Today's post may seem a little vague, but for those of you who know me and know about certain situations in my life, you will understand. This seems to be a bit of a touchy subject for some of my friends and relatives, hence the reason for keeping some of the details under wraps. What I'm referring to here is going through some sort of life experience, be it negative or positive, learning from said life experience, and going on in a healthy and happy manner. There have been several people that I have known who have experienced terrible things in their lives, for example the death of a parent, death of a spouse, divorce, loss of a child, infertility, etc. Some of these people have made the choice to rise from the ashes and move on with their life. Since I won't offend anyone except possibly myself, I will use my situation as an example. Go back with me to November of 2006, the day after Thanksgiving, when I found out that my then husband had been cheating on me for an undetermined amount of time. Did it hurt like hell? Yeah, of course it did. Did it rock me to my very core? Certainly. Once you've been with someone for 10 years and married to them for more than 5 of those years that is definitely not what you would expect from that person. There were many nights where I wasn't able to sleep and would quietly go downstairs into the living room, sit on the couch wrapped in a blanket, and sob. Did I try my hardest to make the situation right itself? Yes, I did, including going to couples therapy and trying (in vain) to reconnect with my now ex. It is extremely difficult to put a relationship back together when only one person wants that relationship back, even more so when one person has already fallen in love with someone else. Although the situation was horrible, I relied on my family and friends to help me make it through the worst of it. Add to the fact that my Dad who had been diagnosed with liver cancer in April of 2006 and had gone through treatment and was supposedly clean had a recurrence of cancer in January 2007 and times were twice as hard. The year didn't get much better, with the exception of one thing (which I will get to in a moment); my dissolution of marriage from my first husband was finalized on December 7, 2006 and my Dad died exactly 10 days later. Now tell me that isn't a shitstorm to have to go through. I am convinced this would have absolutely driven some people into the ground. Not me, I'm a tough cookie and I'm not going to just roll over and die for anything or anyone.
So, you may be asking, what is the point to the above? The point is that instead of wallowing in my self-pity and asking, "Why me?" I chose to move on and go on with my life. My ex and I officially called it quits the Saturday before Easter in 2006. He had been seeing someone else all along, and I didn't see any problem with trying to get back in the dating game myself. Hell, I was 29 years old, somewhat attractive, had no children, so I figured why not...I'll try match.com. I did sign up that very weekend and did correspond with some people. I even had a couple of dates (2 with the same person, Neanderthal man/carpet cleaner Mike, but that is a whole other story in itself) and of course then I met Justin. We went on a few dates, knew we really clicked well together, he had been through a similar situation with his Mom having cancer and dying at age 50 in 2001, so he understood me and what I was going through. I waited until our second date to tell him that I was still married and fortunately he didn't flip out and break things off with me. I'm not going to rehash all of our relationship here and now, but he was (and continues to be, to this very day) a wonderful support for me, throughout all the craziness with my Dad, the ending of my marriage to my first husband, and of course now with our beautiful daughter McKenna. Notice that above I used a form of the verb "choose" in my statement. Yes, you have to make a choice when life hands you lemons...you can choke on the bitterness and stagnate in the acidity, or you can take the lemons and make lemonade. Or lemon meringue pie. Or whatever other tasty item you can make with lemons. I am extremely proud of certain people in my life who have made the choice after certain tragedies to move on with their life. One of these of course is my Mom (who I'm also sure won't mind being called out). I can't even imagine losing Justin after only being with him almost 4 years and being married for less than 2. My Mom lost my Dad after nearly 28 years of marriage and were together for probably 30. Was she absolutely crushed by this? Yes, she was, but not to the point where she turned into a shell of her former self. She went out, kept busy with family and friends, and even started dating again. When your spouse dies at the age of 48 and you are the same age that is WAY too young to stop living. I am so happy for her that she was able to take her grief, process through it, and MOVE ON. I know that she still loves my Dad, always will, and that she will never forget him. He is there with her every day, although not physically any more. I think it was the strength of their love for one another and the strength of their relationship that allowed her to move on. I also think that the support that she received was another very valuable piece of the "moving on" puzzle for her. She is now happily engaged to someone that she has known for a long time in a casual manner, but they started dating and now plan on getting married sometime in the near future. My Mom is 51. She's still got a lot of life to live. I am just so happy to have such a wonderful role model in my Mom.
There are also others that I know who have not made the choice to move on. It is very sad to see people wallow in depression, sadness, and grief. People who sit and stare at the same walls day in and day out, not interacting with the outside world on a regular basis. Unfortunately there is nothing that you or I can do for these people. We can talk with them about our concerns, beg and plead for them to get help, see a therapist, get some antidepressants, come out and socialize, etc. However, until these people make the choice to MOVE ON by THEMSELVES they will be stuck in the mire of their own circumstances.
The choice to MOVE ON can also be applied to other situations in life, not only divorce and death (these are just the two that have hit closest to home for me). If there is something out there that you want, you need to go and get it. It is not going to just magically show up for you. Wouldn't it be nice if that was the case, though? I have grown very weary of people telling me that they desire something in life that is readily (although not necessarily easily) attainable and then feeling sorry for themselves when said desire doesn't just happen in their life. It's time to move on, people...grab the bull by the horns, shit or get off the pot, whatever old, cliched saying you want to use. Stop expecting life to bring you good fortune...go out there and make your own good fortune and MOVE ON.
That's it for now. Until next time, I remain,
Jenuinely Yours
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