First-HAPPY BIRTHDAY LORIEN-my youngest grandchild. I had the strange experience yesterday of looking online (classmates.com) at myself as a junior in my high school yearbook. I don't have this book, only my senior year's. So looking back on me at that age was very enlightening. Some things I had forgotten. I always remember myself as being shy, tall and very skinny. But in the yearbook, I saw a smiling confident face and realized I was active in lots of clubs: the Formulators-chemistry club, Bowling Club, Girls Athletic Association-I played volley ball and field hockey, Educators club-didn't realize I wanted to be a teacher then, Scholarship Society, Radio Broadcasters-we played records during lunchtime, and Corp de ballet-a dance group that performed in school plays, etc. I was quite active and had lots of girl friends. Although at that point, I had no boy friends or dated at all during high school. I never went to a Junior Prom or Senior Hop or had my heart broken either.
Trying to recall my thoughts about those years was interesting. I concluded I was one busy young girl with my ballet dancing and performing as well as my good grades in school. I danced professionally in a ballet company, graduated from Jr. College and went on to BYU, married, had a family then got divorced. Of all my experiences, the divorce after 10 years of marriage, the betrayal and adjustment seems to have taken center stage in my life for too long of a time. Probably because my "Prince Charming" sidetracked my life plan to that point. I was on my way to "living happily everafter"...lol!
I was reading an article online about Wynnona Judd who just divorced her husband for similar reasons. "Forgiveness," she says, "is an ongoing process. [I] haven't forgotten, but I have forgiven. Enough that I humanly can," she says. "I don't wish him dead or anything like that. I just wish to be one of those people that doesn't spend my life being defined by that." That quote brought me up short because I'm finding 35 years after my divorce, I still feel defined by what happened. I somehow failed in life because I couldn't make a success of such an important relationship. OF course it takes two to tango, but I still am dealing with what happened to our children. When holidays come, I don't have my sons home together to celebrate because our family is split into my ex-husband's family and my family. Where is HOME to our sons, since we all live in different places?
It isn't how I had always expected it to be. BUT I don't want to be defined by that. I want to move on ACTING instead of REACTING. I won't forget the lessons I learned about TRUST and INTEGRITY and do appreciate my dear husband now who is loyal and trustworthy, because I know that not all men have those qualities. I am defined by more than my choice of companion and their weaknesses or strengths. I have unique talents and abilities that make me-ME. That is part of the lessons learned from my life so far. What lessons are you learning from your challenges?