Yesterday, after vowing to fight to the end, I let someone “win” a battle that hopefully ends any more chances for war. I backed down, rolled over, caved. I chose to lose. And after a good night’s drinking and wallowing, I woke up to the gorgeous NC sunshine (it’s been a grey week, so this is lovely!), to life going on as usual, to the same old struggles and a couple of new ones, but I know there’s a path through it all.

Yesterday I’d have told you I was defeated and in agony. But like I said, the thing is I CHOSE to lose. I chose not to fight a battle that I felt strongly I could WIN, because, simply, the costs would have been too high. Yesterday I’d have told you it was the same old story, me trying to stand for something and then caving in. Me drawing a line in the sand and then backing down, again. I beat myself up yesterday, and I cried, and I mourned for all the therapy co-pays I’ve spent, because it felt so much like failure on the biggest of all scales. But then I said something to my husband that made me realize an important truth. I said “Fighting would’ve been easier than giving up.”

Now, fighting would have cost me dearly, in many many ways. And it would have cost those I love even more. But fighting is what I wanted to do! I wanted to stand up there with my face painted in the bright reds of war, sword raised, and rally my troops and stomp my feet and MAKE THINGS RIGHT. And as hard is it is to believe, that would have been the easy way in this. Because when you’re yelling and stomping your feet, you’re almost always feeling pretty damn righteous.

But righteous wasn’t right. Really, nothing is “right” in this land of post-divorce alienation I’m in – decisions are all made in shades of grey, and all of them are wrong somehow. Pick your poison and keep moving forward, right?

So I chose to lose, because it would be easier on the people I care the most about. And because I know already how those pallid lumps of pride taste digesting over long periods of time, and I can live with that. You get used to it. Plus, I’m on reflux meds now, so that’ll help…
Anyway, I never want to say that I had no choice. I have always had choices, always made them, and they’re all painted in shades of grey, and that, my loves, is life. We all have to keep choosing, and moving on.

So yes, I think the agony of defeat sucks. But I truly believe that the agony of victory would be worse.