luz's inadvertent revelation
She sees herself in me. In my happy marriage, in my world of him-and-me, she sees herself and her husband as they were years ago. She sees in me her youthful naive self, so completely wrapped up in her wonderful, adoring, absolutely perfect man. Their life was a solitary bubble, iridescent and blissful, floating high above a harsh gray landscape. Until the day he left, he was her whole world.
It is shameful to admit it but i was wary of befriending her. I was afraid to associate with someone whose husband had left her for another woman. How wicked, stupid, and despicable of me. As if I'm so pure and good, that to touch a life undeservedly wronged is to be defiled, tainted somehow.
He cheated on her, tricked her into signing away her marriage, and left. Her marriage dissolved, just like that. Abandoned and vulnerable on unfamiliar ground, she survived somehow. Eventually she found in God a chance to reclaim herself. Through God she found the love to forgive him. And later, to take him back.
She is my future, and I am her past. This is how we feel. There are too many similarities between her and myself, so many parallels in her marriage and in mine, so many uncanny coincidences in how our spouses treat us, that we cannot help but see each other as mirrors.
Things are not working out. She carefully keeps this from me. For her not to tell me this is, i feel, her way of keeping the bubble from bursting. Sometimes I clench my fists as we're talking, afraid that in the midst of our everyday banter I will react to that which I should not know, that I will reach across the table and throttle her: what were you thinking? why are you doing this to yourself? Why can't you just let go?!
She has been waiting. Two years after she took him back, she waits still, hoping for him to find God, or for God to find him. She prays for God to help him love her so much more than he ever did before. She is waiting for him to love her enough to stay this time.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
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4 comments:
i'm scared because you say she's your future and her life turned out that way.
i'm scared because you mentioned solitary bubbles and what seems to be an idyllic world where only you and he exist.
i'm scared because her name's luz and yours may not be the only life that mirrors hers.
but why are you scared?
Points:
1. She's not about to admit to the current state of affairs. Which probably means it's not how she wants the story to end, for her or for me.
2. This is why we blog and have lives apart from our men.
3. Luz is the one who spilled the beans, not the once-and-future me.
4. I thought you decided to close off that chapter?
Inspiring quote of the day:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
~ Nelson Mandela
~remembering the heroes and the victims of 9/11~
f
i'm scared because i care for you. and even though i know that your husband wouldn't do what your friend's husband did, we both know that stranger things occur in this world.
as for the points:
1. i don't know her but believe me when i say i'm praying her story doesn't end there. and i hope she gets a happier ending.
2. it's true, isn't it? having a blog does have its therapeutic benefits.
3. the name, the circumstances - given my current state, i cannot help but wonder and be scared.
4. i'm a stupid girl and i do stupid things.
(omg, it's 3 a.m. and i'm still working on my paper. all i'm required to do is write two pages of something. just two. after a day of thinking, all i have is one page of crap. school isn't as fun as i thought it would be. :( )
i've found that this easiest way to get writing done is to ask yourself one of these questions:
* what do i want to say?
* what do i want to write about?
* what do i know about...?
and just SPILL every answer you have onto the page.
the "real writing" is all in the edit.
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