Almost mine again

Before I begin this post, I'll give a quick update on my last one. No, I have not had the conversation with my husband yet. And yes, I probably should have. Over the weekend there was a night my husband brought up the topic of what I want to talk to him about. I knew it was an opportunity for me and I felt like the timing of the conversation could work really well. But I didn't, because I was still too scared. Someone give me a pep talk, please! My next appt. with L is on the 11th, so I don't have a lot of time left!

Ok, now for the real post. Of course, when I found out that my husband had been viewing pornography, my world was turned upside down, and for a long time, that was all I thought about. Even my daughter and my time-intensive church calling couldn't completely occupy my mind at any given time. Memories, wonders, worries, and pain was pretty much a constant from the time I woke up until I cried myself (not every night, but many) to sleep. It was like this for about 6 months and then, in the fall, in our new home out-of-state, I started being able to focus on other things a little bit more. In that season, I focused mostly on my house and loved how clean I was able to keep it. Oh, and I made really great dinners almost every night. I felt so efficacious; I could actually enact my intentions and have tangible evidence of my ability to do positive things. It was a wonderful boost for me emotionally.

The trend toward being able to engage in life not just physically but emotionally and spiritually without constantly feeling weighed down by the issues in my marriage has continued. And there is one specific area of my life that I am so happy to have almost completely reclaimed: music in general and my Jem Pandora station specifically. Right after I found out about the pornography, listening to any music (including hymns at church, especially since my husband left the church shortly before I found out about the pornography), but especially anything on my Jem Pandora station, was really hard. I felt so mad that one of the many consequences of my husband's actions was robbing me of the ability to enjoy any song about love (and there aren't a lot of songs that are not about love). If it was a cute, happy love song (think something by Taylor Swift or the like, which are not featured on my station, BTW), I'd feel bitter listening to it, sad for what I did not feel I had or thinking jaded thoughts about how that is not really what love is like. If it was an angry love song, the lyrics would rev up my feelings of hurt and anger. If it was a sad love song, I would break out into uncontrollable sobs.

Having a hard time listening to music actually is what made me want to blog about my experience in the first place. I reacted so strongly to the songs I heard and I felt like I needed some release or expression for that. I still feel songs stronger than I used to, but I'm happy it's not as intense as it used to be and that there is some music I can simply enjoy. However, there are a few songs and experiences I want to share here because they have affected me so strongly. (I'm sorry but Youtube drives me nuts, so I'm not going to post links to videos, but I will post links to the lyrics of the songs and you can look up the actual music if you want.)

I remember listening to Brian McFadden's "Almost Here" and Dido's "Who Makes You Feel" for the first time after finding out. Pretty much lost it when I heard those---just cried like crazy and closed Pandora.

A few months after I found out, I had to do a 6 hour drive all by myself, and after listening to my book on CD for a while, I just had to have some music, so I listened to a couple of U2 cds. That was quite the experience. I'm lucky I didn't get in an accident or get a ticket, I'm sure, because I was blasting the music, and singing/screaming/sobbing along to most of the songs ("With or Without You" and "A Man and A Woman" were pretty hard). It was pretty cathartic though.

Also a few months before I found out, I got to see Wicked for the second time, but this time on Broadway in NYC. Of course the show was awesome, but even though I knew the music from the first time I had seen it, I was surprised at how strongly I reacted during "I'm Not That Girl" and "As Long As You're Mine" I was with some of my in-laws, so I was so glad the theater was dark and hoped they couldn't tell that I was stifling sobs.

Now, I realize most of these songs don't fully relate to my situation. But I learned firsthand that for me, when I'm in pain, it's pretty dangerous to listen to any music where pain is expressed because I was  drawn to it like a magnet. Even if it was a cheesy, melodramatic song about a situation not anything like mine, I was still susceptible to singing along with a soaked face. I felt very out of control with these reactions, so I avoided music as much as I could, and it really bugged me that I had one less way of finding pleasure in my life at a time I desperately needed all the pleasure in life I could get.

So that is why I'm so happy that I can now listen to music safely again. Of course, music will never be like it was for me before. When I read this post and listened to the amazing song featured on it, I was reminded of the meaning that I will always bring to the table any time I listen to a song. And today when I turned on my Pandora station to help keep me sane while working on school work, I heard this song and remembered this blog and this post that I've had inside of me for over a year and realized what I needed to spend my me-time doing. (Tangent: I wish I had the time and energy to write this post better. I'm really a pretty decent writer, but I don't know that my skills will ever show on this blog because it's hard enough to take the time to write in it at all. And I think if I worried about writing "good" posts that might make it harder for me to spit out what I really need to say.) So, in sum:

• When I found out about my husband using pornography, I couldn't enjoy music at all.
• Now I can enjoy it a lot more than I could even a year ago, and I'm happy about that.
• Overall, my ability to enjoy music has been affected and that will probably never change. But I'll take what I can get. (I need to write a blog post on just that last sentence sometime.)