Bittersweet…I’m not sure I can think of any other word that better describes the way that I am feeling right now. Today would have been and my ex husband’s and my wedding anniversary. A part of me wants to reminisce about how things should have been. A part of me is wondering where we would be and what we’d be doing had things worked out the way they were supposed to. Yet, there is a bigger part of me that is realizing now, more than ever, that I am exactly where I should be.
Thinking about our last anniversary reminds me just how unhappy we really were. Instead of being blissfully happy, as we should have been in only our second year of marriage, we were in complete and utter misery. We fought the entire day and spent the night on opposite ends of the bed, as far away from each other as we could possibly get without one of us being on the couch. Not exactly the “happy” anniversary either of us had dreamed of when we first got married.
Our marriage was definitely not picture perfect. Not exactly something to celebrate. So why is it that I find myself feeling a little sad today? Perhaps it is because I am still grieving about what “should” have been. Today should have been a happy day. We should have lived happily ever after, but we didn’t. I don’t often allow myself to get caught up in the “should have been’s,” because I know that what should have been and what really is, are two very different things, but sometimes my heart still cries out for the way things were supposed to be.
January 10th is just another day on the calendar now. It will come and go just as all the days before it, but I still long for the happily ever after it was supposed to bring only a few years ago.