They say hindsight is always 20/20. I found the view is often seen more accurately with the camera. Cameras are awesome little technological marvels. They allow you to capture a moment. Capture a memory. Freeze the good and the bad for reviewing, remembering later. With the surge of the smart phone, photos capture everything from the dinner plate last night to the absolutely cute kids. Those photos are so personal. They provide insight to the person. What occurred in our lives that was worthy of a photo? What moments did we chosen to capture? What silly antics were we participating in? What sight inspired us? What did we find beautiful or rediculous? All can be answered by our photos. They tell who we love; what is important to us. The photos we collect paint a very intimate picture of our lives. Do not believe it? How often to you get a little nervous when someone scrolls in your phone photos? Yeah, me too.
After the divorce I was left with so many photos. I was cleaning out our mutual home and found more than I ever imagined. We were click happy well before the digital age made it so easy. There were tons of negatives and printed photos in every drawer and closet door I opened. I boxed most up as it was too painful after losing my sister and my marriage to look at photos of them. It took a while after I moved to have the courage to do that. I finally was tired of the excess boxes and needed to organize. I spent a couple of weekends going through each and every photo. Going through those memories was quite difficult. It was my life, my marriage in frozen moments. Interspersed in the weekends were moments of laughter ….recalling the fun….the trips….the happy times. There was a flood of tears… some happy and some full of grief. It was a good experience. Seeing that we did have good. There was fun. There was love. It got messed up along the way, but it was there at one time.
I moved on from the printed photos to those that were on my phone. They were the most telling. I had purchased a new phone just prior to my sister getting sick. I was able to review hundreds of frozen moments from the time period my marriage was falling apart. In those photos was a story I had not really read before. It was a story of separation. It hit me hardest as I realized that my ex-husband was not in most of the photos. I had not realized how many times I took pictures and he was not in them. I began to wonder why. It wasn’t because he wasn’t important to me. It wasn’t because I didn’t want him in them. Recalling the events, I began to understand he chose to not participate in the events where the photos were taken. He was simply absent. He was in the photos of the big holidays and events. He was in the photos of the obligatory family holiday dinners. The niece and nephew birthday parties. The anniversary dinners. It was in all of the day to day, catch the moment times, that he was absent. I had no idea how very absent he had became from such a huge portion of my life.
It was truly that he was not present. He did not participate. If he did participate he would drive separately and leave early. If we hosted he sat in a corner playing games on his phone. I am ashamed to say I didn’t realize how far he was withdrawing from my life. He was often disgruntled to downright angry at the events and it was so much easier to let him leave, or not attend at all. It was easier to make excuses to nieces and nephews why he skipped their birthdays than it was to put up with his attitude and rantings at the function or on the way home. His withdrawal progressed to where he even missed the big events—A favorite nephew’s high school graduation…. a birthday celebration for my mother…. Things he would have never missed before. He chose to not be part of our lives anymore. What I did not realize is that he could not wait to get home or for me to leave. Once alone he could engage in his on line activities. That is what became important to him. It is what consumed him.
One may ask how I could not know what he was doing. I admit to having a bit of a Scarlet O’Hara attitude here….I chose to think about it later. I was still devastated from the death of my sister. I was wrapped up in caring for my elderly, ill mother and father in law. I was planning high school graduations parties and funerals. I was trying to keep it together at work while shopping for dorm room furniture. There was just so much change and grief going on in our lives. I do recall looking on his computer finding a couple of red flags. A new email account and history of scrolling through a personal ad site showed up. Each was explained away with excess spam on the old email and curiosity at the personals. I chose to let those red flags go. I did not have the energy to confront his resurgence of online activities. I knew what it would take, and I just did not have it in me at the time. As I said in other posts, we had been on this road before. There were other instances of his online “friendships” and other activities. I had been the one to uncover the activities and deceit. I was the one to push us to confront the issues while seeking help. I was the strong one before. I was not strong this time.
Does this Scarlet O’Hara attitude make me responsible? Perhaps in a way. I am responsible for my actions and lack of action, but not his. I am responsible for my believing there would be time once everything else settled. I am responsible for wanting him to independently make the right choices. I am responsible for wanting a partner—a partner who could be strong when I was not. I am responsible for wanting him to choose me this time. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and he did not do nor become any of the things that I wanted. Ultimately, he chose someone else.
My photo’s became reality. He became absent from my life.