Happy

Wow.

So it's been 2.5 months since I took my son and moved out of the home I shared with my husband. It's hard to believe it's already been almost 3 months, it feels like much longer but at the same time it feels like I just blinked and here I am.

I can't even begin to explain the feeling of relief I've had, the feeling of complete and utter happiness. I'd like to try to explain the situation without going too far into detail and destroying anyone's privacy.

Let's just say the situation with my husband had gotten out of hand. Really gotten out of hand. It was nothing but constant, and I do mean constant, yelling and fighting and screaming and cursing and just downright disrespect and abuse. Not the kind of environment that is ideal to be raising a toddler in. Not the kind of environment where I was ok raising my toddler.

Of course we were that way long before we had Caden, but I put up with it and just dealt with it because I refused to fail, I did not want to be another statistic. Another young divorcee. I didn't want people to look down on me, I was really afraid of what they'd think and what they'd say.

But the beauty of having a child and becoming a mother is that you learn to let go of that kind of thing, you become much more selfless because you have to begin making big decisions not based on your OWN comfort and well being, but that of your child. And that is what I did. Being abused is one thing, fighting with, being torn down by and also tearing down another person is something awful when you're alone but it's certainly not something you want your child to grow up seeing.

I would much rather my son grow up in a stable and happy home alone with his mother, seeing his stable and happy father alone on weekends, than raise him in a home where both parents are just angry and abusive to one another on a daily basis. What would I have been teaching him if I'd stayed? That it's ok for Daddy to hurt Mommy? And it's ok for Mommy to take that kind of abuse from Daddy simply because she wants to hold a marriage together because of her pride? That's not what I want my son to get out of life. I want him to learn how to be a whole person. I want him to see me in a good relationship some day with a good man who will treat me right and set a good example for him. And the same with his father. I want Caden to see him happy with a woman he will treat well, who will treat him well in return. I want my son to see his parents happy and functioning so that he can learn to do the same.

Since I moved here I've felt so alive. I've felt so free and happy. And I don't mean the type of freedom that you'd feel simply because you are getting a divorce. I mean freedom to be happy, to be myself without constant ridicule from the one person who should support me above all others. Freedom to feel, to love, and to smile again. I will be honest, I only cried once about the entire situation. I cried the day I left for about 15 minutes in my car. But I haven't looked back a day since. It just feels as if my world is finally right, like until now it's been slightly off on its axis or something. Something just wasn't fitting right.

And now I know, I was just living a life that I wasn't meant to live with a person who I wasn't meant to live it with. Something beautiful came from that life, yes, I got the most wonderful and beautiful child a mother could ask for from it. But maybe that's all it was meant to be. Maybe God has a special purpose for my son and he knew things had to happen just the way they did in order for him to get here.

I do know that I'm on the right path now. Maybe I'm not doing every little thing I should, maybe I'm not in the perfect place with God. But I know my life is headed in the right direction. I've felt it since I packed the last box into that car and pulled out of that driveway. There's just a beautiful calm inside my heart that I've never felt before. A calm that tells me all is well and all is right. And there's a spark of joy in my son now that I've never seen before. A spark that I'm sure was simply suppressed by the negativity and the the hurt and anger he was constantly surrounded by in that house in Alabama. But it's there now, and it's so beautiful, SO so beautiful. I can't describe the way it feels to see my child so happy and to know that it's because I made the right decision for him and for us.

No one will convince me that I'm wrong. I know that God frowns upon divorce. But the Bible gives a couple of situations where divorce is ok, and I have certainly experienced them. I fought with myself for a long time making excuses and telling myself God doesn't like divorce. But the bottom line is, God doesn't like to see his children hurt and disrespected either, and he doesn't expect us to put up with abuse and infidelity for our entire lives. Or to teach our children that it's ok to live that way and take that kind of disrespect from someone who is supposed to love you.

God is ok with my decision, I know that. I feel it deep inside my soul as cheesy as that may sound. But it's absolutely true. I was so broken and so damaged by that relationship that I literally feel as if it never happened. I was pushed so far that I no longer even feel like I was ever a part of that marriage. When I sit and think about it, it honestly feels like something that must have happened ages ago. It feels good to look forward to the future and have a blank canvas for once. Not a canvas filled with promises of continued abuse and pain. Now I'm free to paint the picture I want for my son and myself. A happy and stable picture with limitless horizons and endless choices that we can make together.

For the first time in my life, I am happy.