Real life

Yesterday, due to construction detours, I found myself driving by the last hotel at which Husband met a prostitute (Ashley, April 21, 2007.)

I know of several of the locations at which he had sex with prostitutes, and don't usually drive by them. I used to avoid driving by the massage parlor where he started getting hand jobs with massage, but I'd managed to overcome the dread and anxiety triggered by that place. Same with the street where the strip club he frequented is located. And things have been going well with him, me and us. So the force of my anxiety took me by surprise.

My heart started beating, my breathing got shallow and rapid, and I did everything I could not to look at that place as I sat at the intersection waiting for the light to turn. I just didn't want to be confronted by that building because I knew what had happened in there. It is a physical marker of past events that can not fade over time.

Husband had not wanted me to know the locations of his activities. But I found out some of them before we had talked about it. As I sat at the intersection I wondered if it would be better not to know. But upon reflection I decided that what I was confronting was the truth of my life. And I'd rather know the truth of my own life, and have the pain that comes with that, than to be shrouded in the false bliss of ignorance.

This is my life. These things have happened. I have been hurt and lied to by the person I loved and trusted most in the world. All while he loved me. And he still loves me. That is one of the truths of my life. And there are so many others. And I am fortunate in that most of them do not come with the burning, anxiety ridden pain this one bears. Together they make up my whole life. The good with the bad. The pain with the joy. That is a whole life. That is a real human life.