Balanced Remembering

Holidays are still hard for me, though the ache each year is less than it was back in 2012, when all of this really spun out of control. Last evening, I went to sleep with some troubling memories still lurking in the back of my mind. They occasionally spring up to surprise me. Unfortunately, they took root enough in my subconscious that I had troubling dreams. Today, I was reminded of an exercise a fellow blogger taught me years ago. I wrote about it below in 2012, when all of the heartbreak of losing Chef was still very fresh, and I thought this was something good to reshare… for myself mostly.

Sometimes, I need to remember the pain that was caused so the lack of it in this new life can be truly appreciated.

Originally posted here December 2012:

Ole Roy Dog Food

…..I spent New Year’s Eve alone with my thoughts, and I reflected on something Vic had told me when I was in Colorado. She told me that someone had told her that she needed a phrase that would bring to mind all the reasons she was finished with someone. It helped her to quickly get to the end of a train of thought about a painful subject. So, I thought about Chef and I came up with one of my own — Old Roy Dog Food.

Ironically, Chef was the one who had told me this story several years ago. It was about this brand of dog food called Old Roy Dog Food. He had instructed me to never buy it for our dogs because people had sued the company when their dogs had died after eating it. The irony of the story was that it wasn’t a harmful substance in the dog food that had hurt all these animals. It was the lack of anything nutritious. The dog food company had bought up all the scraps of meat and vegetables that weren’t used in good dog foods and used them to make theirs. It made for a very cheap product that people could afford to feed to their dogs. But, even though these animals were eating it, they were starving to death. Their stomachs would get full, but their bodies weren’t getting anything good to live on, and eventually they would die. The story really stuck with me, and from that moment on, I checked the ingredients of every dog food I bought from that day on, and I paid attention to how my animals responded to anything I gave them.

Chef is a master when it comes to telling me what I want to hear. He can be romantic, and over the last few months, he’s told me all sorts of things that, had they been true, would have helped me heal up quickly and salve the hurt he had caused. I’d have been writing posts about hope and reconciliation, not painful ones about betrayal and lies. But none of his actions backed up anything he said. None. There was the momentary “fullness” of being fed emotionally, but because there was no “nutrition” with the actions to back them up, I was still starving to death.

When I got back from my vacation, I was able to truly decide to be finished with the dog food he’s been feeding me, and to go to the Lord for the nutrition that I’ve needed. I believe that God wants the best for me, and if that should be in a married situation, He’ll provide the person that I need. He has never let me down, never starved me, never betrayed me. I’m peaceful in the knowledge that Old Roy Dog Food isn’t what He wants for me.

My message for 2013 is this: don’t keep “eating” something that isn’t going to be good for you. Get a different dog food. 🙂

Happy New Year to all of you! It’s going to be a better year for me. I have hope in that!

— Bird