Christmas Eve starting over

It’s Christmas  Eve 2023. I’m sitting on my front porch, watching the rain fall. It’s ironic honestly.  I should, and I am, grateful for what I have. It’s been a long year. I wish I would have wrote things down, but I didn’t. I’m starting a new journey and now I don’t even know where to begin. 

Just over a year ago, I ended my 19 year marriage. I hated the idea of throwing away all of the time I spent loving someone. I remember putting my kids to bed, and then going to my room to do what I normally did, just not with screaming from the living room as he played video games, while I finished wrapping Christmas presents and filling stockings. Every single year that is what I remember of Christmas. There was a peace though, but in my head there was so much chaos. So many mixed feelings. So many emotions. I know I cried myself to sleep that night. 

I honestly don’t remember too much of Christmas Eve 2022. But isn’t that a good thing? Nothing bad happened. I wasn’t fighting, I wasn’t faking. 

This year, they are with him for Christmas. This is my first year of not having them with me on Christmas. I just hope they have a great Christmas. I  hope if they feel sad, and miss me, they call. But most of all, I hope he shows them how special they are today, and tomorrow and honestly always. I hope he doesn’t get angry with them if they feel a little sad about the changes. They deserve, just as I do, to feel their feelings rather than bottle them up, and hide it from him, and everyone. 

I do have someone special in my life to share these days with. I am grateful for that. I didn’t expect to meet someone so quickly. We were honestly both damaged goods I’d say. 

Drowning

I keep bobbing up to catch a breath, but those breaths are getting less and less. I am struggling and going under quickly. I catch myself having doubts about being a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter, and even a good sister. My childhood wasn't perfect, but one thing I learned is that you stick it out, it gets better. I stuck it out, it would get better for a minute. Then I would sink right back down. Now, it feels as if I am no longer coming back up for air.

He is handsome, charming, giving, cultured and stubborn.  What more could a woman want. I am selfish and insecure  and stubborn, but I am giving, loving, and loyal.  So what is it that is making me so miserable.
Obviously myself, It is all me. I am selfish because I want handsome, charming and cultured to be about me. I want to be the other side of giving. I want the attention, the positive energy. I want this directed at me.

I am not perfect, he is not perfect. We are not perfect together. There is no you complete me. You are my other half. There never was. There has to come a time when you finally realize, they were right. No matter how stubborn you want to be. They were right.This idea we hold on to, that nobody tells us what to do. This rebel mentality, we grow up. We have to grow up.  We were not meant to be together. If so, God played a sick cruel joke if this was "God's doing. We have fought from before we were "exclusive".  How can you fight with someone when you barely even know each other. We were and are toxic, but somehow we brought 4 beautiful kids into this world. I guess thats to be expected. We fought so much that before we were even a couple, Make up sex was a thing.

Make up sex, and you're NOT my boyfriend??? What, how??? These are signs the universe says go your separate ways. How did you let this go on for so long. I ask myself this question regularly. What was I thinking, what am I thinking.

I was never liked by my in-laws. I do remember the day after my wedding. Sitting on our couch in the apartment with my new mother in law. I remember the stories, the promises, the memories that were embellished.  I remember hearing about how my husband had been so close to his sister that he HAD to go out with her the day after he married me. He had to spend time with her, because in his mothers defense, what if my husband didn't come back from deployment.

I should have annulled right then and there. Because seriously, what the hell was I thinking marrying this man, that I have probably had more fights with than I did my sister and we hadn't known each other for a full year yet. We married because, what if...

What if we had waited.
What if I had started a career? Worked, not have moved out of state? What if I had been independent, instead of a dependent? All of these what if moments.

One of the things that bothers me right now, is the idea that it is easy to jump back into the workforce. It's not, look it up, the articles. Look up other stay at home moms who were left with nothing after their husbands left them. The idea that I gave up everything for all of those years and he says I'm just not trying. I resent him. But there is no empathy for the fact that I selflessly took care of our children, moved them from state to state. Encouraged him, held the fort down when he was away, took two toddlers to a school to purchase books so he could focus on work and then focus on school work. All of the things I did, and I resent him?

I resent him. I do resent him. But not for putting in the effort

He says my excuse for not doing what he thinks I should do , is my resentment. I'm not allowed to blame my inability to get a job on him.
I can get a job. I can go work as a waitress, or in fast food, or even retail setting. I can go back to merchandising. I can get a job... but what I can't get is a career. Because a career takes dedication. It takes losing hours with your kids, relying on help, eating fast food because you're too tired to cook every single night, because it was a late and stressful day. Having everyone help with chores, and really enjoying those moments when you do get to sit down and have a meal together. Words of encouragement mean something, but when you are angry, become distant, say mean things when you're fighting. Those words mean nothing.

Then there's the times you contradict what you have said, with a new statement. You don't realize it, because you've made yourself believe something different.

I have lost the confidence I once had when I was eager, and physically and emotionally able to work.
I no longer feel like I can accomplish and see anything through. I feel as if I wasted my time and money on half of an education that is just a piece of paper sitting in a drawer. I'm not even sure it's still in that drawer.