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Dear Body, Dear Me

Dear Body, Dear Me, If I close my eyes and press rewind and watch my life get pulled backwards, I see my body start to shrink. My limbs grow shorter and smaller, my features softer, less-defined. I go back through high school, right back through my awkward phase, pronounced chubby cheeks, braids, and freckles all return. Once I started playing sports, running with reckless abandon, kicking, throwing, passing a ball, being part of a team, teammates turn quickly into friends, my body was my favorite toy. The ability to look across a field or court, and with just a glance direct the ball to a particular spot was my favorite talent. It felt like my body came pre-programmed with that hand-eye coordination. I was never graceful, never particularly fast, or particularly anything but all around athletic. In the thick of action, my body would start out-pacing my mind and the clumsy thought process would quiet and give way to reflex and muscle memory. The love of that feeling has never stopped...

Spitting Nails

I had a panic attack. Something that happens to other people. Something you read about. Something that just doesn't happen to me. It was awkward. My mind went on the fritz to the tune of the old AOL login sound effects. After almost 4 days of little sleep, little food, and little to eat, I spent Saturday afternoon trying to nap but just sitting in our bed. My mind spun it's tires and revved the engine while stuck in the mud of all my greatest fears. Relational trauma takes 5 years to heal. I'm going to be a sad and weird mom around my son until just in time for kindergarten. All my memories from my marriage are fake, tainted by my husband secretly thinking how disgusting I look and basically waiting to shoo us out of the way so he could be alone. The rest of my life, I'm going to be looking behind my shoulder, having to babysit him, will I ever really trust again? The old carefree, loves to laugh me is gone, my life will never be the same, Nate killed that me and now ...

Day 3

Day 1, I found out my life was not what I thought it was. My husband confessed longterm betrayal, a pornography addiction that started soon after we got married 3 years ago. Day 2, Shock/Anger/Sadness/Humiliation/Research Day 3, I am told that if we are to stay together, we must build a brand new relationship. There is nothing to build on. Our old relationship was propped up by daily lies, but was rotten to the core, an ugly old Hollywood storefront prop. The confession didn't break us, it just tapped the wall and made it crash down. Since porn addiction covers a lack of sharing, intimacy and vulnerability from the addict, and demands a steady, healthy serving of lies, I don't really know the man next to me. He is a stranger. In some ways, I am a stranger to him. Two spouses, a new relationship. We are arranging our next marriage, to each other. We have to choose each other again. I want to document this process, have an outlet so I don't drown in all the feelings, an...