Ready or not...

Husband recently gave me a book he's been using in his therapy group. "I think you'll like it," he said. I just finished reading the introduction, and was completely inspired by the last few sentences of it.

"A whole new level of being present to life can result with recovery. Life is never the same. There is no going back. Consider yourself called." - Recovery Zone by Patrick Carnes

That definitely resonates with my experience.

As I read on, I realized that I have chosen to try to stay with my family, I have chosen to try to stay with my marriage...but I don't know if I've actually chosen to stay with Husband and I think until I make that choice, I won't be able to do some of the deeper healing that I feel is available to me. I think I'm still holding Husband at a distance (not surprising considering that he decimated the world as I knew it, and his actions were the source of deep pain and anguish for me) but that is painful because the intimacy that I want to have is not there.

I do feel a whole new level of being present to life. I do feel that life will never be the same, and that there's no going back. And I do feel called into something greater than I ever imagined. But something is still missing. And I think that missing thing is the intimacy that I can have with Husband now that we're both actively in recovery, and continuing to reap the discoveries made possible by that work and by therapy.

I think that distance is layer of protection, and that layer as well as my realization of it are all part of my process. Nothing to regret, but something to ponder.

How do I achieve that intimacy with someone who feels so threatening?

As always, I think the answer is surrender. Surrender to the possibility of loss and grief and pain, and to the fact that no matter what, I can't protect myself from those things 100%, especially if I want to live my life to the fullest.

I get that, but it's scary. It feels like the hardest miles of a marathon, and I don't know if I'm ready. But it's probably more a matter of finding the willingness to surrender, rather than the readiness.