From Afghanistan to America, crossroads of life

Today was the first time that Aarya will be spending time with her dad, separate from me. The image of a broken family became very clear when she walked away from me with her father. The rest of her life flashed in front of me, being divided between two house and two parents. I feel responsible.

So true. I am not nervous in public gathering anymore, I don't feel insecure and insufficient anymore, I don't hate my body anymore, I don't wish to be somebody else anymore. I was in bad company who made me feel insufficient, ugly, fat, stupid. I felt down all the time. Not any more! I called it quits, I am working to move on and get rid of all the negative thoughts he left in my mind. I am looking forward to the day that I face him again and don't feel anything towards him. I want to heal and get my power back. So when I face him in any kind of setting, I feel proud for walking away from him.

17 days after I filed for dissolution of marriage and I am happier than being married. Everyday I feel a new sense of freedom along with some sadness and a range of other emotions. I want to grow stronger in my heart and my mind. I don't deny myself the pain, I don't rush toward happy feelings, I don't want to disguise my hurt and minimize my loss. I want to feel it all. I look at this as a blessing to be able to feel the pain and hurt of ending the marriage. It was a relationship of 5 years with lots of emotional attachment to the man that didn't love me. At times, he made me feel good and the rest of times, I struggled to stay sane being married to him. I don't expect myself to forget it all and move on too fast. I want to process the ending of my marriage, the loss, the pain, everything. My life has taken a very different path. Its a path that I didn't think I will end up in and didn't prepare for it. I still don't know how to prepare myself and my da

So I dropped the PO and agreed to a civil agreement on certain arrangements. I will see how this works for me. I am in a different world today. I feel sad, tired, and kinda foggy. I am not sure what is going on and what I am doing with my life. I talked to my therapist yesterday and I know this is normal for what I am going through. Ending the marriage isn't easy. It is full of emotions and I feel as if I am in a roller coaster most of the time. Sadness is the dominant emotion most of the time. I want to feel all these feelings and come out stronger at the end. It looks like the last crisis I went through made me weaker. I want this crisis to end up differently. I don't know what exactly to do to achieve that goal. The only way I know is to feel all the emotions and learn to manage them. Right now, I feel drained, exhausted. Yet, I want to put on a strong face for my daughter's sake. I want to be honest with myself.

I have mixed feelings. There are times when I feel alive, happy and in charge. Then there are times when I am hurting, past memories, happy times and sad times and the "could have been" possibilities really make my heart heavy. I have this empty feeling in my stomach all the time. This fight should be different. I am not going to run away from my emotions, mask them off or be oblivious to what is happening. I have every intention to use this fight and this pain to grow up and get a more realistic and assertive grasp on life. Pains of life so far have weakened me. This pain should be different. I will learn from this, I will grow with it and  not just get through it.

Alright, I filed for dissolution on August 23rd and PO on 24th and have my first court appearance on 9/5th. I finally took the action that I was contemplating about on and off for years now. I have been through emotional roller coaster for a month now and I don't think it is over yet. I was very scared at first and still am. I had a surge of anger for the last couple days and now confusion and worry is creeping back in. The sorrow is still present in every thought and fold of my mind. All the pleasures and securities that I wanted and deserved which didn't happen to me and all the mistreatment and invalidation that unnecessarily happened have left some ugly scars in my memories. I am trying to keep my head up and take one day at a time. It is a good philosophy. For over 5 years, I had been questioned, degraded and shot down. My self reliance is very low and negative self talk is still part of the habit that I am fighting. Before I talk about the road ahead, I wanna pour some of