[FaithWalker]

Thank you.  It's not feeling as painful or as noticeable today.  I am fairly confident that it's going to clear up soon.  They referred me for PT and PT called and said they could get me in February 1st.  Well thanks, PT place, that's going to help.  I'm going to be well before then.  LOL

I hope you had a great time making peanut brittle!

[FaithWalker]

Yesterday I saw this image and it made a lot of sense.  Grief doesn't shrink, we grow around the grief.

[FaithWalker]

Update time:

I finally was able to get a new vehicle this past weekend.  I love it!  Lemonade out of lemons.

The kids brought me a Christmas gift from xMIL (and xFIL too but mainly xMIL).  I have not gifted her in a very long time, but she still sends a gift for me, which is sometimes sweet, but sometimes uncomfortable too.  Back when I was looking for signs, her gifts meant everything (except for that first birthday after divorce when she totally missed the mark with that gift).

This gift was some hand made coasters, a little bookmark, and a keychain.  Of course she had bought the keychain before my car accident, but I texted her and thanked her and let her know that I couldn't wait to attach it to my new car keys soon as I was able to get another vehicle.

Once I got the vehicle, I texted her a picture of my keys, with her new keychain attached and thanked her again.  My D had also shared that I chose the same type of vehicle as her for my replacement vehicle.  We even went with the same color.  Mine is 2 years older though.  Anyway, we had a good chat about that.

We still chat from time to time.  I can imagine this whole situation has been very hard on her.  It doesn't hurt me much to continue to have the occasional chat with her.

Sometimes I think she does reach out fishing for information.  I try to only share a brief little snippet when this happens.  Today it was about my D and her boyfriend.  I made sure that any text in response, if D were to ask to read it, that it would be something she would not get hurt over.

Tomorrow my M goes in for the first of her two cataract surgeries.  My B will come get her and take her while I go in to work for a couple hours, and then I will meet him back at the house when her surgery is done, to stay with her for any after care and also for her afternoon appointment.  Usually after appointments would be the next day, but since it's a Friday they are having us back the same day.  2 weeks from now we will repeat the day with her other eye.  She showed too much confusion when it came to putting in the eye drops, so I have been doing that 3 times a day for her.  She seems relieved to have me do it for her.

[FaithWalker]

It seems like no matter how much time has past, and how I feel when I am conscious, I always tend to have some strange dreams and some subconscious flashbacks from BD, still, after all these years.

Recently, twice in the same day, I was whisked back to a time around BD.  The first was when I was taking my ornaments down off my tree and tucking them away.  I had gotten a beautiful painted glass ornament in a White Elephant exchange with my Bible Study group a few years ago and for some reason putting it away had me back at that White Elephant party after BD.  And then later, when I was doing my Bible Reading, I came upon a verse that is still a trigger for me.

After BD, when I was still very much in denial what was happening and didn't know much about true MLC, I was desperate to save my marriage.  MLCer had manipulated me out of going on a weekend trip we had planned together, saying that he found it too painful to be together after his revelation of "I love you but I'm not in love with you" from a few days earlier.  Turns out, the agenda really was to go and spend the weekend with his alienator.  Later I found out that they met and parked in a parking lot halfway between her town and ours and then she and her two boys and he and my son all got into one vehicle together and drove together to the hotel in the other city.  It was supposed to be MLCer and my son in one room, and her and her youngest son in the other room and the older son on the couch (all the boys were 10 and younger).  Later I found out from my son that he and the younger boy shared a room and that the other boy slept on the couch.  He didn't know where my MLCer slept.  Of course there is only one conclusion to be made, duh.  Looking back from where I'm at now, that just is so depraved, you know?  And I was very naïve.

Anyway, that very next night, we had all been invited to a White Elephant party in another town and we had agreed that although I didn't go to the overnight in the one town, that I would meet him and S for the party the next night.  That turned out to be a nightmare.  He jumped at her every request, even trudging out in the snow to unload her bags from her car.  (They had gone back to the parking lot and picked up her car before coming to the party).  When I asked if he would go get my overnight bag, he scoffed and asked S10 to go get it for me.  I told him never mind and went out for my own bag.

At the party during the white elephant exchange, I really wanted these lovely pair of hand painted wine glasses.  They were beautiful.  After the rule of 3, OW ended up getting them and I got stuck with a bottle of Drano for toilets.  That was when I still felt that I was the problem and the reason that my marriage was breaking down.  I thought that it was another sign that I was a grinch, lol.  But now I think that God used that Drano to clean the poo out of my life!   

MLCer opened up and kept the first thing that he got.  We both thought it was a sign, but then later my interpretation of that sign was completely different than his.  He got a little plaque that he started keeping in his truck.  It was the verse Philippians 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."  Of course I thought that maybe he would take that verse to heart and do some introspection, but later he used that verse to justify his leaving.  That he "prayed" to God and that this was the answer he was given.  To divorce me.  Yes, that verse definitely has some triggers for me that I still have to work through.  But he needed the next verse, which is about guarding your heart and your mind! 

Anyway, just a little flashback that I got from the Bomb Drop days.  Such a painful time, and that night and the next day were really no exception.

Later, when I received the D papers, he put that date as the date of our "dissolution of marriage" - I had always thought that was strange, rather than putting the date of BD on there.  Now, looking back, I think that he put that date because that was when he physically broke our marriage vows.  As they had gotten to the hotel after midnight from the political event, it would have been the wee hours of the morning of that same date that they shared a bedroom.

So, yes, this time of year has always been fraught with tiptoeing around some triggers.  They don't explode my life like they once did, my armor is too thick now and I'm ready for them.  But they do still happen!

[MadLuv]

Isn’t it so crazy to be able to look back and realize what actually was going on  compared to what we thought?  I think  part because who could imagine their ability to deceive us  to that level as it is something we would never do, but also I think our wish to not  want to believe or see it as it was. I dont have those flashbacks or triggers of the past anymore or they have been temporarily stopped. Never say never.  My triggers are few and far in between, but always hearing something current that I feel will affect my/our kids.  I am modt thankful the dreams have long ago stopped.

[Reinventing]

Wow, FW, that was a hellish nightmare to live through. How could you not have triggers?

[UrsaMajor]

It is those kinds of incidents that, in retrospect, just leave one shaking their head and muttering "What the actual <NSFHS Word>"

[stillbaffled]

FW - I have learned that even after 7 years there are still a few triggers that give me pause.  New Year's Day is the worst.  That's his birthday and the BD day.   

When it came around this year I spent the day alone taking care of me and enjoying peace and tranquility.   

Best wishes, FW, for a healthy and prosperous 2024. 

[FaithWalker]

Thank you ML, Reinventing, UM and SB.

[FaithWalker]

"There wasn't a specific moment, uh, when it started.  It's been more of a gradual thing.  A drip, drip, drip of...of doubt...disaffection, disease, dis...discomfort.  People around me have noticed my general...uh, irritability.  Now, of course, that's...that's nothing new.  I'm...generally a cantankerous sort, but even I would have to admit that there has been more of it lately.  Not to mention, uh, an almost jealous fascination with the achievements of these young astronauts.  Compulsive overexercising.  An inability to find calm...or satisfaction...or fulfillment.  And when you look at all these symptoms, of course it doesn't take a genius to tell you that...they all suggest I'm slap bang in the middle of a...[chuckles] I can't even say what kind of crisis.  THAT...THAT crisis.  And...of course one's read or heard about other people hitting that crisis, and, you know, just like them, you look in all the usual places, resort to all the usual things to try and make yourself feel better.  Uh...Some of which I can admit to in this room, and some of which I probably shouldn't. 

My mother died recently.  She...she saw that something was amiss.  It's a good word, that.  A-Amiss.  She saw that something was missing in her youngest child.  Her only son.  Faith.  "How's your faith?" she asked me.  I'm here to admit to you that...I've lost it.  And...without it, what is there?  The...The loneliness and emptiness and anticlimax of going all that way to the moon to find nothing but haunting desolation...ghostly silence...gloom.  That is what faithlessness is.  As opposed to finding...wonder, ecstasy, the miracle of...divine creation, God's design and purpose.  What am I trying to say? 

I'm trying to say that...the solution to our problems, I think, is not in the...in the ingenuity of the rocket, or the science or the technology or...even the bravery.  No, the answer is here.  (Points to head/brain)  Or here (points to heart), or wherever it is that...that faith resides.  And so...having ridiculed you for what you and these poor blocked, lost souls...were...were trying to achieve here...I now find myself full of respect...and admiration...and not a small part of...desperation...as I come to say...'Help',

I was moved by these lines by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, when recently watching Season 3, Episode 8 of the Crown.  I had to capture them.  Wow, does that not sound like a MLCer, the ones that have chosen to work through their "stuff" and reflect?