Flashing Back to 8/8/09- on 8/24/11

One of the reasons that writing is so powerful for me is that it is a chance for me to see myself as an outsider. I can allow my psyche to flow from my fingertips and then come back later to get inside my own head. Writing is very much like dreaming for me. I usually don't remember my dreams, or only recall pieces. What I am able to retell seems like ridiculous nonsense and jumps from person to setting to time frame, leaving me confused and wondering what I was thinking.

Today I spent some time reading my old blogs from the summer of 2009. A pretty pivotal point of my life, as I was coming to terms with my unhappiness and the trapped feeling that I felt in my marriage. I came across this entry from Saturday, August 8, where I expressed jealousy over our two cats, I came upon, cuddled up together. I longed for someone to hold me, be close to me, understand me, love me. I felt so alone. I desperately ached to be wanted. As I read my own words, and looked back at a former self I no longer identify with, I realized how powerful it is to record my thoughts and feelings.

I haven't written in what seems a lifetime. It is part of me and I miss it. However, I know why I have stopped. I write from the heart. I don't hold back, I tell it like it is and I need to write not just for myself, but for others. For a while I got pretty good at being cryptic and disguising the truth with analogies and riddles. Only those who were closest to me really knew the nightmares I was running from, the dreams I was chasing. Everyone else was able to take their own struggles and identify with my words. My writing was therapy for not just myself, but for others.

Now that my life is an open book, I feel I have to be much more guarded about what I put out there. The simplest things offend others or are misunderstood, and taken the wrong way. There is no more hiding behind creative words for me. It is out there on the table or not at all.

So every now and then I travel back in time and read my words. Like a drummer who has lost use of his arms, listening to his recorded music, I long for those days I could play. Yes, I could change my writing topics, just as the drummer could be musically successful in another way, but I am not ready. I'm just not ready.

In the meantime, I will bask in the arms of someone who loves me and be grateful that my writing kept me sane until my dreams came true.

The Writing's in the Rings 7/31/11

Today I stop wearing the rings which were blessed and placed on my finger 19 years ago on this very day. A step I struggled with as they'd become more a part of me than the man I married. My rings brought me happiness and security. The longer I wore them, the more I realized that my marriage, not my rings, should have been fulfilling me.

My rings and I have had a close bond. They have guided and been there for me when I couldn't find my way out of darkness. Two years ago, the gold, worn thin in the back from 17 years of commitment, cracked and broke. Not wanting to part with them long enough to have them fixed, I endured the pain they caused and continued to wear them. The pain they caused from my skin being pinched by the break paralleled the pain in my heart from a marriage I knew was over. At summer's end I gave in and had them repaired. I had no idea what my rings had in store for me when I placed them back on my finger.

It was a blissful reunion that afternoon I picked them up from the jeweler. I spent just as much time admiring them as I did the first day they were slid on my finger. But something was different. Something had clearly changed. I could feel it in my heart, as that vein connected to the 4th finger on my left hand carried the message from the newly polished precious metal. I wasn't sure what it was but I had to know. I spent some time with a glass of wine and some good lighting, looking it over. At last I found the change. During the repair, some of the engraving inside had been polished out. My heart skipped a beat as I noticed that it was my husband's name that had been removed. Could this really be? Was my ring telling me that the way to remove the pain was to remove my husband?

I put the rings back on and forgot about it as I went on with my life. As life went on, some other unexpected things came about. Happiness and friendship with someone who understood me like no one on earth ever had. As things intensified I began to panic. What was I doing? Where was I going? The message in my ring called to me. I studied the void again, asking if this is what I was truly to do. This time, in the void, I realized that a small piece of a letter remained when the ring was read upside down. The letter this created was the first letter of the man's name who I feared was to change my life forever. The letter next to it which was at the end of another word left untouched, was the first letter in his last name.

The happiness and security these rings have brought me for the past 19 years have been waiting to tell me something. They held the key to my future and were just waiting for the timing to be right. As my life changed forever, it also changed the lives of many others in its wake. But sometimes it is necessary to be the one to put change into place. It isn't always a pretty picture when it happens. It isn't always flowers, lace and romance. But it is always as its meant to be, as life is already written. We are simply turning a page a day.

Today, I replace my rings with a new ring. A ring I bought with my daughter, to remind me to stop and smell the roses, even if it means getting hurt on a thorn as I do. What good is a beautiful garden if we don't enter the gate and enjoy it with all of our senses? I don't want to just admire it from a distance. I want to go inside. I want to live life. I want to be happy.