Running Away

Life is so much easier when I can find something to distract me.  Distractions have become a vital part of my life for the past couple of years.  Before cancer, when things were hard in my marriage it was reading.  I used to pick up a book and finish it within 24 hours.  Reading was my escape from reality.  While I was going through treatment I didn't have the energy to read.  I tried.  I just couldn't focus or keep my eyes open long enough to finish a book...and besides that...it took every ounce of energy I had to keep it together...to figure out how to function.  I just couldn't handle distractions.  After treatment was over I needed a new escape.  I started playing a game on my phone.  It is a social game where you play with other people.  I started making friends through the game.  It was perfect.  I started interacting with people through the game...people who knew nothing about me...people who I could choose what they knew about me.  They didn't know I had short hair because it was just growing back from being bald.  I got to start fresh and decide what they knew about me.  I needed to have interaction with people who didn't look at me with pity in their eyes...people who didn't know...  I craved conversation about the weather...small talk...people who learned to like me for my personality, without their opinions being tainted by what I have been through.  This game has been my escape for the past year.  The funny thing is that I have made some real friendships with people I have met.  There are two women I've met who I am positive are friends for life.

Sometimes there is just no escaping reality  No matter how hard I try to pull away...sometimes reality still just slaps me in the face.  Today is one of those days.  I am so overwhelmed with anxiety.  I can't breathe.  I can't think.  I can't feel.  I am numb.  I want to run away.  There is nowhere to run though.  I have made choices in my life and I am now suffering the consequences.  I married a man who destroyed me emotionally.  The odd thing about this situation is that I don't see myself as one of those women who typically ends up in my situation.  I always looked at women in my situation as weak...insecure...damaged.  I've never thought of myself as insecure.  I know my value.  I just didn't understand why my husband didn't see it.  I fought...I fought hard and I failed.  Now things are a mess.  I have four children who love their father.  Their father is a man I can't stand to be around...a man who I don't even want to think about.  It's a mess.  Sometimes I spend all day long receiving text messages from him...things I don't want to read...hurtful things...it's exhausting.   I am surrounded by people who love me...people who are concerned for me and my children.  I am so blessed but that blessing can also be such a curse at the same time.  I know how terrible that sounds but it's how I feel.  I am so exhausted from dealing with the soon to be ex-husband and then I show up at my nephew's basketball game...I sit down on the bleachers next to my mom and my sister and all the questions begin...did he really do that?...did he really say that?...how did the kids react?...are they okay?...are your lawyers taking care of this?...do you need me to have a talk with your lawyer?...  The weight bearing down on me is so heavy already.  I love that they care so much...that they love me...that they love my kids...but I can't breathe.  The air is thin.  I am suffocating.  Where can I run to?