Reflections

21 December 2012

More Raindrop Reflections by RoxanneGalpin
image credit: More Raindrop Reflections, a photo by RoxanneGalpin on Flickr

I miss you. However wrong that seems, I miss you. Despite the monster you became, the one I had to run from, I somehow have this delusion that you loved me. I tell myself that a sociopathic narcissist lacks the capacity to love. And then I lie to myself, insistent upon your love for me. Am I deluded, or a liar? I’m never sure. I can only describe our time together as surreal. I feel as though the monster wasn’t you. As though, you liked to play with gamma rays in your younger days and that’s the cause of that raging monster which manifests itself inside your body. How can that monster, who deliberately set out to physically harm me, be you ~ a loving man who held me tightly in the aftermath of a frightening nitemare? You became a frightening nitemare, one from which I had to escape, fearing for my life. How is it that I can still love you after all that?
 ~Roxanne Galpin

I wrote that almost two years ago. And yet, the sentiment still seems quite real to me. I made quite a mess of things by taking a beautiful dangerous angel as a paramour. I will call him my paramour because he was forbidden fruit for me, a married woman. I committed an unforgivable faux pas. And sent my marriage into pain filled ruins. What I did was, to me, unforgivable. And fraught with so much pain and longing. A longing that darkens and desiccates the heart. Oh, did he hurt me. And still, with the approaching holidays, I find myself thinking about him. I don't understand how love can overlook all the pain my paramour inflicted upon me.

He frightened me with his drunken rages. He violated me, disregarded my whimpers of pain and pleas for him to stop. And still, I loved him. He raged at me. Time and time again. He struck me, and left a bruise. And still, I wanted to make a future with him. Why? Did I think that I didn't deserve any better? Did I place such little value in myself? I don't have the answer. Perhaps I never will. I'm just beginning to learn that I do deserve better, much better. And so, I keep myself at a distance, prevent myself from thinking of him. For nothing good can come from thinking about my paramour. It would be so easy to pick up my phone and text him. And then I ask myself, what's the point? The answer? There's no point. Only anguish, self-inflicted anguish.

I've learned to savour and cherish the now and all it's richness. I've learned that wrapping myself around the past, however painful, brings nothing but aching inertia. I've learned that, all along I had a man who loved and cherished me ~ my one true thing. I've learned that, sometimes you have to burn the house down in order to rebuild it to it's proper and beautiful form. That's what my life has been about these past 3 years ~ disassembling and reassembling. When I think of the pain I caused my one true thing, I shudder. And when I think of the forgiveness I received from him, I feel so humbled.

I think of healing as a life long process. I think that I've yet to forgive myself for the chaos my decisions and actions caused my one true thing and others who love me. I also think that every unwise decision we make and every painful obstacle we encounter make us the person we've become. And every circumstance that renders us bare and exposed ~ i.e. leaving almost everything I owned behind to go to drug treatment ~ teaches us the true value of life and the people in it.

Not everyone gets a second chance. I did, though. And I feel incredibly grateful for it.

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