The Other Side Of The Rainbow

I wondered many times how long it would take for the searing pain in my heart to not only diminish but simply be gone.  That pain that began when the former prince told me he wanted a divorce, and I realized he wasn’t changing his mind.  That was a pain like nothing else I have felt.  It would increase when I saw things he would post on his Facebook page,  snide remarks, or others would post.  Everyone knew it was about me.  It would also increase when I found out he was dating someone.  His ‘present’, the moving forward with his life, was still my future.  It took a long time for my heart to be ready to let go of him.  Oh I still love him, always will, but one day my heart finally moved out of that harbor where I’d have taken him back again, that ship has sailed.

There were still times when seeing him would cause a day or two of agony, then it would pass and life would go on.  Passing him on the road, or seeing him in the bay when I passed the fire house, even just seeing his van there, would bring up old feelings and hurt.  I avoided passing the fire houses if it meant going far out of my way to get around the township.

Little by little the hurt decreased, and bothered me less and less.  Yesterday, for the first time, I discovered it was completely gone.  I was out with my daughter, taking her to lunch then running an errand.  I came to an intersection, and there at the opposite stop sign was the former prince on  his motorcycle, with his new girlfriend in my old spot on the back.  I braced myself inwardly for the flood of misery and jealousy…and it didn’t come.  Instead I waved as we passed, and he waved too (talk about a random awkward moment) and then I found myself thinking “good job, Piere, she is very pretty, and just like you like ’em, very thin”.  Only thing she isn’t, that was always was a part of his ‘dream girl’, she is a blond and not brunette.  Go figure!  It has been a long time since I had seen a big smile on his face, and it was good to see him smiling and happy again.  He always did have a great, Tom Cruise kinda shit eating grin.  I felt a very foreign feeling toward him…real, honest joy for his life.

I have spent the past evening and morning trying to figure out exactly why that old, familiar torment had vanished and was replaced with good feelings for him.  Is it because I have found someone special that thinks the world of me?  Someone I’m having those “if we, I need, I want” conversations with as we look toward a possible future together?  Is it the power of forgiveness for perceived wrongs and prayers for rather than against him?  Or is it that my heart has finally healed and scarred over.  Maybe it is all of that…

…whatever it is, I’ve finally arrived on the other side of the rainbow!