I sometimes wonder who I am. Not in the simplest terms, like wife, mother, friend, or even psychiatrist but more like where I belong. I find myself wandering around, trying to figure out a question I don’t think anyone can ever answer in a lifetime. This isn’t the person I present to society. If anyone knew how much I actually doubted myself, I’d be out of patients and probably out of my mind. I wonder why people actually come to me, to seek advice, when my own world falls apart more times than it stands upright.
On the surface people see perfection. I have children, a wonderful husband, a prominant career and yet perfection might just be the last word to describe me. I stare down at my wedding ring and almost cringe knowing I have had two failed marriages. I have cheated on one husband and found myself lying to another. My children have had so many problems that I tend to blame them on myself, even though there is nothing I could have possibly done to change the outcome. Although maybe if I was around more, if I loved a little harder, if I held on a little tighter, things would just be different. So I guess the question I tend to ask is, Have I failed my family? Or is this what life is all about? The power to know failure exists, but instead of letting it win, pick myself up and move on.
Aside from my children, the question I tend to ask myself is ‘Does my husband still love me?’ If he knew this, if anyone knew this, they’d think I was insane. Of course John Black loves me. Everyone knows that. I think it’s just some unwritten rule in Salem that we’re part of this supercouple, destined to stand the test of time. But when push comes to shove, what is love? Is it love because he wants to save me from the harms of the ones who could hurt me? Is it love because he says it? John hasn’t touched me, I mean really touched me, in what seems like years. I’m a red blooded American woman. Of course I love sex, but what John and I had was more than sex. It was a bond that when we made love it was two souls twining together as one, as if the wind just miraculously knotted two branches together. He kisses me, but even those aren’t to deep anymore, not as they once were.
I stood watching Bo and Hope last night. There was a party for Shawn’s birthday and watching them nearly made me wince. What they have is what John and I had. This need to touch each other at all times. To kiss under the moonlight, to hold hands just because they fit together so perfectly.
God, I love him. I’ve heard that sometimes when you die, you never fully make it to the other side. There is some part of you needing to come back and so you linger, not in either world, just trying to make it to the other side, to let go of the pain that is keeping you in limbo. John would keep me in limbo if I were ever to die before him. I’ve lived my life without him before and I just never felt right in my own skin. It was like something was missing, yet I couldn’t place my finger on it. And then he’d come to me and it would suddenly make sense. This is who I am.
Never have I asked myself that question and fully understood the answer, until now. And as I stare at a picture of John and myself, I think I know the answer to so many questions I was afraid to answer. John doesn’t have to protect me to let me know I’m loved, he doesn’t have to say it, he doesn’t he have to show it by making love to me. I almost forgot how much a look could show, I almost forgot how much holding me in bed meant.
I’m not perfect. I never will be, I don’t even want to be. I’ll probably always question my life, the choices I have made, the mistakes I have had to endure. But it would be almost wrong to question who I am or where I belong, when it’s so obvious. Right here.
The Jarlena Journal 