The pain will ease in time.

What happens when it doesn't seem as though that is true? Last night I was awake doing art until 2.45am. I was enjoying what I was doing and I was watching several TV programs in the background, but for some reason I was anxious and I wasn't getting tired. My thoughts switched from the TV to the art work I was doing and interrupted often with thoughts of the Royal Wedding. I wondered if Kate would be asleep, or would she be tossing and turning and wake up exhausted, but then I thought maybe she would take some sort of herbal sleeping pill to guarantee at least a few hours of sleep? For the past 5 years sleep has not come easily to me and I have fallen into a pattern of staying up late trying to exhaust myself so that my sleep would be short, but deep. It doesn't work and I often toss and turn so much that I am awake again in the early hours of the morning and then can't go back to sleep.

This morning I wanted to go and spend some time with friends to watch the Royal Wedding, but I knew that it would be an emotional day for me.... weddings always are. I love them, but they always make me cry. Perhaps I still hold that fantasy that marriages are all supposed to have happy endings, or could it be that I am convinced they will be long, painful, hard and might even end in divorce... I don't know, but one thing I do know, is that I always pray sincerely for the couple to be happy. I have a peace that William and Kate will be happy and they will make their marriage work. After analysing their writing, William might not be that easy to live with, not because he isn't a wonderful, kind and sensitive man, but because the pain of the past is still very real to him.

A comment was made this morning on CNN, while the wedding was in progress, that William had made the right choice in Kate. Her parents are still married and she seems to have had a normal happy childhood. Well that is reassuring for William, but Kate cannot say the same. She will now marry into a family that most of the Royal family have been divorced and the children have all been through very similar circumstances to Princess Diana, which has left William more so than Harry, cautious and distrusting of people in general outside of his immediate family. He now possibly has some of the insecurities his mother had. Kate's writing is a lot more confident, out going, relationship orientated, which will be good for him and I think she will be fiercely protective of him, but I think she might struggle with communication with him during stressful times, because she talks emotions and he is not comfortable with that at all. I know what you are thinking... a lot of men aren't! But at the end of the day, I do think they will work things out and will be together forever. So if everyone likes a fairy tale this could be the one.

I started by saying the pain will ease in time... what happens when it doesn't. When ever I listen to a couple saying their marriage vows, I wonder what all the men are thinking when it comes to the part, honour and obey, faithful, sharing in all that they have in the future, in sickness and health, rich or poor, until DEATH? I am not a cynical person or at least I try my hardest not to be, but in my personal experience and the experience of so many of my friends, those vows apply to women and not men.

What happens when TRUST has been shattered, promises broken and one is left feeling that your life has no value to the person you fell in love with and trusted with the most valuable thing you have, your heart... how does one get over that?

My friends said:

Time heals a broken heart.
The best way to get over someone, is to get under someone else !!!
You need to get out there and meet new people.
It won't be long and he will be nothing more than a distant memory.

They lied ! Five years later, yes of course I have good days, sometimes good weeks, but so far never a good month.

Attending a wedding is a reminder of all the pain, the sadness of a marriage that failed. Invitations to dinner parties isn't fun being single and driving yourself home late at night. Sleeping alone, night after night is lonely, constant nightmares is exhausting. The stabbing pain in your heart when you least expect it, is relentless. NO the pain does not ease with time.  The only thing that one can do to make life bearable is to keep as busy as possible with things to enjoy, which is why I blog, paint, spend time with family and one or two friends. I enjoy Bella who is a constant source of love and affection and she really makes me laugh. I read a lot and I am sorry to say, but I don't get enough exercise. I do believe that it is easier when you are younger. So if you are young and reading this, there is a lot more hope for you :o) I hope and pray that one day I will wake up and before I realise it... the pain will be gone. I long for that day.

In the meantime, I will continue to share all the wonderful things I am grateful for in the process of healing.