The Truth Will Set You Free

No one likes it when you ‘give up’. When I was a child, if you gave up you had a ‘bad’ attitude and there was something wrong with you. Even if the other kids changed the rules, cheated or ganged up on you.

I asked my mother for advice once about a bad relationship I was in a few years ago. It was the boyfriend I was with before I met my ex-husband. I told her I was unhappy and things weren’t working out for various reasons. She said, “Think about the things you’re giving up. An apartment, a car…” Not one word of what I was already giving up, happiness.
I think about my marriage, the two houses, the Saab, the Dodge RAM 1500, all the things I had collected showing how many times I hadn’t given up through the years. The business my ex-husband and I had built together. A crazy person who no longer resembles the man I married and tells people he’s now widowed.

People say, “I’m sorry.” when they hear I’m divorced and lost everything.

My mother asked me the day I arrived in New Hampshire after emergency flighting out, “What are your plans for the future?”

My grandmother asked, “Why did you go back?” and states, “You didn’t own a business.”

My brother tells me how he hurt he is that I didn’t respond to a couple of text messages he sent, which is why he’s not talking to me.

My family didn’t speak to me for the first half hour after I arrived for Easter dinner this year.

My mother won’t return my phone calls or texts.

A chain reaction all caused by ‘giving up.’

Is this chain reaction all because I gave up on my marriage?

Is it because I came back giving up all those worthless material things?

Is it because my ex-husband gave up on a life with me and decided heroin was more important?

Let’s examine the trickle down effect: He gave up+I gave up=my family gave up?

Now I’m told by everyone, myself included, giving up my dog, who’s been through it all with me, is the right thing. I keep telling myself that giving him up will make me happy and is for the best but this time ‘giving up’ just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.