The Healing Years

At this time in 2018 I was dreading the coming of the new year.  I knew that 2019 was a major anniversary of a whole lot of painful events that I didn't really want to remember.  However, I also knew that I had to face those memories again and make some major decisions if I wanted to continue moving forward.

August 1989: I turned down a job opportunity in another province so I could be with a man whom I deeply loved, and I thought that he loved me.  He cheated on me with another woman while he was vacationing abroad and planned to move to that country to be with her.

September 1999: I endured "interventions" by the friends and family of my abusive husband, who insisted that our relationship had to work out because it was the Christian thing to do.  When I left him the following month, most of them promptly disowned me.

December 2009: This was the last holiday season that I got to enjoy with both my parents.  My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer one week into 2010.

One of my first actions on January 1st 2019 was to ensure that certain people were permanently blocked from all my social media.  I'd blocked them before, but one of them changed his account so that he could message me.  I didn't want to interact with them at all despite the claims that they only wanted to see if I was doing well.

In the spring I visited my late father's grave site, dug up a teaspoonful of soil and preserved it.  This I later gave to my brother for him to take to our mother's grave and exchange it with some soil from her grave site.  It was to be a symbolic gesture as well an act of healing for me because at least some part of my parents would be together even though they were buried two provinces away from each other.

In October I accepted that I had to begin the process of cataloging the contents of my late parents' house and preparing the place for sale.  That is going to take up a lot of my time in the coming year since the target date is in the autumn of 2020.

Some really good news now: December 31st/January 1st is the 20th anniversary of the "official" first date that I had with the man who would become my soul mate and second husband.  Here's to 20 more years of togetherness.

Happy New Year to all.