Sunday

What I love about Sundays it’s that it’s sort of like 52 mini resets over the course of a year. As you adapt to the week, you inevitably get to decompress, reassess, adapt, re-engage and overcome.

I’m my father’s daughter. I rarely sit still. I have to be doing a project at all times and if it needs to get done, I get it it done. During my time in the military, that mentality remained the shame. You carry out through out the week/months, working hard and playing even harder. Which is why after the spontaneity the weekends tend to bring to life lately, I find myself craving routine come Sunday evening.

During the week it’s all work work work, busy busy busy, mom mom mom, drive drive drive, schedule schedule schedule, coffee coffee wine. I find that Sunday is where and when moments of clarity arise.

My Week

My week was full of firsts. It was also more of the same, was not without mistakes, procrastination and tears. For the first time in a very long time, it was with minimal regret and I believe it was one of my biggest weeks of noticeable growth in not only healing from my trauma, but from the pain this divorce has caused me.

The Good

My son started a program with the Early On readiness pre-school program through the Monroe County ISD and has been doing absolutely amazing!! A little back story, my son has been undergoing an observation/assessment since September of this year. The team finds he meets certain criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) Just coming to terms with being told that, processing what that means, educating myself the best I can and trying to remain positive as I can has been exhausting. Clinically speaking, they won’t diagnose children before the age of five. Either way, I’ve been doing this mostly on my own and I’m scared about what this may mean in the future for my son. I have no regrets advocating for early intervention and I am proud of myself for being in denial and doing what’s best for my son.

The love I had left after my husband filed papers on me, has only overflown more so into our son. I can live with myself for a failed marriage. I cannot however live with myself for failing to do all I can for my son. Which was why I spent the better part of three last two months making sure my number one priority was to get Owen into the preschool program he is in. I’m so excited to see what my baby boy is going to accomplish; he is going to do amazing and wonderful things.

So hence began this week of such intense change. This was the first week of having a child in school, which is a first for me. I felt needed in so many new ways; packing my son’s bookbag, looking over his lesson plans for the week, being ran to after class and helping my beautiful three-year-old baby become regulated to a very challenging and upcoming chapter of his life. Though intelligent and high functioning as Owen is, he lacks some social skills and fine motor control. He is meeting above average standards for comprehensive language, but struggles very much with pragmatic language. It’s been very difficult for him to initiate conversation/engage in conversation with others about what it is he wants.

I, in turn, have grown myself tenfold in patience.

“I have made it my number one priority to do what’s best for my son and have provide him the safety of me being his home base. He is so loved and not only blows me away daily, but hourly.”

The Bad

Subsequently, this week with the representation of my attorney, responded to my husbands complaint for divorce, served on our two year wedding anniversary.

I never thought in a million years I would of been where I was at this past week. So to say the week was of volume is an understatement.

The Good & The Bad

Time moves at all sorts of speeds on Sundays, this one especially. It started off slow and I see that it’s now 7:30pm and the day has nearly come to an end.

My husband will be out of town for a month doing a required residency rotation, so today we (him, Owen and I) spent time together during the first part of the day, so Owen could see his daddy before he left for a while.

“Divorce never gets easier; especially when a minor child is involved. Having to be around someone when they no longer love you, is extremely hard. It’s like you are two complete strangers somewhat again. You have no real idea who the person you once spent every waking second is anymore.”

As co-parents, we played connect four with our son, to help teach him the concept of taking turns. We watched and smiled in awe as Owen put together his floor sized United States puzzle and of course he serenaded us with one of his many beautiful songs. He loved that he had his mommy and daddy at the same time playing with him. I was happy to see him so happy but it’s tough to accept that it’s not going to be like this all the time.

Before my husband left, he hugged me and said “Thank you for doing this, it is very much appreciated.” He continued on ended the conversation saying, “Despite how much this divorce has hurt you, I, being who I am, am not good for you. I was only hurting you more and making things worse. You are doing better without me Melissa and I’m proud of you.”

I had very little to say after that, because, well he isn’t wrong by any means. It’s very bittersweet having to force yourself to fall out of love with someone, especially after massive amounts of emotional warfare have been thrown my way. I was with with this man for seven years and know in his own way he loved me and he truly did so in ways no one else ever has. The falling out of love part of the grieving process I assumed would take the longest. Yet, standing in my kitchen that moment, hearing him say what he had just said and watching him just walk away; told me all I needed to know. It gave me the closure I needed finally.

We could of worked our differences out; but it wouldn’t of be as a “we” The marriage wasn’t able to be sustainable. I was the only one making the changes. Which is why I’ve moved onto the acceptance phase of it being dissolved. I never had a desire to change him. I was the one changing and needed him to simply love me through it, not accept me to change in ways he wanted me to, to accept me for my past and trust my change; as it was all for better of our marriage.

So, here’s what I allowed myself to accept today -

I can accept my husband being the man who came into my life when I got out of the military. He was the man who motivated me to want to continue to move forward. I can accept him being the man who gave me seven years of wonderful memories and many firsts I can accept, honor and respect my husband for the career he chose and the lives he has and will continue to save. Most important I will not only accept him for it but I will always love him for giving me Owen and being the father of my beautiful son.

What I cannot accept is anything less than what I deserve.

“You deserve someone who is obsessed with your mental health. You deserve someone who wants to work through your ugly instead of run away from it, and help heal your wounds instead of deepening them. You deserve someone who is obsessed with understanding you and with bringing you peace instead of turmoil.”

I suffered through my own form of hell for the better part of a decade and when it began unfolding, I gave him all I had in me and started getting better. I changed parts of me, so that I didn’t continue to hurt him, because he and our son were worth it. When shit hit the fan, he bounced. The man I married, who advocated to stand by my side in sickness and in health promised to stay. For him to not make the same choice to change for the better for me and by extension our family, is where I finally realized I have been always deserves so much better than I’ve allowed myself to have.

You can’t expect to build a life with someone in all the ways they promised to you, if you don’t show them emotionally, mentally and physically they are worth the lazy Sunday reset.

That’s why we have New Year’s Eve and a total of 52 Sunday nights a year; hell we are in all honesty given 525,600 minutes in a year alone, to admit our mistakes and shortcomings. To fight for the ones we love. To communicate and talk and choose to change for the better. I swear I used every second trying.

For all the change I made, for handling what I did to begin with; I deserve nothing less than someone who instead of telling me he that he only hurts me, being who he is, would actually stop hurting me, change his bad behaviors like I did and choose to stay and love through it all and take me for all that I am.

So as I sit here on this rainy and cold Sunday evening, I have not only found peace for the week; but closure for my marriage.

And you know what? I am ok.