I don't want to take this anger into 2026

The story of the gray car came up again in therapy last night.  There were parallels in it to the story I wrote a couple days ago about my color guard flag and rifle.  In 2002, I wrote, "The day I give up my flags and rifle will be the day I die."  And then in 2018, I sold them both.  Each represented a slow erasure of my needs and wants.  And they were a realization that I got choosier and choosier about the battles I picked and chose as the years went by.  His push back at my often very simple requests and reminders of how little tiny things (like telling the car salesman I didn't want a gray car) were "almost marriage-ending" in his mind, encouraged me to speak up less and less and shrink myself smaller and smaller.  Even his mom fed into that with the argument she intervened in, telling me I should support my man.

I admit that I as I went to bed last night an anger welled up in me that was almost overwhelming.  He used something that cost him absolutely nothing to try to hold over my head for years.  His ego was more important than me, my needs, my wants, or my feelings.  

I just can't get over how someone could treat another like that.  I can't understand that mentality.  To see clearly what he did destroys the innocence I had about the kindness of others.

So I'm so angry he lied about who he was, deceived me, and then slowly chipped away at me until I became a person that was completely needless and oblivious to the way he was draining me.  What a horrible, terrible thing to do to another person!  And to do it to someone to whom he repeatedly said "I love you."

But it's been too long holding onto this anger.  It's only harming me.  It's only keeping me stuck.  I want to leave it in 2025.

I plan to be on the beach on New Year's morning in just two day's time.  Maybe there's something symbolic I can write or draw in the sand for the waves to wash away to encourage a release.