Thoughts of my former self

White Willow Reception Center

Today I walked from Wasatch Behavioral Health to the bus stop, following google maps and hoping to find a faster way to where I live than the route I have been taking. It brought me here, to White Willow Reception Center. I was married here in the year 2000. 

I can say unequivocally that I was totally in love with the woman I was marrying.  If future me would have visited me that day and told me what lay ahead of me I would have fallen to my knees and wept the bitter tears of remorse. It takes two people to participate in a marriage that disintegrates but I know my role in that was more significant than I knew at the time. 

I ask myself if I would have followed through with the plans that day, and I think I would have. I would have because I would never have believed the future me. I would have because for me, there were some really great times that I would be a part of before it went south. If I had had the foresight to see into the future I think I could have averted the problems that became monumental enough as to become insurmountable. 

Today I looked back with melancholy. I looked back and saw better times, and do so from the darkest period of my life. I done with that things had worked out now because I have accepted what life is. Still, part of me misses the time when I lived with a family and had my children in a home with me. It is with great lamentations I accept the years without them near. That, I can say with certainty, was not a choice that I had. If simmering I learned I must let go and accept as the reality it is. 

You can’t go back  you can never go back. I don’t see rainbows and unicorns in the days and months and years ahead.  I see enduring because I have responsibilities to people I love more than the anguish I feel for the situation I am in.  

That’s his I feel today. It’s how I felt yesterday. I’m sure tomorrow will be the same. It’s not pessimism.  It’s acceptance.