Welcome back Faithfuls. I hope you took a minute to reflect where we left off last week. If you missed any part of the story, I suggest starting here before going forward.
Enough pressure applied to coal creates diamonds and in similar fashion from some of my deepest moments of discomfort, have come my largest blessings. Despite my together forever but not really’s destructive demise it is not without lessons learned. For every rainbow formed rain fell before it. From all of this I’m taking away stones. Some pure gems that shine light on a life I envisioned before but hesitated to grab and others are coals I’m applying pressure to that will one day convert to diamond shaped blessing. Through it all I shared with you that my tongue despite its current temperance was, is, and will probably always be a touch vicious. I declared my own vanity. A level of conceit based on accomplishments and an underlying belief that I’m able to fix it all. My total ignorance/ inability to see My Past for his works because my barometer for ain’t shit only had one setting. And that even in moments of pure personal pain I seek helping others before myself because I was taught my responsibility to others is more important than their responsibility to me. None of those were easy truths to admit or splash across this interweb. My Past presents as an easy villain. His own words sign his indictment but if that were entirely accurate my casting would be hero when I feel nothing of the sort. That’s a marvel universe or a trip into the 90’s era dope boy dreams that fascinate The Nino Brown of Sugared Beverages. I live in the realness of today. Truthfully, we both lost and won, for different reasons.
If you take nothing else from what’s on these pages, know that marriage and any real relationship worth its goal’s hashtag is fucking hard work. It remains the hardest challenge placed before me. My scorecard sits on a shelf marked incomplete and stings like failure. Even knowing that failed marriages don’t mean failed people, it feels a way. One of these days when the court finalizes all the paperwork, I get put into the pile with half the population that couldn’t cross the finish line. I must remind myself that, I hate group projects, and this is not a competition. But I digress, it’s difficult. I woke up each day for almost a decade thinking about a team that for me didn’t actually exist, however, that is the mindset of a truly married person. Your moves are not your own. Everything has exponential possibility, positively and negatively, multiplied by the number of people involved. It’s even harder with kids. Marriage isn’t a game for the weak…no weak minds, weak hearts, or weak wills. All increase the likelihood of destruction. And if for some reason you hit the lottery of all three expect complete and utter chaos. Teamwork does make the dreamwork, but the fucking team needs to exist.
My Past in all his assholery, deceit, lack of regard, and pure disrespect is just a person. Somewhere along the line I know I forgot that despite his title husband he is just a human trying to figure shit out for himself but fucking up in the process…just like me. We failed at teamwork. Part of the marriage equation is solving for how two people can live as one while still maintaining themselves. Here’s where both of us flopped. I promise we never walked in tandem. Teams typically plot out how they work, we never did. There weren’t any conversations about how to get to where we needed to go. Essentially, we were winging the shit, hoping whatever existed between us would guide us through. And on some level foolishly believing that because we both wanted a family neither saw growing up meant we knew what the other envisioned for the future. We discussed it abstractly but never tangibly. Never in a way that gave any insight into how we would get to where we needed to go. If I’m being honest, neither of us vocalized if where we were going was even where we both wanted. I’m positive now we see our future lives completely different. And while marriage is about compromise it is impossible to do that if your charted courses have nothing in common. Not only that, neither of us possessed the tools needed to merge the paths.
It could be that we never saw it done. We simply had nothing in our mental banks to emulate or check our own shit against. One of the ways I’ve thrived in my professional life is finding someone who can mentor me. No one or couple existed in my life space to fill that needed role in marriage. Emulating any combination of the relationships I witnessed getting to my big age meant raging or running. Typically, women rage after allowing so many microaggressions to build without addressing them head on they lash out in ways that tend to be personally or possession destructive. Men run when things aren’t fun anymore to other people who provide the 20% the significant other stopped or never displayed. Outside of a slice of marriage counseling where I bore witness to couples fighting against the typical but still mostly actively pursuing them too, I felt depleted. It felt like no one’s doing this shit right. And not for nothing all the people I usually turn to for guidance were either equally unsuccessful or never even dipped their foot in the pool of fully humble transparent love.
I felt alone in my struggle and the one person who should have been the friend I lean on, wasn’t. That was illuminating to me. My Past was never my friend. In the middle of the storm that revelation brought with it the deepest hurt. I forged friendships; I mean deep lasting bonds with some of the dopest people on this planet. They are my chosen family. They are the ones who poured and continue to pour life back into a wounded me and I love each of them now with a little more tenacity for it, which honestly, I didn’t know was possible. The diligence and basic weeding out of Incompletes pales in comparison to the ease I allowed for My Past. As silly as it sounds it never dawned on me that he needed to pass that rigor. We needed chemistry and that bit of intangible mojo was supposed to get us through it all. Let me tell you something about chemistry…that shit fades, changes over time, and can be flat out obliterated when your eyes are open to who is really in front of you. That isn’t me saying forget chemistry, but it is me saying make sure the person passes the friend test as well. There are places in a relationship that chemistry cannot heal, and only true friendship possesses the power to resolve. You cannot chemistry your way out of broken promises.
The annihilation of something once held so dear shines light on where I fell short, need more work, and what I will never allow to happen again. But what says you Faithfuls, what have you learned from losing a significant other? Speak on it in the comments, in the meantime, and between time, please share, like, comment, and subscribe…isn’t that what we do on this here interweb. As always there’s more where this came from so stay tuned for the next installment.
Remember to share is to care and hashish.
P.S. If you like this installment or any that you’ve read before you should thank My Past. I fully intended to hold back until after the ink dried on our divorce paperwork. Then I woke up in early January to a message that read, “Whether u want to admit it or not we loved each other once…and the way my heart is set up…that love is forever. I don’t mean to upset you I just want u to recognize the truth. I failed yes…But u brought out my best. Salute to a true Queen…Shawty u the shit.” Followed by 10 pictures from our past and then this message, “I’m sorry I had no real point to this. I clearly was just thinking of u…I’m looking forward to reading your blog. I hope ur well.” I wonder if he’s enjoying it?
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