An official end
I am free.
It has been a long, slow, painful process spanning 7 years. Probably longer, if I’m honest. There was a lot of “1 step forward, two steps back”, a lot of times when I felt frozen and stuck between a rock and a hard place and just let the chaos swirl around me. And I think, honestly, I never thought I would get here, or that I even *wanted* to. But. Here I am: driving MY OWN car, in MY OWN HOME, with my beautiful 14 month old daughter who I have raised entirely alone for the last year. I have child support payments coming in. I have personal goals again. Life is good.
I look at my lying, cheating, sociopathic, alcoholic ex and I see nothing but a truly broken person who has never deserved my heart, or the last 10 years of my life.
This is not what I thought it would look like. This is not the life I signed up for. And my heart aches for the fantasy of my life with him every day. But today, that background pain of heartbreak is a million times better than the pit in my stomach after finding a bottle or catching a whiff of vodka... or picking up on a slight slur of speech, or wondering if my daughter is safe when I left the house. It is better than finding condom wrappers left in our car, or texts between him and other women/prostitutes. It is better than sleeping next to a man I grew to resent and hate. I will live this day over any other “bad day” in the past 100 times over.
All I can say is that.. I wasn’t ready until I was ready. And I took it inch by inch. But I finally got here. Finally. For all the years I spent waffling over leaving and making half-choices, all I can say is that while I wish I saved myself the hurt that would only continue to grow, I couldn’t do what I wasn’t ready for. I had to be ready.
These days, I am just trying to forgive myself for taking so much time and letting myself get so lost in his illness.... well, that and chasing my beautiful daughter around our backyard in the sunshine, laughing.
Yeah. I laugh again, too.