Thanks, guys, especially Mike and Hammer.
Mike, like you, I am at a turning point. I do not mean to hijack your thread; I think that what I am feeling is akin to what you are writing about. It's like leaving the Marines, having dreamt of that day, and yet finding your feelings as you start the next chapter of your life to be so different than the pure joy you expected.
And just because everything is so good, I find myself freer than I have ever been from my XH and the past, yet looking over my shoulder in a way I never expected to.
It is 20 months since I fled my then abusive, rageful and alcoholic husband after 20 years of marriage. I ran away with my car, my dog, a few clothes, and some jewelry tools. I was terrified. My children helped me, and after a week, I found an apartment that was safe, in the midst of a beautiful little city, and a refuge. I borrowed an inflatable mattress, and moved in with that, a folding table, two folding chairs, a saucepan and a borrowed picnic basket. That was how I started out.
Now, I am in my own home and I have settled in. My living room has comfortable chairs, and my attic is renovated into a beautiful jewelry studio as of today. My son, daughter-in-law, their 20 month old twins, and my daughter and her boyfriend came today and moved all my heavy equipment up to my new studio. It is beautiful, filled with light, white, a most wonderful space to work in. I made homemade lasagna, and we had a family Sunday dinner. The community of having my family here in my home was heartwarming. (My XH had alienated them all and visits were scarce.)
So they went home, and I sat and found myself in tears, crying inconsolably. It was the last thing I ever expected of myself.
Catlovermi, I relate to your story of rappelling. I am over the cliff now, heading onward and I cannot stop my movement. I must begin the next edition of my life. I must earn my living again, and now I have the tools, quite literally, to do so.
Mike, when I read your post earlier, the word that came to me was nostalgia: "pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again".
What I am longing for, and what I am mourning can never be again. It is gone. That era is done. The exit door said "no return". I am so surprised to find myself looking backwards through the glass as if that were the place I wanted to be again.
Hammer, you are right: "You know the words in your head, It is your heart might not be taking delivery on the message."
I need courage to let my heart feel what I feel tonight, and accept that tomorrow I must put that aside and go to work on earning my way (both emotionally and financially) into what must no longer be the future, into what must be the now.
I hope I can get there. It seems very hard tonight. I feel worn and weary and tossed through so much tribulation, grief, and hard work to get here. And so lonely. It was so hard to have such a wonderful time with my family and then to have them leave, as they should, to go home to their own comforting lives, as they should.
More building to do. There is always tomorrow. Looking back and looking forward at the same time brings me to tears. Mike, you say that it is cutting the last tie, and I understand that. For me, it is accepting that nostalgia for what was good about the past is no longer relevant to what I must make of my future. Tonight is the pivot.
God bless us all. I will go to sleep saying "I will to will Thy will" and hope to wake in the sunlight eager to see what is in boxes of tools and gems that have been hidden for almost 2 years. And maybe an idea will come to me for what to design next.
I so value the support of this community and you who understand the travails of this passage we are taking from the depths of dysfunction and pain into health. Thank you. I have needed you often, and I need you tonight.
ShootingStar1