Despite What I’ve Been Through, I’m Grateful For Having Lost Everything

Despite the cost, I have gratitude for having lost everything. That’s what I needed to get the clarity that has reshaped and refocused my perspective about everything life.

I have learned by having a brick wall fall on me about what’s really important in life. I’ve learned and realized all the mistakes I have made, all the wrong ways I handled situations and mostly all the wrong ways I treated you. I’ve learned that the anger I showed toward you was really anger I had for myself. Anger for feeling that I wasn’t successful enough, wealthy enough, good looking enough to be worthy of you. My anger was never about you. It was never an accurate reflection of how I felt towards you or how highly I thought of you. It was only about my own self doubts and self criticisms.

I’ve learned that when I don’t look inward, I lash outward. I’ve learned how to channel my emotions and more importantly how to understand them better. I’ve learned how words can be more hurtful than anything physical. I’ve learned that success can only be measured by how you make your loved ones feel when they are around you. I’ve learned that regret is probably the worst of all human emotions. Regret for things said, things left unsaid, things done, words used, regret for not allowing my mouth or my actions to be an accurate reflection of my heart. Regret and wonder – If I had said this instead of that – If I had pulled you closer instead of pushing you away.

I’ve spent many nights with the what-ifs and the what-could-have-beens. I look at the boys and realize that ultimately I failed them. I wake up in the morning and know they are waking up to another day without their mother. Another day where I am all they have in their world. Where they really should have you too. If I were better to their mother, they might still have her instead of miss her. I’ve learned that the things I enjoy the most are the simplest things – things that money can’t buy and you can’t order online. I’ve learned about my role – who I was, who I am and mostly who I am supposed to be. I’ve learned that it’s never about the end game but about the journey, the peace and not the drama.

In so many ways I am no longer in the past. I think differently now and I do differently now. My mind is healthier – my body too – but my heart is stuck. It’s stuck because I know what I lost. Whoever said that it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all clearly had no experience with the losing part. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual – you don’t get to check out the chapter on how to best handle a situation or have a diagram of what not to do but at least you can learn from your mistakes and move forward having grown as a human being.

I used to always think there would be plenty of time for things in the future – We’ll have time in the future for the walk, we’ll have time in the future to sit and talk – we’ll have time in the future for all the things you wanted for us. I took the future for granted and just assumed it would be there. We would always have tomorrow or next week. Like an idiot I threw away so many todays because I was banking on the tomorrows. I took our time for granted and that ultimately means I took you for granted too. I foolishly believed that work and income would be the ultimate necessity that I could provide for you. In hind sight and in growth I have realized that what I should have been providing you with was the emotional and spiritual security that a husband should.

I know you think I want to go back – go back to our marriage, go back to our lives but I don’t. I want to go forward. Forward as the man I have become and am becoming. Forward as your rock but also as your pillow when you need a soft place to fall. I want to be the one who stops everything he is doing just because you entered the room and the one whose day doesn’t begin until I see your smile. I want to be the man you come home to and the man you think of when you’re gone. I want to protect you and to cherish you.

You think if we’re meant to be together that the universe will make it happen and push us there. That doubt you have about letting go – those tugs at your heart and the pangs in your gut – that is the universe. That is the universe whispering that we are not done. We are tethered to one another with the love we still have for each other. That is the universe saying we owe it to ourselves to make sure – to be completely certain that these two souls who found each other once, who loved each other enough to commit to one another for life, who still can’t let go of each other are really destined to be together.

I love you – all of you. I love your mind and I love your spirit. I love your imperfections and I love your heart. You make me a better person and I want to be that for you to. Someday when I am at the end of my life I can’t bear to thing of the possibility that I might look back and wonder what might have been. If only. Had we had another chance.

I want to look back some day with pride and with love – pride that we raised a family – pride that I made you happy. Pride that we made it through. I want to teach out son how to properly love and respect a woman. I want to teach our daughter how she deserves for a man to lover her. I want to teach our children that love is worth fighting for and that it is in your toughest moments that you hold on the hardest. I want to teach our children about what it is that really matters in life and not to get distracted by silly shiny objects. I want to tell our grandchildren about how we met and to laugh at all the silly pictures we have taken over the years.

I want to leave the past where it is – to be grateful for it and how it made me better for today but I can’t leave my love for you there. I love you – I love you and I want you to be happy and to have everything in life you deserve.

It’s a story for another time and I pray that someday I will have the opportunity to share it with you but I recently learned from a dear friend about the significance and symbolism of the number 54 in Judaism because it is 3 times 18. 18 is about good luck and 3 is about having harmony, synthesis, new beginnings and two entities uniting to become one. Fifty-four is a number that my friend holds very close for personal reasons. Hearing about that made me reflect about us.

On May 21, 2011 we started a family. May 21st is a day I will always cherish and will never regret. It was the beginning for so many things that were right then we went off course. I don’t want the marriage we had, I want the marriage we should have had.

If you sit in silence and in peace and allow for the whispers from the universe to convince you that you are not ready to let us go – that there is love here and where there is love there is possibility. If you allow yourself to feel without pausing at every doubt, allow yourself to believe that we can be who we are supposed to be together than we shouldn’t quit. Not now. I know your head leads you in numerous directions and you’re confused. I don’t want to push you or chase you or try to sell you on us. I want to give you space and time – time to reflect – time to think – time to get centered.

Fifty-four days from May 21st is July 14th. I will be at the Jupiter Light House @ 3pm. If you have listened to the whispers and can allow your heart to give our family another chance, I will see you there. I will be just a boy standing in front of a girl asking her to love him. July 14th can be the first day of the couple we should have been

I’m not going to call you or text you or reach out in anyway. I want you to have clarity – to follow your heart because it’s what you want to do. If I don’t see you on July 14th I will know that you have decided to let us go. Until then I will hold on with everything I have to the dream of what we can be.

All my love, all my heart,

Gregory.