The Resignation

I didn’t feel like my life was changing. What I did know was that there had been a peace in maintaining consistency in life, and although my path may not have always brought me joy, it was predictable, and it had been my life to bear.

I had 2 children before I was 19 years old. I lived in poverty with a high school education and a shameful reputation to serve me. From the time of my first pregnancy and for years that followed, an unnatural penchant for emotional survival was nurtured in me by default of a subconscious determination that my life would never remain stuck. Born from an understanding that I was a person and not a statistic, it also served as a muffle to the blatant incompatibilities responsible for the detriment of my marriage. It took me over 20 years to realize that no matter what I did, no matter who I was on the inside, I would never, ever be seen.

A couple years before I left my husband, he and I had just had an intense verbal interaction and I was left alone in our bedroom as he walked away and went upstairs. I remembered the way his eyes looked at me as we spoke and the way his voice sounded, the words that he chose and the disdain that was meant for me to feel.

There is a period of stillness that follows interactions such as this, and it feels a bit like being suspended in air. I listened as the footsteps of a stranger faded away, across the floor then up the flight of stairs and finally shuffling across the floor above. The room was distorted with what was left behind; the usual comforts of fresh flowers and nostalgic quilts were seen through different eyes. I knew what love was supposed to be. In that moment, there was clarity.

I stood pragmatic and still in that room, a realization at hand and a resignation to make peace with it, to not blame and to never live in the past, never belabor the why. It shocked me, the fantasy shattered and truth revealed, but there was a sense of resolution to it as well. Fighting for something that was never going to happen was killing me, but settling for the truth, as terrible as it was, my logical mind could bear.

I could not fight emotionally for the fantasy of a marriage that mine was not capable of. I had truly disillusioned myself into believing that my marriage had the potential to be the thing that I kept waiting for it to be. The clarity of that moment was the awareness of the reality that it was not my fate to be loved this way by my husband.

What I did not realize, and what would ultimately take me down, was the moment I resigned myself to accepting that I would never be fully loved was the same moment that the best part of me, the original spirit, perpetually happy and hopeful, was pushed deep down.

The only way to remain in my marriage was for me to love my husband equal to the amount he was able to love me. The result is something that I see only now. In life there can be no contradiction between the amount of love that can be given and the amount that can be received, it can only default to its best possible potential, and often that potential is deceptive. My attempt at reciprocation came from a mind that in the name of promises and devotion could have endured for a lifetime, but for the fact that being stuck was more than just the physical nature that I had assigned its value to.

It was only when I removed myself from my marriage, and only when my mind started to wake up in the water and in the birds, only then, slowly, ungracefully and blindly, that I began to soften again. And as I softened, I was finally able to begin receiving the love that I had given up on so many years ago. Only this time, the love was coming from me.  

Katy Perry- Rise