Sweet Home Alabama...

Cliche? Probably...

Do I care? Not at all. No matter how over used a phrase may be... if it fits - wear it. Right?

As I look back over the past 8 months... how I landed where I am now... I never saw coming - but - it is one of those feelings... it was here, all along. Home. I am not one to believe in fate... You always have a choice, and if those choices are all destined to land you in the same place anyway... well, then the idea of a choice is only an illusion, isn't it? And I know my choices are more than that...

As I sat in my garage, those months ago - watching my personal demons as they watched me, from the shadows between the boxes that held the memories of my life... those boxes I was busy going through... I saw that they were in fact, my allies. But just because you have an ally... doesn't mean you cannot be stabbed in the back by it... But even still, I thank it. The idea of a move in with my mother was disastrous...  and it took a moment of total chaos - and even fear - for me to accept what I *had* to do.

I have been so worried about building "security" and doing everything "right" - stepping down onto only solid, tested, tried and true, sturdy ground. I was so happy a while back when I said I felt as though the pebble I had been balancing on over that deep, dark pit had grown to the size of a boulder... and I was happily sitting there in that tiny version of my little Universe...

No... that was all wrong. Pulling myself from one false reality, into another.

But when I stood up... my back to the edge of that boulder... stretched out my arms... and let go.... freefalling... backwards, off the edge...

I knew that is what I should have done all along.

I bet you want to know exactly where I landed... don't you?

I don't know where to begin... Spanish moss hangs from the giant old oak trees... warm afternoon rains cross the big open fields nearly every day... the frogs and the crickets sing sweet lullaby's heard through the window each night...

It's comfortable... more comfortable than I have felt in years...

And then, there is another new aspect to my life...

Eight months ago... mentioning to me the thought of finding Love again would have gotten you a jaded, angry rant... filled with a sense of hopelessness...

Eight months can change a lot, I suppose. Now, here I sit... in the home I now *share* with a man who was an "ex boyfriend" from high school. Who is now... my current... boyfriend. (Stand up, dust yourself off - do I need to repeat it? Yes, Lisa has a love life... now, pick your jaw up off the floor...) Saying "boyfriend" feels so juvenile... when you have reached the point in your life when yourself and your friends marry and divorce, as opposed to "hook up and break up" - What is the title you give someone? "Dating" implies a lack of commitment - so that's not right... I suppose I have to use the only word that I can think of then...? Yes... I have a boyfriend.

I had forgotten that it was fun.

Not to knock my ex husband - but things had not been fun... in years. Now... I am open to the possibility that I have simply focused on all the bad... but really - it simply wasn't fun anymore, and had not been... I stayed, because I felt I had to. I had children, I had taken vows, I had left my job, I had bills... I was trapped.

I received no random acts of love - only complaints and belittling comments... reasons to pull away even further...

And so... now... I find myself in this odd learning experience... perhaps it is the way things should be... perhaps I have simply found someone that special... that an interest in me would be more important to him than having everything spotless before bed...

I noticed last week... if I was sitting down when he got home from work... I had to fight off the urge to launch myself out of my seat with every bone in my body.

It's like some sort of leftover stress from the last horrible years of my marriage... (sorry Andrew) that has surfaced. Who am I to be sitting down? That means I am *lazy*. God forbid there is a kids sock on the floor... and, who the hell am I to be tired - I wasn't the one "working" all day...

These thoughts run through my head... and I get a bit angry... at the way I allowed him to make me feel for so many years.

It is like night and day... a breath of fresh air... someone who would rather have me at his side than bitch at me about an empty beer bottle on the counter, and 2 cups in the sink.

"I know your not about to go on a cleaning spree before bed..." and, I was. That stopped me in my tracks... this morning... that bottle was patiently waiting on the counter for the garbage can... and those cups were just as easy to clean..

It is not about ridicule or who does what... It is about how many smiles you can squeeze into a day.
It's about damn time...  

 

 

Posted Date: : Aug 4, 2008 10:37 PM