Hauntings

It's been roughly four years or so since the breakup of my first marriage. Someone at work was quite surprised when she found out I was married. "You?" she said. Yeah, I know, cute little inquisitive thing like myself, sometimes described by another as meddlesome, with a big smile and flashy eyes, is a divorcee. Just goes to show you we all have our skeletons, and nothing is as it seems.

It wasn't until talking to Wiley later today that I realized sometimes I am still haunted by my ex. I never really saw it while we were married, but he was quite a control freak. When I still talked to him, of course I could see it, but it's funny how much you get burned when you're close to the flame but you never realize it's happening until you move away from it. While I was married, nearing the end of the 8 years we'd been together, but not knowing it at the time, my ex told me he'd lost respect for me because I had no goals. And because I'd "gotten fat". I'll let that one go for now. But as for the goals, he was right: I had no goals. To me, I see goals as too far in the future - and if you focus too much on the future, you lose sight of the present. I'm currently reading Never Eat Alone, which is changing my view on goals, slowly. But I can see that it still affects me. I want people to be proud of me. I want people to respect me. I think I didn't get enough of that when I was a child that I still crave it now, sometimes ferociously. I worry that Wiley won't continue to love me because I haven't figured myself out yet, that I don't have goals that are concrete. Through tears and snorts on the phone because one nostril fills up quicker than the other (this is something that I must've had before going to Bosnia but never noticed until I went there, got infected, and came home thinking it'd go away, and surprise, it hasn't), I unleashed my thoughts to Wiley, who patiently listened to my snorts in his ear, rather loudly at times because when you have on headphones and a mic is right next to your face, it's a bit difficult to regulate, then told me that he wanted to give me the space to figure myself out and the ability to do so without any pressure from him. (And that my ex beat me down too much.) "All my friends go through this," he reassured me, to which I hiccuped, "At my age?" and he chuckled and said, "Close enough."

Puffy eyes are mostly dry now (must remember to get cucumber packs ready for the wedding just in case a tear is shed). Thanks, Wiley. I love you so very much.