The Peanut Butter Falcon

Today I watched The Peanut Butter Falcon. And as I’m watching it, I feel happy. Besides the fact that it’s an amazing movie, I can’t help but to think about the way it made me feel. Why did it make me feel so good? I couldn’t tell you.

But I do remember this. I remember, while I was married, that I would watch movies like this. Of people doing great things. People having adventures. People falling in love. And while I loved watching them, because it was good story, it made me feel like my heart was broken because I felt like I would never get to experience anything like that. I remember crying, several times thinking, why can’t I feel like that? Why doesn’t my husband love me like that? How did I end up in the shitty marriage with a guy who, on the outside, checked all the boxes, but to me, he was ghost?

Now don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t a god awful person. He didn’t steal or lie or gamble or drink to excess or do drugs or cheat or beat his family. He worked incredibly hard. He was passionate about his work and his kids and he was a loyal friend. I saw him literally give the shirt off his back to a stranger before.

He just didn’t love me.

It’s hard to talk about. It’s hard to write about. It was even harder to go through. To know, deep down, that this man cares nothing for me while I, for years, strived to bring us together, fight for my marriage, make myself so small that I became insignificant. I know many of you watched as I continued to shrink myself to a size that was acceptable for him.

And now? I can’t help but to feel grateful. I’m grateful to him. For leaving our marriage, waiting for decay and dust to over take it. To have given up. To have left. To have broken my heart and shredded my self worth and ground our marriage into gravel and grime. To leave me to pick up the pieces while he was off on a whirlwind adventure, meeting another girl, moving away and starting a new family, 3 months after he moved out of mine. I’m grateful.

And the reason I’m grateful is because now, when I watch movies, like The Peanut Butter Falcon, I have something to look forward to. I can look around my life and feel peace. I can mold and shape my life in whatever way it I see fit. I can experience trial and error. Adventure. Chaos. And most importantly, love.

While I was married, I felt like I had to conform to a certain way. To bow down before the weight of his word, to be an obedient wife. To fight with a man so he could see the value in me and then when he didn’t, come to the conclusion that I must not have value if the person I loved the most in this world couldn’t see it.

I don’t feel like this anymore. It isn’t because after we divorced, we had some long conversation of mess ups and apologies. I don’t feel like that anymore because once I finally pulled myself back up, I could see life was still there. World was still turning. Kids were still growing.

Time passed.

And I didn’t die.

I actually healed.

I began to do things myself. Some things were way easier than I thought. Some, much harder. Navigating my way through beginning my life again wasn’t easy. It took intentional effort. But I did it. I’m still here. And right now, Im sitting on my couch, painting my nails and watching this incredible movie. And I’m grateful to have gone through such a terrible heartbreak because it freed me from the place I was in.

I am in no way condoning divorce. Shit was horrible and I would give it a 0/10. If you’re having marital problems, find a way to work it out cause the alternative is heartbreak and scars you will carry around for the rest of your life. But if you do go through it, just know, there's also peace in the other side.

I can only speak for me. Now that I’m on the other side, and I feel these moments while watching these movies, I get that warm feeling, sinking in my chest because I know that my life is mine to make. And I’m making it great.