Ifs

I was as sure then as I am now that it was the best choice I could have made at the time and I am as certain now as I was then that I did the right thing.

It was the path that was going to lead me to a new life, and it did, just not the life I thought I wanted to walk into. This one is much better. This one has different limitations.

If it had lasted. If I hadn't caught him in bed with a young woman I knew from high school who was mainly trying to get even for me dating her ex-"fiancé" 9 months after they had broke up. If hadn't been drinking so much. If I hadn't been drinking so often. If hadn't been trying to cram myself into a gender stereotype that didn't fit.

If I hadn't been trying to find a way to live with myself and what I was told I should be ashamed of.

If I hadn't learned the lessons...

Today would be my 19th wedding anniversary. The 19th anniversary doesn't come with a traditional gift, so I can't even crack wise about missing out on the "papier maché"or "aluminum foil" anniversary.

I could have been married for exactly half my life today had he not had the sense to cheat on me and treat me so terribly that I had to go looking for Plan B. That's the truth of it. I would be someone completely different than I am now if he hadn't done that.

For the record, my Plan B was terrible. But it got me to the place where I read the books that changed my mind, which led me to the place where I learned about the internet and through the internet I figured out how to use my words. And when I finally, FINALLY, learned to use my words I realized that the guy had done me a favour. I had limited my life to what I thought was expected of someone of whom little was expected as soon as he handed me the ring. The failure of our marriage after seven and a half months (plus three additional months of drama, emotional blackmail, threats, violence, reconciliation, more drama, more threats and spending a night in jail) was the humiliation I needed to reconsider my future.

Not that I saw it like that at the time. Oh no, I was mad. Mad in the English sense of the word, not the North American one. I was broken and fallen and tired of living and I would not turn 20 until the week before the drama ended.

I didn't know it then but I know it now, my divorce was the first step I took toward saving my own life.

Rob, I have no clue where you are but I hope that you are happy. I also hope that you are as happy as I am that this isn't our wedding anniversary.