A million words

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If my math is correct, then a thousand pictures are worth a million words. 

This woman I had a brief relationship (or whatever you want to call it) with, showed me hundreds, if not a thousand, pictures of her family going back decades. It's fascinating. I can't look at them anymore, but for a while, I pored over them. The last time I looked at them in any depth was December, and that's when I had a breakdown. 

Pictures tell stories. Pictures record events. Pictures always say something, even if the characters are trying not to. Something is always conveyed. To the people in the photograph, it may not even be obvious, but it's always there. 

Some of those photos are seared in my brain. I don't have to look at them anymore because they'll never leave me. Was she trying to make me jealous? I don't think so. Still, I was jealous looking at those photos. She, her husband, and two children look natural and perfect together. Let me emphasize that: they are perfect. 

I'm only now able to get this off my chest because I feel I'm making rapid progress in dealing with emotions, like some sort of lubricant has caused these seized up matters to resolve. I know I don't have much time, so I'm cramming a lot in. I struggled with the thought that I should have been in her life all along. I was wrong, but that's a subject for another introspective day.

Some of my favorite pictures are the family portrait photos. They're wonderful. Initially, I thought there was some awkwardness involved; you know, body language can speak volumes. I've come to see it simply as awkward positioning and nothing else. 

Body language can be controlled. It can lie when you're aware of what you're doing. One thing we cannot control, however, is our eyes. They have involuntary motions. 

One photo, in particular, is of this woman and her husband dressed up before a dinner of some sort. He's taking a selfie of them, holding the camera up. She looks great. He looks happy. All looks well. Then I noticed their pupils. They're in the same room with the same light source. His eyes are completely dilated. Hers are normal. 

There are a lot of reasons why this could happen. I hadn't seen it in other pictures, however. It was a one-off. Okay, some of those reasons are 1) medication he was taking 2) he had come from a darker room or closet and quickly snapped a photo before his eyes went back to normal dilation 3) he sustained some sort of head trauma in the moments before taking the photo 4) he has a brain tumor 5) he was extremely emotionally stressed 6) a few other ridiculous and far-fetched reasons 7) he was in love with or at least highly attracted to a) his wife or b) himself or c) someone else. 

I believe the reason his pupils are dilated is that he is highly attracted to his wife at this moment. She, on the other hand, appears completely happy but does not show signs of arousal. This is one of those photos that puzzled me. I like mysteries. I may never know the reason why their pupils aren't dilated to the same degree. Usually, when we have an aberrant situation, we try to reconcile it with what we know. I've chosen to believe what I've seen in other photos. This man loves his wife. He loves his family. Case closed. 

When you let go of a situation and quit trying to control it, you really start to see things that you never saw before. I'm at that place right now. Yes, sometimes in the pictures her husband has a sort of rape sneer on his face. Other photos it's a full smile. I hate the sneer. But, you know what, it's better than my fucking mug in hundreds of photos where I'm not even smiling, where I just want to disappear. He wins yet again.

What I've seen above everything else is this man is the rightful person to be in her life. I feared this moment of realization, but now that it's here, it makes complete sense. I've embraced it. I've prayed thousands of times now that he would repent and put his family back together. I know only God can change hearts, and that's what I've prayed for. It's the only thing that makes sense to me. 

I'm not trying to nice guy my way out of the picture. I'm not even IN the picture. Sure, I may come off as a sore loser, even though I didn't consider myself to even be competing. I just wanted what was best for everyone, especially this woman. If I could pray him back into her life, I would do that. If I could somehow force him to repent, I would. But, human beings don't work that way. We have agency. We have free will. We can have anything in the world we want. We just can't have it all. Sometimes we make choices that put one thing ahead of something else. Sometimes we have to let go of something in order to grab on to something else. All I know is he made a decision to stupidly put himself and his desires above those of his wife and family to the detriment of them all. I can't do a thing about that. I can't fix that. Something in his heart is wrong, and only God can fix it. 

Why am I writing about people I've never met? Because they are incredibly important to people who are near and dear to me. Although I'll never meet them, I still pray for them and will as long as I know what's weighing on their hearts. And, there's always the possibility that with me out of the picture, things will fall into place. Here's hoping.

So, I will pray. I pray for all of us caught up in this hurt of divorce and all that it entails. I no longer pray for myself, but simply for what God wants of me.