Have you ever started a project that you thought would take you only a day or two at the most, only to find out, once you were too far into it to turn back, that you woefully misjudged the amount of time the project would take?  This has been the story of my life regarding home improvement projects this year.  First, it was the painting project of the hall and living room which included repainting the ceilings.This project wasn’t so bad but it did take me nearly a day longer than expected.  Then it was the Red Wall in the kitchen, a project that should have taken two hours and which took me three days. I left my light fixture hanging from the wires for a day while I tried to figure out what to do with the copper grounding wire if there was no place in the fixture to connect it.  Now, it is my bedroom.  I reasonably figured it would take me a day to go through my stuff and sort out the stuff I could dispose of, the stuff I could try to sell at a garage sale and the stuff I wanted to keep. I then figured, it would take me a day to paint the room and a day to put everything back in place. 

I was wrong.

I was painfully wrong.  It has taken me nearly a week when I expected it might take only three days.  Purging the paper and piles of the past is more time consuming and much more painful than I expected.

I started on Saturday sorting through the accumulated paperwork, bills, documents, kids’ art projects, old journals and junk.  My bedroom doubles as the home office, a reality that has recently caused me a great deal of stress and bad sleeps, so I am moving my home office out of my bedroom.  I also painted the bedroom in more soothing and romantic colors than the bland dingy off white that it originally was. I want my bedroom to reek of nothing work related and everything of restfulness and peace.  I’m sleeping better already! 

During my last marriage, I ended up ferreting away everything of importance to my bedroom, since the stepchildren had absolutely no limits and no boundaries set on them.  They routinely stole took stuff from our house just because they could.  During the time  they lived in our home, every machine or piece of technology with a remote had the remote go missing.  Since they left two years ago, I’ve managed to hold onto every remote.  There were many other examples but reliving those offenses and violations is not the purpose of my narrative here.  Suffice it to say, that respect for my belongings and my privacy was nonexistent.  I ended up, forallintentsandpurposes, living in my bedroom for most of the marriage.  I came out when his kids were not around and I retreated to my room or to other places when they were.  I am now cleaning out that accumulation and painting my room.  It is taking far more time than I ever expected. It is, at points, an invigorating process.  It is at other points, a painful process.

The paperwork alone is overwhelming.  Of course, much of it is easy.  I round file what I can, shred the rest and keep only what I think I may need as documentation in the event of a further court proceeding with my second Ex. I don’t foresee it, but who knows what could happen and it is good documentation, just in case. 

The most difficult and painful part of all of that is glancing through the numerous journals (and I filled many) documenting what a disaster that marriage really was even from very early on.  We aren’t just talking the regular issues couples have to work through in every marriage.  We had seriously abusive stuff going on.  In retrospect,  the marriage had failed before it began and I wouldn’t, couldn’t, didn’t want to see it.  I was scared, in great pain, and very, very unhealthy. I didn’t handle the situations well and I made some incredibly poor choices.  I spent the next 7 years living with my decisions or trying to survive them.  I kept hoping things would change instead of facing reality and asking myself, can I tolerate this if things don’t?  Had I asked myself this question early on, I probably would have ended the marriage much earlier. It was when I finally figured out that it wasn’t going to change and that it wasn’t what I wanted for my kids and my own life that I finally took the steps to end the nightmare.  I also didn’t think very much of myself so I didn’t really stand up for me and take care of me and my children like I should have.  I allowed myself to be steamrollered, bullied, ridiculed, mocked, coerced and disrespected.  I mistakenly figured that by enduring this treatment, I was trying to work on the marriage.  What I was really doing was condoning abusive disrespect and coercive processes.  To put it more simply, I allowed him to mistreat me when I should have simply not tolerated any bad behavior from the get go.  It is one of the many valuable lessons learned.  Too bad it had to be at such a price.

It is by design, I think, that we are unable to undo the past.  We might make an even bigger mess of things if we could.  I hated everything about that marriage and that existence. If I could go back and undo it all I would.  However, if I did that, I would not be the me I am today.  Today I am stronger, more certain, more confident, decisive, resourceful and far more hopeful and fun.  I would not trade these lessons and qualities.

 That marriage truly was a nightmare I felt I could not wake up from.  The last week, I’ve spent pouring over old calendars detailing tasks and events and activities that I endured.  I am amazed that I did not collapse.  I am shocked to see how much I coped with and managed while in such great pain and turmoil. I am impressed with my tenacity and fortitude, even though now I think most of it was just stupid. I compare it now to how really peaceful and happy my life is now.  I am happy to come home, where before I dreaded it.  I am content to just be me, no criticisms or recriminations even when I fail from a person who supposedly loves me but violated my most intimate vulnerabilities by keeping nothing private or sacred.  My home is now a safe refuge instead of a concentration camp. I’ve radically changed my life for the better.  I’m grateful.  I’m grateful for friends and family who endured that nightmare with me, knowing the whole time I needed to get out.  I’m grateful for my health.  I’m grateful for my first Ex and his wife who patiently supported me and helped me with the three oldest children especially during the last year of the marriage where I couldn’t even have my kids living with me because of the abusive accusations and treatment I received from my second Ex.  I am grateful mostly, that while my children will definitely have their issues after that nightmare, those issues are being addressed openly without shame or recrimination.  My kids talk to me about it all and it is okay.  We are slowly and carefully picking up the shattered pieces of our dream.

As I go through the papers, I’m choosing to shred a lot of the memories, pictures, memorabilia, letters.  It is a period of my life, I really don’t care to remember.  I am keeping some things, though.  I am keeping some of the journals that detail the angst, the issues, the concerns and the abuse.  I’m doing it for legal reasons, just in case.  I am doing it for other reasons also.  I am saving some of these memories of my nightmare, not to go back and rehash and relive the pain,not to open up old wounds and tempt them to bleed again, but as reminders to me to never, ever settle for anything less than very respectful, kind and considerate treatment from a partner. Abuse of any kind is never acceptable.   It serves as a reminder to take care of me and never completely lose myself again.  I now know that if I’m ever in a relationship where I feel I have to justify, legitimize, defend myself, those are signals that I’m probably not in a good relationship.  I now know that if I somehow feel that I am being coerced to change my being in order to sustain the relationship, then I will let the relationsip go.  These small tokens of my past, now taking up only a small amount of space serve as reminders of the promises I now make to myself. They me with a measure of where I was and how much I’ve grown and changed. 

For these reasons I am grateful, not for the pain itself, but for the lessons learned.