Meant to Be

My exx, me, car builder Chip Foose, and my daughter Olivia in 2007

A short time after we married, I realized that I wasn't madly in love with my exx, but I thought we were good for one another. I wanted to make him happy and I wanted for us all to be a happy family. But it wasn't to be.

I spent 15 years with this man, trying to meet his needs, be someone I wasn't, please him, all in an effort to make him happy. I thought if he could be happy, then I was doing something right and I could find some sort of peace and be of value to someone. But it wasn't to be.

When I left I was so depressed about failing. My mother's first words were, "I told you so. . ." even though I begged her not to say it. Most of my friends couldn't understand why I left because I never said one bad word about my then husband. I needed support and understanding, but it wasn't to be.

Now he's found another. He seems incredibly happy and she seems to be the woman whom he was meant for.

I'm glad for him. I truly am. Because this was meant to be.

I'm glad I left. It opened the door for him to find someone who fits his life, fits his heart, fits in with his family, makes him smile and fills that hole that I never could. Trying to be someone I'm not never worked because it wasn't meant to be! Finding the right person is the best thing that can happen in life and for the man I spent all of those years with, the man I wanted to make happy, I'm glad that my final act of leaving has done just that.

He's happy now.

And I'm truly happy for him.

God, that feels so good to be able to say and mean with all of my heart.

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The Sense of Sobriety

On this, the eve of my 21st sobriety birthday, I am remarkably introspective. If you know me at all, you'll know that I'm usually introspective in some manner, but tonight even more so.

My accomplishment seems blurred and muddy in light of the death of an actor. Philip Seymour Hoffman died last Sunday, just 6 days ago, from an overdose. Alone in his apartment, found dead with the heroine needle still in his arm, the brilliant actor died at the age of 46, only one year since his visit to rehab. His acting abilities consistently enraptured me, transparent, vulnerable, brazen and shameless, his characters were deeply flawed but his performance never was. He displayed his characters as so incredibly human that I would lose myself in the film, forgetting this was an act, a play, a story for the audience's entertainment. It was life, in full force, at it's ugliest, tenderest and truest form.

And now that's gone.

This man who touched millions of people with his ability to make us feel was unable to recover from this disease, yet I've been saved somehow, by an incredible grace, from it's clutches. 21 years I've survived drug and alcohol free, able to grow and achieve so much, and now suddenly I feel so small. My accomplishments have been massive, at least for me, in my tiny spectrum of the Universe, but now they seem infinitesimal by comparison to this man. And yet, I accomplished the one thing that he needed most, that eluded him, and killed him.

He's dead right now and I'm alive. And somehow to me, that doesn't make sense.

Perhaps it's not supposed to make sense to me. The Universe and all of it's mysteries are beyond anything any of us can intellectually master. If I've learned anything it would be not to waste time trying to understand that which is so far beyond me.

I want to make it matter. I want my life to impact others in a positive way because I have been graced with a chance to do so.

I want it to make sense, for someone, if not for myself.

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I Am Alone

And on my worst days, the most painful of memories rise up, and haunt me.

I sing this song, alone.

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