Letting Go

One of my dear friends reached out to me last night … seeing that I have been less than my usual cheerful self lately … and encouraged me to write a blog about what I have been going through. Reluctantly, I agreed – only because writing usually is therapeutic for me.

This will likely not be filled with my usual whit. It will likely not be polished. It will likely not be graceful … but it will be real. It will be full of what I am experiencing in my life right now – because, at the very least, I can always be counted on to be honest.

It has been over two weeks now since my oldest daughter left my home. She is almost 19 … birthday in less than a month. I always knew she would fly out of the nest one day. I knew I would have to let her go. I knew it would be hard. I knew no matter how old she was - I wouldn’t be ready …

… but I never knew it would break my heart.

I envisioned it for years. Her room oddly empty. Her car packed with clothes. Her kitty in her back seat. Big hugs on the driveway – me fighting back the tears, but knowing she was only a phone call away; that she’d be popping in for dinner one night soon; that we’d go and visit her in her new apartment – and that it would be her rite of passage.

Yes, my daughter did move out 3 weeks ago …

… except that her room looks like she still lives here. Her car is in the driveway. Her kitty is asleep on my bed. I usually can’t reach her by phone; she won’t be coming around for dinner; we can’t visit –we don’t even know her address –
… and I have realized … this is my rite of passage, not hers.

She has made a choice. The first one ever that I haven’t known how to live with. But I must learn how now, and I must let go – or I will not survive this.
You see, my daughter didn’t just move out. She moved in and started an intimate relationship with a man whom, only a year ago, I was engaged to be married to. A man I loved. A man who said he loved me. A man I trusted. A man I planned a wedding with. A man I planned a future with. A man who I stood up for - even when others in my life challenged and criticized me for believing in him – including this very same daughter. A man who said he valued our family more than anything he’d ever known and swore to me he would never allow anything to harm and that he would never come in between.

My daughter is now living with – eating with, playing house with, sleeping with - my ex-fiancée.

Him? 12 years older than her. Three sons of his own already – every one of them older than her youngest brother. Still living with his mom at 30 years old. Now on parole. No steady work. And mocking me every chance he gets, just to remind me that he is getting even for breaking off our relationship after I caught him in a huge lie.

It is like a bad episode of Jerry Springer … but it is my life.

In front of my daughter - I have talked; I have reasoned; I have pleaded; I have screamed; and I have broken down.

Out of her sight - I have laid in my bed without sleep for so many nights I’ve lost count; sobbed so hard I’ve thrown up; wished he would die; wished I would die and landed myself in the E.R. with symptoms of a pre-stroke.

Still … she is gone.

Her brothers and sisters are falling apart and can’t sleep. Her best friend is so sick to her stomach she is unable to concentrate on her classes. Her father is angry and distraught. Her grandmother is in shock. Her Aunt and Uncle are so desperate to help her see what she is doing that they are willing to drive 3,000 miles across the country to try to bring her to her senses. Everyone who has loved her since she was a baby is devastated. No one understands why she has chosen this …

Still … she is gone.

I have tried to explain to her … not that I should have to … that there is a certain code in life between women. When it comes to men, you don’t tread where another woman who means something to you has been already – not your girlfriends, and especially not your own mother. I know she gets it … she was raised with strong morals and values – yet she twists this somehow in her own mind and convinces herself that it is alright … and that someday I will be also – but she is mistaken … I will not.

Time heals all wounds – but no amount of time makes wrong things right.
His voice and the voice of this man’s ‘mother’ (I put that term in quotes, because she does not have the capacity to fill the role and never has) feed my daughter some sick sort of encouragement that my concern for her and complete disgust at this situation is nothing more than my own ‘jealousy’ and desire to control her and make her decisions for her. How perverted and transparent are their projections to me … but to their advantage … how oblivious and naïve is my innocent daughter. I used to wish she would keep that innocence forever - now I wish every day that she would wake up … and grow up.

That she would disregard our relationship and dishonor me in this way has been almost too much for me to physically and emotionally bear. To watch him assist and allow her to do so is too much for me to ever forgive. He has so blatantly demonstrated his complete lack of love, respect or concern for the beautiful spirit of my first born baby, and a level of betrayal, cruelty and selfishness that my 45 years on this planet has never seen paralleled. But she – while extremely smart - was extremely wounded recently by several of the most important men in her life … so she chooses not to acknowledge the reality of the situation and blindly looks for that missing love in ‘all the wrong places’.

He uses her … and she lets him.

I have done what I can. I am out of words. I am out of chances. I am out of courage – for every time I have to say goodbye and watch her leave again she takes another little piece of my soul with her.

She will not understand until she has a daughter of her own someday – and even then I pray she never has to experience the type of pain I have felt throughout this – but I pray more diligently that when she does she has moved on from this man and this situation … because if not – I will surely not be a part of that event in her life. I think of missing the birth of my own grandbabies …

and I begin to cry … again.

Hugs (from the closet) …

and with a Broken Heart,

KimbraLee =(

P.S. - ‘Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go’ ~ anonymous ~