Rewrite the story

In a book I'm reading, I read about the difference between pain and suffering. Pain is unavoidable, everyone experiences it, but we can suffer from the pain or bear it well. Suffering comes from the context we assign to the pain, the story we tell ourselves about the pain.

‎"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."

-Marcus Aurelius

I've been working on rewriting my story. I can choose to look at my divorce in a more positive light by realizing that I have been set free from a person who is no longer the kind of person I would like to be with and from a relationship that is not what I want from a marriage relationship, and given a chance in the future to hopefully find a person and relationship that I do want. And I've been given this fairly guilt and remorse free since I did all I could to make things work and I am not the one who walked away. Sounds great doesn't it? Sometimes I think I should be shouting for joy. Hopefully someday I'll get to the point, although in truth it's hard to imagine.

Here are the two key reasons I have not totally been able to believe this alternate story. First is the kids, it is best for the kids to be living with both of their parents in a secure, nuclear family. Plus the kids make a clean break from Jonathan an impossibility. Second, I have to go through Hell to come out on the other side of this. It's far from pleasant. I'm kind of tired of being here. I'm tired of crazy mood swings that I can't blame on hormones. I'm tired of thinking I've got this and then getting knocked down again. I'm tired of the daily battle with myself to try to choose peace and happiness despite my pain.

(Prepare yourself, I'm now going to make a Lord of the Ring reference.) But I look at it like this, remember in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf the Grey had to confront that terrible horrible huge monster and he fell all the way down that dark, deep pit of death? Well it turns out he didn't die, in fact it was that battle that made it possible to come back as Gandalf the White, a way more powerful dude!

So that's me, fighting the terrible, horrible beast while falling down a bottomless pit of death so that when the battle is won I can then come out of it even more powerful then I was before. But truth is I would never have chosen to go search for a more suited person and better relationship. I would never have chosen to go through Hell to become Julie the White. But since I have no choice I might as well try to write the best possible story I can. The story is just in a very rough draft stage.