one day at a time

                    Grace is the face love wears when it sees imperfection. ~Joseph R. Cooke

soon after husband moved back home, i was given some news. i won't get into the 'news'
as it's not mine to share. i will say that it was unexpected and devastating for me and i came very close to a breaking point. we had been doing so, so well. my heart was overflowing, i felt that it might burst just from the pure ease of our life. i'd been longing for EASE in my life for so long. then, bam. The News. it crippled me and i barely pulled through my days. i couldn't eat. i couldn't sleep. i couldn't look at him. i wanted to hole up in my room and not come out. but my babies needed me and so i did. thank god for them. some days were alright, some were awful. the nights were the worst and i cried in ways i have never cried before. angry, hurt, resentment, sadness, fear, love. all of it at once. talk about intense.

then i just started giving it up to God. it's all i could do. now and then i'd have questions i thought i wanted answered, but i learned soon enough that the answers, or even verbalizing my questions out loud, were so painful that i just stopped asking. i might have those thoughts, but as i was taught in meditation, acknowledge the thought and don't dwell on it. he's fighting for me, for us. i could see that and i decided i had to deal with things differently. that's when i decided i had to give more grace, for him and for me. i had to look for and find the good. somewhere, in all the bad, is always good. i felt like the message i was getting from God was to just love, as hard as it might be sometimes, and keep looking for the good and that everything would work out the way it was supposed to. so i did. i'm not a Bible verse memorizer so i'm not going to spout out some Bible verse that somehow justifies my decision or what verse is giving me strength. my Bible is about messages, whole messages, not chopped up for me to use verses here and there. the days since then have been a mixture of things. i've been timid and unsure...waiting for it to fall apart completely again. i've been strong and awesome, ready to kick the day's ass, confident that all will be well. and i've had regular days where things just ARE.

mostly, even on the timid, unsure, meek elsa days, i end up only finding love. it's so hard to boil it down to that one thing, but everything else is done within LOVE. appreciating what the other does and being able to put that into words and share them with the other person. seeing him do things i know he doesn't necessarily enjoy, but somehow finding joy within those menial things. cleaning gutters in the rain? not anyone's idea of a fun time, but he saw the silver lining when it started to rain super hard...he didn't have to drag the hose around to wash them out. (and he didn't complain about having to do the gutters, which i definitely would have!) taking my 7 year old out for an early 6 am breakfast and then to get on her bus to go to her summer program so i could sleep a little longer. hearing sweet voicemails that tell me how i compliment his life in so many ways and make things so much better for him (compared to when we were apart). there are even days when i feel nothing at all and i know i just have to get through and tomorrow will be a new day. that's okay, too.

i feel heard and understood. words of appreciation go SO.FAR. when i have a hard day now and then, i just tell him. he doesn't try to change how i feel, he just accepts it and apologizes and asks what he can do to help. we talk more. A LOT more. we spend more quality time together, sometimes it isn't the long conversations we have other times, but even taking ten minutes shows we care. everything he says feels like there is more truth, more meaning, more love behind the words. many times the truth in my words might sting or hurt a little more than other times, but i'm done with keeping things in. it hasn't gotten me anywhere good. last weekend there were a couple of regular old moments where i was watching him with the kids and in the house. my heart swelled and i teared up. it just felt good and right. later i told him about that and he thought i was being sarcastic. UGH. obviously i am not that great with expressing myself in spoken words. i have some work to do, too! when i told him i was serious, he was so relieved it wasn't a joke. i'm not quite sure how one would joke about that kind of stuff, but i suppose there are those that might do that, and i know there are those (me) that just don't say those super important things.

reunited and on a date

we haven't always been in this place. we won't always be in this exact place. i just sort of feel like we are building a new foundation...a new level of understanding, giving up control, giving up the anger, giving up the negative shit. because that's really what all the bad stuff is, shit...it's just icky, nasty stuff that poisons a relationship. we are focusing on appreciation, love, goal setting and working together on everything, one moment, one day at a time.