Grateful moments

Monday morning. I look around my home and take in all that surrounds me.  My king size bed laden with four pooches, double french doors open and a breeze gently moving the sheers. A peaceful and surreal morning.  Soon this will be a memory.  Soon the love that I had for this house will be nothing more than a memory.  It is just a matter of days now before strangers stroll through these halls and people begin to plan for their own futures here. The sounds of him calling my name have grown silent here.  A daunting silence.  The drama within these walls has hushed.  I am scared.

Even though his BPD was so difficult to live with, he was only really bad every four months.  It is nearing the end of April now and I can almost predict that a blow up will ensue in the coming days, weeks or possibly hours.  He is not here for me to witness it particularly, but I am certain that an email or some other form of communication will follow suit. Of course, there is the off chance, that I won't see it at all. That he will have a different vessel to place his predictable action.  I know it is not for me to worry about.  The separation agreement is in place and there are few minor details that would require mutual consent or communication.

The toughest part is that I feel sorry for him.   Robin was so wonderful in so many other ways that it is hard to throw away the baby with the bathwater.  The things that I miss about him are abundant.  The deal breakers may be few but they are severe.  No woman, no person should be abused. Ever. And even if he can't control his words, it shouldn't be my life sentence to be the wall for which he can plummet his dissatisfaction with the world.  I am not certain that he feels any compassion for me, albeit he seems to show it for others.  I don't really understand why I am the target for his aggression, except that I have been a safe place for him to fall. Now he must find a different place to release his tensions. 

I spent the weekend staging the house.  I think it is a metaphor for my own life.  For many years, I have had to be in a particular position in order to be acceptable to Robins pallet.  There is no room for individuality when you are staging a home for sale, nor is there room for personality.  People want to see their own personality reflected in the home they wish to wear for the coming years.  Robin needed me to reflect his needs, his personality, his positive attributes, his mirror image of who he believed that he was but I didn't effectively do that. Or at least, I didn't do that in his view of himself.  I did take on his anger eventually. When I began to fight back and take back my needs, I behaved irrationally from time to time.  The overwhelming hurt would bubble to the surface and in the hopes that he would see how he was treating me, I would mirror his true behavior.  Once I even broke down a door, as he had done so many times before. I had hoped that it would teach him that he could not treat me badly.  That what he did was crazy making at it's finest.  He did not put those two ideas together at all - he merely began to see me as nuts. I stopped trying to teach him that way - it was entirely unsuccessful.  At the end of the day, the best thing for me to do was to stand at a distance in front of him until he was through.  Then, when he had finished breaking whatever was in his path and had stormed dramatically out of the house, I would go to my room and sob.

When I remember all that was, it makes it easier somehow to let go.  These walls, the walls that cared for me and my son, these walls that sometimes were nurturing when Robin was not in the honeymoon phase of his cycle, these rooms are covered in triage.  I have lovingly patched up the holes, filled the crevices, lovingly painted their problems away and still I know in my heart that they cry.

My prayer for my beautiful home is that she will be rewarded with a loving family that hears laughter and feels warmth. I am eternally grateful for all she has given me. My love for this house is as deep as the heart shaped skyline created by the hundred and fifty foot cedars that surround her. She deserves happiness and peace.

And frankly, so do I.