Good Bye

I suspect you do have me on your 'done list' or have added me to Junk, but here is the truth that I need to tell you...I have met someone and we are in love, the healthy kind of love that you likely know...the kind that I didn't know until now.

All I ever wanted to do was clear things up - clean the slate, so that I can move on with my life (I was having trouble finding the right words there...but you did provide them to me in your last e-mail to me) - I finally understand what you were trying to tell me. I have a healthy heart now...and I am moving on. I finally have clarity. I understand what happened, and why...it has taken me a very long time to get here...but I am here.

Life has a way of sorting itself out doesn't it? The man I am seeing has a special-needs daughter who is 25, so although she is an adult, she is still a child. I get to have the child I have so longed to have. He also has a healthy son, who is 23...so I also have a chance to be a step-grandmother someday, something I thought was lost for me forever.

So...life is good, and sorted, without me having to do anything more than just open my heart and live it, instead of looking backwards and dwelling on what I missed.

You never did understand how horrible my marriage was or what a mess my life was - and how could you. I have worked very hard to clean up the mess I made of things and to get back on track. Granted it took me many years to get here...but I am here...in one piece, and still willing to open my heart to someone and try again. I am very proud of the progress that I have made and am still making. It hasn't been an easy journey, but I have now found someone who I think I have been searching for all my life...and we are so very happy.

So many things that you said to me were true...but I was not ready to hear them. Now I understand. It's too bad you couldn't have said them in a gentler way...but that is not in your nature. There is a saying that goes "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior" and you behaved in 2007 the same way you behaved in 1981. It is who you are...not who I wanted you to be - nothing has changed, nor should it. You are who you are and so am I.

All of this is my way of saying ... finally I am ready to set myself free from you for the final time in my life...let you go...let go of my dream of us somehow rectifying a horrible wrong done to me by you. I thought I had to forgive you, but I was wrong, it is I who needed the forgiveness and I have finally forgiven myself for making a mistake - I made a mistake in thinking you were a good person -- you aren't now...nor were you then, but it is who you are and I can accept that now. I can't make you into some fairytale person who I had somehow softened over the years - you aren't that person - you are you. I can accept that because I don't need that fairytale anymore because I have a real man, who is all the things I hoped you could be...and more.

So, good bye Rett