I think everyone in life has a moment or two when they look back and think "If I had only..." It happens to all of us. I am stronger some days than I am others. But there are some things I wouldn't have ever changed.
I wouldn't change taking 10 years to finish college.
I wouldn't change who I fell in love with.
I wouldn't have changed all the places I moved to.
I wouldn't change the number of kids I have.
I wouldn't change all the jobs I have had.
I wouldn't change the mistakes I made.
The only thing we can change is our future. Sometimes it takes so much courage to change the things that need to change the most. I didn't have the courage for a long time. I was committed, absolutely committed to my marriage. On the outside looking in we must have looked so happy. We smiled for photos, we smiled when we were in public, but there were very few smiles when the doors closed and we were alone.
I have heard it's a shock to so many of our family and friends that we are getting divorced. I guess that just goes to show how good we were at acting the part when we were in "public". But there are a few people, a very very few friends, my parents, my sister, my aunts that knew how hard it was to keep it together over the years. How hard I tried. How much it cost me to keep trying.
I can't help but compare my life to my mother's. We are very different women but we have so much in common as well. My mother was married three times. I have been twice. She was a strong working single mom and I am trying to be every day. We differ in one main thing though. She had severe personality/mental problems. And as far as I know... I don't. At least not the last time I checked. Ok that was a little humor. I have been to therapy many times in my life and every time, every different therapist tells me that I am so well adjusted, that I deal with my life adversities well. That I have experienced trauma and grief and that I am working through it in healthy ways. I am proud of that because I have two big health fears. Dying of cancer and being mentally ill or unstable. Because both seem to run in my mom's family.
I can't help but compare my life to my dad's too. He married her. I'll share the story. I find it interesting, but then it's my story too.
They met in a college class. She was a model and owned her own business. He was a southern man that owned his own too. My mother had amazing handwriting and my dad should have been a doctor because his handwriting is almost unreadable at times. So she offered to take notes for him and they fell in love. OK I made the love part up, but I choose to believe they did. I see their smiles in the photos and I think they must have loved each other at some point, even if it was just for a year.
Their stories were different, their memories altered the details. They didn't want to ever tell me all of it. I always wanted to know and felt I deserved to know. Now I know that I do not deserve to know and probably don't need he details they kept from me. It's their story and not always mine.
So they went to Las Vegas and my dad got drunk. He ended up with a massive hangover and a wife. A What??? I actually don't know when they got married or how long it was before I came along, but it wasn't more than a year I'm sure. I know my birthday is 9 months after my dads. (Nice gift huh?) And I know their divorce was finalized on his birthday after I turned 1. But they went to Europe on my first birthday in July and there were those smiles in all the photos. And they were divorced 3 months later? Sigh.... Was there not a 6 month waiting period back in 1979 in California?
Everytime I have asked my dad about being married to my mom I can see the pain and distaste he has. I can see the things he won't really say. As I got older I got a little more and a little more. She may have had mental issues before she had me, but if so, she was very good at hiding it. After she had me she was horrible to him. He feels the pregnancy changed her brain chemistry and that it was what pushed her over the edge. Gee, that's a fun one to contemplate. Did having me make her manic depression worse or exists? I was kinda scared when I was pregnant with Logan that the same might happen to me.
He said he wouldn't have changed meeting my mom or marrying her because if he did he wouldn't have me. When I was a kid this was comforting, but I also thought maybe he was just saying that. She continued to make his life as unhappy as she could until the day she died. She was so mean sometimes. She was so depressed. She would call his house in the middle of the night to talk to me. She made scenes at all of my school functions. And it was hard on us because we all knew she couldn't help it.
But now that I have kids, I do know that he meant it every time. It was worth all the trouble because he had me. And we all knew that she was sick. We watched her try different medications and waited to see if one of them would permanently work. None of them ever did.
For as little as my dad will say about his marriage to my mom, I know he did love her. Once when he was in the hospital after having a heart attack and surgery for a stint, I visited him. He was groggy and still on some nice pain meds. I walked into the room in a white shirt and the sun hit me straight on. He looked up at me and said "Oh! You look like your mother on the day we were married. She was so beautiful." I was shocked. My dad is like Mr. Spock most of the time, very logical and very little emotions. I could hear it in his voice. He did have fond memories and he had loved her. I hang onto that little insight and it is one of the best things anyone has ever said to me to this day.
So when I look back at the last 35 years, especially the last 7. I wouldn't change anything because I always did what I thought was best for my family, for Logan and me. I have 2 amazing little boys and I wouldn't change anything that led me to where I am.
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