a week with heavy cold - or was it swine flu - dropped girls at school Weds then went to bed...helped some...
revived enough by saturday to celebrate my birthday with friends over for lunch - adults chat, eat, drink; and children play, just as it should be.
five years ago i turned 40 - and hosted a similar format but bigger lunch party with friends and children...40 felt good, i had the three children i wanted, a good job, friends....a "husband"(unmarried partner) who was not perfect, far from it, but i thought i could tolerate ("for the sake of the kids"?)and muddle along with....
two years into the "five-year plan" he went on a downward spiral into self-harm, depression, some kind of mental health "episode" - and it all became much clearer just how much i had given of myself..."tolerate" from here now looks like martyrdom...it was too much of a struggle...
it sounds mean - if you see it as me not being around for someone who became "ill" - but there was a lot more to it than that. the issues went back much further than the "crisis" (and in a way that episode "saved" me - and the children...)
learning that an adult is responsible for themselves and their own health issues - especially when those issues impact so dramatically on those around them - and discovering that i had a choice whether to be with him or not - were defining moments.....
anyway, life at 45 is good, as single, separated, parent, having built, i hope, a safe, secure family unit where their contact with their dad can be kept safe and good. and hopefully positive.
and miles and miles away from having to live day-to-day with someone who became more and more controlling, needy, dangerous, etc, etc.... even if i still have to deal with minor irritations over contact, finances etc. more of that another day...
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