Afraid to be happy

Friday - September 7, 2012

I had a dream about you again, but this time I was asking for permission to move on, kneeling at your grave on your parent’s hill. Everything just as we left it. Very eerie that I had this dream tonight.

The real reason I started this blog was for therapy, I veered way of track. So let me start by filling you in on as briefly as possible, on what’s lead me to this to the dream above. It’s real and situation described is real. The full story will eventually be in “my story” but let’s face it; I’m a long way off from writing that. If your confused by who's who please go check out my "character list." Every time I start, I have to stop because the tears get flowing and the keyboard disappears. It’s going take me awhile to get that written. Back to the brief, shorter version of the long version of the story, I warn you now, you might cry… I did.

When I woke up from the dream mention in onset at 4 am this morning, I rolled over, threw my arm over my husband and just held tight. After a half hour I realized there would be no sleeping. I grabbed my laptop and hit the couch. I looked at the date and a load of bricks hit me in the face…. “It’s today!” I thought to myself. I must have blocked it from my conscience mind in an effort to move on, but my unconscious mine wouldn’t let me forget.

Eight years ago today, life as I knew ended and I would fight to be happy again, in fact I’m still fighting. No matter what I’ve tried and I’ve tried it all. I’ve come to the conclusion, with many sessions of therapy that I’m afraid to fully let go, to fully love, fully live…. I’m afraid to be happy again. Why? What happened your asking? Brace yourself.

I’ll never forget the sound of my father-in-laws footsteps as he ran through the house yelling for my mother-in-law and I. Heavy steps, heavy voice, that voice that when you heard it, you instantly knew something terrible has happened, it’s an echo that never stops ringing in my ears. At this time I’m 20 years old, my husband (I call him Bayard) was 23, and we would have been celebrating our first year anniversary in a month. Sadly the kiss I gave him just hours earlier would be the last on his warm beautiful lips.

5.15.1981 - 9.7.2004

He never made it to work. He was killed in a car accident on his way. He was my love at first sight. He was my wild and free, head on his should, loud and crazy, responsible, yet not. We would have been together forever, could have worked out any problem, and were like two peas in a pod. Absolutely imperfectly perfect for each other. He adored me, would do anything for me, all he ever wanted was to see me smile and I love him, still. But saying that is a guilty pleasure because I absolutely adore the man I now call my husband. I’ll get more into him later.

Wedding Day to Bayard (that's the March Hare in the middle)

 After Bayard's dead my world spiraled out of control. You could say that was a category 5 tornado that hit me out of a clear blue day and for the next 5 years numerous category 3’s and 4’s continued to pound me. Finally about 3 years ago I stood up my own two feet and said “No more”! Since then you could say this has been the period of time for the dust to settle and just recently I’ve started to clean up all the emotional messes left.

What were the category 3’s and 4’s? Short story. Lost and confused, I was married shortly after his death to the Bandersnatch, he is only interested in the insurance money. This guy was like the guy from that movie “Sleeping with the enemy,” OCD, controlling, violent. Got the courage to leave him, only to no longer care about anything anymore, especially life. I ran around like a regular little whore, smoking weed, cigarettes and drinking alcohol like it’s was going out of style. My mother would tell you I’m making it out to sound worse than it was, but it was still pretty bad. Numerous boyfriends later, I was strangled within inches of my life, another boyfriend beat me so badly the cops busted in and rip him off of me, taking advantage of by oh so many of my so called friends, and completely out of my money.

When I got the erg to clean up my life, along came the devil dressed like prince charming. Husband number 3 (he's the Jabberywocky), Antelope Valley’s finest! We met in a bar (should have been one of the many huge red flags), fresh off a 10 year sentence from California state prison, weed smokin, non-stop party animal, who I’m pretty sure can’t keep a job or keep his penis in his pants to save his life. Why the hell did I fall for him your asking? Oh that smooth tongue, he could sell you your own dirty napkin. You know that Carrie Underwood song “Cowboy Casanova”? I swear she wrote that song for him. After finding out two weeks after my daughter was born that he had been cheating on me our whole marriage, I said enough is enough.

Now remember I said I stood up on my own two feet… This is the part where that happened, kinda. I moved back in with my parents… Yep that’s right 2 kids, 26 years old, sleeping in my parent’s living room. I cleaned up, found God and finally opened my eyes and heart wide enough to see what had always been right in front of me. For thirteen years the Mad Hatter loved me. He was my run too guy when things went wrong, a big brother type, a guy that did all kinds of crazy things for me just because I said please, batted my eyes and smiled. I never saw it before, but I had been through enough crap to finally appreciate true love. Next month we will be married for two years. Things are finally stable, my kids have an amazing dad, he still takes care of me like he always has, we never fight, we did things right by God and now I’m thrilled to be carrying his first child (my third child, but fifth pregnancy).

 Wedding Day to the Mad Hatter (with the March Hare & Dormouse)

So why am I still not completely happy? I’m afraid. After reaching true happiness and having it torn away and then having smaller moments of happiness and having those torn away… I’m afraid. I’m afraid to love deeply, smile uncontrollably and be happy. I also feel uncontrollable guilt. Guilt that I have finally been able to pick up where Bayard and I left off. Maybe being pregnant is setting all of this off. When he died we were trying to get pregnant. So being in love again, being pregnant and attempting to be happy makes me feel incredibly guilty. I'm told one day this will all pass, I've heard that before, oh so many times. It's never fun while the time is inching by slowing. One day I will let go and be happy again.

Thanks for sharing another adventure with me!

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