30 | My tiny miracle at Christmas
I do something I thought I would never do
Can I share something with you?
Something that feels like concrete proof that, in time, healing happens, even of our most hurting, tender places?
I knew it theoretically before, but now I know it in reality.
Twenty years ago, when I was abandoned by my airline pilot husband for an air hostess, also married, I wrote in my diary:
'At the moment I feel like I hate everything connected with him:
e.g.
- British Airways 🇬🇧
- flying ✈️
- aeroplanes 🛩️
- TVRs 🏎️
- Suburu Imprezas 🚙
- yachts ⛵️
- sailing ⚓️
- BT Global Challenge 🌍
- Ellen Macarthur, Matthew Pincent & rowing generally 🚣♀️
- and most of all
- Air Hostesses! 😈
'I never want to fly again'
I had been hurt to the extent I felt I never wanted to go near an airport or fly on a plane again but when I told that to my plain-speaking father, he took his pipe out of his mouth and said shortly, ‘You’ll have to get over that. Or you’ll never travel.’
He was right of course and I've told elsewhere of how I decided to overcome this life-limiting phobia.
An encounter with an air hostess
Fast forward to the week before this Christmas. I went with my husband who is studying for his private pilot's licence to the flying club's Christmas social. Towards the end of the evening I found myself seated at the bar talking to a very pleasant, elegant lady and her partner.
She told me she was an air hostess who now worked in crew-training.
I smiled, nodded, and we carried on talking amicably, discovering a mutual love of Wolf Hall, Part Three of which was currently airing on BBC-TV.
I couldn't and wouldn't have done this for a long, long time after my husband's falling foul with an air hostess he met at a sailing club. I guess I tarred them all with the same brush.
And oh, the relief of feeling I'm a grownup who has dealt with this and can handle it. The relief of not having to feel that bitterness and hate and almost malevolence towards a whole group of people. Of course it was wrong what happened, but I did not have to let myself be trapped and constrained by it. I feel lighter as a result.
It has happened almost imperceptibly and of course I realise a lot of healing has come through my new marriage.
I am very grateful and heartened to see that healing does happen though it wasn't a quick fix.
My very best wishes for the coming year for all who are reading this.
🌿🌿🌿
