Internal Struggles, Cartwheels, & Tequila

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.

Sometimes you wake up and the weight of your decisions make getting out the bed impossible. I know, not because of allowing The Nino Brown of Sugared Beverages aka My Past to walk out of my life with 5 contractor bags of his incidentals…no I’ve had grand risings pretty consistently since the sun stopped shining on the crack of his narcissistic a$$ through the wooden blinds in my master bedroom. A weight leapt off my shoulders at the count of 260+ adult man pounds. I’m simply sharing that I can appreciate that some of us divorcing our insignificant others feel all the stings of breaking up with someone who shared life space with us for a number of years. One might confuse my grand rising admission with removing all the unsettledness that exists once the dust clears, and you’re left with pictureless walls and an empty other side of the bed. Let me be clear, being a broken mess is 100% okay and cartwheeling down your hallway is also okay, if of course cartwheels are in your ministry.

They aren’t in mine but what I did do for myself to plunge headfirst back into my life absent a human sponge, book a trip. And this trip booking was the first of many confirmations that I started down the right road, the path back to me. Before I committed to the life of raising a man child, holy matrimony, traveling set my heart on fire. There’s an infectiousness to travel, especially when you’re able to immerse yourself in another culture. It gives perspective to your life in ways that I wish everyone had the favor to enjoy. Being ¾ of a union where I should have been ½ destroyed the ability to travel freely and absent complication. I can’t tell you the number of trips Nursing Chocolate (the travel agent extraordinaire) sent invites for that I politely declined or flat out ignored because I knew going would mean flying solo despite my coupled-ness that required explanation of My Past’s absence. I admit to being embarrassed. Or having to stroke My Past’s ego about why it was okay (when it wasn’t) that he didn’t have his share of our expenses. Instead of dealing with the obvious I abandoned a passion.

Always confident me literally couldn’t face telling the truth to friends and family nor could I stomach lying so I exited group texts or fell silent when travel became a topic. I did enjoy a girl’s trip to Costa Rica early in our relationship. It was the first and last full Faith outing. The rest were friends’ weddings or family excursions, my personal fave, the one, where The Anti Husband accused me of cheating with his cousin during a reunion of sorts (a story for another day). It burns admitting that as conflict resolving as I am typically, I became very avoidant. Sidestepping the spaces in my relationship where I needed and required more from My Past became my default. I packaged my avoidance in the spirit of compromise, that if I just gave a bit more My Past would see my effort and magically change his behavior. As we all know nothing changes behavior besides the person behaving. (I still hold fast to the notion that you shouldn’t have to tell an adult how to adult.) I couldn’t good wife him into being a good husband. And to be clear I never stopped voicing my need for my five asks. Even still I could blame My Past for why I chose avoidance, he’s an easy target ripe with toxic tendencies but instead, I will own my shit. I chose avoidance because my other choice, at least at the time would have been full on rage, and I’d learned from past situations that rage is a beast better caged. Despite being resolution minded more often than not, I struggled addressing the real obstacle…me.

For as much as I’d “adulted” from the Faith that lashed out in anger (the emoticon I hold dear) the Faith that compromised until pain crept through her soul was equally bad. I just didn’t realize it. Folk told me the change was maturity. They called it growth and applauded me for it, so maybe it was ego too. Friends and family commented on the “positive” differences they were seeing in me. No lashing or running away from a relationship at the first sign of “imperfection.” In hindsight I categorize ignoring those early red flags as flat-out stupidity with no one to take ownership but me.  

Instead of telling My Past right where he had me fucked up, I would evade, ignore, and let months that grew to years of irresponsibility couched as “chasing his dream” build up to the explosion that happened when Wander Bread fell ill.  At some point his irresponsibility, laziness, and total lack of appreciation of my effort became normal. How could I call it out when I was basking it in daily? I literally had no emotional space left to shield all the things I let go unaddressed. That is my cross to bear in the downfall of our together forever but not really. If I could have just found a way to say the things I needed to say. Not because the outcome would be different…we don’t belong together, we are not evenly yoked. But time wasted remains time lost. It’s the one thing in life that can’t be duplicated. Plus, what I needed to say, just wasn’t that nice but I will explain that in a later installment.

So, in early August when Nursing Chocolate hit the group chat with who’s going with me to Tulum, I was the first person to respond in the affirmative. His text arrived just 3 days after the bridge. It was the initial sign I needed in a long list of signs fully and completely confirming that splitting from the bullshit was all the way right. As a reward for good behavior, the universe gave me back one of my passions, travel. Not only that, Nursing Chocolate and Modeling Mom were the first friends to fully receive my story. And for all those years of embarrassment and hidden face, I was exposed as raw as I’ve probably ever been…and my highest fear judgment from people I adore didn’t happen. Instead, they poured into an empty reservoir that was dying to be filled. They affirmed me in a way that I’d been missing for years. A spark of old but new Faith emerged, one who can appreciate the need to rage but understands that speaking your truth with grace and compassion is never wrong.

In a few short days a flight and hotel were booked for the trip that forever exists as my freedom voyage, a vacation celebrating another year around the sun, divorcing My Past and my love affair with improper emotional connections. It also filled itself with lots of tequila, a broken faucet, titties tittying and tons of self-reflection. During that time, I cried for the loss of something that at the start was deceptively amazing, I had Issa Rae-esque rap sessions with myself in the mirror, and I accepted that everyone is in my life for a reason, season, or a lifetime (shout out to Grannie Frannie who told me these words a long a$$ time ago and they remain so very very true) and that my season of The Anti-Husband was at a close….and that was all the way okay as well. I returned home bandaged but not bitter and ready to fully be done with the bullshyt forever.  

Y’all know there’s always more and I will serve that tea in the next installment. But what says you Faithfuls, do you believe that relationships fail because of both parties or is there always someone who’s solely to blame? I honestly will take a smooth 25-30% ownership for our collapse. Have you ever compromised so much you gave up a cherished part of yourself? Is that the definition of settling?  Are there times in your relationship where you bit your tongue in the spirit of not hurting feelings only to have it blow up in your face? 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.

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