So it has all come down to being ashamed of myself. That is why I hide away and avoid people and overeat—I have been ashamed of myself for so long.

Date:   10/14/2005 6:14:17 AM ( 19 y ago)

How do I start again?

A question that can be heard around the world these days. So there is the world, there is war, there is Katrina and Tsunami, there is famine, there is crime, then there are the lesser things of course, and somewhere underneath the same sky there is me. Me as I sit in my comfortable home, wearing my comfortable clothes, eating my comfortable food, and feeling—well, quite uncomfortable actually.

I am sitting here in the dark contemplating beginning again. Beginning the fast again, beginning my education again, beginning my life again and I feel so sad, so wasteful, so alone. Blogging is both a wonderful new creation and an utterly sad reality. I could simply write all of this down in a journal, privately typing or penning my misery—but somehow it is comforting to watch the numbers go up [8,000+] my blog has been read, looked at, perused…and I know that for whatever reason people are sharing these words and therefore this world with me. Some people are judging me, enjoying me, laughing with me, empathizing or sympathizing…ooo maybe someone is even laughing at me. But it helps me to blog. It gives beginning again some kind of purpose beyond my little self.

So how do I begin again?

I don’t just want to begin the fast again. I want to begin my life again. I want to change my mind and stay at XXXX where I began my college education. I want to change my mind and finish my doctorate before I have kids. I want to change my mind and marry a different man or not marry at all. But, and here is the cliché…I don’t want to change the baby that I wouldn’t have now if I had changed my mind about everything else.

]How does a parent reconcile this?

How do you regret past decisions without it meaning that you also regret the children you have?

To a large degree I have lived my life blindly. Blindly recreating the life my mother lived (another cliché but true). It wasn’t until this August that I realized it hadn’t been worth it…my mother that is…she hadn’t been worth all the failing I’ve done in my life--living down to her expectations—because now that I am living the life she always said she wanted—she looks down on me for not having a career, a high enough education, etc. So how do I let go of the 30 years that have pretty much been wasted…(oh sure I have lots of experience, I have learned a lot, done a lot, tried a lot—but it hasn’t amounted to anything)…how do I start over from here, how do I let go of what I could have been and look to the future for what I still might be?

I need the answers because lately I have been feeling Closter Phobic, unable to relax without wine, unable to go forward. I am keeping myself stuck. Stuck in this fat, stuck in this marriage, stuck in this mediocrity, stuck…and it is suffocating me…to be stuck like this.

How do I begin again without changing everything? The marriage is mediocre, but it isn’t bad. I couldn’t actually justify leaving him—it is just that I shouldn’t have ever married him in the first place—and yes, somewhere deep down or just below the surface of that beautiful white gown…I knew it then.

I did this to myself…but how do I undo it without undoing it? There just isn’t anyway to not undo what has been done without losing or hurting someone…if I leave I hurt my daughter and lose my husband. If I stay, I lose me.

A couple of months ago I was walking with my daughter in a park. Three girls were talking about their parents. The sound of their voices echoes in my ear,
“Did you ever live with your dad?”
“No”
“Neither did I”
“Neither did I”
“I think it is better that way. Don’t you”
“Yeah, cause then we don’t know what we are missing”

It was as if G-d himself placed me just feet away holding the hand of my infant daughter…what had I been thinking about? Divorce and how it would affect my daughters life…I had actually been thinking that if I was going to divorce him I should do it before she was old enough to remember living with him.

Where is that crystal ball? How do I start again? How do I go on from here without undoing what I have done?

The questions that are dancing about in my mind, running across my heart, tearing at my soul, ripping me apart—would not be significant at all if I lived just a few states away—it is just geography…that I am allowed to be so self involved—contemplating starting again from here—I don’t even have to move. Maybe I should be more grateful.

Wow. Just thinking that, just writing it down felt like the answer. Maybe if I spend my days thinking about what I have, what I am grateful for—I wouldn’t feel like I had to begin again. To you this may sound contrite, obvious, Oprahesque—but at the moment that I wrote, “maybe I should be more grateful” that horrible Closter phobic feeling dissipated and warmth replaced it.

Maybe what needs to change is my thinking. Wow. You see what I mean? How much blogging helps me? Seriously you don’t know (well maybe you do) how lost I was feeling until this moment. If I am grateful for what I have, for the choices I have made, I can stop hiding myself, stop being ashamed of myself—I can let go of everything I think I don’t have or haven’t become—and just be grateful for who I am and for what I have become. A wife and mother. A wife to a man that provides for his family. A mother to a most amazing young and unfolding life.

I am lucky after all. Suddenly, I don’t want to begin again.

I really do want to go on from here.

Wow.



 

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