Analytics

The number 3 has always haunted me.  Whenever I would randomly pick up a few of something (tissues, candy, etc) I would grab 3.  Always 3.  I ended up with 3 dogs.  Not sure if that was a subconscious thing.

Then, I noticed when I was thinking of trying a dating site to meet someone new (and I realized that either it wasn't how I wanted to do it OR I just wasn't ready), many guys put in their introduction that they had been divorced, or widowed, for 3 years and decided they were ready for someone new.  I have heard women use the same number.

So, I had a long ride home from my sister's tonight.  I had made the hour trip to see my son and take a few things that he had left behind and needed, then, since my sister's house was 20 minutes away from him, and on my way home, I stopped to see her too.  Anyway, back to the number 3.

I was wondering if I had been being conditioned for this all along.  And maybe 3 years is how long it takes the healing process.  Perhaps.  I analyze everything to death.  I guess my daughter takes after me in that sense and it is why she decided to become a Psychologist.

I still think through my marriage.  Not so much anymore.  It is fading.  I am hoping that in 3 years it will be just a memory packed in a box at the back of my brain.  But I think about it, every now and then, just trying to ease it into a spot where I am not feeling like it was a waste.  It wasn't, in some ways.  I have learned a lot about things, life, people.  I have become more patient, empathetic, and, yet, somewhat jaded.  Jaded is not totally a bad thing.  The jaded part keeps the empathy part from taking over.

Then there is something else that I have come to understand.  This 'something else' could give The Darkness an excuse for his behavior.  It is more like a reason...but not an excuse.  People will gravitate towards what they know, what they are used to, even if what they know and are used to is a bad thing.  The Darkness treats everyone around him the way he was treated and expects everyone to kiss his arse for it.  It is what he was used to growing up.  He hated it but, again, it is what he knows.

I guess that explains why kids that grew up in a house with drug or alcohol addicted parent(s) turn out that way a lot of times.  Even though they hated it, it is what they know.  It is hard wired into them.

I used to think that I married a guy like my mom.  It isn't fair to my mother because she put herself last and had a tender heart for her kids...to a point.  She just never showed any physical affection.  She never got any as a kid.  She said that your actions show love...you don't need a hug or a kiss,  She was impatient.  As  kid, I would listen for the yell of my name...the day long, spread out, short speeches of what I did to upset her/disappoint her, etc.  Even to this day, she will randomly pull something out of the air that I did or said over 40 years ago that she had gotten angry over or she thought was so very stupid of me.  An elephant has nothing on her.  I don't do that to my kids.  We move on.  When my mom mentions something like that to me I just cut her off, now, and say, "For Pete's sake mom...I was 16 years old!  Let it go!"  She just stands there and gives me the 'Emily Gilmore stare' of disapproval.  You know, the pursed lips, the half closed eyelids, the frozen face of silence.  Then, just like Emily, she says, "Well..." and moves on.

No, Darkness was more cruel.   He stomped and yelled and belittled.  He made sure I realized he felt that I was an intrusion into his life.

I think about the guys I went out with.  Even though I thought I was making a conscious choice to date someone less controlling and narcissistic than the one before, I always ended up with the same guy.  I am hoping that with all that I have learned and after the 3 years of healing, I will actually be able to end up with someone different.  But will I be able to handle this foreign way of life?