Dealing
Ok, so I’m coming to terms with the entire situation. I have my regrets, but the fact that it is over is not among them. I regret I didn’t have the courage or the wisdom to do it sooner. I regret that I can never be the same person I was before eveything happened. But I’ve been thinking about that lately, and I know that all I can do is move forward. I can’t be who I was, because that person had never experienced this sort of trauma, and I now have. I can’t go back, I can’t undo it. But I can take this experience and build it into the person I must become. Because to try to return to what I was is only to dwell on what was and forget about what is. I have to remember what is, and I have to use what was as a basis for future decisions and learn what I am forced to learn from it. After all, there is no reason why a man wounded in war can’t be stitched up and eventually find his way back to health and happiness. But when the wound goes so deep, it takes a while to heal and recover from it, and there lies my path. Dear God, I’ve got wounds a bandaid can’t hold together, but I’ll stitch them, cauterize them, do whatever I have to do to make things begin the path of healing. It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be fun. But far worse if I let myself stay in this state.
That said, I am beginning to let the pus of bitterness flow. Bitterness at myself for my own foolhardiness and bitterness toward him for his own, foolish, arrogant, egotistical part in it all. It spurs me on that he still believes himself to be doing the “right thing.” I don’t want to get into it, but I hope someone, someday will boot him off of his high horse in into a mud puddle. Self-righteous bastard. (I warned you there was bitterness here).
Eventually, though, I will be able to move beyond the cycle of emotions that this has set in motion and maybe into some semblance of a normal, healthy human being again. Or as close to one as I could ever be. Anyone that knows me knows that I was never quite the epitome of “normal.” I’m so very glad that I’ve got a few friends that I can count on. It’s still very difficult to just be alone with my thoughts, so I try to surround myself with people as often as possible. It helps, though eventually I’ll have to face what I’ve been avoiding. Damnit, I used to be an independent person! After succumbing to the dependency inherent in most sorts of love it’s very difficult to reclaim that attitude. But I will. Come hell or high water, I will reclaim my confidence and independence. By God, I will surpass what I once was. After the pain come the lessons, the things you should have seen and didn’t, the things that will make you a different person than who you were, ideally by using the hard-earned lessons in future decisions. This is what I will do. I will not be so foolish again.
