Stranger.......

I have written of this before......it comes up from time to time to have its voice heard.......and last night I was thinking of it an awful lot.....how painful it is to not only lose the stuff I have in losing my marriage and family in one night......but then to also lose a person completely in every real sense......like death......but without the dying.....he is a total stranger to me now.....I don't see anything in him any longer that I remember......when he comes to get the kids he may as well be a stranger.......the connection between us in the universe completely severed.......and I am guessing for good.......and I have spoken of how that fact has made my road easier.....no back and forth......no kind and sweet gestures given to me in the aftermath....which would have likely tortured my tender heart......so I suppose the stranger thing is preferable.......but I really cannot articulate how bizarre and unnerving it is......to feel you know somebody as well as you know yourself......you feel you know all their light and dark parts......and you think you will be connected forever......to some degree......even after they leave......and then you discover their intention through their actions is to become as unfamiliar as they can to you......maybe not intentionally but that is what they have achieved.....and I suppose I am unrecognizable to him in a lot of ways too.......meeting him too in his stranger ways.....although his being a stranger to me helped me become home to myself......helping me find a way to be me again........relying heavily on me......not on him......and that was the shift that had to happen.....even if the brutality of how it was done will never leave......it almost feels......and it may sound dramatic......but stay with me.......like if a parent dropped a child on the side of the road suddenly and they pulled away........never to return......not answering texts or calls or offering any comfort in the aftermath......brutal in a real sense.........so it most definitely feels like abandonment in every way.....not only in a legal sense.......but it is more than that.......it is the vanishing of self that always strikes me......like where did you go? Where did the person I knew all these years go? I still cannot answer.......He clearly was battling things I did not know and do not understand.......that is clear to me........that psychic I wrote about the other day said we will make amends in this life......not in terms of reconciling......obviously ;-) but in terms of finding peace between us in the wake of it all.....it is hard for me to believe that now.......as things stand.......but I suppose anything is possible.........the true lesson too is that never say never.......none of us are insulated from these things......the people we feel we know......can change on a moment's notice......nothing lasts forever and strangers walk among us......they live in our homes......sleep in our beds.....eat at our dinner tables........who knew that??? I sure never did.......but it is a valuable lesson I suppose that I won't ever forget.......and in his strangeness I found my familiarity.....and in his coldness I found my warmth........in his destruction I rebuilt my life......in his lack of love for me I found my self love........in the choices he made I decided to make better ones.........at each turn I tried my best to never join him in the dysfunctional parts of the stranger dance.....trying to keep our humanity and selves present somehow.......some days I have achieved that and can feel he feels that, and other days I have not........but every day I feel it is worth it to try and bridge the gap between our strangers......and keep it open for the sake of our children.......as we drift further and further away.......trying to leave an invisible chord between us......and maybe the psychic is right and one day we will get to know the new versions of us again......find co parenting.....friendship........a healthy relationship......I am always open to that........but for now just accepting it as it is.....and still grieving some for the stranger........can't always help that.......and maybe will to some degree forever......the stranger I used to know.......