If you have loved and lost...

"'Tis better to have loved and lost 
than never to have loved at all." 

- Alfred Lord Tennyson




I have loved. I have continued to love. I will continue to love; no matter how much I have lost. I have taken refuge, comfort and consolation in Tennyson's famous quote: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." It reminds me that NO MATTER WHAT I have lost; I have not lost "love". I may have lost the subject, the person whom I loved, or may have lost them "for a time" but I have not lost LOVE. I do NOT REGRET LOVING no matter how painful that it had become to LOSE that one whom I loved.

Most of us have parents. Some of us even had good parents. Upright mother and father; maybe a bit quirky and not so perfect, but loving, providential and respectable. They may not have done everything right but we are thankful, like so many others, that they did not do everything wrong. I have enjoyed my parents who are both "gone" now. Today would have been my father's 90th birthday (Mom would have been 91 this coming January 18th). I miss them terribly but I don't regret anything that I did for them out of love. I regret nothing and am thankful for so much. 

I lost a child to stillbirth. That is really a loss that no one can prepare a woman to endure. That lose included the loss of my dreams. The loss of being a mother to a daughter of my own. I was going to name her Mikaela Rose (my family name as her middle name) and she was expected to be beautiful. A mixed and conflicting feeling overcame me as I learned that the child whose heartbeat had stopped just a few hours before, was a boy. A beautiful boy, I later found out after I "gave birth" to this precious child. My dreams of being a mom of another boy or girl of my own evaporated into a fog of sorrow and "loss". 

I have lost a love...one that I thought was "the one". One whom I had loved most of my life. I had lost him to mental illness. He was unable to "find himself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again". Maybe, it was during this time, that I realized the value of "Singing a New Song" for so many people who did not suffer from mental illness. Unlike a person who suffers from mental illness, one who has suffered mind bending, heart wrenching and soul crushing mental illness and was beaten with verbal and emotional abuse has HOPE for healing, health and wholeness. The loss of that love reminds me of an "eternal loss" as I promised that "I would not return to him...again". I loved him deeply and I am so glad that I had some opportunity to share my love for him, with him. It was a love that mental illness stole from both of us. I don't know which is worse: having lost it or having it stolen from you. I still do not regret loving him and never will. 

Never, ever regret loving someone. Even if it is someone who did not deserve your love. You have LOVED and that is the most wonderful, the most valuable power on the face of the earth that dwells within the human heart. 

Love til it doesn't hurt

A loving person that has endured abuse and mistreatment perhaps due to what we thought was "naivete" was really because we "loved til it hurt". You will find yourself BEYOND hurt and into a place of REAL LOVE in your life; no matter who has hurt you or how badly life has treated you...
when WE LOVE, we win. 

Many of us who have suffered abuse in our lives. We have endured the horrible disrespectful speech and behavior of another person have loved until it HURT and we continued to love through the hurt because either we held a religious belief that "we had to love the unloving" or because we might have thought less of ourselves for not forgiving them for their behavior toward us. We suffered in loving them, not as much for them as we need to "love until it hurt and then some" to prove something to ourselves.  Once we realize that love is NOT intended to hurt and that we don't have to be hurt to love or be loved; then we will be just beginning our healing journey of "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again". 

Are you willing to keep loving even if it keeps hurting? We all have that choice to make. No one is making us take the abuse from another person for the "sake of love" but ourselves. I see it this way...I loved a mentally ill man...very much, but I chose, over time with the help of his abusive behavior to stop loving him and stop wanting to be with him.

Abuse doesn't deserve our understanding; it deserves our absence.

We are worth it!!! 

Heartache

Doesn't everyone experience heartache at one time or another? Abuse survivors are NOT exempt from heartache; matter of fact, from my experience and the experience of many other abuse survivors, it seems that abuse survivors have lived WITH heartache possibly even more than we have lived without it. It is unfortunate, that such loving hearts are so hurt continually, but that is the nature of abuse...it brings heartache to the hearts that love. 



The song (you can listen here; will open in a new window): Total Eclipse of the Heart: Bonnie Tyler (You tube) reminds me of loving a person who is experiencing abuse. Why do I say that? Because I truly believe that without abuse, heartache like this could not fully exist. I would only hope that no one else would ever experience the mind-bending, soul-crushing and heart-wrenching effects of abuse. 

I have been in an abusive marriage. To this day, he denies that he ever verbally abused me and that was only the tip of the iceberg but I never pushed the issue to "make him see the error of his ways". Matter of fact, he accused me of abusing his daughter whom I loved dearly and was "close to" for the first eight years of our marriage from the time she turned 8 years old. He even tried to charge me with abuse during our divorce proceedings which had NOTHING to do with our divorce so I "let him say what he wanted" without any defense or reply.

Losing my ex step daughter was a "total eclipse of the heart" for me. Learning that her father had done so much to sabotage our relationship; things that I could hardly believe that anyone could ever consider doing to another human being, that I fell into depression. My heart ached so badly that I could hardly bear to feel anything from it. When we have heartache, it means that we "love". I am not sorry for loving nor will I ever be. I will acknowledge that the pain of heartache was an abusive act by an unloving person toward one who had loved them...me. 

Finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again, in my experience, does not immunize us from heartache. Matter of fact, it may be that heartache, maybe due to LOVE, is the motivator for healing. I believe this to be true anyways and I am hopeful that someday, my heartache will lessen but I will never forget how I LOVED and I will never regret it.

A Valentine for Hurting Hearts

For all the precious, lonely and hurting hearts on

Valentine's Day:

Valentine's Day may be a very special day for lovers but it seems to totally disregard the single, lonely hurting heart. Too many years I dreaded the upcoming "Lover's Holiday".  I would mournfully walk throughout the mall and see all the beautiful festive red and white displays declaring the "love the of the ages" and all the wares for sale to give to that "special someone". 

 

Every Valentine's Day, my heart was made sick to think that I had "loved and lost" before and was afraid that I might NEVER know that again. 

I was reminded of other dear hearted women who had been hurt and abused and face each Valentine's Day in the same way. 

I felt that this holiday was a very wicked reminder of the cruelty of abuse...again and again each year. 

I am so sorry for your pain. 

And most of all,  I'm sorry to myself  

for treating me worse than I would anyone else.

Going back (to get) my future

If you are a movie lover, you are sure to have seen and enjoyed the movie, "Back to the Future" from the mid 80's. This story is truly one of the sci-fi/fantasy genres best movies of all time. Have you ever thought of what part of your life, what date in your history that you would like to revisit and relive? Have you ever wondered if you had left "part of you" behind? What past event might you want to "do over" that would ultimately change the path that your present life has taken and transform it into being the life "that you should have had"?  Even considering the possibility of regaining a part of our lives that might have been lost is the romance behind this intriguing tale.

This is even more of a reality to me than one might first see from the outside looking into my life. I was GREATLY affected by the "De Lorean 80's". I had even ridden in several of the DMC's or DeLoreans; the futuristic gull-wing car that was used as the time machine in the movie. In ways, it has become my time machine as well. Whenever I see one, I am "transported" back to that time where I had to go to "find my future", the life that I am now living. My life was forever changed and affected by this era and more so, by one man. Over 30 years ago this next month, I met the tall, dark, good looking young man with whom I quickly and irrevocably fell in love. I can say that for the both of us it was truly love at first sight.

As with all TRUE love stories; there is always tragedy. Like Romeo and Juliet; the pressures of family and life can pull apart the hearts and lives of even the most dedicated couple. The difference in this true story is that though our lives were  lived separate and apart from each other; they ironically paralleled with the same sadness and hopelessness of knowing that there was only one true love for us and falsely believing that we would never be together again.                                                              

Read more here: 

NEW: Back to OUR future blog

This blog was begun with the purpose of my dealing with; accepting and healing from domestic abuse from my second husband. There are books that will never be written about this relationship; one of domestic abuse and control. Mental cruelty and betrayal ending in bigamy was the fateful and painful path of a marriage to a personality disordered spouse. I miraculously survived (body, soul and mind) and wholly hope to share the healing path that I had taken to the door step of my biggest DREAM come true. I survived and then took my time machine BACK TO OUR FUTURE and this has become my passion and sole (soul) focus of my blogging and book writing. I am in process of writing our story; in memoir/story form. It is a beautiful, sad, adventuresome and fun love story. My wish for everyone is that you will search out your dreams and consider regaining parts of yourself and your life that you think you might have left behind. It is not too late. Your dreams CAN come true.  You are welcome to borrow my "Time Machine" and go with me on my trip "Back to Our Future".

Forging a new path for my life

I am a writer. Not a writer "wanna be" but a writer of an awesome TRUE story. I am currently writing our love story, a "Back to OUR Future" love story of the 80's rekindled and reunited in 2011. Do you remember the "Back to the Future" movie? Well, it was made a little more personal for me when I met and fell in love with my G. He and his family had a few of these cars I had the opportunity to ride in several of them. It was "funny" to see them on a screen in a movie about "going BACK to the future"...little did I know that BACK to the future is exactly what we would be doing almost 30 years in the future of that time.

My life started out in college with falling in love with G. We were known as "G. and D." everywhere we went. We went to classes together until he transferred to another college which offered his educational preference of Veterinary medicine. He was always so insightful and sensitive and caring to animals, as well as people and stated that he "preferred animals over people" for the most part. We were still nearly inseparable with talking on the "land phone" (prior to "cells" and internet) and I would take the Greyhound to see him on weekends. Our lives had changed. Our paths had diverged and we were missing each other. Life seemed to "get in the way" and family and obligations seemed to "squelch out" time that we wanted to spend together. I was very close to graduating from college with my degree and was ready to "stop going to college" and enter the "real world" when tragedy occurred. We broke up. The dreams for a life together seemed to die. We went on different paths; each trying to convince ourselves that we could and would live without each other. "Life is suppose to suck anyways", G had said. Two marriages and divorces for each of us; no children for him; one child and one stillbirth for me and over 25 years later, I went off the path that my life had taken and wanted to merge paths with my Love.

I was working in healthcare since college and sitting at my desk one day; after over a year separation and several month decision to divorce my then current husband and call an attorney for counsel when we had a tragedy occur. A coworkeer died suddenly. Carol was a fun loving person, had a great family and everyone liked her. She enjoyed her work and I had just talked to her one day and find out that it was the last time that I saw her alive. She had died over the weekend and they were preparing for her funeral. Tragedy. It turned my mind to the loss that I had experienced in my life and G. I missed him so much. How have I "lived" over 25 years without him and would I be willing to live the rest of my life without him without even trying to reach him. My answer was a resounding NO. I could "see the trees for the forest" of tragedy in my life; beginning with G's and my tragedy of a lost love. It think of Robert Frost's poem, "The road not taken".

The Road not taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


In verse three; we see our poet "had kept the first for another day" and "doubted" if he "should ever come back" to this path. This is how I felt with G and my relationship. It haunted me yet I felt that our love was not dead but longingly sought me until I would "come back to the path".

In the last verse, "I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference" is the path that I am now forging. A new path. Not the same path that we were on together in ways and yet in some ways, it is the same path as then; only a different place in the woods.

To be able to see the "forest for the trees" was what needed to be done to see the love lost as being "the road not taken" as one that I had to return to. I needed for forge a new path for my life and a familiar old one, 25 years old or more, has "made all the difference".

With GOD ALL things are possible!

I call myself "newsong" because ever since I became a believer in Christ Jesus; June 28,1985, I have been "singing a new song".

I have made a FULL CIRCLE of my life in the past 30 years. I started college and fell in love with G; my love of over 4 years and we broke up and both married two others before reuniting this past February. We saw each other for the first time in almost 26 years on Feb. 15th; the day after Valentine's Day when he sent a dozen red roses to my workplace. My Love. We have made it a "full circle" to come back together. Something that neither of us ever thought would be possible. But I had been praying for years that he and I would both be "single" and able to "get back together" during the "Dark Ages" while the years between us passed. We realize that we were both single and available from Oct. 1996- Jan. 1999. A short span but both of us were legally single yet we did not look for one another then. We had resigned to the fact that "life was suppose to suck" and after one failed marriage each; while still pining for each other, we "fell into" abusive relationships that really made us "long for each other" even more.

When I said that I was "praying for the day" that both G and I would be single; I wasn't kidding. I looked online in Jan. 2011 and found that he was NOT married. His mother had passed and it appeared to be a recent passing (it was actually 2007; a month after I delivered my still birth son at 5 months gestation) so I had it confirmed that HE was single since no wife's name was next to his on her obituary notice. I JUMPED for JOY; not at his "being single and alone" but more for his "being single again and available". I had ONLY wanted him to be happy and if not with me, with another very lucky woman. He had two and neither of them were what and WHO he really wanted. They were both jealous of me just as my two husbands knew of and were jealous of G's place in my heart and life.

I was separated from my second husband at this time and realized months before that it was time to contact a lawyer for divorce proceeding. We had a terrible tragedy happen that an employee that I worked with had died suddenly near this time and it spurned me to contact G even more; through my hot tears I swore to myself that death would NOT separate us and that I would contact him and see him again...soon.