The End of the End (You thought I'd never finish this story!)

So, I got happy. YAY ME! I joined a book club, I got more active in my sorority-thing (PEO), I became a queen (Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love), and I got happy. I started to really believe that Grimace was as much mess as I was when he showed up on my doorstep, and that, to quote His Dadness, "This has nothing to do with how lovable, how wifely, or how wonderful you are." All I can tell you is that when you begin to truly see what chunk of stuff is actually yours, and what chunk of stuff is NOT yours at all, life gets infinitely easier. This is not to say that I knew what to do with all of this newly-acquired information, but it was definitely easier not to continue thinking it was all me. 'Cause it wasn't.

Back to the part that was mine, though. I met and married Grimace during the time I was broken. So, he got, as his part of the happy bargain, a broken partner. I don't mean that I'm entirely fixed now, either, as broken-ness is part of humanity, but I was broken in the sense that I needed love and comfort, and I needed it not in an egalitarian way. I needed a lot of comfort. And for a while, Grimace comforted me. He was present, attentive, and generous. Then, just for a while, I needed some more comfort, but he decided (consciously or unconsciously) not to give it anymore. And that hurt a whole bunch. As I said, he got a broken girl, and I wasn't OK just yet. It was sobbing, puking, heart-stabbing pain. But I'd quit a marriage once, and I wasn't going to do it again. And then, once I got happy, I didn't need so much comforting. (Not to say I didn't WANT it, I just didn't neeeeeeed it so much.)

So, I started doing fun stuff like road trips and concerts and camping and reading new things and playing with the dogs and vacations and meeting friends for drinks after work. To which, Grimace was invited. And chose not to join.

It began to feel like I was dragging a huge man through my life, whilst simultaneously doing his laundry and cleaning the toilets! FUN FUN FUN! (There's really no way to say that without sounding bitter, so I didn't bother to try.) I was, in fact, trying to drag someone through life. And unwilling participant. Pretty much everyone who reads this knows me, and I ask you, fellow goofballs, is it easy to ignore me? Um, not so much. Yet, Grimace managed to exist as though he were the only one living. I was married alone. And gosh it was lovely.

You know what I just realized? (Yeah, just now.) There's really no way to tell the whole story, because I was IN the thing. And so was Grimace, and he didn't exactly tell me what was going on the whole time.

The bottom line is this:

When he told me he liked me better before I was happy, I knew it was over.

You can't fix that.

I'm not gonna get un-happied.

God made me so I could be fun, and bright, and loving, and so that I could be happy if I chose to. I choose to.