My 3 current books continue to be my bibles.  Get happy.  Big magic.  10 day detox.  I dip in and out throughout the day, for reference, for background noise, to ground myself.

 

In the 10 day detox, it says that during the course of the 10 days ‘many 10 day detoxers experience profound shifts and gain greater sense of clarity about their lives, relationships, work and more.’  It then explains the reasons why, but fundamentally can be summarised simply ‘issues that you have tended to manage with food may now be exposed.’

 

I would say that perhaps food necessarily wasn’t my worst ‘toxin’ over the last 3 months, but I wouldn’t contradict myself by saying I used wine or vodka to numb the pain, blur the grief, soften the sadness.  I used cake and sugary foods to encourage myself to eat while in a constant state of nausea.  And I used social media for escapism; the readily available, constantly updating, live ‘OK’ magazine insight into other happy times, other lives, connect, feel connected while I hid myself away.

 

Without my vices, my mind is clear just as the book says.  ‘When we take away the diversion of food {or toxins in my case}, we open up an opportunity for deeper healing by dealing with the root feelings.

 

The thing is I loved my life, my family, my Big Man. Change was happening, everything improving, evolving. All marriages go through ups and downs… falling in and out of love and sometimes even out of like.  Pressures of 2 working parents, 2 careers, children; underlying resentment of the other if one puts family first and the other a career; resentment on both sides – to feel forced or pressured to ‘give up’ the glory, the recognition for a lifetime of thankless, unglamorous school runs, shopping, cooking and cleaning, the other because they did and now they bear the financial burden; the lack of sleep, due to children or drinking to avoid the mundane, ignore the real problems. Dwindling romance where intimacy becomes functional – how can you be intimate with someone who doesn’t show appreciation, demoralises you… or maybe just after so many years together, bores you?  That’s not all my story, some is, and some I hear from friends or strangers on an adjacent coffee shop table.

 

We were on an up. After a pretty tough and significant down… And now I know, the down lasted the whole time we had a 3^rd person in the marriage; sapping money, time, love, compassion, honesty, truth, but as she began to leave the scene, harmony and balance began to be restored and I felt we were equal again… like a new couple, happy with life and in love, respectful, more considerate, planning with excitement.

 

I loved my life. I always loved my family.  I never stopped loving my Big Man.

 

That’s my clarity.

 

Get Happy taught me today to look at what I was holding on to.  “What are you needlessly holding on to that’s robbing you of happiness?’

 

I can only ever tell my story, share my feelings but I am guessing she was hurt too. She loved her life. A good looking, attentive guy, generous with time and money. Of course, in messages to me she denies liking any of the material things (despite also admitting to begging for them), but to me there is no coincidence that the minute it all stopped, it didn’t take long for her to start crucifying my life.

 

And I suppose she mirrored, maybe consciously or unconsciously, what had happened to her. She unraveled the lies of an unhappy marriage and family life, as the words and photos of my blog described the real truth of joy, love, unity and partnership. So she unraveled mine, in photos and words, their intimate conversations and pictures. I had been unknowingly wounding her daily, so she had to return the favour with a thousand cuts to the heart in one fell swoop.

 

It was a dirty, mean and nasty thing to do. But it showed her true colours.

 

On some level, I suppose I should thank her. For revealing their relationship and our marriage were built on lies and deceit. Perhaps on some level one day I will be grateful as this devastation could be the opportunity to rebuild on stronger foundations and to build a life far more creative, equal and beautiful together.  And perhaps she may be grateful to me, for my blog, for saving her from a relationship that could never have been more than secrets, lies and fantasy.

 

But I doubt it. For all the messages she has sent me, she tries to tell me she is pure, sweet and innocent, but in all the copied dialogue, photos and words she has sent me, the icing maybe sickly white, but it is covering a cake that is rotten to the core, hollow, empty and lacking in flavour.  Her words only ever to destroy, throw blame, cause devastation.

 

My words painfully innocent in comparison.

 

And so there it is.  What I am holding on to that doesn’t serve me.  The words and images that display a life of liars.

 

‘In the end, just three things matter:

How well we have lived;

How well we have loved;

How well we have learned to let go.’

Jack Kornfield in ‘Get Happy.’

 

So can I let it go?   Can I let the ghost of her go in order to love well?  To continue to love the man who he is now, not the man he was?

 

I could.  Or rather I can.  I can block it from my mind, erase it all from my photographic memory, ignore the imprint on my heart, delete the images from my phone, my icloud.

 

But the question is do I want to?  Am I ready to?

 

So to Big Magic.  Liz talks about the Martyr and the Trickster.  She has been the voice of so much reason to me recently.  So many of her chapters guiding lights in what to do next.  And today was no different.  Who do I want to be?  The Martyr or the Trickster?  Her descriptions of the two made me laugh.

 

I will not play the woeful, pitiful martyr in this bitter sweet play of my life story.

And yet nor will I play the lighthearted joker of a trickster in this tragedy and dramatic twist of my journey on this earth.

 

I will be the heroine.  Just as everyone is the hero of their own one time earthly play.  Today I am clear on my brave new chapters, I know what is going to be left behind in the last one.  I will continue to fight and win the battle of my heart and mind.  I have my armoury, I have my troops.   Onward!  I hear my heroine shout.

 

And yet inside, I am still petrified.  This next chapter, I will aid my heroine to find strength and confidence, for on the other side of that is the Utopia that is happiness.