One Man's Trash

After the ex moved out at the beginning of July, one of my dear friends suggested I jump into the dating game. Why wait? God knows my ex hadn't and that was while I was still "blissfully" married to him. I weighed that advice against the people who told me I needed to wait a year, at least, before jumping into a relationship. 

Dating is something I've never actually done before, at least not dating more than one person. I'd only ever been with my ex. What do people even do? As a young lady, I was taught that dating was specifically for the purpose of finding your mate. Is it any surprise I married the first guy I dated? And while that isn't untrue, it turns out you can go out with a person and have absolutely no intention of ever marrying them. 

Dating for fun. It's possible. Who knew?

I stood on the precipice of this vast canyon of unknown experiences and was given this additional, and life changing, piece of advice. 

"Kate, there will be men you want to hang out with, and men you want to sleep with. The trick is finding the one you want to do both with." As I contemplated stepping over the edge, I didn't hear the added, "and you'll probably have to go through a lot before you find him."

This is not the post to talk about the descent and what manner of things I found there. Oh no. This is the post to tell you about two things I've learned:

First, unless you have an idea of what you're worth, you will put up with a lot of things you ought not to for longer than you ought to. Take it from me, someone who denied my marriage had actually been very bad for a very long time. 

Second, my new mantra is "truth and perspective." 

I am shocked at the way my ex sees me. It's ugly. In his mind, I've been as ugly to him for years as he is ugly to me now. He doesn't see me as I am, and I no longer see him as who I thought he was all this time. According to him, I've been worthless. Worse than that, I've been a soul-sucking leech, the reason for his financial ruin, for his giving up the only job he ever knew, for his three little "consequences," twelve years of misery and, to date, his greatest regret. 

That hurt. But that's perspective without the balance of truth. Nothing will change it for him. 

And for a while I thought nothing would change it for me. I thought the world of my ex for a very long time, a lot of hero worship. For him to think those things of me is devastating and some of it really cut me to the core. 

But after a summer in the canyon of vast experiences, I can tell you that perspective always needs to be balanced with the truth. Not just his of me, but my own of myself. 

If I hadn't learned this before now, I would be second guessing something that happened to me recently. Someone I've known for a very long time looked at me and saw something valuable. I don't know what that means, where it will lead, or what will happen in the future. But I do know that while the perspective of one says I wasn't worth keeping, the perspective of another is that I'm worth having. 

Rathe than question the latter, I've decided to take it as truth. 

Maybe, just maybe, I can be treasure this time.