u/H-O-T-writer_

Today is your first day and I can’t message you to wish you luck, tell you how excited I am for you and that I truly believe this will be a great fit for you. I don’t begrudge you working with so many of my brothers and I love that you seek out being around them, that you love my family and our… unique intensity. Bodes well for the future. I’m jealous that he gets to pick you up and ride to work with you in the mornings, none of them will even nearly appreciate the gift it is to be around you the way they should. Perhaps I’m a bit bias and have a tad different perspective on it though.

Anyway, I wish you the absolute best, I’m so excited for you and proud of you. I love you so much and look forward to the light at the end of this stupid tunnel I handcrafted. 🫶🏻

We lived in a glorious bubble for about a week. One where it was all okay, where we could manage this low contact connection and try our best to maintain boundaries within it until the time was actually right. I knew it would all come crashing down the minute you talked to him, I knew he’d shed the light we both already saw and didn’t want to fully let in. The light is shining bright now and here I sit with a hoodie and a necklace with a ring on the end of it to remind me that things won’t always be this hard. That this isn’t rejection, it’s kindness. It’s the right thing, at the right time. We’re going to do it right and we both know now isn’t right. My foolish self ruined that 3 1/2 years ago when I tied myself to a man who only reinforced the hellscape that was my mind. Greatly anticipating severing that connection once and for all.

I’ll miss you and I’m so proud of us. We have to do it right if we want it to be all it can be. We need this season, I’m grateful for it and I dread it. It’s worth it, you’re worth and you know what, so am I. I’m worth doing things right.

I’ve taken the walk of shame for the first time in years though there is no shame to be felt. I’d be chastised for that by many but I’m at peace with myself. Does it count as a walk of shame when no sex was involved? Gosh, we both wanted to. We humped like horny teenagers on the brink but he never broke; I would’ve let him take me however, whenever. He knows that. I told him that 10 years ago and have reminded him every time we’ve reconnected, I never stopped meaning it - and he’s never stopped loving me enough to wait.

Ten years ago this August I gave him a promise ring, promising I’d be his wife one day and last night he said as I reminisced on my regrets for the delay, “You never broke that promise, you just took the long way ‘round” what an understatement. Ten years, drug addictions, two boyfriends, one turned husband - now in process of ex-husband later and here we are. Wanting to do it right, to wait until I’m no longer legally bound to another man but truthfully struggling to care at all about legal bounds. We laid there, just staring into each others eyes, holding each other close, tracing up and down each others arms, talking about anything and everything knowing that together, we’re completely safe. We’re home. The way it was always meant to be.

You slipped up but that’s okay, long established habits die hard and it’s not been long, I assured you the way you have for me so many times. Later, you told me how much that meant for you. All these years I’ve been so focused on all the ways you’ve been there for me and how strong you are, I never noticed just how much sits behind that tough exterior. I’m so excited to discover it all and help you the ways you help me, to be each others home, the safe space and navigate all the consequences life’s actions have had on us both, together.

We’ve both made a mess of our lives in vastly different ways and I’m always tempted to blame myself for the ways his fell apart, if I’d been there, if I’d stopped running while we were still young, those things likely wouldn’t have happened - he is so quick to stop me. To console me, validate me, correct me, to tell me truths that put my heart at ease and quiet the screaming in my mind. So gentle, kind, loving, patient and forgiving. Made for each other, we’ve both always believed that to be the case. It’s so evident in so many ways.

We have months left to go - part of me wishes my ex cared enough to have a PI following me to catch my cheating, let’s be honest that’s what it is, so that we could expedite our divorce or that it mattered the ways he’s abused me for years. That there was some box you could check on the papers stating it’s the 8th time and IM NOT GOING BACK AGAIN, so that it could finally be over, quickly. So that the possibility of your own abuse conditioned mind and nervous system doesn’t have time to turn against you, again. So the all the voices with their own agendas telling you to stay won’t win over what you know to be true.

This is the year, I am breaking the addiction and abuse cycle. Between my divorce and sending my dad to prison for the rest of his life - I hate the idea of testifying and part of me wants it, what better way to send a major FUCK YOU, NO MORE to what I’ve accepted as proper treatment of myself, than that?
Three weeks down of no cigarettes, nearly a week of no weed or alcohol in the midst of ALL OF THIS. I’m damn proud of myself and grateful for The Strength that is not my own empowering me to live this life as the rubber violently slams the road. I’m certainly not walking it perfectly, we have to do better or we’ll most certainly do worse but I feel so, aligned. Exactly on the path I should be on, just have to work on timing.

Thank you, for last night and for these last 13 years, as messy as they’ve been, you’ve been a rock for me. A safe place that’s never judged, never left, never raged, never yelled, never wavered, for me that is worth more than anything else. The very thing I’ve always hoped for and never believed I deserved - I’m finally ready for you. Finally, willing to accept that it’s actually true. Sorry it took me so long, grateful we have the rest of our lives.