Well blog world, I would like to say I have good reasons for having such a gap in my online presence.
I’d like to think it was for the best, I’d like to think that it has been a smooth however many years it’s been since I last updated.
But, it’s not.
I made a decision a few years ago to join the army. I was looking to have a good career, and paying for school would have been hard, so I looked at subsidized options. The army gave me that. It however, began the demise of my marriage. I often wonder if enlisting and taking myself away from my family cause the rift, or if it would have happened even if I was home all the time. I was unhappy. I felt like I was merely a pawn in someone else’s chess game, when I deserved to be the queen. I felt like I relied too much on the income my wasband brought in, I felt it gave me no right to have ideas, or make choices and I was constantly having to ask permission from the breadwinner in order to actually live my life.
So, my marriage ended. Abruptly. Messy. In the moment I felt guilt for my choices, I will admit I took the coward’s way out. I wasn’t strong enough to stand for myself, so I gave him the opportunity to end it, and he did. With it, it was heavily suggested I leave the province to return to my training, without my children. The next 6 months were horrible. My mental health was always questionable, I’ve suffered from anxiety for many years, but being away from my boys and my life crumbling, I was faced with depression as well.
I sank low, I lived a life I thought I deserved, one where I didn’t respect myself so I didn’t care that no one else respected me. My goal though was always to get back to my boys. So I worked, I struggled, I wrote memos, I talked to people, and in the end I was able to return to my kids.
But the world I came back to had changed. I was now single, wasband had moved on, and while some friends had stayed, others had decided my actions were not the kind they wish to stay friends with, my family decided they didn’t know who I was anymore. And I struggled, I struggled to find my place in this city that I had loved for so many years, I struggled to forgive myself, and to move on past the guilt that I was carrying with me. I struggled with trying to find what kind of person I wanted to be, where I could possibly go from here.
I’m fortunate. Over the last year and a half, I’ve found a path. It might narrow at times, and I might step off it, but I finally think I’m beginning to find my own way. Too bad it only took 36 years.
As ME sees it. 