- karacox12
The Past Collides
Updated: Jun 18, 2019
It is my firm belief that if we forget the past we are doomed to repeat it. But I also think that holding onto past hurts can make you bitter. While it may seem contradictory that I am writing this story out as I have also been going through old Facebook memories as they pop up and deleting the angry posts, it really isn’t. I wanted y’all to understand me more fully and what led me to where I am, and who I am. There is a distinct reason I have walls up, have a hard time letting people know me fully, and why I tend to resort back to my defense mechanisms. Honestly, most days I am still struggling to know me. It is a daily battle for me to not try to be what I feel people want me to be, and to just truly be me. There was a point in my life when I was determined in all my beliefs and actions, people described me as someone who had my “head screwed on tightly”, and I wasn’t afraid to be just me. But as with all of life, time changed me. Hopefully, you’re beginning to see why. This all happened a decade ago, so I have long since made peace with my past. But the wounds created left scars, and just like with physical scars, nothing will ever be just the same.
“You‘re not good enough.”
It was the first quarter of 2009. I had just caught Anthony in bed with another woman, although what happened we would probably to this day still debate. Feelings of anger and betrayal consumed me, not just because of the specific act, but also because I had changed so much of me to be who I thought -and who he said- he wanted. In the process, I had lost most of the friends I held most dear.
At the start of March, Anthony had his court date to receive his charges for the workman’s comp issues we had dealt with the year prior. He was given 5 years probation and a hefty fine. Once the anxiety and stress of that was lifted, we began speaking some again and decided to try to work through things for the sake of our son. A couple weeks before Mother’s Day, I moved back home to try to make my marriage work. Truth be told, there was too much boiling below the surface for us to be able to work through anything. He wouldn’t admit that any part of having another woman in our bed was wrong, sex or not, and I wouldn’t let it go even though I told him I did.
Forgiveness was hard to give for that situation, but I desperately wanted my marriage to work. For 5 months, we put on a good show. We made it through Kane‘s first birthday successfully. But late in October, he delivered the blow that made me bitter for the next couple years. The words will forever ring in my head. “I just can’t shake the thought that you’re not good enough for me.” It cut like a chainsaw to my heart. The past few month I had imagined he was indebted to me for giving him another chance, and all the while he had been thinking he deserved better. It infuriated me like nothing else had before.
While searching for old friends, who should I find...
We agreed that I would stay there until I could find a job and get on my feet. Living back with my parents had proven difficult after being a married adult, and it wasn’t really something I wanted to do again. We decided we would finalize our divorce once we were no longer under the same roof, but as far as a relationship went, we were no longer together. As I went through my things and started trying to divide our lives, I started selling what I didn’t need and saving the money.
Anthony was working almost every night by now, and had switched from the piano bar to a local strip club working the door. In my mind, it was a mockery that someone working at a strip club thought they were too good for me. But instead of dealing with the emotions, I used them to bolster my own ego, and hid behind the anger.
My nights, since he was never home after Kane went to bed, were spent looking for jobs, and making amends with old friends. Finding a job when I had a small child and had worked for my husband for two years proved difficult. When frustration got the best of me, I would spend the remainder of the evening watching tv and playing farkle while chatting with friends.
On one of these nights, while scrolling through friends lists looking for people I knew, who should come across my page but Q, who also was recently divorced. It had been 6 years since we had spoken at this point, but many of the emotions had never been finalized. The questions still swirled around in my head, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers. Timidly, I sent a friend request...
To start at the beginning of this story, click here: