I am officially about 500 words ahead of my poetry goal for October. I have almost completely typed up the rough draft of my creative thesis. I have the makings of two other poetry manuscripts that I keep adding to as inspiration hits. I’ve been working through a lot of traumas in my poetry as well as reading as much poetry as I can. I’m well ahead of my Goodreads goal for the year. I’m in a great place to dominate NaNoWriMo. And even though I had a depressing day yesterday, today I’m feeling more positive and steady.

Also, it’s pumpkin season and I cannot complain about that!

It’s been a horrifying, terrible, wonderful, challenging, beautiful, contradictory year. I can’t even count the number of disappointments I faced. I also can’t count the number of blessings and victories I’ve had. Covid-19, school, work, writing, publishing, relationships, love, putting myself first, friendship…there’s been so much crammed into this absolute monstrosity of a year, but I can say there’s very little I’m not thankful for.

I have wondered off and on what my life would be like right now if I hadn’t left my ex. Ya’ll, I was so miserable with him. And I know he has his version of events and he’s free to tell it. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last couple of years it’s that people usually don’t admit to the public how wrong they were. My ex was someone who cared more about how people perceived him than he did about the actual truth of who he was. He was a man addicted to his job, and I have my own theories as to why this was. I think he was someone who struggled constantly with insecurity. I think he struggled with identity. I think he struggled with knowing who he was and the only thing that fulfilled him or gave him any semblance of an identity was his job. The things he took the most pride in were his professional accomplishments and ambitions.

Our marriage did not come first unless there was a crisis and, even then, he was often resentful of that. And there were many things I handled poorly. I often took my trauma out on him, though unintentionally. I didn’t always do the things I needed to do to heal. But he didn’t help any of this, either. He neglected me. He neglected our relationship. He couldn’t even do the bear minimum and then acted like I had no reason to be angry. I had many valid reasons to be angry with him, but he used my anger as one of many reasons to continue neglecting me.

I was talking with someone my ex and I used to go to church with and he offered me some really heartfelt, sincere apologies for what my ex put me through. He said that men are often really bad at acknowledging the damage they do to their wives. He said they will complain about how angry their wives are, how often they nag at them, but won’t look at how their own behaviors are causing their wives’ anger. This was so accurate for my ex.

I think of how much I endured because I really believed that my love for him would be enough. I couldn’t even see the amount of bitterness, resentment, and (I think) loathing he carried for me. And I mean, this is really in line with a lot of manipulators and emotional abusers. They can’t admit to their own failings and so perpetuate whatever story they can to make themselves look like the victim. Because if he had really taken an honest look at our relationship, how he refused to go to marriage counseling for years, how he refused to communicate with me about anything, how he resented my insistence that he communicate with me more openly, how he made huge financial decisions without every talking to me, how even when he would talk to me about such decisions, he usually went behind my back to do his own thing, how he willfully kept me in the dark and then lied about it by saying he “thought for sure” he’d talked to me about this already. On and on I could go. If he had really looked at those things with an honest lens, it would have required so much more from him than a tearful, “I’m sorry.”

It would have required a massive shift in our entire marriage. The dynamic of our relationship would have had to change. He would have had to quit his job, get into individual as well as couples therapy, change so much about how he talked with me, treated me, engaged with me. He would have had to sacrifice the appearance of “best husband” that he worked so hard to foster and admit to his family, his coworkers, and his friends that he was selfish, self-centered, self-important, arrogant, egotistical, insecure, controlling, manipulative, dishonest. It takes a really, really unique kind of person to admit those things to themselves, let alone everyone else.

It was easier to just let me suffer. I honestly believe that the last few years of our marriage were entirely on purpose. Because either I’d get fed up and leave, and he could blame me for our marriage falling apart, or I’d content myself with misery and stop asking so much of him.

I was not a perfect wife and I did not expect a perfect husband. I did expect to be cared for. I expected to feel emotionally connected to my spouse. I expected him to try and to put me first. He couldn’t do any of those things. I don’t think he loved me. I wonder if he ever did, if he even knows how to love. Maybe I’m just cynical. But I see how my boyfriend treats me, how kind and caring and loving he is, how he genuinely wants to spend time with me and make sure I’m happy, and I realize that I am not hard to love. My ex just resented that I had standards. He resented how those standards made him feel about himself. But rather than rise to meet the standard, he wanted me to lower them without acting like I was lowering them, and then make him feel good about meeting the lowered standards.

Male fragility. I swear to god, it’s insidious. It’s pervasive. Almost every man I’ve ever met has carried it in some form. Especially if they’re cishet. The utter lack of caring for women, the empty words, the codependence and the resentment of their own codependence…it’s toxic. It’s disgusting. And I am thankful to be with a man who really does make me feel safe and loved.

I give myself so many goals so that I always remind myself how strong and capable I am. I have been through hell many times. I’ve faced things I never should have had to face, and I have come out the other side with my compassion, my forgiveness, and my love intact. It’s not been easy. I am more jaded. I am more cynical. But I also try to be understanding and not to let my anger run away with me. I don’t want to be stagnant. I don’t want my wounds to fester and turn me sour. I want to try to heal, even if I struggle with it. The goals give me things to move toward, give me constructive ways of processing the trauma.

They’re my gifts to myself.