Today our youngest left for a gap year on other continents. We won't see her or hear much from her for three months, then again in spring.
Last winter, before D-day, my fWS had been planning that our marriage would quietly end this fall with daughter's departure. Since D-day, we are both hopeful for a brighter future together with a stronger bond and a marriage we both deserve.
But things are still very hard, and we have a long way to go.
This is a poignant day for me. I am feeling the emotions of our daughter's growing up and leaving and the end of our lives as parents of kids-at-home (though we have a boomerang at home right now)on one hand, but also the pain of knowing that our marriage almost would have been ending now - but what's keeping it together is the most devastating thing that could have happened. Emotionally paradoxical. Bittersweet feelings of the kid growing up, pain of the D-day, a strange pain that without the D-day I would have been headed for a different kind of pain in the coming months, and some glimmers of hope for joy and renewal, and for the time we will have together without having to navigate all the houseful of kids.
By the way this is my first post with the little "f" in front of the WS. My fWS has made so much progress and is learning so much about himself and how he got into this predicament. He has earned the "f."
And I am learning to feel mixtures of emotions, pulling me in many directions at once. Today is a sad-good day.
