A Leap of Faith To Make Myself Happy

I worked on paperwork again last week, yesterday, today to get myself out of this long-dead marriage. How can there be so much of this? I was so proud of myself; I am so past being angry, I’m giving up the resentment, and I’m getting nearly giddy over what’s to come as soon as this is over. I cannot wait.

Can I admit? My excitement nearly takes my breathe away.

Or perhaps it’s my fear. Fear that he will never realize what’s reasonable. Fear that he’ll keep grabbing for more and end up taking so much that I’ll lose even more that’s dear to me.

And there is, I will confess, a small amount of fear that he’s done so much damage, I won’t be able to ever breathe again.

I think on this for a moment, an hour, a week, a month it seems…but now, today, I decide to use that match that started my heart on fire with the fear, to burn it right out of me.

No matter what happens, no matter what he has done or does to me, no matter the impact, I will never regret my decision. Each thing he’s done since has made me realize it was the right thing to do, no matter the momentary pain, and no matter what fear I feel in some moment of doubt.

I force myself to remember how it was back then. I couldn’t stand him anymore, a man filled with contempt, defensiveness, anger, resentment. A man who couldn’t find his way in the world, and punished me for it. It didn’t have to be that way, but I couldn’t make it stop…until I couldn’t take it anymore…until I felt all the same things about him.

So I took a Leap of Faith, and I ended it. And even though I was terrified, I did what I knew would make me happy. I felt the relief almost immediately, though not nearly as much as I feel now. It came in spurts and cycles. A light shining through a tiny crack at the end of a long tunnel has spread into a nearly blinding sun shining just over a line I need to cross.

This paperwork? These tasks and events that will get me over that line and into the sun? Even if they’re difficult, even if it takes awhile to get there, and even if it’s hard to breathe for longer than I ever imagined it would be, it was worth it.

Even though my heart is sometimes filled with fear, it’s getting crowded out now by excitement. I’m thrilled I took the leap of faith I knew I needed to take to make myself happy.

~ cj 2013.02.12