I've been really sick again - this time it is totally respiratory - so my brain isn't functioning as well either. I've just spent hours and hours locked in a "nightmare" - trying to re-do it or trying to make sense of it. So, I'm writing before I lose it.
While locked in my "dream world" I spent time alone with my in-laws and then so did my husband. My ex-husband. What do I really call him here? We are broken apart civilly but not in the eyes of the church and he has a girlfriend he says he wants to marry. Here's what I've discovered: he hasn't taken her to work (either location) or to mass (our parish) - so he isn't showing her off to the people that he would normally care about showing her off to. Is it because he fears the repercussions? He wants to marry her but he can't take her to places where I am known? (It is very true that I have friends who won't let their husbands go to one of his workplaces because he works there but I have never told him that). And, the other location, well, his boss is like another father to our children - I know he knows how HE feels about this entire predicament - he's lost all rights to travel overseas for business because of it (whether he knows it is because of his actions or not - however, I know). So, where did he take her all summer? WHO did he show her off to? The little girl at the bank saw her once or twice because her dad lives in the same apartment building.
So, in my dream (nightmare), I spent time with my in-laws (only the nieces/nephews were younger but my children weren't). Then, he went and spent time with them. He was totally carefree - in his own little world. Happy to be back in familiar surroundings - while I was miserable. I was totally miserable alone. He was carefree and oblivious.
Then, I somehow ended up going to church with my Dad after mass. He had received some sort of "medal" for being such a model citizen for the congregation. I was enjoying spending time with my Dad - and I kept comparing his attitude. carefree and oblivious. Totally unaware of the hurt that he had caused his children over the years. Then I would see my husband - totally carefree and oblivious. They seemed to be one and the same.
I was the one in pain throughout every hour of that dream/nightmare - I won't go through all the sufferings I encountered and each time I either ended up seeing either my Dad or him - and each time they were carefree and oblivious - happy to be on their own. What is this telling me? Just to let everything go? My position will never be understood?
The saints who seem to speak to me: St. Monica, Mother Teresa, and St. Helena - they all leave me with the same message with the three people who have confounded me most in my life. I have to accept them where they are, love them for what they gave me, and focus on the blessings that I have right now in front of me. Everything else (if I suffer for it) is an offering to God.
This is my Advent.