Respite for my heart ...

As much as I wish that my heart is not forever changed by the times it has had to gasp to breath ... It is. When people that you love break your heart it can never be what it once was. Trying to hold my fears deep within is like trying to contain sand in the cups of my little hands. I clench my little fingers together and try so hard to keep my heart safe. Trying to keep your heart safe is exhausting. When you have a heart that lives to love deeply and be loved deeply ... holding it back seems to be a battle with no end.
Last weekend I felt this exhaustion overcome me.
Mike was in a band when we were together with his best friend Chris and another friend Stephan. Chris's wife Lisa, and Stephan's wife Michelle and I became friends through this. Lisa and Chris moved out to Toronto and Michelle and Steph are still in Sherwood Park. Steph still plays with Mike and Michelle sees Mike regularly.
When Mike left I left my life. I walked away from friends and family that had become my own. Some have shared that they think this was incredibly foolish, selfish, and hurtful of me. I guess they could not see past themselves to see me fighting to breath. Some let go with what appeared to be the absence of a second thought, but Lisa and Michelle didn't. This is a place of honesty ... and so I must say that I did not really understand why. I have kept these girls at a safe distance since we became friends... I think that I was afraid of being exposed. Afraid that they would figure out how out of my element I felt in Mike's music world .... because even though I was beyond proud of him and would have rather been no were else but listening to him play and sing I was ... not ... 'me' at his gigs. And that world was our common ground. Afraid that getting closer to them would make me realize what a bad wife I was. Afraid that they could not relate to my longing to have Mike love me more than his music like I thought he once did. And like with any new heart that braves entering mine ... afraid that I was not who they thought I was.
I thought they would just let go ... but they didn't.
It can be really hard to be with them. There were times where I did not think that I could physically make myself sit across from them. As you can imagine it can be quite disheartening to hear mention of a man that you have left in a past life. A man that broke you. It has been beyond hard at times to separate them from him. And it is so hard to not imagine that their eyes are not Mike's eyes ... to not see them as his spies. I do not want Mike to know anything about me because I don't know what I want him to see. I don't want him to see me weak because I don't want him to pity me for a second or feel for a second that he still has power in my heart. I don't want him to see me as strong because I want him to never for forget what he did to me, and I don't ever want him to claim that he gave me a gift by leaving me. Anything good that has come of him leaving has come from the depths of my heart and from my hard work.
And so in the end I seem to fight being me with the girls... being real and being present and open. It has become easier and easier with Lisa as we spend more time together and because Mike is not part of her day to day life. But I was reminded of just how hard it is for me to be with Michelle when the girls came and collected me on Saturday. I was ready to go home and eat cookie-dough curled up in my bed after an hour. And then I decided I could not keep my walls up any longer. I saw how very tired my heart was and heard its plea for a break from fighting people out. It cried for me to let my shoulder blades sink down into my back and let the sun kiss my neck. It asked that I just breath and try to be with these incredible women for the short time that we were blessed with. Sink or swim, laugh or cry, hug or fight it pleaded for realness.
And there was laughter and there were tears, there were moments of ease and there were moments that were painful. And in letting go I found the friend in me. I found the strength to watch Michelle's wedding even though Mike sang in it ... because she is my friend and that moment was about me seeing her and Steph commit to loving each other forever ... It was not about Mike.
I still do not like to hear even a reference to him, but I feel that I am learning that our friendships are greater than his ghost in my life.
I left our time together feeling blessed instead of like I had survived.
It just makes me sad that it is such a battle for me to allow love in my life. I just wish that history had not taught my heart that those you love more than anything can and do break you. I wish that it was not so exhausting to care for my heart.
It is time for me to find the balls to be as real with others as I am with myself.
Thank you Lisa. Thank you Michelle. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for holding on while I was secretly trying to shake you away. Thank you for caring for my heart for a little while ... I needed the break.