I have healed a great deal. My new life has taken deep roots and has taken on a life all its own. Not a lot of ghosts swirling around. I have forged new habits and routines all my own, and what goes on inside the walls of my home barely resembles my life before very much at all. But there are a few things that I still struggle with. One of them is a fairly normal sort of thing......in my old life I would cook a big dinner every night. We all sat at the table every night and had dinner. The kids and I still do sometimes but not as often. After he left my friends cooked for us for a few weeks, which was so sweet and very much needed. And then the sting of sitting there, the three of us, I guess stung my subconscious. Because something about it feels strange to me, so our eating has become more casual. Not as formal. And it works and is not a big deal but just an observation of it all I guess. I have to force myself to have us sit at the table now. And likely need to do it more. And I suppose I feel the same about cooking. Cooking for children is not as fun as adults ;-) So I normally cook two or three things on the weekends and we eat from that during the week. The three of us don't eat as much as the four of us once did. So it has been a big change. But one that still carries some emotion on the other side. So these are things I am trying to work on. Pushing through these blocks. Because most of the time the absence of him is not felt by me anymore. The life the three of us have, is very much our own and a real life.......not one that is missing anybody or anything. On the way home from hiking yesterday Mads was asking more about her dad. About the day he left and she did it the last time we were all in the car too. She actually marveled at what it is about when she is car that makes her want to to ask about her dad. Madeline said she had a question to ask me. She asked me if I still had feelings for her dad. I told her that I will always care about her dad and love the life we spent together. She said that wasn't what I asked you mom..........ooooffff........so I told her that no I don't have feelings for her dad in that way any longer.......and that sometimes grown ups can love each other so much but that things change.......and that things have changed a lot, and that our lives are not with each other, and we are both living the lives we want to now.......and that we both love them fiercely and that none of what happened between us will ever change that....and she said it was so hard that daddy doesn't live with us anymore......and I told her I was so sorry that it is that way.....that her dad and I never wanted that to happen to them.......and I can only imagine how challenging it is for she and Gabe and I am sorry their hearts are hurting.......I told her that we would have a happy life together, the three of us, and that I promise her that. We have lots of adventure up ahead:) Both of them still break my heart when this stuff comes up.....it is so hard to now know that what has happened was what needed to..... for me to feel free and have a happy life.....but that it had to be at the hands of something that still pains my children.......not easy indeed.......as I sit here and write this though......I am in awe of the healing that has taken place in a year, in all of us.....and optimistic about all that lies ahead for all of us.......and so grateful for my children and the gift they are to me every single day........
jperuso
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