The Funny Thing About Pain
I noticed, as the kids were here on their last visit, that they feel everything. Every bump, every bang, every thud is felt with all it’s power. Bing will run to me after any slip or blunder and request a kiss… and it breaks my heart every time. Lucy goes through our band-aid supply like it’s water and yet rarely bleeds, the band-aid is just a tool to quite the very real, very temporary pain of that immediate situation.
My kids feel every impact, they are effected by every bang and bruise… I often find a cut or bruise I cannot explain. blood stained shirt or raw wound that I realize in the shower or when clothing rubs against the point of earlier injury.
I was once a Bing or Lucy, feeling all that broke the skin. I would cry to my Mom (my Dad no where to be found). I would know how every drop of blood was shed.
Now, almost 40, I will find cuts and bruises days later. Clothes stained and not revealed until I find them in the laundry. physical pain almost ignored…. and yet mental pain, more real than ever.
When my parents got divorced I don’t remember how it felt… I know I gained weight and isolated myself (looking back), but I honestly don’t remember what I felt. To this day, I can flash back on walking in on my wife embraced with her new husband (while she was still my wife!) and remember exactly how I felt. I re-live it in dreams and face it on every exchange, and I have asked myself why?
As far as I can figure there are a few reasons. When I was young I protected myself, realizing the hurt that was upon me, I blocked it. I can honestly say for the first 30 years of my life there was only one person who could have hurt me, my sister, who had always been there for me through all the crap in my life. And then I met my wife, I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t instant, but I grew to trust her more than anyone, and I thought we were bound forever… I trusted her more than anyone.
All that I told her, my deepest secrets shared, were used against me. She betrayed me on so many levels it is almost unbelievable, and yet I still feel pain. Why can’t I be like I was when I was young? When I could shield the pain, not feel it? I now live in a time when I can bleed without knowing and cry for someone I know longer know.
I don’t know my Ex, she is someone in her current state I would never even notice, who has morphed into what she needs to be now, no longer the woman I loved… And yet, I remember that woman, I long for her. I will probably never see her again, exchanging my kids with a stranger, but I miss her, and I compare others to that memory.
I live a failing life, hope a thing that is easier spelled than realized, longing for a woman that no longer exists. My heart broken, pieces swept, but unable to be re-assembled. She building a new lie, me living the old.
I wish I could feel the pain of every cut and bruise… and forget the blows and kicks to my heart that no one can see, and only I miss.
January 4th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
I know personally I’ve issues that surface from my childhood into current day all the time and am in therapy trying to deal with it. I don’t understand why after 40 years I can’t change things I don’t like or just how slowly it’s taking. I feel all the time like I’m never going to figure this out and with time things do get better. I can relate to you and I think one of the reasons I was so hurt by my break up with my ex was b/c I wanted a family so bad that when it didn’t work I just couldn’t handle it. I don’t even remember much of my childhood before 8 Years old which is when my parents divorced. I hope you can feel better soon. I know you deserve better. Happy New Year!
January 5th, 2010 at 6:21 am
Again…you are retelling my story from years ago with my ex……the only difference being is that I didn’t divorce him for another 25 years, I stayed with him to raise our 2 daughters. He just kept on cheating, I was so naive, I really thought he had changed. But Jack, they NEVER change. Once a cheater…always a cheater…sorry to say…at least that’s been my experience and observation. I still have those bad dreams too, all I can promise you is that the raw pain you are feeling now does lessen with time. But there are days when I need to feel that pain again, just so I can remember what he really is! Believe it or not, it’s actually hard to conjur up those old feelings.I know that sounds weird, but I tend to forgive and trust easily. Sometimes it stabs me in the back, but I like to believe that most people out there are good! I remember how I felt when my parents divorced, I can remember the day my Mom came home from court, she was sitting there quietly sobbing with her ice cold beer & smoking a cigarette, I felt sorry for her, but I was only 17 & so very immersed into my own love life, I really didn’t care about her pain as much as I should have, Please don’t ever give up on yourself! I promise you this year you are going to shine! I am sending good thoughts your way Jack! LIke I always tell you – keep writing! You’re AWESOME!
January 5th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Hi Jack,
As I read your post I think of my dad. My dad is a man who never really showed his pain until my mom passed very suddenly almost 7 years ago. Until that day, I never really saw him cry or break down. He is now very much alone, except for me–for reasons I can’t even fathom, his other daughter has decided that she no longer wants to be a part of the family. Every day I see the pain and hurt of her betrayal and every day I see the lonliness that he feels when he no longer has his wife to talk to. So, I do know your pain and hurt and how, somehow, scraping a knee or cutting a finger isn’t discovered until much time has passed, simply because there is a much bigger hurt that masks those others. I wish for you less pain and finding your way past the hurt your ex inflicted on you. You deserve so much more and so much better.
Cheers to you!
Pattie