I looked up the word disillusioned in the dictionary.
On my list of top fears following a divorce, one of them was the fear of becoming bitter. We've all seen them. And too many of them are women...the utter mockery toward relationships, love and men pervades their aura. And I started to notice myself, cautiously at first but gaining momentum, dissecting all the relationships around me, and one after another finding them morbidly flawed.
I watched the mask of romance and hope and happiness slip off it's own face between takes. And I feel scared. I find myself making strange sarcastic commentaries during love films and feeling an incestuous disgust over really long term relationships. Then it finally occurs to me, I'm disillusioned. And it will be a conscious effort to leave the baggage at the door here.
Just because a relationship falls apart, doesent mean the whole thing was a failure. There was a major twist in my experience of marriage, I can either focus on the part that fell apart and broke, or I can build a bridge to where it's going. This is my story, and even if the relationship itself did not end in death and passion, I learned that I am capable of a deep commitment but unwilling to stay miserable.
Closing the door on something that didnt work anymore was an act of love somehow. Even if only to myself. So, the dictionary described disillusioned as "to be free of illusion" and illusion was described as "something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality."
I am free of the fairytales. Thank God.