Picking up the Pieces

Well, today is day seven. I have made it through a week without too many battle scars. It has been a rough week, and of course not without tears. But I am stronger for it. Stronger in who I am and most importantly stronger in my faith and relationship with God. I could so easily have drifted down the path of severe depression (a place, unfortunately, I know all too well), but rather chose to take the hard road. I fought through it, knowing that with God carrying me I would only get stronger.

I am proud of myself for how I handled things. I was angry at first, but didn't lash out in any horrific way. I wrote an email that appologized for any bad behaviour and said that I was praying for him and wished God's blessing on him. It was not accepted that day, but on Monday night we had a long conversation on MSN (so I could translate everything into Spanish). It started as "Theresa did everything wrong" thing and I was about to sign off when I got an apology. I was shocked. Not that it made me go running back with open arms, because that won't happen, but it made me realize that maybe in time we can at least be friends.

I still have hard times where it seems I can think of nothing else but with God's help I am slowly working on thinking of other things, focusing my attention on more important issues such as finding a job and making money to pay off my schooling. Or perhaps follow my previous dream and continue on into graduate studies. The possibilities are endless. Thanks friends for helping keep my afloat with your prayers and words of encouragement you truly are gifts from God. I love you.

Sadness and a New Beginning

How fitting that my last post was titled happiness and this post is sadness. For all the happiness I talked about in my last post I have equal amounts of sadness now. The sadness comes as a result of love lost.

Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life, I ended my engagement and relationship with Manuel. In the past two months he became a very different person then the one I fell in love with. It's like an alter ego took over his body or something. A night and day difference in his personality from when he left here till he got home. I wonder if he flew through the Bermuda Triangle? I cannot even really explain it. The past 2 months should have been an exciting time of wedding planning but rather it was miserable and full of arguments. Now, I expected the arguments to come, no relationship is without a spat here and there, especially in a situation such as mine where we have major cultural differences. For the most part I gave in to a lot changes Manuel wanted me to make in regards to what I always dreamed of for my wedding. It ended up becoming Manuel's wedding and I was just showing up. I never knew there gave such a thing as groomzilla but in this case there does. I also found that slowly he was trying to change me into a complete different person, and I was letting it happen. He didn't like this about me or that about me and I tried my darndest to change everything I could. But slowly I began to realize I was not me anymore, and what Manuel wanted me to be was never going to happen. He wanted me to become completely Latino, forget everything Canadian about me. He lied to me about many things I realized and I just knew that I needed to stop this madness. This bi-polar roller coaster that I was riding on. I never knew anymore what I could say to him that would make him laugh or freak out.

Now, after taking a day to look back at the past several months I can't believe I was so blinded, that I was such a fool. How did I not see this? I was so in love that I was willing to do anything and this is what happens to me. I started to see things in a different light when a week and a half ago he accused me of not having a relationship with God. He said I didn't know God and that I shouldn't talk about Him because I didn't care anyway. Thats when I started to really realize that I could not be stuck in this relationship. We did patch things up for a week and a bit, but then yesterday it all came to an end. This time it was about money and once again me being at fault for everything. I am willing to take blame when I need to, and I am positive I have not been perfect in this relationship but I do know that someone else needs to take part of that blame and he was not willing to. Everything was my fault.

Now, I am not writing this to tell the world what a horrible person Manuel is, I am writing this as a sort of therapy as well as a way of telling my side of the story. Like I said, I know I am to blame for a good part of what went wrong in this relationship. Maybe I didn't pray about it enough or I didn't try hard enough or got angry when I misunderstood something. Maybe its the sociologist in me that had me fighting for my rights from day one and didn't like being told what to do by a man. But one thing I know for sure, we could not go on the way we were.

I have learned that I will never take my single life for granted anymore. I will never look at a couple and wish I was like them. I agree with Paul now, being single is better. You can't get hurt. I have loved and lost. I have been hurt bad, I never want to go through that again. I never want to make myself so vulnerable that I can be hurt like that. I have realized that there is no one out there for me, and I am okay with that. I am the bride of Christ and that is the only bride I need to be.