I had conversation with a friend on Tuesday that was like a mirror image of myself a few years ago. I felt as if I was in a time warp. It got me thinking. If your future self sat you down and gave you advice, now, would you listen? Would hearing what the other side of hell was like, would you want to hear it?
Hearing her describe her marriage and her husband was like listening to myself from so long ago. I know when I was at her point in the game, I wasn’t ready to hear that things were better on the other side, that I would find someone who cared for me – for ME, not who they wished I would be.
She looked sideways at me the other night, tears brimming, lip quivering, and she said, “Tell me about love.” half wanting to hear, half not wanting.
Love is never having to ask permission to be you. Love is having someone support you and what you love without trying to change you.
Did I ever have second thoughts about leaving a marriage after 10 years, she asks. Never. I did the best that I could do to try to make things work, but some things are so broken that even super glue can’t put humpty dumpty back together again. I learned the lessons I needed to learn and knew when it was time to go. Yes, I was scared to step out, but I was more scared to be trapped in.
When people spoke to me years ago and told me to “piss or get off the pot” regarding my marriage, I was paralyzed by fear because it wasn’t completely broken yet, barely holding on by a thread, but not completely severed. Fear of the unknown kept me tethered, hoping to use that thread to climb out to a better place. Circumstances happen and suddenly you find yourself free falling anyway-it’s either face your fear and fly or close your eyes and fall. I chose to fly and I haven’t looked back.