Things have been a little crazy lately. My boyfriend and I definitely hit a rough patch and the holidays are always a little stressful. On top of that, I am traveling to D.C. next week, which is triggering A LOT of travel anxiety. It is so easy to get disheartened by the negative things, but I am really making an effort to look at the positive things in life. My friend is having a baby girl, my dad is still doing pretty well, I have really nice students this year, things with my boyfriend are looking up. I do have a lot to be thankful for this year.
Over this past weekend, I met a girl at a party. We had talked very briefly once before, we are about the same age and I knew she was a teacher, so I figured we had some things in common. We ended up talking in the corner for over an hour and I confided things in her that I normally would never tell a stranger- she also is divorced, so she understood things that many other people do not in my life. She was so sweet and easy to talk to and we had a very similar history as far as the timeline of our marriages and divorces go. This girl is now engaged (her fiancé is actually my boyfriend’s best friend’s good friend, which is how I happened to meet her). It really surprised me how open I was with her. I guess at this point I don’t have anything to hide and I am not ashamed by anything that I have experienced. It was just really nice to talk to someone with a different perspective, who could still really relate to my life. The only thing that made me kind of upset was how excited she is to get married again and how happy she kept saying she is. I don’t know if I really feel that way…I mean, I don’t know if I would ever want to get married again and the fact that she is so eager to marry her fiancé made me question whether I would want to get married if I was with “the right person”. I’m not saying my boyfriend isn’t that person- he is so supportive of me, but we definitely have problems and her relationship just seems…easy. Now I have definitely learned not to take other people’s lives and relationships at face value, but she genuinely seemed so happy and in love and kept saying what a nice guy her fiancé is. I feel like I was so traumatized by my divorce that I don’t know if I would ever risk having to go through that again. But one thing we both said is that we both saw red flags going into our first marriages (and ignored them, obviously). She clearly sees no red flags now with her new husband, but I feel like I see some in my relationship now that would make me a little hesitant to make that commitment again. Meeting her just made me think about how much my life has changed in the past ten years and how I really don’t know what is going to happen and maybe I just have to be okay with that right now. I mean, I never, ever thought my father would go this long without drinking, so it just goes to show you that life has a way of throwing curveballs.
So, I am going focus on being thankful this Thanksgiving. Instead of being too scared to travel, I am going to try to remember how lucky I am to be able to go to D.C. with my boyfriend (who I know will help me get through my anxiety to get there) and his family, who has embraced me in so many ways.
Anxious ACOA 