and lies, mostly mine, but the details are irrelevant. The ring on the table opened the door, and I left to start over.

The other night, I was taken by surprise by some lingering emotional response to these events. During those last awful months, I listened to two specific albums, quite a bit. I was pondering my self-imposed romantic exile and when or how it might ever end, and a song from those days popped up in my player, and I burst into tears. Mostly because I was reminded of all the bad decisions I made back then, and the repercussions, but also because eleven years later, and I'm still trying to figure out if there's someone out there who understands me at all, and is willing to love me, imperfect as I am. So when a friend refers to February as "The Suck", I understand where he's coming from when he makes that statement. We're reminded of the cold and the lonely, and it seems that spring won't ever come.

So if I've been quiet here lately, it's because I'm in deep ponder. Things are moving, forward, I think. There's good swirling about me these days. There's also worry, and some confusion. And I'm just trying to make sense of it all, and see what spring brings me. I'm ok, though. Just, waiting.