Making Peace with the Past

Jared and I went to see Les Mis at the Fox in Atlanta last Saturday. It was twenty years, eight months, and nineteen days after our first date weekend to see Les Mis at the Fox.

It was an emotion-laden show for more than just that celebration with Jared.

Because the reality is— I saw Les Mis at the Fox a week before I saw it with Jared, over twenty years ago now, with someone else. I’d seen Les Mis twice before with that someone else.

And that night over twenty years ago, that first showing of Les Mis in 2003, I scarcely thought about it at the time— I scarcely thought about it for many, many years— but that night, the man I saw that show with asked me if we could talk about marriage.

I told him no. It was out of character for me to tell him what I thought of him, and our relationship, but I pretty much did so in that moment. I’m sure he was surprised by my reaction. In hindsight, even years later now, I surprise myself looking back for the candid assessment I presented to him of my experience of our relationship at the time.

It was the right decision, telling him no in that moment. I told him later in moments of confusion when I was unwell that it was the wrong decision, but I know it was the right decision.

I knew before I met Jared in person that Jared was worth getting to know better, and that if he turned out to be at all anything like he was when we talked online and on the phone, that he was going to be a stellar boyfriend and maybe husband. And that has, indeed, proven to be more true than I could have ever known.

I deeply loved that person I went to the show before Jared with. But, there had been a lot of missteps in that relationship— on my part too, but especially his— and there really was no recovering from all of that.

I recounted in great, painful detail, in writing to him directly, exactly what some of those missteps meant to me later, years later.

I needed someone who would wholly dedicate themselves to me and our family, placing us first above all else. Jared has done just that. Work has always come second, and Jared has always been clear to work about that fact.

I think the person I went to that show with before Jared didn’t expect to love me in the ways he found himself loving me when he met me. The ways which led him to ask me about whether we could talk about marriage five years later.

But as I discovered in other relationships as well, love is not enough to make a relationship last. It is certainly not enough to make a marriage work.

And so, I saw the show with that man. And I promptly started daydreaming, probably before the show was over, about the idea of asking Jared down to see the show, because I already knew he liked Les Mis, too. And so I did ask him, and I bought the tickets to the show and Jared bought a plane ticket from Iowa to Atlanta.

And, the month-long absences between Jared and myself while we were dating, between those date-visits, were near-excruciating.

It’s no secret that I am on SSDI for bipolar disorder. Since I don’t work and don’t currently really volunteer anywhere, I have an awful lot of free solitary time on my hands.

So, I spend a lot of time in the past in my brain….dissecting past relationships, processing emotions around past events, in general ruminating. Trying to come to peace within myself about the past.

It’s time-consuming. And, emotion-consuming. And at times, it is exhausting. It’s more than navel gazing; it’s really soul work.

Sometimes, I make progress with peace. And sometimes, I stir up more angst.

Sometimes I dream about the person in question from my past. And in my dreams, he is always far more kind than I expect, and far more kind than he usually was in reality in the past. It catches me off-guard, even in my dreams, just about every time. Especially in light of the way I have lit into him in writing through the years since.

We’ve reconnected in a somewhat limited capacity on social media, in a very superficial way that is safe enough feeling for both of us. I told him recently that I’d like to see him in person again someday. Jared knows this fact and is supportive.

I’m not quite sure what is on the agenda for that meeting just yet. There isn’t any reason to re-hash the past— I have written to him in quite painful detail about all of the pain he caused me back in the day and of my assessment of some of the episodes of our relationship. I have not withheld any anger or minced any words at all in previous written communication, of which there have no doubt been volumes at this point.

But, the anger has receded. I am not sure what is left, but it feels like there are things unsaid, things that don’t translate in writing.

This is why I am grateful to have as strong a marriage as they come. Jared knows his spot in my heart and can tolerate me exploring making peace with my past.

He can also tolerate me blogging about pretty much anything I want to blog about. Even when it is about past relationships.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.