I was talking via IM with a friend today before getting cut off. At the tail end of our convo, I was talking to her about our marital woes. Her STBX is very similar to Mr. Ex -- just a few years older. I recognized the similarities in our marriages from the beginning but thought I could stop the truck wre ck from occurring...I was wrong. And she followed suit about a year later.
Today's convo was centered around issues with exes and how much of a rude awakening one can experience. I told her of my belief that God was preparing me for a life with the Drama Geek and how we both agree our relationship has God's handprint all over it. At the same time, I acknowledged some of the ridiculous notions we had in attempt to save our marriage.
My words:
And how long we spent thinking we were the problem, that we held them back
...rolling eyes...
Her words:
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?
Are you seriously trying to tell me that the woman I know as FreeAngel EVER thought for ONE moment that SHE was the problem in that marriage? Or that she EVER held ANYONE back, let alone Mr. Ex?!? I liked Mr. Ex and all for sharing his love of comic books with my son, and he's an OK guy and probably even a hero in his circle of inbred friends, but he was never anywhere near FreeAngel's level. Ever. He just wasn't born to it. He couldn't get there if he tried. And that's not putting him down, that's just seeing apples as apples and turtles as turtles.
GIRLFRIEND! I need to see myself the way I see you. You are lighter than air right now. You are living in your spirit, your soul, and your self. All that stuff is dust in the wind. Remember how I kept saying you kept seeming lighter and lighter to me as you were losing weight? That's the only way I could describe it. The weight loss was phenomenal, but that was all surface stuff. That lightness of being is what I meant.
Even when you were still with him, I could see that light and that lightness creeping in, like the pre-dawn. You were getting physically smaller, but expanding your FreeAngel-dentity, and filling up like a balloon, and you escaped his hold and started floating up and up, and there you were, bobbing along, and you bobbed into another floating being who was discovering his lightness. And the two of you, up above the world, found each other.
At the same level, with hearts full of light and love, and lifted there by your trials and your honest soul-searching, and your readiness to accept the good from each other. How could that not involve God? And besides, you were created to move people forward. You recognize potential and give yourself to moving people ahead in their lives.
You brought Mr. Ex forward, and then you had to let go because the rest has to be up to him, and you needed to float up, escape from what tied you down, because you were needed elsewhere.
You and Drama Geek bring each other forward. You lean on each other and you bless each other. You bring out the best in each other because you recognize and adore the best in each other.
It drives me crazy to think you ever thought you held Mr. Ex back, or that you didn't do enough. I'm thinking that letting go is the greatest gift - not for our blight-on-the-soul former husbands, but for us.
I'm sitting here realizing that I have been so mired in angst because my own STBX let go that I've weighed myself down in order to remain hovering at that dark level. If I was smart I'd celebrate the ability to bob free by actually freaking bobbing free.
I'm thinking that if you were needed elsewhere, then maybe I'm needed elsewhere, too, and that's where the hope is.