Fairy tale nightmare

 

Why can’t I let go of him? 

He was my identity 

He was my happiness 

He controlled my emotions, he still does in a sense.  Meaning if he is upset or mad or distanced himself from me it hurts.  Bc I feel like I should be owed it all bc I am doing it all & how dare he be mad at me.   

His emotions were mine, I was happy. He was happy. I was sad if he was sad. His moods dictated my moods.  

I loved him unconditionally for years upon years regardless of what he put me through.  I had to beg for his love & fight my way through it to pull him back in.  To convince him that I was worthy, that I am worth the fight.  

It’s familiar to me 

If I completely severe ties, I won’t survive it 

I will fall apart without him being present in my life somehow 

It’s all I’ve known my entire life & to let it go, It’s like death, but he’s still living. 

He’s still living. There was no death, but there’s such grief, and that sliver of hope that’s projected is in the future, I look back in the review mirror, and I see the destruction, the total eruption of everything.  But rather than let go of the past and the future and live in the present I hang onto what is not here right now, in the moment, in the living. 

But that sliver of hope still dangles in front of me like a carrot for the rabbit at the end of the race instead of moving slowly like a turtle,  I run towards that sliver of hope.  

I keep moving in constant motion & eventually I will get the prize at the end and all the effort, begging, pleading loyalty, everything that I walked through,  everything that I wanted, everything that I asked for, everything that I thought was owed to me because I was faithful because I was loyal,  because I continued to fight the good fight and I walked alongside of him. I supported him I stayed with him, was all worth it

& if I choose not to chase after that sliver of hope then all of that was for nothing.  I failed.  I failed myself, I failed my children, I failed tony.  

I won’t be okay until the end scene of the script transcribes happily ever after

Which is out of reach and far fetched

It’s a fairy tale not reality

I am living a fairy tale nightmare…

Jealously

 

Sometimes it’s hard for me to speak out loud how I’m feeling. Because I feel that I’m being self-righteous and that I shouldn’t feel the way that I do. And I know that there is 1 million other women that probably feel the same way that I do. But yesterday was just a challenge, Mother’s Day, my 26th year as a mother. While I was showered with love unconditionally from my older kids & I struggled with my younger kids that day, overall it was a decent day.

But the fact that the one thing that I want more than anything is the recognition from Tony. Why is that? Maybe because we started this journey together. Maybe because I carried so much of it myself for so long. Maybe because I want him to see how hard I’ve worked & how much I’ve tried & how exhausted I am. I want him to appreciate me, I want him to be grateful for me, I want him to tell me how thankful he is that I have taken over and stepped up & raised his kids to the best of my ability while he has just sat on the sidelines. 

I want to be recognized as the strong, independent woman that was born out of the chaos & destruction. I want to be recognized as someone that he admires & thinks highly of because I have literally raised his kids. I want to give him some of the credit, but at the same time I don’t. I feel like I shaped them into who they are today & that might seem incredibly selfish & self righteous, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there for the majority of their lives. It’s not fair that he gets to sit on the sidelines and heal while I continue to suffer.

Yes, he’s probably in his own kind of hell but for me so am I.  I feel like the flames are swarming up around me & they’re suffocating me. I come up for air, but only because I have to. Only because I have to put one foot in front of the other only because I have no choice then to keep moving & keep pressing. But so much of me wants to just be swallowed by the flames & just be done. I want to be done with it all.

I fight with this agony daily. When I wake up I have a split second of peace & then I sit down on the toilet & I realize I am in the same nightmare. No matter how much I try to be okay with it & to be grateful for what I have, I am consistently swallowed by what I don’t have, what I lost.  What I lost was Tony & to try to figure out why that matters so much is incomprehensible , why is he so important to me? He should be the least of my thoughts & my energy. But he’s not….

Exhaustion

 

The point of no return, literally 

The knowledge of knowing that whatever you do does not matter 

The angst of understanding that this is the way of life right now 

The draining capability that pulls you in so many different directions 

The plates that are thrown at you directly, you balance them, but you feel as if they’re spinning out of control 

The invisibility that you feel every day, no matter how loved you are 

The tight rope that you walk to make it appear that you are sane

The brokenness that you feel in your bones every time you slow down

The heaviness of it all slowly drains you of any energy that you thought you had left 

Tomorrow, you wake up and do it again 

For how long you’re not sure…

Escape

 

i look Out

i see the darkness

i wonder what it would be like to just step out into that darkness

to be weighted down in a different way

to let it all go

to submerse myself underneath where nothing could reach me anymore

not the voices, not the aches, not the guilt, not the regrets

it would all just wash away

& sink within me 

Protection

 

hide me in a place where i only hear the whispers of the wind…

secure my arms around myself where no aches can enter my bones…

flood my soul with peace that battles the despair…

quiet my mind that stirs at the mention…

breathe into me the answers i've been after...

surround me with the light & shut out the darkness…

Flow

 

Slow and steady, wins the race, that’s the age old tale we’ve grown up and heard often…

Obviously, that did not take affect in my brain…

I travel around, like the rabbit, constant…

Constantly seeking…

Constantly seeking answers…

constantly seeking change…

Change would come, but it was short-lived. 

I had these grandiose visions that I felt one day would come to fruition if I just could hurry up and fix it all. 

Each time I would jump in and fix what I could, and when I could, I would keep on moving, keep on running, constant…

This entire time something has been pressing me to slow down 

Slow and steady will run that race Jill…

Slow and steady will keep you grounded…

Slow and steady…

It will show you your truth. 

I refused to take on the role of the turtle 

Slow and steady…

I kept looking back. I kept ignoring the script and jumped ahead as fast as I could. 

Rather than the slow and steady of the turtle, I took on the shell of the turtle. 

I would pull myself in.

I would isolate each time that I felt I couldn’t breathe.

I would pause for a “minute” come up for air and switch to the role of the rabbit.  

I would pull myself inside of that shell and hide every chance that I got, 

The more time that went on I recognized my own pattern. 

Hide it all, store everything in that shell…

where no one can see it…

no one can see the real you…

no one can judge you or hurt you or get to you. & let no one love you because in the end, they will abandon you…

Inside that shell I stored anger, bitterness, and rage. I would retreat to the quiet, but I would continue to be filled with all of these emotions. The peace, the calm, the flow would not come to me. 

What I’m looking for

 

What am I looking for

What are the facts

What am I missing

What do I want

I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

The facts are clear as day 

Present in front of me

Like hammers pounding my soul

& smashing my heart

The pieces continue to fly around me 

& destroy any sense of peace I have 

I’m missing a piece of my soul 

A piece of my being that was torn away slowly

Over time

Into a million pieces 

It’s impossible to put it back together 

I want out 

I want to escape

I want to leave

I want to not hurt anymore

I want it all to stop

The reminders

The memories

The constant blurs that flash before me

The journey continues

 

The yellow door… The yellow door that beckoned me, the yellow door that waited for me… The yellow door that anticipated my arrival… 

Inside was a place of quiet… Of calm… Of peace…

I don’t know exactly what I’ve been looking for on this journey… My journey has been too long… I’ve constantly sought the answers and ran from them… I’ve constantly sought for peace and joy and found it along the way, but nothing could cover up the immense grief that I felt in my bones.

The grief of losing everything, when I say everything, I must not neglect to remind you that I have seven beautiful children.

But the grief of a love of a lifetime. It was like a slow and pending death, that still hangs on to this day. It’s like a ghost, wavering above my body, outside of my body, around my body. It will not leave. It is unrelenting.

I see him for what he is. & I am just so incredibly sad. The anger still rises when he talks, but the emotion that overwhelms me is sadness.

Sadness for what he misses. Sadness for what he fails to understand could’ve been the love of a lifetime, the ride of his life, the testimony that would reach others

He kept choosing “it.” 

“It” was more important than anything. 

“It” was more important than any of us. 

“It” was more important than the fight, the fight for true unconditional love.

But he could not receive that devotion, he could not feel that affection, because “It” consumed him. I couldn’t understand why.

As I deal with my own addictions and my own demons, my own understanding is more clear But it still rocks me to my core. It still stabs me in the heart consistently and reminds me daily of what he continued to choose. Not me, not us. Why couldn’t he have just chosen us.

As I get ready to start my day today, I refuse to go home the same person. I refuse to continue to wallow in self pity . I refuse to continue to bury every emotion for fear of it will kill me.

I want to be free.  I cannot see that freedom. I cannot visualize that freedom. I cannot taste that freedom. I will not lie to you, the freedom that I so desperately seek seems lost.

This hole I don’t think will ever be filled.  I feel so alone in that. I want to heal, I want to be okay.  I want to experience joy and peace, but I feel that it is literally impossible.

He was my everything. He abandoned me over and over and over and I allowed it. What am I so afraid of. I’ll break? That I won’t survive? Yes…

When I walk back into my own reality, I am overwhelmed.  When I am silent and in solitude, I am okay.  How do I find the middle ground…

Flow

 How many words & pictures can be etched in one’s body to take away the pain

Apparently not nine…

How many people can be placed in one’s life to show me the answers

Not enough…

How many books can one read to absorb what the voices scream at me daily

Not one…

How long can one continue to scroll to help remove the penetrating thoughts 

Until I fall asleep…

How many times can god keep holding on

I’m not sure….

How much time is needed to utter the words, this too shall pass…

Never enough…

How much drama can one stir up inside their own soul

Just enough…

Just enough, to send you to the edge 

But not fully…

Never enough, to fully let yourself go…

I’m not sure what god is to me…

Until I fall asleep, I am at war within my bones… 

Not one memory will leave my side…

Not enough to comfort me in the way I desperately need…

❤️‍🩹nine~the ebb & flow of life, a completion, not a final ending…

The interview/the exit

 

~how many times have you “let it go”

More than I can count

~how many times did you snatch it back

Too many

~did he walk away

Yes

~did he abandon you for another

More than once

~did his hands fall upon you in a destructive way

Yes

~did his words cut you in half

~did you stay

I did but he promised he would change

~did he keep that promise

No

~why did you stay

I believed in love

His love, our love

We would be a testimony 

~how did that work out for you

He destroyed me

He destroyed our marriage

He destroyed our family 

~did he look back

No but I did 

He pulled me back in

He was the puppeteer

~does he carry the guilt

Possibly

But yet I am consumed with the guilt he should bear

~why is that

I do not know

I am entangled

~you need to let go

I don’t know how

It will swallow me whole

~what will jill 

The grief