Deep Peace of the Running Waves to You

And just like that, I was at peace. It sounds so pathetically simple; yet, it has taken me close to a year to come to terms with this unbridled rage. I have been dragging it around like a piece of furniture. A useless piece of furniture I can't sit on or store things in but I have been lugging it behind me just the same.

My ex and I had enjoyed a blissful divorce for nearly four years. Joint custody, joint expenses, joint family gatherings. We even made trips back to Oklahoma together. Then last September, it fell apart in a way that resembled another divorce, only this time, it was to be ugly.

I had learned about his slip of moral consciousness at work and that he was being pursued by a federal prosecutor in July of last year. That didn't phase me much as I had suspected something was going on when I saw him pulling in all that cash. I later broke when I was literally broke, financially. I had paid for all the school fees for the kids. It was a considerable out of pocket expense. I trusted him to pay me his share.  Why write two checks for all this?  I'll cover it and you can pay me back.

But that was not to be. I barged into his house one night in late September and insisted I would not leave until he paid me. I was mean, vile really - because I did this in front of our kids. I pleaded with him, insisted he was a horrible father for not paying for his children's most basic expenses. He refused to pay me, saying he didn't agree with the charges for The Commando to have counseling. Of course I knew it was a stall.

Fast forward to January and our daughter is in his care when her appendix ruptures, spilling poison into her belly and damn near killing her. He didn't see it. He knew she was sick but he assumed it was a stomach flu - for three days, he assumed and assumed and assumed because honestly, I think in his world, in the world of a tender loving dad, he couldn't bring himself to imagine something awful could happen to his daughter.

Within hours of  her being at my house, I called him to escort us to the hospital. I needed his help to carry her because the pain prohibited her from walking. He insisted we make a stop at the all night clinic. Still not able to embrace the gravity of the situation. The clinic nurse took one look at our child and sent us directly to the hospital. I spent a week ushering my daughter through this nightmare. With each scream in the middle of the night, my hostility grew. At some unknown point, during the course of that ordeal, I was possessed by the most hateful, rancid, malevolent, caustic and vengeful thoughts that have ever coursed through my brain. And ya'll know, I've been through a lot.

Now we are facing the cold, harsh reality of their dad being sentenced to some portion of time in a minimum security federal prison. He agreed to come to The Commando's counselor with us and he did an exceptional job telling them what had to have been the most painful words a father could ever say to his children. Daddy made a mistake and I'm going to have to pay the consequences.

Yet my hatred persisted. He wanted to continue to join the counseling sessions. The very sessions he used as an excuse to withhold money from me. I haven't been able to look him directly in the eyes for months now.

He's going to jail and I have no idea how I'm going to support our kids full time on my own. He still argues with me about his financial obligations to them, which sets me on fire because the mortgage will need to be paid at the end of this month and I will not have the funds to pay it. It didn't take much, once you add a $3,000 deductible for the hospital stay onto the rest of the expenses I have paid and well, let's just say my savings is pretty much gone. It would be safe to say, I was standing at a crossroads and both roads were pointing me in the direction of wanting him to die and burn in hell.

But Friday morning, just this past Friday, I woke up and was immediately struck with two words, "forgive him". Before I could gather my senses and wipe the sleep out of my eyes, I was being pressed to make amends. I wasn't sure why. I had spoken to a friend the night before, someone who had surfed these waves of anger with me and I had been visited by my dad in a dream.  Perhaps it was those conversations or maybe it was just time.

Maybe I can see the road ahead of me and I know I am being beckoned by the universe, by God to let this go. One cannot proceed to a new life to dream the dreams they wish to come true while dragging a heavy piece of furniture behind them. We have been through tumultuous waters, rough waves, possibly even a tsunami and yet it does me no good to sit amongst the rubble and weep, for it is done. The waves landed upon the shore, sweeping my feet from underneath me once again but I will remember the Celtic prayer that lives within me.  Deep peace of the running waves to you.

Messages are pouring in to my head - be still, stop thinking, feel, take action, visualize, repeat. Be still, stop thinking, feel, take action, visualize, repeat. Letting go of the anger that crept up on me and seized my sensibilities will allow me to lunge past being still and stop this incessant thinking. I am set to feel, take action, and to visualize my way to my destiny.

And it is a destiny that includes peace, for the sake of these children. I am at peace, a deep peace of the running waves.