Ok....

I'm about done with my book. I joined a book and wine club and yes the meeting is tonight to discuss the book Freedom.  I am a few pages shy of being finished.  That was a good read, but it was kinda unnerving.  But unnerving in a good way.  It made me appreciate my husband, and reminded me of my past a lot.  In the book the main character is always searching to fill a void within herself.  As all the other characters are doing the same.  It isn't until all that is wrong do they realize that what they were searching for was right beneath their noses the whole time.  I know how cliche.  But it's often times the truth.  The quiet girl is over looked for the blond bimbo or the shy guy is overlooked for the rocker egotistical guy. It happens.  It's life.  I cried last night reading about the failed marriage.  I was taken back to my first marriage and how horrific the emotions of a divorce can be.  I had entered that marriage for wrong reasons.  On false pretenses and ideas.  I was trying to escape my life and trying to enter into a life that didn't exist.  I was young and dumb.  I was promised so many lies, in my youth I believed.  I swallowed the happy pill of a neurotic abuser and I believed him in his promises.  I had warning signs all along my courtship with him, and yet I was blind to them.  Maybe desperation of a new beginning made me not see them.  But looking back I now wince at what I then overlooked.  The day of my wedding I had a panic attack and didn't want to go through with it.  He talked me into it.  I should have ran....ran away from everything and found myself.  But instead I listened to him and that night entering into my new house after the wedding I knew I had made a grave poor choice in not running.  My stomach felt it and I swallowed the truth and pretended not to know.  It wasn't within a few days that abuse started.  I will never forget him yanking the plug from the computer telling me to never talk to an old friend because of his response to my marrying.  My old friend was shocked and warned me of my new husband.  He told me to be careful and that he had a "shady" past.  I wept as he yelled over me as I sat on the floor.  Like most abusers he was prince charming the next day or hour.  He was nice and he was kind again.  I will never forget me sitting there, knowing in my heart I should just leave, but I didn't want to admit failure or that I was wrong in my youthful dumb decision to wed.  Anyway, two weeks later I was pregnant and trapped.  The life of a dumb little girl.  I LOVE my son more than life itself and it was he who saved me.  He gave me the strength to get away.  He gave me the strength to find myself again.  He pushed me in his childhood innocence to go back to school and find a better life for us.  Well, the jest of this whole pointless paragraph was I knew what the characters were going through.  I knew both sides of the pain, and it's a gut wrenching pain when you realize your marriage is over and that the person you married was not who you thought they were.  How all your hopes and aspirations change when you are no longer married.  Divorces are just sad.  It's a huge failure.  Things were so different when I met Eric.  I had gone to school, had a good paying job and was making my way with my son in the world.  I really did not want a serious relationship.  I had just ended things with another person because I did not want any attachments other than my son.  He was my world.  All that changed with one phone call.  A once close friend called me and told me of my new Friday plans.  She was playing match maker and I was to meet Eric.  He too had been married and going through a divorce and she thought we would hit it off.  Little did we both know how truly right she was.  From our first unofficial date we have been inseparable.  I fell in love with him instantly.  He respected me and respected my safety wall I had constructed over the years.  He was able to go around something I had worked so hard to construct.  Reading about the characters and their decisions to marry, made me think of mine.  When I married Eric it was different.  It was a joyous occasion. I had no reservations about it.  It's funny we had a small intimate ceremony, went home changed, ate Chinese food and then went to the movies.  It was so natural. I cried at my wedding with him, tears of joy.  I loved him so much and felt so safe in his arms.  I had already found myself and knew who I was by the time he asked me to marry him.  So when I said yes, I was saying yes as a strong woman, not a meek little girl.  My two marriages...as bizarre as it is to write the fact that I have been married twice at the ripe old age of just 28 have been polar opposites.  Eric and I have talked about wishing we had met sooner and both circumvented the pain we felt from our first failed marriages, but then we both agree that makes us who we are today.   We both know we wouldn't be who we are if we hadn't felt that pain.  Next week on the 21st will be my anniversary.  It's funny because in our household that's a day we celebrate as a family.  We officially became a family that day.  For our honeymoon we all went to Disney World.  So each year we celebrate as a family.  I love my husband more than life itself.  Reading that book, just brought up some bad memories, and made me even more appreciative of the relationship I have with Eric.  My ex is still an abusive man.  I have no doubt.  His past girlfriends have told me such stories.  I feel sorry for him in one hand but in another hate how he is.  I will leave it at that. Nonetheless, divorce is just a sad topic.  I can't wait for Eric to get home and hug him.