Holy shit, it is May. 5 months into 2007 and it feels like it was just New Years. I have either become one of those people who laments how fast time flies or, more optimistically, life is just moving on. A few milestones:
Number of:
+ Exercise-related injuries: 3
+ Months out of the gym: 1.5
+ Weeks back at the gym: 1.5
+ Months to get body back in shape: I'm guessing 3. You get to 36 and you realize that for every month you take off from exercise, you have to double that in terms of rehab time.
+ Pairs of crutches: 1
+ Ulcers: 1 (eye ulcer - seriously, how fucked is that? N.B.: apparently, you can't wear and sleep in your contacts for months while you are kind of slowly losing your mind)
+ Friends met from the internets: 2 (to be updated in the near term)
+ Divorces: 2 (one from B, one from the internets as I once knew them)
+ Friends gained: 4
+ Friends lost: 3
+ Pounds lost: I don't do scales, but the size 8's fit much better right now.
+ Times I have spoken to B since the finalization of the divorce: 0
+ Times I have missed B since the finalization of the divorce: 2 (but not as my husband)
+ Times I have uttered the words "My marriage came to its successful conclusion and I wish B well in all of his new adventures": Too many. It is my go-to phrase when encountering mutual friends. It seems to put everyone at ease, changes the subject, and, for better or worse, allows us to perpetuate the myth that our breakup was amicable and that we remain close friends.
+ Books read: Just 3. Pathetic.
+ Cell phones lost or destroyed: 2. Technically, I got both of them back, but I have an uncanny ability to lose phones.
+ Dates: I think technically 6, but I just wasn't ready. Have some new friends, though. My heart is elsewhere.
+ Trips planned but not taken: At least a dozen.
+ Trips booked: 2. Mexico for K-n-J's wedding and NYC in June. I'm looking at you, Connoisseur.
+ Times I have had scarily dark thoughts and all out pity parties: At least 4.
+ Times that I have felt blessed, loved and lucky: More than 4.
+ Times I have fallen in love: 1. You know, that phrase is eerily accurate. It does feel like you're falling, doesn't it?
+ Lessons learned about love, life and friendships?: Entirely too many. You really can't appreciate a great love or friendship until you have lost one that mattered to you. Today's useless piece of wisdom. No charge.
The passage of time is really the only anecdote for the trials (no pun intended) and stresses in your life. This too shall pass? I fucking hate those words, but they ring true and if you are a smart girl, you will take from each episode something that will make you a better person and a better friend and lover. I'll go to my grave not understanding the black and white, myopic view of life kinds of folk. Shit happens, people fuck up, life changes and everyone moves on. People can and do recover from these episodes and relationships can be reconstituted.
I think that perhaps, one day, B and I will again be friends. You can't love someone for that long and suddenly and completely turn it off, no matter how many sins you committed against each other. I can't wish him any ill will and I hope he once again becomes the man I married. That man was supremely unique, interesting and challenging. I know that parts of me also went sideways, so I cannot begrudge him anymore.
Without being unduly cryptic, I feel as though I am standing on the edge of something and am about to leap into something that I might regret. But here's the great thing about living - unless you fuck up and make mistakes, which necessarily means taking risks (some more stupid than others), you are living in the margins. I like margins. I like healthy lines and boundaries and, above all else, good common sense. But I am also humble enough (now) to know that sometimes? The benefit outweighs the risk. Here's to leaping without abandon with the confidence that (1) you have fucked up royally before and (2) you can recover from another mistake and (3) Sometimes? Your instinct about people is spot on. You've been wrong before and will be again. Most often, you aren't all wrong, but partially. But life -- my life -- is about taking chances and putting my cards on the table and playing my hand.
I love that about myself. I am still an optimist, despite all evidence to the contrary.
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2 comments:
"You can't love someone for that long and suddenly and completely turn it off, no matter how many sins you committed against each other."
Actually, yes, you can. Or, the love can become another form of passion—hatred. That doesn't mean that you may not love them, but it doesn't rule out that perhaps you actually cannot love them.
"I can't wish him any ill will and I hope he once again becomes the man I married."
You cannot revisit the past. He may become someone that is closer to the man you married, rather than the man you divorced, but he can never again be that person. Just as you can never become the person you were when you married him. To believe otherwise is fantasy wish-fulfillment.
I'm feeling you about that gym thing - I can't remember the last time I went to Curves. I intend to drag myself there after work today; I'll see after twice around whether or not I'm up to the third.
I'm also trying to rein my eating back in. (Rein back in my eating? Damn the infinitives!) Staying South Beach compliant slipped a couple of spots down the priorities list last month and the button on today's jeans has been open since 10!
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