Today is the first day of the rest of your life. A saying I have heard many people quote and post. But the first time I ever heard this saying was from my 7th grade science teacher, Mr. Wilaby. He would have it written on the board every day before class. And we would all say it every day during class. But those words didn't really register with me as a young girl. But in the throws of adulthood, I cannot say the same thing.
I'm married. Our relationship started in a whirlwind of love, lust, communication, and happiness. Not too much different than many relationships people tell of. But he just spoke to me. He had the worlds most kind eyes, and a charming, crooked smile. He has the most inviting scent and hearing his voice hum in his chest when he would hold me is near indescribable. I moved in with him three days after we met.We were engaged a month after our first date, and married a year exact from the day we first met in person. His need to protect me and his need to make others respect me was something to behold. Kissing him made the colors of life more vibrant. But as the saying goes "too much of anything can be a bad thing". His protective nature turned into a more controlling and demanding one, and his touch became so repetitive that I no longer craved his warmth. His rugged and manly whiskers and his sweet smell dissipated quickly and I no longer cared for his looks or and his scent was no longer intoxicating. His endearing quirks became too demanding to fulfill, and I became weary just being around him. There were days I wish I could stay at work rather than come home because I resented him. His homely ways bored me, even before we got married.
We tried to separate two times. The first time was because I wanted to vent my frustrations to the few friends I had, and when he found out, his wrath was something to behold. I felt trapped in my own home and I stopped communicating my feelings to him because I no longer felt he cared to listen. Even now as I type this, I know he would be livid with me spilling our inner most secrets to the world, yet this is how I operate. I share, I speak, I vent. I write. But for every journal I have ever started, I found myself tearing out the pages after hours of writing just to burn them away because I knew if he had seen the words my heart spilled he would resent me. The second time wasn't much different than the first. Again, my actions and my words invoked his wrath and I felt guilty and sorry for being who I am. But then a little piece of me realized that it wasn't that I was a bad person, or even that he was a bad person. We were just bad for each other. Our personalities so vastly different that we couldn't register or even understand the other persons moods, feelings, or actions. Where I loved a good crowd, and thrived off of peoples energy, he would become depressed and shut down. Where he loved being with and by himself, I became moody and equally depressive. So imagine trying, and trying again, over and over, to make a relationship work.
We separated for the third and finally time, but this time, he was blind sided. The smallest mishap sent my emotions into a raging uncontrollable fire storm and neither him or myself could explain it. My patient self had fled my person and what was left was a miserable, devastated mess of a woman. I snapped. And he said the words himself that I couldn't put together in my own head. Our personalities are just too different to make this work, no matter how much we want it. And it was true. I wanted to deny it even as he said it because I felt with every fiber of my being that I could make ANY relationship work. Any. But his words were so true that I couldn't even deny it. I was hard-headed, slow to catch up with my feelings (and even slower to communicate them), and I was too demanding that schedules be adhered to at all costs. He was my Peter Pan; fun and frivolous but at all the wrong times. His childlike nature that was so wonderful at first plucked my nerves as graceful as a piano dropped from a four story building. His need to always relax and to only deal with responsibilities when it was absolutely necessary scared me. It drove me crazy. I couldn't imagine a life of telling him ten times to take out the garbage, pick up his shoes, or even brush his teeth. I couldn't imagine it. I began to feel like his mother. It reminded me heavily of the first relationship I was in. He felt like he was my caretaker and not my equal and it drove a spike into our relationship, just as it had a second time yet, I was the "caretaker". My inability to confront him when necessary was my downfall. It was a painful lesson that I had to learn.
But because we had done this song and dance twice before, the third time we were both emotionally numb. Hardly a tear was shed because we had exhausted ourselves time and time before. But even so, I still care for him, and vis versa. I could still wake up and make him bacon and watch him rub the sleep from his eyes with the love and admiration I had for him when we were in the throws of early, new love. But the feelings are strangely different. I see him more in the best friend aspect.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
These words are my therapy. Today I start living as a struggling woman, from the bottom. I feel broken, and I feel like any person who gets to close will be cut on my edges. My venting feels like I overload onto all the wrong people. But today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today I can start to heal. Today I can be a new and better me. Today I begin my new journey. I won't ever forget my husband. Even when he moves on and we stop speaking, I'll think of him every single day. And I'm sure it will be hard. I'm sure I will dial his number a thousand times, and a thousand times I'll never hit call. But I will always and forever wish him well. I'll always be proud of his accomplishments and I'll always be a shoulder if he reaches out to me. He taught me so much about love, communication, respect, and relationships.
