My Big Fat Lesbian Divorce – Thank You

After much thought, I decided this letter belongs as the last entry under My Big Fat Lesbian Divorce heading. It’s really more of a morph (non Power Rangers style, though I’d like to be the Pink Power Ranger if I had to choose).

In saying that, I’m struggling for the words to open a good-bye letter. Saying “good-bye” has never been my strong suit. I’ve led a life of good-byes while I’ve longed for a life of “Hello”.

But you didn’t say good-bye to me or the boys, and in retrospect, neither did we to you. Rather, we’ve lived our good-bye through each day we’ve discovered our laughter and ourselves once again.

So, let me start by saying Thank You.

I didn’t know where this journey of uprooting myself and the children to move up here would lead us. Of course I had hoped it would lead us to a better level of a new chapter in our lives, and it has. Just….without you. At first I felt that was more of an ending, but in reality it’s become a beginning.

I know I cried a lot after moving up here. I had left behind open skies, the sound of crickets at night, and the quiet streets. But despite the reasons we married, I had left it all behind because I made a commitment and I wanted to see where that journey could lead us all as a family. It wasn’t easy but that was the level I believed in my keeping my word. It wasn’t what we agreed on when we decided to marry that day we went to the courthouse, but still….

I thought despite things hadn’t come into my life as I had hoped, that it could somehow grow into what I dreamed of once I moved and in time.

Maybe I didn’t see you as my partner the way I should have when we decided to marry, but I gave it my all to grow into love with you and to be your wife. Eventually I did, but by that time I had also realized that our union was in reality a business arrangement between two people for your job, and would never really be the loving relationship of two hearts discovering each other in the natural progression I had longed for. By that time though, emotions were involved so walking away became a tangled mess. I should have walked away much sooner, but I can’t question or second guess myself anymore, because things turned out exactly as they should.

Since I’ve lived here on my own, I’ve discovered my own heart, my own voice, and my own open skies once again. Perhaps meeting you was exactly what I needed to move me to this new level of my life that’s opened up new and different opportunities for the boys and I.

B is flourishing in his new school, C is mainstreamed without an aide, G is reaching new milestones and D is excelling academically. Who knows if any of that would be the case had we not moved.

I’ve made new friends, explored new opportunities, found that I’m much stronger than I’ve ever given myself credit for, and learned to trust myself once again.

I’ve also found that I know exactly what I’m longing to feel with another person and a liberty to allow myself the freedom to feel it without reserve when it comes. I’ve had opportunities to do just that, but I haven’t settled. Because I’ve heard my voice when I filed for our divorce, and I liked the sound of my own strength.

Because I’m here, I’ve met someone I’m taking that liberty to discover without reserve. She’s a collage of all those things I’ve held out for and I’d literally be doing my heart a great disservice if I didn’t walk in freedom to take the risk.

So Thank You.

I say that without malice, sarcasm or for any other reason than to simply thank you.

You were the train ride here, that held a work shop of lessons that I needed to learn, for whatever reasons I needed. I appreciate that and I’ll always thank you for that.

But now, I need to tell you Good-Bye openly with my words instead of just living it as I have. The boys have said good-bye in their own ways, so I’m not just saying this as your ex wife, but also as your ex family.

We’re good.

I wish you love, happiness and I truly hope you find the peace you’re so desperately seeking. I hope you find healing, hope and joy. I hope many good things for you. I’m pretty sure neither of us had planned for it to end as badly as it did. That’s OK.

Because I’m exactly where God has planned all along.

If you listen to this song, you’ll hear exactly where my heart is in writing this. It starts when Chris Colfer sings, and ends with my

Good-Bye.

 

 

My Big Fat Lesbian Life -The Divine Comedy AKA The Marriage Bed

This past April, marked 2 years since I got rid of the ex. I was able to just recently get rid of her bed. If I had replaced it already, I would be jumping up and down on it, but I haven’t yet. When I do, I will. A lot.

If you’ve read along, you know that the bed has been a source of contention for me. It’s not like any great sex took place between her and I on the thing. Had she not been there, I am sure the sex would have been perfect. However, she was and coupled with the fact I spent more than my share of nights falling asleep crying, it came to represent all things awful.

It feels so good to not have to share space with her anymore. So very, very good.

I haven’t had the ability to tear the bed down again, so it stayed in the room I used to not get laid in share, with my ex wife. I tried to sleep in it, only to have horrible nightmares. Which just solidified my belief that it was the fabric equivalent to The Divine Comedy.

Before the bed was taken apart, I snapped some pics and planned to sell the bed frame. I quickly made the listing on Craigslist and waited. It wasn’t long before I actually got a serious offer, and decided to meet the woman who was so graciously offering me money to remove something so ghastly, from my home. We loaded the frame into the van, met her at a store, loaded the bed into her truck, and in all honesty I just couldn’t take her money. I don’t believe in talking about giving, I think it is nothing more than showing how awesome you want everyone to think you are, but there is a story here. I gave it to her. I just felt moved by the spirit that she needed the bed frame, and in all honesty, she was doing me a favor by taking it.

The mattress was set outside the dumpster area. I didn’t even bother trying to list it, because most people wouldn’t take a used mattress. So it was set out there, and then it was gone within hours. As we were walking across the parking lot, one of the neighbors made mention that she just found the most awesome mattress outside, and swapped it out for her worn out one.

What was a horrible ghost to me, was let go at the perfect time for someone else. I love it when things like that happen.

http://youtu.be/JK716RqoUms

My big Fat Lesbian Life – This Is What It Is About

It seems this place has carried a lot of thoughts and feelings on the crappy aspects of love and dating. Looking back at some of the things I have written, I am almost amazed at just how much shit I put myself through. A lot of it could have been avoided or ended way sooner if I had just not engaged myself. Yet at the same time, it has chronicled a journey I have been on. Healing from grief, realizations about myself as a woman and life.

I am dating someone who has changed my whole world. This relationship has opened spaces to areas I never even realized were there. If you’ve ever played video games, or watched someone, think of it as standing in a room. You need to find a clue or whatever, to move to the next level. You have opened ever single door and window, until  you click on the bookshelf and suddenly a hidden door reveals itself. On the other side all of these really cool things are just there. You can’t imagine how you even managed to make it this far int he game without knowing about the things you are about to pick up and experience. Given it is a video game example, but it exactly like that. I have no idea how I went this long in life never knowing what this feels like. It is by far the most easy, calm and peaceful experience I have had aside from holding one of my children for the first time.

While I can’t believe I have lived this long without having experienced a relationship so loving and good, I am also so happy that I am sharing it with her. What a gift it has been to share with her.

Recently I was explaining to someone the difference between the relationships I have had. It’s like looking at someone at the end of it all and thinking to yourself “I just spent 20 years with that person” and sounding not so happy about it, and “I am so happy I spent 20 years with that person” and being happy with that choice. Until now, I have never been happy with the places I have been. It wasn’t until I realized that I was ready to stop settling and compromising the things I wanted, that I found myself in the place I am now. Happy.

One might think form my earlier entries that I was truly in love with my ex wife. I think maybe in some way I did love her. But the reality is I thought I loved someone that wasn’t really who I thought she was or wanted her to be, to justify my trying to work things out. By the end of things, it became more about trying to make something work, because I thought that was as good as it was going to get in my life. I also made a vow, which I planned to keep. Yet I would also look at her and think to myself that I couldn’t live another 20 years with her. I simply couldn’t put up with the way she treated me that long, and expect that anything good was going to come from it. I wanted out, I did. Yet at the same time, that part of that felt so beaten down emotionally wasn’t strong enough to walk away and so the easier option to me was to continue trying to make it work and love the person I thought I loved. Looking back, what we had wasn’t love. Not the way love should be. It was destructive, painful, deceitful and so unhealthy. It broke me down and left me a mess. What I was really grieving wasn’t the loss of a real love, it was the journey of a realization that I didn’t have love at all. Once I came to terms with that, I started to set my feet on the path to love myself more. That took me going through some things, and into relationships I never should have been in, but that I needed to be in. I needed those place to grow.

Now, that all seems a past that seems so foreign to me. I have changed. Now that I know what love truly looks like, I have forever changed. I hope that this becomes a place that hasn’t just become a place where I have shared the pain of my journey and realizations the past two years, but that it can become a place where I can share about my journey in love. There is hope. There is life after divorce and crappy relationships. There is possibility and hope, even if you are in place that doesn’t seem so possible right now. I know you might think it is easier for me to say this right now, because I find myself in the most amazing place I have ever been. Chances are, if someone said that to me 2 years ago I would have been too lost in my lesson to even want to believe it to be true. But it is true, and it does start to heal as long as you allow it to. You might be thinking to yourself “Of course I want it to heal, I don’t want to feel this way anymore. It hurts. This sucks.” Yet I am here as a testament to the fact that it can get better and what you are feeling today, can feel like total alien in a year from now.. even a month.

Whatever you do, don’t give up and don’t give in. Love happens when life does.