Sometimes, I find myself doing/suggesting the doing of something that is patently uncomfortable to me on one or another level, BUT knowing it is the right thing to do. Have you ever done something like this? And, usually, it turns out ok. It really was the right thing to do.
However, once in awhile, that which was intended to be "the right thing to do" backfires and becomes the very opposite of what you intended. This happened to me this year.
Against the wishes of my husband and sons, I insisted on something because I thought it was "the right thing" to do. And, at the time, I fully believed it was the right thing to do.
But now, 4 months later, it seems that I was fundamentally wrong, because it turned out to be a very wrong thing, with repercussions that are going to diametrically alter my husband's family. Possibly forever.
I wrote the words possibly forever and I started crying over this, yet again. For 19 years I have fought this war to keep my husband/sons in touch with his mother/their grandmother. I have dialed the phone and put it in the husband's hands on the right days to call her...mother's day, her birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas...I have struggled to work through every argument she and I had. I have held my tongue when I wanted to defend myself, my husband, my sons, because to do so would deepen the rift and possibly break the peace.
And now, 19 years later, I do something I believe is the right thing, and the war is over. The war is lost. I feel like I beat my head against the wall for 19 years for nothing. The beating is over, but my head still hurts. I cried myself to "sleep" last night (well, what passed for sleep) and I've walked around in a fog of numb all day.
In some ways I knew it was just a matter of time. One day I knew my tongue would slip and I'd be flip or something and things would be perceived the wrong way. But I never imagined this. Where I would do the right thing and basically be punished for it.
Anyway...It's over now. There's no way back that I can see. I should be relieved...but I am not. I am just sad.
