They come to enjoy the shade

This post is going to be very transparent. I feel comfortable enough where I am now to be able to share with anyone who cares to read this blog, the struggle and the heart ache of the last several months.

Just know, that I’m better now. I’m happy. Truly.

When my ex husband decided to end our marriage, I was devastated. And I know that word is commonly used to describe more terrible things but it works here. During my separation and eventual divorce, everything in my life fell apart. Simultaneously. And if you’ve been through a divorce, I know you know what I’m talking about. There isn’t a single vein of my life not tarnished by this. Even now, its hard to filter through and pluck out a topic to discuss. Remember that scene in Star Wars, A New Hope, when they get stuck in the trash compactor? That what it’s like. You’re sitting around in this deep, mucky pool of heart break and failure, with all the rememants of your past, lifeless floating around you. Rotting. Decaying. Dying. And you can’t get away. So you have no choice but to sit with the putrid crap of a life lost and it SUCKS. Things you held so close and precious are now fractured memories. Then you feel like the walls are closing in and you hate waking up cause you feel so shitty. Then you hate when it’s time to lay down for bed cause there’s nothing to keep the hateful and hurtful memories at bay. You hate long drives cause your mind has time to run through scenario after scenario. Listening to the radio? Forget about it. The poisonous self talk just oozes from your subconsicience and drives you fucking crazy. I would wake up and immediately feel this sense of doom. (Turns out that was anxiety. Never felt it like that before). It’s bad. You’re mouth gets sore from constantly holding your jaw tight and teeth clenched. You wake up everyday with puffy eyes from boohooing right before you fell asleep and if you have somewhere to be the in the AM, everyone knows you went to bed crying.

I just felt like I would never recover. I thought I would feel this terrible way for the rest of my life.

One of the worst parts for me was the uncertainty. I was not the bread winner in my house. I had never paid a light bill or budgeted my income. Ever. Now every cent was counted and assigned a job. Thoughts of Disney and the Keys and random, spontaneous trips, now gone.

Friendships that I have loved, cultivated, nurtured, and endured, now gone. Some of those lost friendships I understood. Others, even to this day, no answer was given as to why I was cut off.

It’s hard.

People think of divorce as two people who couldn’t work it out, moving in different directions. But it’s so much more than that. My entire life was broken. My hope and dreams, all gone.

Things I had spent my entire life growing for myself, were uprooted and tossed away when he left. And it’s not like I could ask for them back. I don’t think it was his intention to steal those things from me. It’s just the reality of losing my marriage. My self worth. My self esteem. My identity. My confidence. My outlook. My trust. Now dust.

One of the things I found the hardest was that when I started to feel better, after a few days, I could feel this dark feeling, lurking, waiting to devour me. Like a hungry lion, pacing it’s cage. It was heavy and sad. Even though I didn’t want it. I didn’t invite it. I didn’t ask for it. It came and snatched my joy away and then I had to start from scratch. Again.

I remember one Sunday, after I had picked up my kids from him, I cried the whole way home. And I couldn’t even hold it in from my kids in the car, even though I tried so hard. I remember sitting on the couch that evening and gazing into the dark ceiling, knowing this shitty feeling was here again, and I couldn’t hold it at bay any longer. I let it crash down like a giant wave. Heavy and suffocating. It felt like he had just left that afternoon. I remember the ache and the pit in my stomach that night. I remember being so tired. My eyes hurt from crying. I was empty. And nothing drastic had happened to cause it. No arguments. No disappointing news. No shocking revelations (those would come later). It was just reality that this was my life now and I was heartbroken. I was sad.

There’s a scene in the Lord of the Rings, where Frodo gets stabbed with a Morgul-blade. At the end of the story, after countless conflicts and months and months of traveling, Frodo talks about the wound never healing. That after all this time, it’s still hurts and it’s an injury he will carry with him forever. I often wonder if that’s what divorce is like. Considering mine is still relatively recent, I can only hope that it’s not.

I think about that sad night, with the dark wave crashing and I wish I could tell myself that yes, you will feel better. In a few months, there will be days you won’t cry. Then those days turn into weeks! Your loss of this marriage will not be the 1st thing you think of when you wake up. Or the 2nd. Or even the 3rd. You will be fine deleting pictures. You will be able to listen to songs that at first, pierced you so deep but now you can sing along.

You will start to develop friendships and relationships,new and old, that are deep and comforting. You will find humor in things that once cause heartache. Being alone isn’t scary or sad. It’s normal and can be fun. You will be intentional about the direction your life takes. You will make plans and make memories and start to grow all the things lost when he left. Sure, they may be little saplings at first, but one day they will turn into giants forests with shade and fruit with big broad leaves and study roots with fast flowing rivers of fun and friendship winding through it.

I may carry the injury of this heartache right now. But I’m healing. I have a feeling one day I won’t even remember the sad nights. I will of created a great forest for myself so big and vast that others will come to spend time in it, just to enjoy the shade.

I know I’ve talked a lot about my divorce in my blog, but that’s because it’s a big deal. It’s my entire life, broken, and my telling of how I’m putting it back together. Piece by piece. Memory by memory. And like I stated in the beginning of this post, I’m happier. My heart is lighter. I don’t worry about bad days or sad nights cause I know they are temporary and I’ll feel better in the morning. Life moves on. I’ve started to move on. I’ve made up my mind that the days of watching life go by are gone. I want to be involved. To grow. To do big things. To do small things. To grow in my relationship with Christ. With my family. With my children. With my friends. I’m so glad to have you guys in my life! And I love you!