A Time to Heal

Well, if there's anyone out there still following this blog, I'm sure you'll be shocked to see me here. It's a bit scary to be back. Quite a lot has happened in my life since I last blogged. Actually, that's an understatement...

When I last posted, I was an instructional aide for special education in middle school. I was also married, and very involved in the lives of all three of my children, including my grown child since I worked with her. I'm not sure I would've believed someone if they had told me just how different my life would be today.

I am now divorced (for all intents and purposes, over a year now..by law, only a few days ago). I work in a call center for a security company doing a job that is as un-fulfilling (most days anyway) as my job as an aide was fulfilling. My relationship with my kids is very different, since my younger two chose to stay living with their father when I left. I left because I didn't think there was any way for me to stay.

I'm sure I mentioned in my blog a few times how difficult my marriage was, but I also know that I minimized what I was going through because of my optimism that eventually things would get better, or I'd get better at dealing with it. I prayed so hard for God to change me if that was what was needed, to change him if that was it, and even to help me to keep living that way if that was His will...

I begged my ex-husband (hard to type that...) for years to go to counseling with me, so that we could figure out a way to make our marriage work. Once in a while, it would seem that I had convinced him to go...but then he would change his mind and decide not to go. When I finally felt like I'd rather die than stay in that place, I told him I just couldn't do it any more. I told him I'd be willing to go to counseling, but he'd have to be the one to set it up, since I believed that he would just back out again... I desperately hoped that he would be willing to seek help.

Two hours later, I sat across the room from him watching him begin the process of splitting our assets. He apparently had no desire to go to counseling. I didn't know what to say, what to do...

I don't remember if we told our kids that evening, or the next. I think it was that evening, but I guess that's something my memory is blocked about at the moment. We told the kids that we planned to remain "friends" (or something to that effect), and that we planned to try to make their lives as normal as possible...

I moved into an extra bedroom and started looking for a new job and new place to live. I didn't think it was possible to live on the income I had at the school. I found my current job a few weeks later, and a teacher friend rented me the home that used to belong to her parents. I moved out of our home two months after I'd made the "final decision". My life was changing in ways I never imagined possible.

During this last year and 3 months since I made the decision to leave my husband, I have lived on a roller coaster of emotions. I have battled serious bouts of depression and other health issues as well. The relationship I have with my children has changed drastically, as they didn't understand the reasons why I had to leave (partly because I had shielded them from the reasons in an attempt not to damage their relationship with their father).

One of the reasons I stopped blogging because I was afraid of rejection and judgment. I believe in my heart that I made the right decision, but since I didn't have the one reason to leave that could've possibly left me guilt free, I feared that I would've been ostracized from the blogging community I loved. Therefore, I chose to punish myself.

In the past, blogging had always helped me to heal. I hope that blogging again will bring about new healing as well.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

**Edited to add, life hasn't been all bad. Notice in the side bar, the new joy of my life, my grandbaby. :)