Showers

/ CrazyKat1963

raindrops_falling_onto_water

As I stood in the shower this morning, going about the usual routine of washing and conditioning my hair, cleansing my body, shaving my legs, activities that don’t require much thought, I realized in my mind I was planning the day ahead. I was thinking about what was on the schedule. I had spoken to my mother an hour before about her and my father joining us in November on our trip to Japan to see the autumn leaves and celebrate the Princess’ first birthday. We have business in Japan, and Blue Eyes and I have been planning this trip back to see that little nugget of happiness pretty much since the day we had to leave her behind in January (A ray of sunshine). We will be getting together with the parental unit this weekend to discuss logistics of Tokyo & Kyoto in November, and also a Rhine River Cruise for next spring. We are trying to get some really fun quality time in with my step father while we still can. He is an amazingly strong and healthy 75 year old, other than the fact that he is dying from prostate cancer. We cherish every moment we have with him. Life is short.

I also thought about the work documents needing review and a hair appointment this afternoon. Dinner will be spaghetti with sauce and spinach salad. I thought about making meatballs, but they are so labor intensive and I usually bake them and it is slated to be 90 degrees today. It was at that moment in the shower that I realized things are returning to normal. Not completely, but slowly, methodically we are getting to a safer place. Blue Eyes went to his 12 step meeting this morning, per usual. He was scheduled to have lunch with a guy from his meeting. Blue Eyes is working regularly again. He is also making sure the construction on our beach house is moving along, finally. He is diligently working his recovery. He attended a Buddhist retreat last Saturday and the theme was ‘Happiness and Letting Go.’ He was beaming with hope, full of enthusiasm and excitement when he returned home and told me all about his day. His passion was intoxicating. I am so happy he has found this new spiritual fortitude.

After exiting the shower and while drying my hair, I sat and thought about so many showers, so many months ago. The shower had been a place of agony. I would step into the shower and set to washing my hair and my mind would play those vivid and destructive images over and over again. I would feel totally alone as I stood there seemingly paralyzed by pain and fear. Many days I felt so weak I didn’t think I could stand, and I would slide my back down the wall and sit on the shower floor letting the water pound my back as tears streamed down my face. Sometimes I would sob so violently I thought surely someone would come to see if I was alright, but they didn’t. I guess they couldn’t hear me. Some of my loneliest hours were spent in that shower. When I would come out of the bathroom, I felt no better. The tears I cried after d-day were not like tears I have cried in the past. The tears brought about by betrayal were unrelenting and brought no sense of peace or contentment or resolution. They drained me of every ounce of energy I possessed. They left me depleted and with no will to move forward.

I am thankful those days are over. I have not cried in the shower in months. I barely cry at all anymore. Not like I used to. Every once in a while, a few tears sloppily fall down my cheeks when Blue Eyes and I talk about what was lost in the name of addiction, what he gave away that belonged to me, how he let his own pain perpetrate horrible torment on me, down to my soul. But now, now, I wipe them away and move on. I move forward. We have one life and it is short. I am very glad that my trauma has a shelf life. That the trauma will not spoil me forever, I am grateful.

❤

photo credit: Raindrops falling onto water. Colours by Murray Mitchell (www.murraymitchell.com)

20 thoughts on “Showers”

  2. Oh how I can’t wait for the day I go months without crying in the shower! It comes and goes at this stage for me. It would have been more months but The Player wasted a year. Sigh.

    I am, however, happy for you and your crying free shaving and showering!

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    • I don’t think our healing can really begin, if we decide to stay, until we feel like they are legitimately in solid recovery. They can do all sorts of stop gap measures, and stop acting out, but for me, I don’t think I truly felt safe until I was convinced, not by his words but by his actions, that he was really pulling it off and he was really getting it. All of the sudden he stopped focusing so much on how difficult sobriety was, and started focusing on all the ways he started feeling better about himself and how much better his life is without the lying and cheating. All of the sudden I wasn’t afraid of staying anymore and I focused far less on his recovery and more on me and my strength. I know I sound like a broken record, but for BE it has been the 12 step and the buddhism. I haven’t really changed my life. I am still the same person doing the same things I did before d-day, but it is less of a struggle now than even two months ago. BE is set in his ways and I figured he would just fall back on old habits, overworking, spending his time on his phone and laptop, being inwardly resentful doing things he didn’t want to do, but he is embracing those outer circle activities and actually building new good habits that I see every day. Are things perfect? HELL NO! But serious progress is being made, and it does feel so much better. Things feel more right than they have in a long time and my shower time is much more productive. I can now go back to obsessing over schedules, and lists, and meals, beach houses! 😊 Hugs to you. One way or the other, i hope things settle down for you soon. ♥️

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  3. Great post KC! OMG the tears in the shower – the isolating and lost feelings of despair. My time in the shower was ghastly when it was a fresh wound but yes, you’re right- it recedes. You write with such optimism and hope and I think this is reflected in how your life is taking shape. You are making such healthy strong choices. Hugs to you x

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  8. I have cried so many times on the shower floor, just as you described, sure that my heart would burst. Once, and only once, my husband heard me and he got in with me and pulled me out. I couldn’t even move. My heart still hurts. But I don’t cry in the shower anymore. I do cry every single day, but not in the crushing way I did then. Now I have those days about once a week. My daily tears are those that well up and spill over, just from the sadness that, yes, this is still true today and it will always be true. Maybe that’s progress.

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    • It IS progress and you will keep making progress. What has been done is horrible, but you will survive it. I used to cry every day too. Time does heal and it puts things into perspective too. What happened will never be right or fair, it will just be something we did not choose and that we cannot change. But we still do have the right to choose happiness. ❤

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      • Yes. You are right. I am only now starting to see that I have any choice in how I feel at all. I just felt so crushed that I couldn’t imagine happiness at all, let alone choosing it. It felt like it was ripped away. But sometimes I have been deciding to let my thoughts stay with me and not ruin a shared happy moment, even though I may be thinking about her or the affair. I decide I want him to be thinking about me and being happy and so I choose to keep my negative thought to myself. It works about half the time. Baby steps. xx

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    • It has been a roller coaster ride, a very painful one, but thankfully I feel like things are slowly reaching a point where happy is replacing the trauma, and I do want to live a productive life again. The remorseful spouse is a huge part of the deal. I plan to read your blog when I catch my breath here. Thanks for the lovely comment.

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