One Year Later

A year ago my life changed forever. I still remember that night. My friends took me out for a celebratory dinner and a concert in the park. Everyone reassured me that in a year, things would get better. Guess what? Nothing has changed. A year later, I'm still dealing with the same amount of passive-aggressiveness, gaslighting, spitefulness and vindictiveness. It has not gotten better, and I don't believe it ever will.

I remember a remark made earlier that day which was said loud enough for me to hear...."She'll fall apart again within a year" and how the circle of spectators garishly sniggered. They were betting on my downfall. I was determined to prove them wrong.

A year later I gleefully celebrate the failure of their prediction. I did not fall apart. My life has remained stable and is on an upwardly mobile track. I used this defeat as a springboard to a better life. I objectively anatomized the events that occurred and further broke them down until I was down to analyzing the motivations that allowed the behaviors to occur which prompted the events. I went deep. Step by step, I worked with an amazing therapist to overcome the core issues which manifested in harmful behaviors. There was however one fallacy that I was not able to renounce until very recently.

I used to write long passionate prose hoping to soften the heart and appeal to the soul. Every single one was met with disdain and derision. I never gave up because I thought that something, even one thing, might possibly get through and make a difference. I am a hopelessly foolish optimist in that way. As I was writing yet another long winded passionate response, I suddenly stopped and hit the backspace button until my screen was blank. The curser blinked at me in anticipation. Suddenly, it dawned on me that nothing I was going to say or do was ever going to make a lick of a difference. I had been operating through Ovid's philosophy that“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence”. However, I failed to realize that I was not dealing with stone, I was dealing with steel. Instead of an opus, I typed a generic pandering response and sent it off. That was it. I was done.

Finally, after years and years of being stuck in a vicious cycle of enmeshment, the puzzle was complete and I was free. They say the opposite of love is hate, but now I understood that the opposite of both love and hate is apathy. I no longer cared to even try.

A lot of the stress and anxiety I experienced came from fears that were both perceived and imagined. I remember worrying that I would be homeless and that I would become a social pariah. I thought that no man would ever want me because of my baggage.

In reality, one year later my life is better than it's ever been before. It's not perfect, and I'm not out of the woods yet, but the fires I imagined were mere flickering flames in the end. My relationship with my kids is absolutely amazing. They defer to me as an authoritative figure, despite the lack of physical presence. The emotional bond is now secure enough that I can rest on my laurels for a bit. My relationship with my family is amazing. My community, both old and new, embraces me. I do not lack for romantic prospects. I'm emotionally healthier than I've ever been. I'm learning to love and value myself, and in turn making better decisions. I have really great friends. I have goals and a purpose. I have a good relationship with God. Life is good.

I lost a lot, but I still feel like I'm a winner. I overcame it all. I won. As Viktor Frankl said "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way."