Friday, March 30, 2007

Beyond the Blue

The journey this week was down Definition Lane - looking into the moments in life that have defined us.

For me, one of my defining moments was leaving Tim, my first husband.....Oh my goodness after "Flying Solo" its starting to look like I'm leaving a trail of discarded men LOL!!
Here's the journalling:
One defining moment for me was when I decided to leave my first husband.

We had been married almost 3 years & oh my god! What an emotional struggle that was for me.

At the end of the day I decided to follow my Aunty’s advice…she said to me “Kell, there’s always going to good days & bad days – what you have to ask yourself is if the good days outnumber the bad”

Her advice made sense to me – from that day I took notice of how my good days compared with my bad – and to tell you the truth it was about 20/40/40 good/neutral/bad.
That was a real eye-opener for me…I did talk to Tim about it & we did try to make it work…well we had a lot of make-up sex LOL!!!

The thing about it was Timmy was more focused on his music – but that’s not to say he was to blame for our problems – I’ll confess most of our problems came from my expectations – I wanted to be a wife & Mum, settle down, buy a home & live a happy little life.

Tim, on the other hand, wanted to be a rock star, jam with his band & play gigs – which in itself isn’t bad & I did have a lot of fun at quite a few of the gigs…ahhh the good ole Lido Shuffle brings back some fond memories :o)

The strange thing is, that when I found out he was in bed with another woman it was kind of a relief – it gave me a “valid” excuse to leave & I’m ashamed to say, it also meant that I could blame him for the failed marriage.

But on the day that I told my family it was over I felt like a failure, I was embarrassed & I felt like I was letting them down & that I’d be causing them embarrassment.

I felt like there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t make the relationship work – no matter how hard I tried.

Today I have no hard feelings towards Tim, in fact, he remarried about the same time as I did & now has a little girl about the same age as Raven…he has the wife & family that I wanted – but now I have the husband I was looking for.
The brilliant thing about the whole experience was that it taught me sooooo many things – not necessarily all at once, but as I look back I can see that this experience has made me a better, wiser & more compassionate person.

Some of the lessons I learned:
· I am in control of my life – I don’t have to be miserable, I can change my circumstances.
· My family will always love me, no matter what.
· You can’t change a man – go into a relationship with your eyes wide open, don’t love a guy for “his potential”
· I am strong
· Forgiveness is easy – after a time LOL!
On this LO I knew I wanted to tear the photo & I also wanted to use a broken frame & florals at the sides of the frame as hinges & for the 2 sides to open to reveal the hidden journalling...it didn't quite come together how I envisaged, so I ended up using transparencies to create the "cover" for the hidden journalling....I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.
I was chatting to Tim on MSN yesterday & told him about the LO & to go check it out - he thought it was pretty good...just goes to show he really is a good guy :o)
OK just thougth I'd share that one with you...I've got a busy scrapping time ahead...end of month sketches & challenges to complete LOL!!!
I ordered some 5x7's for 35c from digitalmax...but they probably won't be ready until next week...that'll give me a nice start to April's challenges LOL!!
Now there's only 28 days til I head over to Aussie for the Embellished Retreat - Oh man I soooooo CANNOT WAIT!!!!

6 comments:

Lali said...

Well like I said before Kelly the LO looks great. And is great that you can still talk to Tim with no hard feelings.

Lucky girl you going to the Embellished Retreat hope you have a ball.

Mrs Frizz said...

Wow - that layout may not have turned out the way you thought or wanted it to ... but it is pretty amazing.

Lucky you going over the ditch to a scrap retreat ... look out Ockers here comes our 'Kiwi' challenge junkie ..

Anonymous said...

Great LO Kelly, hope you didn't send him to your blog to check it out!!.....LOL he might not like you telling all of us that he slept with another women!!....LOL, actually maybe you should send his wife here to read this!!...haha just kidding, great you can talk openly about it :)

Julie said...

Bet that LO was therapy in itself - thank you for sharing that - I love your 'what you have learnt' - so soul defining.
You lucky duck going on that retreat - I'm positively green! ;)

Christi said...

Wow this is really good, Kelly! I love the WHOLE concept and I think you did a fabulous job! I might have to scraplift the idea. It's wonderful! What did you use for hinges??? I couldn't see anything there so wondered! I wish I could do this but I still haven't figured out many things in my first marriage.

Chris Millar said...

Wow Kelly - this surely is an emotionally strong layout! You've scrapped the subject so well!!!

Woohoo about coming to OZ also! You'll have a ball for sure!