What’s up with all these labels we slap on other people and make them live with, like the label is the sum of who they are? One of the times I really felt the sting of a label was when I got the “separated” title slapped onto me. My X#2 wanted a divorce. I get that. Fine, have it. He informed me that he wanted this divorce by having me served. Ok. Whatever. But then the troubles began. I wanted a divorce immediately, because, hey, he was not that fun to live with. But even though he asked for the divorce, he refused to settle. Seriously. Hello— weird.
So there I was stuck with a “separated” label when everything in my soul was completely DIVORCED.
Then the real troubles began. I wanted to join a respectable online dating service to find the future X#3, but I couldn’t because I was not officially divorced. I was forced to go onto riffraff sites because of a stupid label I wanted to be done with.
So why not lie and say I was divorced? Well, how’s that for starting out a relationship? I’d begin with a lie. I know I said I was looking for X#3 a paragraph ago, but that was hopefully a joke, and the next relationship will fly. Since I am cynical and have gone through way too much hell, I knew the odds of getting an X#3.
I know some of you will say, “Why get in a relationship then?” But that is a different post. In this post we are talking about labels.
So fast-forward. I finally earned my single status, but still have a label of 2X’s.
I know I earned them. I have the battle wounds to prove it, but the choices I made when I was 19 years old, and that’s lots of years ago, shouldn’t be held against me for the rest of my life. Should they?
When people say, “Boy, you sure know how to pick them.”
I want to scream, “Yeah, after ten years ago and twenty-four years ago, I’ve changed. My choosing ability changed, and I’m not that person anymore.
The truth is I am not that person, and I wouldn’t make those same decisions, but I am living with the consequences of choices I made way long ago. I accept responsibility. I live with it.
But do I really have to keep the labels?
