Picking up the Pieces for Now

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divorce

Last night was ugly. What should have been a smooth kid drop-off turned out to be a disaster, partly because of me and hugely because of him.

He was supposed to drop the kids off no later than 9:00 p.m. After several text messages going back and forth, I became tired. I reminded him of our agreement via text. He didn’t respond, so I called. By this time, it was 11:00 p.m. When he finally answered the phone, he was yelling at me. He said he was on his way and that I should stop texting him. And then he hung up, not allowing me to get a word in. I called him back a few times after that because I wasn’t going to allow him to get the last word. He didn’t answer.

At midnight he arrived with the kids. It took everything in me to remain calm. When my kids ran into my arms, I felt better.

I later found out that his girlfriend sat in the car bearing witness to it all. And when he dropped the kids off to me, as he walked away with his hand pointing toward the ground, he gave me the finger. I responded out loud and said, “Right back at ya.”

Knowing that he has a girlfriend and that they plan on getting married soon, I keep asking myself the same question – Am I jealous of them?

The kids seem to have had a great time, and I’m happy they did. Their dad didn’t bring them back on time, and that made me furious to no end. It was like he was trying to piss me off. Like he wanted to send a message to me that I don’t matter. A message that still haunts me.

When I look back on our relationship, there were so many signs that he never loved me and never cared about me. Yet, he wasted so much of my time so that he could get himself together. I stuck around and let him do it, hoping that things would change for the better. They never did.

It hurts. I guess that’s just it. He used me, and it hurts.

Nobody should be used like that. We have three kids now, and I’m left to put myself together to refocus on what I have to do. I told him I didn’t want to meet his lady because everything was just so new. I mean, it hasn’t even been a year yet. When I told him I didn’t want to meet her, maybe he took it as an insult. I will never know.

Still, for the life of me, it makes me so sad. I’ve been played by a grown man. A man that I had children with, who was supposed to protect me. A man who pretended to care. A man who made promises to me.

When life happened, he neglected everything and all of us. I have to pick up the pieces. That’s just it. I have to find myself again. I’m getting there.

My new motto is – just one day at a time. Although I am a thinker and I sometimes analyze too much, I’m learning to change that. I’m learning to smile again. I’m learning that I am valuable, beautiful, and kind. I never want my circumstances or life experiences to change my glow and zest for life. And that’s where I am right now.

Now and then, something causes me to drop some pieces of myself along the way. But I still keep living and keep moving forward, slowly but surely. Each step I take, I begin to pick the pieces back up. Eventually, one day I’ll learn not to allow any pieces of me to fall out. Eventually, I’ll hold it all together.

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