Anniversary of December 6th

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin

Today marks the year anniversary that I left my marriage.  I didn’t know I was leaving it for good—I just knew I needed to get away for awhile to figure things out.  But I had a funny feeling that once I left I wouldn’t be coming back. 

The idea of leaving had first crossed my mind six years before.  At the time I felt like I had two options.

1.    Leave—but the idea of not being there for my young kids every day broke my heart—and made my bawl.
2.    Stay—and the idea of that made me cry even more. 

It turns out that remaining tight in the bud wasn’t painful enough yet.  Indeed, I wasn’t aware that for the next six years that I would go way deeper into that bud before I decided to risk blossoming. 

Things were bad, then they got worse, then they got better and then they got much better.  And we had couples counseling through much of it.  But slowly, I was losing more of myself, until I just couldn’t take it anymore. 

I wish I could go back to that time a year ago and watch it from an outsider’s perspective.  My head was engaged, because somehow I figured out the logistics of where to go, timing, and that I needed an inflatable mattress.  But the actions were being guided by my gut.  It was an impulse to leave.  It wasn’t impulsive—indeed I’d been moving there for years, months, weeks. 

I knew, at my core, that I was bigger than what I had become in that marriage.  That I was becoming less of what I could be.  I was compromising values that were important to me and sending a message to my soul that I should limit myself.

This is not Robb’s fault.  This is not my fault.  And I don’t know if it could have ended differently if we had taken different paths earlier on.  But I was there, in that moment, and I couldn’t stay in the place where I was.  So I risked.  I risked blossoming.  At the time, I wasn’t sure if what would come out of it was a blossom or a dead flower.  But I had hope that it would be a blossom.  And now I have hope that the blossom that came out of last December 6^th will be a beautiful flower.