A Time for Healing

talking with a friend earlier today about being particular about who i invite to my home triggered a not so long ago memory-- a horror, actually-- the memory that started the unraveling of my marriage of ten years, five years ago.

i was telling my friend how i remembered not so long ago how the ex invited a buddy to our home because the buddy was down and out on luck in his life, and how the buddy almost lived with us as he ate with us, played with the kids, watched tv with us... and even slept on the couch sometimes when it got too late for him to go home.

i hated it, first because im a very private person and ive always believed that a home should be one's sanctuary, and only very close family members and lifelong friends should be let in, much less stay in for any length of time.

i hated it too, because even if i was 8 months pregnant at that time, the buddy made passes at me and i found a photograph in our family album i had of me in a swimsuit suddenly taken from the album at about that time when he was around.

and i also hated the way he tried to get close to my eldest daughter, who was only seven years old then, which disturbed me so... as he liked having her sit on his lap while watching tv... even when there was a lot of space left on the couch for my daughter to sit on!

anyway i told the ex about it, many times, but he just brushed me off, saying i was being too imaginative, and even defended his friend and accused me of being heartless for not being more sympathetic of his friend's predicament.

finally, i gave birth to our youngest child. the ex said he couldnt be with me at the hospital as he had two construction projects going on out of town and which he couldnt leave for long to the foremen. so he asked his buddy to be with me instead to assist me in my hospital needs.

i cringed at the thought and managed to ignore the buddy and just maintain a modicum of civility to him, even as i recovered from the childbirth. still, it upset me that when the nurse asked me to go with her to the sitz bath room, he asked to come with us!!!

the ex left the money to pay the hospital bills with, as well as the car keys, in the drawer beside my bed, and instructed the buddy to process the billing and checkout and take us home in our car. he didnt even come to see the new baby.

despite my heavy bleeding and grogginess, i still was able to scheme enough to ask the buddy on some errand out of the hospital. and during that time he was away, with only my eldest daughter to keep me company, i managed to go and up and down the many hospital floors to process my bill, pay it and check my self and the baby out as fast as we could.

i hastily packed our things, placed my eldest at the backseat of the car with only pillows around her supporting her as she gingerly held her newborn sister close to her, while i, still profusely bleeding and groggy, drove home.

*****

since i told my friend about this five hours ago, i have not stopped crying.

the tears have finally come, after all these years spent on being angry and using my anger to break my way out of the horrors i was in. i remember those months and years since then as being driven mainly by rage and fury, and everybody marveled at the courage i mustered to break through.

especially since i never cried.

nobody has seen me cry.

until today.

the tears are flowing and they can't be stopped.

i don't intend to stop them either.

*****

the time to heal has finally come, i guess.

awash in my own tears, i embrace being cleansed and being made whole again...

i embrace being made whole at last.