Wistful But Never Regretful

This is a post I've been kind of battling against myself about writing the past week or so.  It's something I'm struggling to articulate so for anyone who reads this, I apologize in advance if it's clear to no one including myself.  That happens rather often anyway.  So 4th of July has always been a big deal for me.  Fireworks have been centered around some romantic moments in the past, with a couple key players in my love life being heavily involved in my celebrations at one point or another.  My celebration last year was so intensely different from this year.

I was a mom, preparing to become a wife.  I bought temporary tattoos, patriotic earrings, and colorful hair pieces for me & Emmalynne.  We spent the day at the park admiring chalk drawings, the evening buying & lighting off baby fireworks like snakes & colored smoke bombs, & the night watching the fireworks in the bowling alley parking lot by the Speedway.  We talked about this 4th of July, & what we would do if we had the kids.  We went to his brother's farewell & his family lit off the fireworks saved for when everyone would be home, & Rowan snuggled up on my lap, both very tired & convinced that someone would somehow get caught on fire.

That's the thing about me & dating men who have children, which thankfully for the sake of my heart I don't do often.  They're not his kids.  They're ours.  For those two months, Emmalynne, Garion, & Rowan were mine.  That doesn't mean that I tried in any way to replace their mother; only that I was their parent as well.  We broke up mid-August, & the last time I heard from Jason in January, Rowan was still asking when he would get to see me.  I have a special reservation in hell for the heartache I put those children through while I was so afraid to be alone, to follow my heart & let them go.

It's so crazy to think of how wrecked I was then & realize that it still took me so long to end things.  I even wished for the decision to be taken out of my hands, though I won't say how in such a public forum.  I remember sobbing in my parents' closet, completely broken down, desperately seeking an answer for how to avoid hurting this man who loved me so much & these children I had so readily claimed as my own.

I don't think anyone but my family, having seen me with them & us together struggling to form a new family, could really understand.  These were MY kids.  When Emmalynne told us one of the neighbor boys had pushed her down in her own front yard at her mom's house, I looked at Jason & said "baby, we need to talk about this" & immediately told her, because I knew he agreed, that under no circumstances did her father & I want her to tolerate someone mistreating her.  When she was knocked off her tube when we floated the Boise River with Jason's brothers & sister & her family, she cried in MY lap.  I held her.  That was the moment Jason's sister knew he'd fallen.

I've always been better at being single, because everything about being a half of something more is so deeply complicated.  I'm not good at trusting someone with my heart.  I'm not even always good at being trustworthy, mostly because I panic under the weight of such responsibility.  I have been richly blessed this past year, & I need to be clear.  I have NEVER doubted, nor regretted my decision to end my relationship with Jason.  I have been led.  I have been blessed that I have healed (overall) remarkably quickly.  I love those children.  I ache for the life we could have had but I know how we were together.  I know that we would have never pulled it together.  We would have never made it to the temple.  I'm not even sure that we would have intentionally had more children & as much as I love(d) Emmalynne, Garion, & Rowan, I ache for those incredible life-giving experiences that are meant to be so intrinsic to our time here on this earth.

***Information from this point on may prompt questions which you (whoever you may be) are welcome to ask me privately, but I would hope that it is obvious that I am only willing to answer according to the parameters of our relationship, my confidence in your discretion, & of course my own level of comfort with the questions as well as the answers.***

I would likely have never gotten sober, & I hit eight months this week.  I can't even believe that I can say that so calmly, not as if it doesn't matter but as a recognition that the number will only grow from months to years to (someday!!!) decades!  I haven't been 100% perfect in my sobriety, but it's so firmly entrenched in who I have become that most of the time I have no fears concerning my ability to maintain that sobriety anymore.  I do recognize that my furthest spirals were triggered by a year I could not have fathomed in my nightmares, though many of the events have long been among my darkest fears.  I recognize that greater traumas may well lie ahead.  Opening myself to the possibility of an eternal love, eternal marriage & children entrusted to me guarantees greater heartache than I have ever fathomed, simply because I must be more vulnerable than ever before.

Getting sober has required so much faith on my part, faith I didn't believe I had until I acted upon it.  Crazy how that works.  Leaving Jason lead me to Matthew, & our endless hours of conversation lead me to the recognition that I was desperate for the life I thought he could possibly offer me.  The fact that our relationship was ultimately not at all what we had both hoped it would be is so incredibly irrelevant.  He believed I could be more, & the second that I hoped for it with a real belief in the possibility (NOT the reality, that's still sinking in day by day) the way opened itself before me.

I have gained such amazing eternal friendships in this process.  I have allowed my family to know me & accept me & empathize with me in ways that I truly believed to be impossible.  I never thought I could have the relationships that I have with them now.  That's not to say that our relationships are perfect now, or even that all members of my family have the same degree of knowledge concerning my recovery.  They don't.  Those revelations continue to be a matter of intense faith and trust, in my Heavenly Father to guide me & my family members to continue to love me as I shed the shame which has kept me drowning for such an intensely long time.  I am grateful.  I am loved.  And for now, I will continue to try to let that be enough.