Scene 7: Holiday Hurts

Thanksgiving was upon us. I own the T-Day in my family. We all take turns hosting holidays and somehow Thanksgiving became mine. I love cooking and having people over. It's always a great day with lots of food, laughter and Pictionary. We do not play about our Pictionary, understand? Folks have almost come to blows about drawing and guessing! But I digress!

Since he had not been home since July, we were discussing whether or not he would be able to make it home. He had been traveling a lot with the military and so we weren't really sure if he could make it. 

I so wanted him to come here. I hadn't seen him in months and I was anxious to see if things were going to be different when he got here. I wasn't sure of anything anymore, except that I believed we were going to be alright once he retired and came home. 

He had planned to come home but work kept him from making definitive plans. He wasn't sure if he would be back in the states in time and so I was up and down, back and forth. Finally he said he wasn't going to make it. Then he was. 

Anyway, Thanksgiving Day he arrives home, I rush out to the car to greet him and I can tell in his eyes that something was wrong. He tried to mask it but I could see that he was disappointed in something. I don't think he was disappointed to see me. More that he was expecting that when he got out of the car and saw me that everything would turn normal again. That his confused feelings would go away and there would be extra sunlight or something. Whatever he was looking for was not there and we both knew it. 

I ran up to my room and cried. I remember saying to God, "I thought you said everything was going to be ok!" and not getting a response. 

I had people coming so I had to get it together quickly. It was tense and weird and after the holiday was done and everyone was gone we lay in bed trying to talk. But I knew something was so very wrong. 

He left the next day and I would not see him in person for another 5 months after that Black Friday morning. 

Did I still have hope? Of course I did. I still believed that once he retired and came home everything would eventually get righted. I did still have faith in what God had said. I still believed that this rough patch would get made smooth again. It was a good marriage. It could survive this. It would have to or I was going to lose everything.

Back soon.

Scene 6: Birthday and Blurry Days

So he had asked for a divorce (that's two if you count the initial incident) and I balked. No, we were not going to talk divorce. I was going to give him time and space to think, without the pressure of having to talk to me everyday or answer my probing questions. He could take whatever time he needed to get his head on straight. No divorce!

In September I turned 41. (Just a year before we were on a cruise for my birthday. So much changed in 12 months!) He sent me flowers, like he did every year, and on the card he wrote "I will always love you. No matter what we're going through." I don't think he'll ever know how that crushed me and how it ruined my favorite day in the whole world. I knew we were going through stuff, but did he have to put that on my card? I couldn't stick that in the plastic pronged cardholder for all the world to see. I was gutted about that. Still am. It seemed so insensitive. 

Anyway, we trudge along through the fall. Me trying desperately not to do or say *anything* that would upset him. Me holding my tongue during every phone call. Me changing the way I respond to him or his conversation. All because I know if I make him mad, he's going to leave me. But also knowing, somewhere in the back of my mind that if I stay the person I was quickly becoming, he'd eventually leave me anyway. Who the hell was I? I mean, I am not the type to bite my tongue about much. I am outspoken, strong, determined and a badass. But right then and there, I was just mostly scared. Terrified. Panicked. What was I going to do?

I prayed. I blogged. I read scripture. I tried listening to God's voice instead of my own. And I heard God say that there was going to be restoration. Jeremiah 33:6-11 was what He gave to read over and over and over. And I did. 

But I also cried. A lot. There were times when I looked like I had just come out of the ring Mike Tyson. People at work thought that I had terminal sinus headaches because that was the excuse I used to cover the blood-shot and swollen eyes. I told so few people. Only 3 people in my circle knew. No one else could ever know. 

Between my birthday and Thanksgiving, it was nothing but a blur of crying, praying, blogging and hoping. I don't remember time going by at all. Just that one day I was giving out candy to the neighborhood kids and the next I was desperately trying to figure out how to tell the family that I was in no mood to celebrate Thanksgiving. 

My aunt had died the year before. She died a week after Thanksgiving and it was only because of her and her memory did I relented to continuing the tradition of hosting T-Day at my house.

Boy was it something.

Back soon!