Today I had an epiphany. A love epiphany. You see, as
much as I believe in love, I believe in love for my family and friends. Not romantic
love for me. Not ever again. Because that did not work out so well for me
before. In fact, when asked if I would ever get married again, my quick
response was “Fuck. No.” I have been known to compare marriage to food poisoning.
Sure the meal tasted great going down but you are going to be puking your guts
out for 7 hours and wish for death. So, no, no marriage, no love for me.
Then I had two conversations with my Squirrel this weekend
that all of a sudden completely changed my mind. The first conversation was when
the Squirrel (who adamantly does not want me to remarry which I have reassured
him wouldn’t be an issue) stated matter of factly, “Well if you get married,
you’ll just get divorced.” Huh? That’s actually not how marriage is supposed to
work. You are supposed to get married and NOT get divorced. Does he think that
marriage equals divorce? That’s not good at all. In fact, it’s kind of
disturbing. What have I modeled for him? That love is temporary and marriage is
short-term?
Next, the Squirrel was going to test for his yellow belt in
taekwondo. He was so nervous. I looked at him and asked, “What’s the worst
thing that happens if you don’t pass? Nothing. You just try again next time.” I
walked upstairs to finish getting ready and paused. Now I have some beliefs
that guide my actions and motivate me. First, nothing worth doing is easy. Second,
if you fail, you just get back up and try again the next day. You get 24 hours
for a pity party and then you find another way to reach your goal. You don’t
quit.
And that’s when it hit me. While I use these guidelines to
reach my professional and personal goals, for some reason it never occurred to me
that these would apply to my love life. I felt like such a failure in marriage
and I swore off of love and relationships. I was going to focus on my kids,
work and other goals but love was not one of those. I didn’t need it and it
went so poorly why would I ever try that again? I learned my lesson the first time.
But I realized that I do hard things. Anything worth doing is hard. And isn’t a
life filled with companionship supposed to be worth it? And I had failed at
things before and I never let that stop me. I’ve run 3 marathons – do you think
all of that training was easy or successful? No, but if I bombed a 13-mile run,
I’d shake it off and try again the next day. I didn’t quit just because it didn’t
work the first time or was hard. I tried again because (for some reason) running
26.2 miles is an amazing feeling. This is how I do everything. Why wasn’t I
applying this to love too? Maybe because love is so personal. Maybe because
love was so incredibly painful – I still cry sometimes. But I’m not someone who
gets knocked down and stays there. What was I doing? It has been way more than
the alloted 24-hour pity party. Maybe it was time to start opening my mind and
heart to future possibilities.
For the first time in a long time, the idea of marriage and
love did not completely repulse me. In fact, my only reason for not opening up
my heart and mind was because I felt like I was bad at love and I was afraid of
being hurt again. I don’t like to hold myself back because of fear. And I know
that failing once does not mean you are bad at something – it just means you need
to try again.
I don’t want Squirrel thinking that marriage equals divorce.
And if I’m encouraging him and Moose to do things that are scary and to try
again if things don’t work out, I need to apply that advice to the one area I’m
scared of too – love.
I haven’t felt this much peace and openness in two years. My
heart feels lighter – not because I’m getting married ANY time soon – it’s not
even on the radar – but because that heavy sense of doom surrounding my heart
has lifted. I’m not a failure. It just didn’t work the first time. That’s all. Not
that I’m giving my heart away freely but I’m not going to stop it from flying
if it wants to. Just because love didn’t
work out before doesn’t mean it won’t work out again. Marriage does not equal
divorce. You can’t win if you don’t try. And I like winning.
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