Moving on

In January, when the ex-husband announced he was filing for divorce, a month after dumping the PTSD claim on me, I sat in the living room and wrote. Not much, and I didn't continue writing until I started cruisingat60, but I wrote a little of what was in my heart. This must have been a short time after I'd had a chance to think about what I was going to do, because the few things I wrote speak of my belief in his claim that he was setting me free to live the life I deserved to have and one which he wasn't able to give me. I know now that he was honest about one thing at least: I do deserve this better life.

When I saw them on the iPad I cringed a bit because I hoped they weren't dreadful, full of drama. I think they're ok. They show an insight into the failure my marriage was, an insight I lost as other pain overtook it. It was good to see that my first instincts about the path my life should take, even though they lay dormant for a while, proved to be right. 

This is the first, written as I looked out at my beloved canal.


Ripples, gentle in my wake, move smoothly, steadily, 
away from me.
I move on. 
I struggle against the tide, against the wind, against all odds,
leaving memories and dreams dissolving behind me.
The longer I travel, the more distant and ephemeral they become.
It's sad to leave these things behind.
But I also leave the anger and the disappointments,
the sorrows and broken dreams
that had become such a part of me,
as I'm borne along a now-changing tide.