Resolutions

Jane at Midlifebloggers.com had a challenge today for those of us who blog. The challenge was to deconstruct at least one of our resolutions for this year.

So here we go…

Last year, my resolution was to work on having a peaceful heart. That meant not letting the crazy get to me, to try to rebuild my shattered, busted-ass broken heart and try to make it healthy enough, after years of abuse, to maybe be able to let someone else in.

And I achieved that. I worked very hard in 2011 to keep focused on my peaceful heart and it’s brought me a very special someone who, through just being his wonderful, easy self, is helping me unlearn the lessons from my past.

And I think that’s my resolution for 2012 - unlearn the lessons from my past.

And there are so many lessons to unlearn.

The biggest lesson to unlearn is that I am always wrong. Between my family and my ex-husband, I’ve had it almost literally beaten into me that no matter what decision I make, it’s bad, it’s wrong and there will be punishment to follow, mostly emotional punishment but punishment nonetheless, usually in the form of being ignored or dismissed or treated like I don’t exist.

And I need to learn that I am not always wrong. Occasionally, yes. But always?

And I need to work past that idea of being wrong so that I don’t double and triple and quadruple guess myself when I want to do something as simple as text the man I’m dating to see if he wants to see me.

And I need to learn to trust my instincts again in my personal life. After spending years being told my decisions are wrong, my instincts in my personal life have gotten buried. I don’t know if what I feel is right because what I feel has been wrong before. And I’ve learned my lessons well - I don’t make good decisions.

And that simple lesson - that every decision I make is wrong - leads to so many other issues and emotional grenades in my life. It creates a huge tsunami of fear when it comes to everything I do personally (professionally, I have no fear), especially in this brand new relationship with the Filmmaker. Because if every decision I make is wrong, then there’s no way that this can last, that it’s just a matter of time before I make a wrong decision and he will vanish from my life.

And that simple lesson makes me afraid to participate in this relationship. It leaves me terrified about doing the simplest thing because, in the end, it will mean he will be gone, just simply vanish because I made the wrong decision.

But in reflecting on this idea that all my decisions are wrong, there is one decision that was not.

And that was the decision to leave him. Leave my husband of almost 15 years after finally realizing how deep the emotional abuse went, after finally realizing that if I stayed with him, I’d be dead.

That decision I made in a split second, totally instigated by my deepest, most primal instinct, is the one decision I know, without a doubt, was the best and most not-wrong decision I have ever made in my life. Because if I hadn’t made that decision, I wouldn’t be here today. I’d be dead, either at my own hand or possibly at his. That I do know, without a doubt, without hesitation.

So my challenge for 2012 is to unlearn that lesson, unlearn that I am always wrong. To learn that my instinct is strong and right and powerful. To learn that, even if a decision is wrong, it’s not catastrophic. And if a single wrong decision about something as silly as a text message is going to drive the Filmmaker away, well, then, he really isn’t the right guy for me to be with right now.

Not sure how to do this and not sure what it means but I’m going to work very hard to not let the echoes of my past not just interfere in my present, but pull me out of my present and drag me, kicking and screaming, back into my past.

And then maybe my peaceful heart and my restored instinct will let me move on to whatever the next stage is as I approach 50 and ponder the next thirty years of my life.