It Is Not About Blame

July 6, 2013

Yes, I did write this story out before, yes. Many times in fact. I know.

And yes, I know it must be boring by now but it is the best story I have about a terrible thing that has happened to me. There were more terrible things in my life possibly, but this one was the most startling, most shocking and most sudden.

True, I did not get raped. I did not lose a limb or found out I had a tumor and weeks left to live, but I did get dumped by my husband. I was told suddenly, without warning and with not much preamble that he did not want to be with me anymore. We were married for five years maybe, give or take a year. He was my only family in California, in America in fact. If he left I would find myself all alone — no parents to move back with, no childhood friends, no one. Just me. Just myself.

And I thought then that that’s just it: it is me. It is just myself. It is my life. It is my marriage. It is my pain. It is all me and in me there is an answer to what happened, and why.

See, it did hurt, it hurt a lot and it was my pain. Chris did things, did not do things, whatever it was he did or did not do ceased to concern me once he decided to leave, because he was leaving and his problems were not my problems anymore. His actions were not my problem either. He was not my problem.

I was.

And yes, I was told that I am being too hard on myself. I was told that it was not all my fault. I was told that I should not blame myself. I was told that I was not responsible for the relationship falling into pieces and it sounded terrible, all of it. It felt terrible to hear those things because if I were not responsible — then I was helpless.

If I was not responsible for the pain I felt then there was nothing I could do to heal it. If I was not responsible for my marriage crumbling then there was nothing I could do to prevent it from happening again.

If I was not responsible, then there was nothing I could do.

But I was, I knew I was. The responsibility was mine, the choice was mine and that life, that painful terrible life was mine as well. I knew that for a fact and just as surely I knew that if I created one life I can create another, that if I created pain I can create joy, happiness and bliss.

It was all me, it was all mine. The pain, the disaster, the drama and the responsibility for it — it was all mine to mold and change and heal and design in any way I wanted to.

It was all mine, and I could do anything.

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