I'm trying to write for myself.  Been writing on this thing for so long I wonder if I can.  I always have an audience but I suppose even myself is an audience.  Does it matter if we have an audience when we write?  Do things become more or less true depending on who reads this?  Do I change what or how I say things?  Probably. 

Sometimes it feels like all my life has been played out in front of an audience.  Parents, friends, strangers, family, children, even dogs.

I'm getting married in six months.  I'm a little nervous, mostly because last time was so disastrous.  I think I'm older and wiser now.  I hope I am.  Most importantly the big guy takes me as I am.  He makes observations about me and my behavior but not judgements.  I told him tonight that I hope I am never a disappointment to him and then I started crying.

Even now as I write this I cry.  I've always felt like a disappointment to my family, my parents, my siblings and most especially to my ex-husband.  That was the main reason I left him, not the drinking, not the coldness, not the lack of generosity, not the horrible things he said to me but the fact that I was a disappointment to him.

Why couldn't I be like the other wives?  Why couldn't I take more of an interest in his career?  Why couldn't I let other people take care of Katie more?  I cried too much, laughed too loud, got too mad, put too many nuts in my baking and didn't drink enough. 

He was actually angry with me because I didn't drink more.  I didn't like drinking with him because he slipped into mean, angry drunk very quickly and I learned to keep my wits about me.  I cleaned him up after he vomited all over my friends bed in the middle of the night because he was too drunk to move.  I pulled over to the side of the road while driving home with the kids and him drunk so that he could vomit beside the road.  My daughter rolled over on his side one night when she heard him vomiting after he had passed out on the floor of the family room and I got to clean up the vomit.  I needed to stay sober.

And now I live with a man who loves me and hugs me and is happy with me just as I am.  He's okay with the fact that I cry.  He enjoys my laughter.  Loves my baking.  He holds me when I need someone to hold me.  He has my back. 

He's not perfect but neither am I.  I love him.  I trust him.  I want him to be happy, not just me.  I see him as he is, deep down inside.  Not the huge man that the rest of the world sees, but the small boy who is still a little afraid of the world.  The tender, gentle man who despite his bluster and bravado would never hurt a fly.