This morning as I was driving into work, UnBreak my Heart from Toni Braxton came on the radio. I have always loved the raw emotion she is able to share in that song. Most women can relate to that level of heartbreak she is so beautifully expressing.
As I sang along with her I marveled at how I was not signing it to my ex-husband anymore. I often use music to “sing out” what I am feeling. I figure it’s a good way to move emotion and it’s safe because no one can hear me when I sing in the car. But today I wasn’t singing it to him; I was singing it to me. In that moment I realized for the first time, that he broke my heart just about every day for seven years. I didn’t want to see it, but it’s true.
Right from the beginning there was a push/pull emotional mind fuck game he played with me nearly every day. He actually told me about a week after we started dating that while he thought I was pretty, he wasn’t sure if he could continue to date someone who weighed 150 pounds. Who says shit like that to someone, and worse yet, who stays with someone like that. Me – that’s who.
I just never saw it in the light of day like I did today, like I was seeing it with new eyes. I always felt anxious in my relationship with him, but I blamed that on my lack of self love and the fact that I really didn’t know how to love. How can you feel and do something you were never taught. I think he somehow knew all of that and used it to manipulate me and control me.
The tears I am shedding tonight are for the poor woman who took all of that abuse for seven years and didn’t know that she deserved better. It’s as if I was able to step back today and see it all as if it was a movie. I used to love the movie “Sleeping with the Enemy.” Now I know why; while he didn’t physically beat me, he mental beat me most days. I loved that movie so much that for a long time I wanted to move to Iowa, rent a big old country home like she did and bake apple pies. I should have known then that something was seriously wrong with my relationship with him. I just didn’t want to see it.
But now I know, and now it’s over. The pain is receding. It was like a giant tsunami hit me when he first left. It took a long while for the tide to roll back out to sea, and for the damaged to be dealt with. I am happy to say new foundations are being poured, trees are being planted, and dreams are being rebuilt. (It’s just raining my tears in the village tonight, but it will pass.)
One day I know I will be able to look back and marvel at what I lived through. I will know that in spite of all of the pain and destruction, I survived, thrived, and found out what love really means. I am getting there. It’s taking some time, but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
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