[Bishop's Fantasy?]
This is MY story and I'm sticking to it!Alone
2007-06-26
Back in Des Moines. Back to the isolated feeling. I took the kids swimming today, at least. It was good to get out and be in the sun and exhausting at the same time. Most of the public pools here are water parks, so I have to keep an eagle eye out for my daughter because she's a great swimmer - loves to go underwater, but other people don't look out for her, so she gets bumped a lot. I feel like the pied piper whenever I go where children are. Most of the mothers watch their kids from deck chairs. I'm one of the few who will get in the water and play. Today, they were congregating around me because I was tossing pennies in and letting them dive for them. Such a simple thing, but what fun! My daughter was in with a bunch of bigger kids and was retrieving just as many pennies as they were.
My son was nowhere to be found. He's definitely outgrown hanging out at the pool with his mother. Sad, but necessary I suppose. I'm told that kids can get a learner's permit at age 14 in Iowa. That's a scary thought. Whatever I have left to teach him about responsibility and making right choices needs to take place in the next year because it'll be too late after that. I hope I've equipped him with the ability to think for himself and make right choices, even in the face of encouragement to do otherwise by his peers. Maybe I'm naive, but I think he's basically a good kid.
My day hasn't been all about kids - at least not in my head. I've been seriously struggling with some things and I'm not sure what to do. I'm not even sure who I can talk to about them. There are issues I'm facing in the aftermath of the affair that are very personal in nature and definitely not things I would talk to casual friends about! I've spoken some with the pastor about them, but he's not qualified to deal with them. Not only that, but he can't see things from a woman's perspective. His wife can, but she isn't really qualified to help either. I know who is, but he's at the root of all of the problems, so that's completely useless. My husband and I are supposed to go see a counselor together sometime in July.
That's another source of anxiety for me. Given the way my last counseling experience turned out, I'm not real excited about the prospect. I feel like I need someone to talk to who can offer me a practical and Biblical answer to my questions, but the thought of opening myself up to another person is daunting. The anger has begun to rear its ugly head now. I think about the Bishop and how he knew from his experience working with hurting women just how damaging our relationship could be to me, yet he proceeded with it. I can't believe that he was acting in deception. I also can't blame the whole thing on him. The only thing I can say is that I'm terribly hurt, frustrated, lonely, and now angry about the whole situation. There are days when I want the opportunity to scream in his face, "How could you do that, knowing what it would cost me?" Today is one of those days. It wouldn't help and I don't think I'd even have the courage to speak to him that way. One look at his face and I'd probably just burst into tears.
That seems so pitiful, but I know myself and I know how I react to him. The sight of him always took my breath away. The way he looks colored by the way I feel about him made my heart skip a beat and my knees grow weak. I don't think that will have changed all that much in just a couple of months, no matter how angry I think I am. When it comes down to it, I'm not really angry at him for engaging in the relationship anyway. I'm angry that I opened myself up to the point where I lost control over how much he could hurt me. I'm angry that, even though he released me with his words, I don't feel it in my heart. I'm angry that it's over and I feel worse than I did before it started. It feels worse because I had a connection with a man who is just as passionate and intense as I am and it was just as amazing as I'd suspected. Contact has been severed, but I don't feel like the connection has been. I'm not holding out hope for anything. I don't really know what I'm feeling or how to move past it. To make matters worse, there's no Bible study at church the next couple of weeks and I feel a little lost. It helps to be around other Christians. To focus on something bigger and better. I don't want to sink into a miserable existence. I want things to be better. I just don't know how.
A journey through life... (2007-06-27)
Jeanne White at Kavalier & Assoc. in West Des Moines. Best counselor in the world!!! She changed my life.
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