So this blog post begins in media res -- in the middle of things.~~GH
Then I told him some things. I told him
that I wanted him to know no matter how deceitful he had been, that I
had felt protected and largely safe during most of our marriage. That
this experience had not caused me to feel bitter or close my heart.
That I was still able to allow myself to be tender and vulnerable and
open and trusting. And he cried and said “That is your resilience.”
The word resilience stuck in my head,
so I decided to look it up. Turns out it's not what I thought it
meant. It isn't some magical quality I possess or can lay claim to as
a character strength. It's a coping mechanism, a dynamic process of
behavioral adaptation. I read through Wikipedia's page on resilience
and at times wondered how in the hell I ever developed it considering
the dearth of outside support I had as a child. I thought about it
for a couple of minutes and came up with this idea:
I am able to continue through hardships
because I really do believe I am loved. Dearly and deeply and fully
and in a special way. I believe I am precious – to somebody. I am
not even sure who. I don't want to think too long or too hard about
it either. But in my darkest hours – well, maybe not the darkest
ones but the dark ones – I know I am loved and cherished. In my
darkest ones, I despair and feel abandoned and alone. But in just the
awful hours, I still believe I am loved and not alone. And if I'm not
alone, I can do anything.
Even though my parents did the horrific things
they did to us, they sold me on the idea they loved me. I truly
believed them. I felt loved. I felt angry and betrayed and confused
and conflicted and wondered at times what the fuck love meant if it
hurt so badly, but I still believed I was loved. And that was enough.
And that was how I got through nineteen years (or however long it
was) of living a total sham of a marriage: I believed I was loved.
Do not misunderstand me. Surviving is
not thriving. Believing you are loved when you are not loved is like
being on a ventilator. It will keep you alive but you can't really go
anywhere. But you can get through the crisis until such time as you
can move on and breathe on your own. I suspect that may be why
religion was created. But that's another musing for a different day.
Know that I love you. I really do. I
have such love for my brothers and sisters, every one of them. Call
it resilience if you want to. I don't care. To me, it's Love.
