About an hour ago my husband left and he won’t be coming back tonight because he doesn’t live here anymore. He’s not my husband anymore either (at least not emotionally). The last two weeks have brought tremendous upheaval along with an unfamiliar peace. I’m sure I’ll share the story in detail eventually, but it isn’t really important now. The essence of the situation is that he isn’t in love with me anymore and is involved with someone else and although he believes that the two aren’t related the circumstances of the events leading to the end of our marriage and the beginning of his relationship with her overlap enough that a major rule was broken. Namely the, don’t be in a romantic relationship with someone besides your spouse, one.
So, he’s gone and it’s quiet here. Eerily yes, but not painfully. The peace is here agin and I guess it’s not as unfamiliar as I claimed, maybe just unfamiliar in the circumstances. In the last few months I can say with confidence that I have been happy. I don’t mean that I felt happy like I can also feel sad, mad, angry (and whatever the other of the typical American top 5 emotion vocabulary words are); I mean that I WAS happy. I AM happy. I can’t say that about any other time in my life. I may have been. I probably was, but I can’t recall any time in particular and I think most of my happiness thus far has been feeling not being.
I haven’t been living a perfect life the last few months. I haven’t experienced any great professional success or other recognition. I haven’t come into money. I haven’t started or ended any significant relationships. I am simply happy. I was happy with my marriage. I am happy to be a mom. I am happy to have found a balance between work and life that leaves me with plenty of emotional energy for life. I have aspirations and unrealized dreams but the absence of their realization is not effecting my happiness nor do I believe that realizing them will contribute to it. Nothing makes me happy or unhappy I simply am.
So when I was blindsided by the news that the love was gone and then further shocked to find that he wasn’t looking for it and then completely flabbergasted by the affair… it was very strange ifor me to discover that I was still happy. I felt confused, heartbroken, devastated, betrayed (I think that’s a thought, not a feeling–oops!), and on and on again but none of those feelings stopped me from being happy. I have come to know in just two short weeks that it is possible to be happy when terrible things are happening to me. Who knew?
The happiness I had two weeks ago was genuine, but there is something different about the happiness I hold as I walk forward. There are no limits to what I can do with my life now. I have no one to compromise with and no one to answer to. I am responsible only to myself and my son. I was happy when my slate was full and suddenly it is blank and I have plenty of chalk…
Where will happiness take me (or where will I take my happiness) next? This blog isn’t going to be about juicing anymore, but it still will be about transformation. I will still make sweatpants look good and I’m driven to do so now more than ever before so my body can be on the happy train too.
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