The Guilt Quilt
Blue and black like a bruise
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I spent a lifetime making a quilt for my ex-husband. I spent hours praying for him while I labored over the tiny stitches I placed by hand to give it that beautiful quilted look. It was a simple pattern of blocks covered in elaborate designs which were stitched by hand. One of the designs took over an hour to finish and there were many of those large black blocks to decorate.
The quilt was blue and black. Now I realize it was the colors of a bruise. Symbolic for a failed marriage that ended in violence and divorce.
I never finished that quilt. He put it with my other things when he finally released my own belongings to me almost a year after our divorce.
I left that guilt quilt in the closet of my new home. I would see it daily and wonder what happened to all of those prayers I prayed. Why couldn’t my husband recover and become a good man to lead and guide our children?
I thought about selling it or throwing it away or finishing it and selling it. I even thought of donating it. The months continued on while I refused to make a decision. How could I throw away all of the hours I had spent on that quilt?
It was like our marriage. So many wasted hours on something that rotted in the end. I have nothing to show for all of the long tedious hours I spent dreaming of a better life. All of the prayers I prayed flying off on the wind never to reach their destination and cause change.
Finally, I had enough of the guilt quilt. I threw it away, dropped it into the compactor at my community, and wished it on its way to the dump. It was time to let go. It was time to stop trying to make something out of all the countless hours spent thinking of my husband.
The quilt now rots in a trash heap somewhere just like the remains of my marriage.
I am grateful it is all over. I am free from the guilt, the black and blue, the pain and loss.
It’s time to fly free from the past and soar into the future.
I am learning to look back on my past as the history lesson it is. I learned about myself and gained my children back there. I will learn from the past so I don’t have to make the same mistakes again.
Living right here right now is awesome and that is where I will stay. I know as I live better in the present I am making a more beautiful future for myself.
This world is an amazing place and I am so happy to be given a second chance to live the life I should.
Happy Monday and have a wonderful week.
❤ Julia
