What Happened?

I bought a Zune MP3 player this weekend and it's frikkin AWESOME! It imports all music, videos, and pictures, by default, to your player. As I looked through the things that were being imported; I saw a ton of old pictures from 2003; the year I got married. I was SO THIN! And even though I was in almost all of the pictures with my then husband; I looked happy even though I don't remember ever being happy with him even though I search my mind for those fond memories.
I remember crying daily and striving for perfection. In the pictures that I found; I saw a thin, happy chick who was totally in love. It makes me sad because I can vaguely remember when things turned between he and I. Back then; I thought it was about me. Not being thin enough, smart enough, a good enough cook, American enough, Ghanaian enough, when in truth, it was all about him and his own assimilation and need to be something he could never be. Something that to this day; eight years later, he's still searching for.
The pictures of the 23 year old, fit, rock solid me, inspired the 30 year old, post mommy unfit me to find that girl again. I can remember the 5 day a week, hour long work outs that I did to please him. To show him that I wasn't a 'fattie' that I could be skinny.
It's been so long that it's hard to remember whether the transition from love to disdain was rapid or immediate. But what sticks out most in my mind were the put downs, the complaints and the arguments that left me alone in the bathroom crying and punching mirrors regretting the day that I'd met my African King.
Three and a half years in and a little girl later; I was packing she and I up to get away from the tyrannical reign that had become our home. The one that I paid for, cooked in and cleaned. I'd had enough. Enough of the girls, the trash talk and the berating. Since he thought that he could do better than me; I would give him the chance to show that he could.
That's what makes looking at the pictures so hard; we actually did love each other. Maybe it wasn't all about a Green Card. It makes me wonder if I should give credence to what he tells me now when he says that he still loves me; that I should have been more patient with him; that we could still be together.

Not. For. Real.

L. O. L.

Real love doesn't treat you that way. Ever. Proverbs 13:4-7 says "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."


That's not the love I experienced in my marriage, and that, among many other reasons, is why I am no longer married. 


Thank GOD!