Today would've been 9 years that we had been married. I try to imagine what our life would be like now together. We would've weathered the storms of getting to the toddler years together. No doubt it would've shifted us and changed us to learn to parent together. And I wonder how we would have fared. Things were in flux when he died. Our twins were only 10 months old and we were still trying to grasp the idea of parenting, and who we were as parents, and who we were becoming to each other in those roles. All of that seems like such a blur and I'm amazed I have made it this far alone.
People say I have changed. Of course I have. You can't go through something like this and not be transformed. A friend commented to me recently that she could tell I was really happy and that I seemed like the "old" me again...the person I was before I even met Andie. Normally this would upset me, but it didn't. Because I feel it too and I feel at peace with it. I am more authentically me than I have been for a very long time. I am living for me now and not for who I think I should be. I realize looking back that I was subtly shifting into who I thought Andie wanted me to be, though I never asked him if that was what he really wanted. Ironically, the girl Andie fell in love with, the authentic me, is who I shifted away from over the years and only in an effort to please him. Yet I wonder if this is where some of our marital struggles came from...was I trying to be someone I thought he wanted, yet all he ever really wanted was the true me, so he started to not understand me.
I find myself back in that place of hopeful happiness like I did in the early days of our marriage, and again have found someone who loves me for me. I believe that God had a hand in bringing me this man, and that Andie has blessed it because he knows it is good for my soul. Because he knows that this man allows me to feel comfortable returning to the girl I was...the girl I want to be. To being the very girl that Andie fell in love with and vowed 9 years ago today, to love forever.
I can relate to this post...changing so much as a spouse in one's role as a parent. I think about it all the time. I'm glad to read that you are finding your authentic self. I think if you ever start to lose yourself again you'll be able to find her again quicker. And maybe you can teach me how to find mine?!
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