I would have been married eight years today.

When the new year loomed large and unavoidable before me, I knew I had to take it as an opportunity to move my life forward. I knew I'd spent months in an unhealthy place; or rather, that my sadness and frustration and sense of incredulity were spiraling into an unhealthy place, and I knew I had to do something (anything) to pull myself out.

In the three months since the new year began, I have moved to a better place. I don't know exactly what makes it better beyond the fact that the sadness no longer threatens to eat me alive. I have put all my effort into therapy, into seeking perspective and understanding, into spending quality time with people I love - my family, my friends, and most especially, the small boy of my heart. I haven't valued my family and friends as much as I have this last year. But it is their words, their perspectives, their support that have greatly helped me process and basically survive all this. For every conversation I have, every friend that takes me out and hears me out and offers me their own experiences, I am that much better off.

But on a personal level, if I'm honest, there isn't much that I've done that is thoughtful and precisely considered (except matters relating to my son) so much as it is quick and decisive. I haven't wanted to think, haven't allowed myself any extended amount of time to delve into my feelings. I know what I feel, and my thoughts make themselves known whether I want them to or not. So I have not allowed them to really take over me or my time, choosing instead to give them 15 minutes before I slam the door on them and forcefully move on to something else.

I have not thought this a poor move on my end. My time in therapy is the space I allow myself to dig deep and search for answers, meaning and healing. To allow myself any more, to keep being "Tere" and doing this shit non-stop, has felt sick and crazy.

Regardless of what excuses I might give, the truth is that I have felt too exhausted to keep thinking. I haven't wanted to think. I haven't wanted to keep crying and feeling like shit. I've wanted to feel normal. I've wanted a taste of life where I am good enough as is, where I can breathe a little easy and not have to justify my thoughts and opinions and feelings to anyone. I've wanted to be around people who think nice things about me. I've wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet of my home, to feel good in my own skin.

And I have. As best as I can, as much as I am capable of right now, I have. And I've enjoyed it. I've felt grateful for every moment where all I feel is normal, or like I'm closer to being my old self again.

But for all this, there is no forcing away the sadness, the continued sense of utter disappointment. Of course, I did not expect these feelings to just disappear. To an extent, my expectation is that a part of me will always feel sad about this; I will never be 100% o.k. with my marriage ending. If I think that this ending was inevitable under the strain of what our life had become, if I think that given everything, the ending was for the best, it still has no bearing on my deep sense of loss or my sadness or my heart break. The mind is one thing; the heart is entirely something else.

And this last week, my heart has been heavier than it's been in months. The knowledge that today was nearby, that I could do nothing to prevent today from coming, nor push back and not think about today and everything it symbolizes has had me feeling very anxious and upset and tense.

I would have been married eight years today.

I don't know that there's any way to avoid thinking about this, and I hate how irritated I end up feeling when I do. It is a feeling born out of frustration and disappointment, out of feeling so completely damned if I do and damned if I don't that I'm left up against a corner. I feel like a caged lion.

A year ago today, I was happy. While we had been going through some big ups and downs over the previous two years, I still felt happy. I felt like we kept facing challenge after challenge, each one making us stronger. I thought we were both happy to be approaching 10 years together. If nothing else, I felt very in love with my husband.

But what I kept pushing aside was the fact that there were no new problems we were solving, just constantly rehashing the same old ones; I was fighting against the growing feeling that he was not happy, that my marriage had turned into something where each and every day I had to prove my love and fight for trust. As in love as I was, I was also constantly on the defense; I was deeply frustrated and sad. The roller coaster between "happy" and these feelings was getting too insane.

Did I romanticize it all? Was I so wrapped up in the wonder of "10 years", so desperate to finally feel that sense of peace and satisfaction I felt was owed me and us, that I was in partial denial? Where was I that I could see all this good and potential, and at least aim to have my actions reflect that, even as I felt so alone in that feeling? What made us so disparate in our approaches? What prevented me from having better solutions?

I don't know. All I have today is this: I would have been married eight years.

And I wonder if it would have been any better, or any worse.