Yesterday I had the incredible experience of bringing both of my sons to work with me. Yup, it was the annual Bring Your Kids to Work Day at the office and our agency hosted 525 kids. Seriously. 525. I had the ambitious idea to bring both of my children, ages 1 and 3, knowing that my 1 year old would do anything to keep up with his big bro. We had a wonderful morning and my boys were absolutely giddy. My 3 year old was the perfect age- he took in everything around him. My youngest - not so much- but he still enjoyed being a part of it all. They met several of my colleagues and actually talked to them this year (the last time I took my oldest, he refused to speak to anyone). All in all, it was a great morning. My nanny met me in the lobby at noon to take the boys home- both of them whipped from all the fun they'd had. As I returned back to work, I was complimented several times about how cute my kids were. How much they had grown. How blonde their hair was. I could be wrong, but I felt like everyone was rooting for us. They seemed happy to see us all happy and well adjusted after what we had been through in the past year. And then as the clock was nearing 5, I sat down with some coworkers to chat. It started with my children. Then came questions about their Dad. And then came the question. The question that I couldn't really answer.
Why Did you Marry Him?
To be honest- I'm not even sure if those were the exact words- I kind of blacked out that moment. But I know that question was asked in some capacity. It was amazing how those five simple words could yield an answer too complex to form. I felt like the wind had gotten knocked out of me. I mean, here I had been working on myself for damn near a year and then one simple question comes up and suddenly I'm speechless. I had spent so much time asking myself Why did he leave me? that I had never even considered the question above. Why did I marry him? I couldn't answer it. I don't even know what I said- I think I just laughed it off. The question stung. I know it wasn't intended to, but it came out that way. I carried that bad feeling around with me for a couple hours. I would forget momentarily why I was feeling bad, and then suddenly I'd remember and the feeling would return even stronger. And finally, that evening I realized something that made that horrible, lingering feeling finally disappear. I really didn't know the answer to that question anymore. My ex (then husband) had changed so much from the person I knew that I literally could not remember why I married him. In fact, I could barely remember who he was. If that wasn't the best feeling I'd had in a long time, I didn't know what was. I was forgetting him. I was forgetting us.
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