It's been a long time! Before I delve into the details of my wonderful life, I'll recap what has been happening in the last 5 months.
First, regarding the adoption. My emotions have run the gamut, alternating from acceptance to heart-wrenching sorrowful regret. I have felt ambivalent, I have felt guilty, I have felt sure that I did the wrong thing, I have felt angry that I was not able to keep her, I have felt jealousy toward the adoptive parents, I have felt joy for the love she has and the beautiful family she belongs to, I have felt selfish, I have felt proud, I have felt wrong, I have felt right. I have heard that grief is a cycle, and the emotions you experience while enduring this endless cycle do fluctuate. However, things HAVE gotten better with time. Better? Easier? I'm not sure if either of those words really apply.
It's more appropriate to say that while I still have all of the same feelings, none of them are as VIBRANT as they once were. Immediately following the adoption, everything was still so fresh in my mind. It was like the paint of the experience had just been applied to the canvas of my life and it was still bright, wet. It is drying and fading now, but it still has all the same colors it did before. Does that make sense, or did that make things more confusing? Anyway, I'll never be the same, I'll never be "over it", and I was quite mistaken to think that placing my baby for adoption was just something I could do and then move on with my life. This experience has become interwoven into the tapestry of who I am. There is no separating me from this, no moving on, no forgetting. I'm not saying that's a totally bad thing. It is what it is. I guess I'm just saying that I'm surprised by the way it has affected my life.
I am pleased to report that I am finally, truly, irrevocable DONE with N. I know I said that over and over again, and you still have no idea how many times I'd catch myself falling into the same trap, even knowing there was no happiness waiting for me there. I began to worry that I'd never truly be free of him, despite how much I hated myself when I was with him and how much I resented his very presence. He was an infection, a disease. I still can't tell you what made me continue to allow him into my life. It's still honestly a mystery to me why and how he had such power over me long after his true colors had become apparent to me.
I mean, it's SICK, really. Toward the end...the END end, I mean....he wasn't even trying to pretend that I was the only one, that he truly loved me. He wasn't even bothering to pull the wool over my eyes anymore (even though I had seen through it all along anyway). He was blatantly IN his marriage, and still sleeping with me. When I asked if they were together, if he lived with her, if he had sex with her before coming over...he didn't even deny it. He no longer claimed he'd leave her for me. He stopped acting sorry for hurting me. He ditched the act of sympathy for me and regret for his mistakes. The mask completely slipped, revealing the hideous monster beneath...yet I STILL.COULDN'T.LET.GO. I didn't enjoy the sex anymore, I didn't feel an ounce of happiness, there was nothing left for me. Yet somehow, I always ended up letting him in.
Finally, I met someone. Someone different, someone amazing. You would think that it's so wonderful for me that I have finally found a man who values me, appreciates me, cherishes me, and respects me. It would seem like a happy ending that I have ended up with a love I am worthy of. But to my chagrin, it is only now that I am with someone with a heart that I realize how very damaged I am. The way I approach people, my thought processes, my reactions, my assumptions, my feelings....for the first time, reflected in the mirror of my love, I can see how twisted they have all become. I am filled with sorrow at the thought that I may have become too damaged to love him the way he deserves. What if, now that I have finally found a man worth being a good woman for, I find that I am no longer CAPABLE of being a good woman because I have been ruined by a bad man? Is that possible? I want to have hope, to have faith in us. Can the broken pieces be mended? Can the cracks be filled?
I feel angry that I wasted the best of me on that psychopath. It was so easy for me to be wonderful to him, and I guess I just assumed that when I started a new relationship, I'd be the same girl I was when I got with N. But I'm not. I'm bitter, paranoid, cynical, delusional, gun shy, insecure, volatile. Is that girl gone? Can I get her back?
"I wish I could buy back, the woman you stole" -- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
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