When divorce happens, it can leave you feeling like a failure. Powerless and adrift in your life. It’s easy to internalize these feelings, to recite them to yourself as if they were gospel.
But what might happen if you change your story? Take back your power?
And rewrite your divorce?
Learn the steps you need to take to release your divorce find your voice again.
“You have to wait one month for each year you were married.”
“It’s like riding a horse. The sooner you get back in the saddle, the better.”
“After divorce, you must stay single for at least two years to truly find yourself.”
I heard it all after my husband left. Yet none of it really felt right to me. I knew I wasn’t ready to start a new relationship immediately. Even the thought made me feel a bit ill. At the same time, some trite and trivial timeline didn’t resonate either. Who was to say that I didn’t need more than a month for every year or that I would be ready far sooner than the two-year mark?
The truth is that the time needed after divorce before entering a new relationship is different for everyone and, this is the important part, only you know when you are truly ready.
“I love you enough to feed you into the wood chipper head first,” I announced mirthfully to my husband the other night on our way to dinner.
Which got me thinking about all of the ways we express love that are often not interpreted as such.
Sometimes love is a sweet hug and a kind word, a welcome home after a long day.
Sometimes love is a playful smack on the butt, an adult version of, “Tag, you’re it!”
Sometimes love is expressed in the little things, the gestures that say, “I see you.”
Sometimes love is found in offering the extra helping and sometimes it’s found by accepting that unwanted offering.
Sometimes love is granting space, giving the gift of time and freedom.
Sometimes love is overwhelming, flooding the senses. And sometimes it’s more like a dull ache fading into the background.
Sometimes love is accepting the onslaught of frustration and unease that often releases once the distressed feel safe.
Sometimes love is a difficult decision that you know will hurt somebody in the moment yet be better for them in long run.
Sometimes love is saying you’re sorry even when you’re still angry and accepting an apology even though you know you’re right. And sometimes it’s admitting you’re wrong.
Sometimes love is enforcing boundaries and learning to say, “No,” as any parent is well aware.
Sometimes love is expressed through frustration, not at the person but the helplessness you feel about their situation.
Sometimes love is letting go and sometimes it’s refusing to release your grip.
Sometimes love is giving in and sometimes it’s about giving someone the confidence to do it on their own.
Love is the action and it’s also the intent.
And learning to see love requires that sometimes you look behind the curtain, that you shelve your initial assumptions and reactions and instead consider that maybe what you’re really seeing is, “I love you.”
And sometimes love is joking that if I ever get angry enough to kill you, I’ll be sure to make it quick 🙂
Today is a good day.
No, today is a GREAT day.
This marks the first weekend I’ve had since the start of the school year (8 very long months ago) that I didn’t bring home at least a day’s worth of work to do.
Not only that, but all my kiddos tested on their final units last week. So with only review, testing and preview on the horizon, I can finally collapse relax.
And it feels amazing.
I have an old 16 GB iPhone 5 that’s been limping alongside this school year. I’ve had to dutifully and constantly delete files in order to make room for the demands of the app upgrades and system updates. All year, it’s been a constant battle between its needs and its limitations.
I made a difficult decision last week and deleted Pandora from its memory, freeing up enough space for normal operation.
Today, I feel like my phone. I’ve been able to delete the memory-guzzling planning and lesson preparation app from my brain, leaving enough space for normal operation.
Alongside, the fear that I’ve carried about screwing up this inaugural math program and irrevocably damaging young math minds has faded. By all accounts, it’s been a successful year.
And so now, even though we still have 8 more weeks remaining, I feel like I’m on vacation.
It’s amazing, our ability to shoulder heavier and heavier loads without collapse. And it’s often only once we release the weight that we are aware of how much weight we carry.
So today, I’m breathing easier. Appreciating the sunshine. And so incredibly grateful for the opportunites presented to me this year. And even more grateful to have survived.
To all those carrying heavy loads today, may you find a place to set it down for moment and take a rest.
Have you noticed that some people seem to find their inner zen and worldly wisdom as they age while others only seem to settle into negativity and bitterness?
Have you ever wondered why that is?
As we get older, there are two opposing forces that can impact our general happiness and outlook. Two divergent agencies both raising their voices to be heard.
Which one will you listen to?
The Voice of Life Lost
When I look around me, I see some people who have made it beyond middle age without suffering any major setbacks or losses. But only a few. I’m convinced that wrinkles are only partially due to thinning collagen and the relentless pull of gravity. I think wrinkles are the visible signs of the emotional scars we carry in ever-increasing numbers.
And as those hurts and losses begin to compound, it’s easy to become buried. Become embittered. It may seem that there is more lost than has ever been gained and the thought of trying again feels insurmountable. With so many difficult life experiences, everything can become tainted, turning the once-innocuous into a potential trigger.
Some people let this toxicity build like an algal bloom on a once-clear lake, blocking out all of the light and choking out all of the life. Their lives become a tally of what has happened and how they’ve been targeted by misfortune.
As they grow older, they become more agitated, more pessimistic and often as a result, more alone.
The Voice of Life Lived
And then there are those who listen to the other voice. These souls are no more fortunate, no less likely to have experienced hardship. They simply hear a different message.
They look back at their long lives with its many struggles with the gift of perspective. Perhaps they are able to see how something that was devastating at the time became a gift, even though it was unwanted and a great price, after the passage of the seasons. They view their myriad losses at part of the signs of a life spent giving and loving rather than focusing on what is no longer present.
Instead of questioning why things happened to them, they are able to look back with a sense of quiet pride that they made it through so many trials. And that confidence gives them the optimism that they’ll make it through the next one as well. With time and practice, coping skills and strategies have been perfected and practiced, using the difficult times as opportunities to become better.
Instead of focusing on what they don’t have with bitterness, they view what they do have with gratitude.
Thankful for every moment and every breath.
We all have both voices speaking to us, the proverbial devil and angel perched upon our shoulders. Which voice will you listen to – the one who counsels misery or the one that brings you inner peace and wisdom?
Lessons From the End of a Marriage 