Bloom Anyway

 

While I didn't write the quote above, it speaks to me.

Sometimes I feel like I've never had a soft life. Sometimes I remember that it has been soft from time to time — fleeting moments of peace tucked inside the chaos. And sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a life without the near-constant noise. Sometimes I wonder if that kind of life even exists.

So I've had to learn to persevere. To be a warrior, not just a survivor.

I've been through enough trauma — some inflicted on me, some I've brought on myself — to have learned compassion, grace, and patience. But the trauma didn't teach me those things directly. The healing did. The slow, deliberate work of therapy.

The part of that quote that hits hardest: "they remember what it was like when no one showed up for them." That's why I'm here.

This blog is mostly for my own catharsis — but also because I know what it feels like to be alone in a situation like this, and I want anyone else in that place to know: you're not.

Here's mine: I'm married to the love of my life, and I feel alone in my marriage. I believe he's going through a midlife crisis, and it's been taking a toll — on him, on us, and maybe most of all on me.

I've been married before. I know marriage is hard. I also know I never want to be divorced again — and mostly, I don't want to give up on the love of my life the way my ex gave up on me. I had my own midlife crisis once. That gives me a perspective a lot of people in my position don't have.

So I choose to stand. To be the lighthouse that guides him home.

In the meantime, I work on me.