Unsaid

Posted on by stilllearning2b

This seems to happen to me every fall. I play host to a common rhinovirus. Apparently, I’m great at making those little buggers feel right at home because they move in and invite all their friends. Some years, I end up with pneumonia. Other years – the lucky ones – I make it through with only a sinus infection, bronchitis and, the worst for a teacher, laryngitis.

The timing of these illnesses is always impressive. Three years ago, Brock and I were in the middle of moving homes and had our annual Thanksgiving camping trip scheduled when we both came down with the munge. Not ones to be easily discouraged, we held to our plans although we had to make a couple NyQuil runs during the trip and I think our coughing kept Tiger up during the night. Two years ago, I was blessed with a bout of pneumonia just a few short weeks before my marathon. I was still able to run although I’m sure the illness had some impact on my race experience. Last year, it hit Brock during our wedding week and me shortly after.

And this year?

No pneumonia, knock on wood. But no voice either. I’ve been attempting to teach math with pantomime and interpretive dance and to communicate in meetings through lip-reading and telepathy. I’m only partly joking.

It’s exhausting trying to get through a busy day with hundreds of people with no voice.

But even worse?

It’s frustrating.

There is always more that I want to communicate than what I can conceivably convey. I’m in the middle of the group yet I feel invisible. Impotent. Dependent and decrepit. Especially when the classroom phone rings and all I can do is stare at it pathetically.

Not a feeling I like.

I’m hopeful, though. Brock and I are both on the mend and hopefully we’ll be healthy before we hit the campground for Thanksgiving. Hiking is more fun without my seal-bark cough scaring away all the wildlife and toasted marshmallows over chilled NyQuil.

And maybe I’ll even have a voice for tomorrow when I expect my principal to do one of my formal observations.

Of course, she may enjoy my interpretive dance about volume instead:)

Stay well, folks. It’s okay to be a bad host sometimes!

 

 

 

 

I Feel Hopeless

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Discouraging doesn’t even come close.

So many days, it just feels impossible.

There is so much to do. So much to rebuild.

And you just have nothing left.

No energy. No money. No time.

But those are just excuses talking.

The fear of letting go holding you back.

I know. I’ve been there.

The best part about a new beginning is that anything is possible.

 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and hopeless, these posts will light the way and help to guide you towards a better life:

Everything is going to be okay.  Those words were my Xanax against the panic.

 

 

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You don’t have to do it all at once. One step at a time.

 

Have you been betrayed? Have you found the gifts hidden within?

 

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It’s difficult not to see yourself as a victim when something happens to you. But you are only a victim if you imprison yourself. Release the shackles of the past and let your spirit soar.

 

 

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My divorce was a forest fire – everything was destroyed and the land was cleared for new growth.

 

When gratitude is your wrapping paper, everything is a gift.

 

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Been floored by a tsunami? Learn how to surf.

 

Wondering if you can ever trust again? You can.

 

 

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Every ending holds the seed to a new beginning. Let it grow.

 

Failure means you’re learning. Starting over means you’re applying the lessons.

 

 

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Happiness is divorce in the rearview mirror.

 

The words we say to others have influence. The words we say to ourselves have power.

 

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How to love when you’re the next love.

 

Finding love again. It’s different, but different can be better.

 

 

compost of the past

 

 

And finally, my own story of love after divorce. A reflection on a journey. And what a helluva journey it’s been!

 

 

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Tells – The Truth Always Finds a Way Out

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Last night, we watched the movie Rounders, a drama where Matt Damon and Edward Norton portray high-stakes poker players. It was intriguing to disappear into that risky and shadowy world from the mundane security of the couch. My pulse was racing enough just watching someone lose $25,000 in a matter of seconds; I certainly didn’t feel a need to experience it myself.

I know very little about the mechanics of poker, but I do know a few things about psychology. And, as you may know, poker is often more about what the players think you have in your hand rather than the actual cards you hold. The winner is often the person who can see through others’ misdirections while projecting his or her illusion seamlessly.

I think my ex would have made a very good poker player.

For all I know, maybe he was. Perhaps that’s what happened to the money. But even if he never touched a deck of cards, he was still approaching life like a game. He was attracted to risks. He seemed to enjoy being able to manipulate people with his stories and actions. He had an amazing ability to read people and steer them in the direction he wanted.

And, like many poker players, he was almost brought down by his tell.

In the game, a “tell” is a subconscious sign that reveals when a player is stressed or bluffing. It can be a certain eye movement, a twitching of a finger or, as in the case of the movie, even reaching for an Oreo. Players work to restrain or hide their tells.

Because the truth is fighting to come out.

My ex met his other wife at a bar in a Vegas hotel, where they were both staying for work. According to her, they stayed up late that first night, flirting and drinking in the public spaces. He was wooing her with fabrications, telling stories of a manufactured persona woven from the lives of our friends. I guess at some point, the stress of the lies grew too great because he passed out cold on the casino floor.

Interestingly, in his statement to the police months later, he claimed that at that moment, he lost “conscienceness,” misplacing his ability to tell right from wrong. It was the only truth he wrote upon that paper.

The paramedics were called and his vitals taken. His blood pressure was as inflated as his lies.

Because the truth was fighting to come out.

For the last several months of our marriage, he visited doctor upon doctor trying to reign in his ever-soaring hypertension. No pill was strong enough; the pressure kept mounting.

Along with the lies.

The doctors declared his problem was idiopathic, arising from unknown origins. What they failed to realize is that the cause was buried in his psychology rather than his physiology. They were looking in the wrong place.

If I known I was married to a poker player, perhaps I would have recognized his hypertension for what it was. A tell.

Because the truth always finds a way out.

 

Side note – When I saw him a couple years ago, one of the only things I was curious about was his blood pressure. I figured it would be a clue as to the kind of life he was living.

 

In Perpetuity

Posted on by stilllearning2b

“Mom, what does ‘in perpetuity’ mean?” I asked from the backseat as we drove by an intown San Antonio theater advertising Rocky Horror Picture Show Friday 10 pm  with the unfamiliar words posted beneath.

“It means it keeps repeating, going on without end.”

“So they show that same movie every Friday? That’s dumb,” I concluded with the assurance of a know-it-all 8-year-old. “Who would want to see that?”

Me, it turns out, since once I was a senior in high school, I visited that theater more than once to watch the movie and enjoy the theatrics in the spirited audience.

I guess I didn’t know everything when I was 8.

Or even when I was a senior in high school.

Because when I was a senior in high school, I thought someone could overcome their past just by wanting it badly enough.

I saw my parents’ divorce and vowed that it would never happen to me. I felt left behind by my dad and was confident that my boyfriend (later husband) would never leave my side. I witnessed the power that worry held over my mom and swore that I would be more carefree.

My boyfriend felt the same. He looked at his father with disgust and proclaimed he would never follow in his footsteps. He was fully aware of the alcoholism in his genes and promised that he was stronger than its pull. I saw the intensity in his eyes when he renounced his childhood and swore he would chart his own path. And I believed him.

 

I didn’t yet understand that it takes more than intention to escape the replays of the childhood patterns. I didn’t realize that old wounds, long since buried, would spring up again with new players filling in for old roles. I wasn’t aware how many of my actions and behaviors came from past experience rather than responding to some present stimulus.

I didn’t yet comprehend that our childhoods have a tendency to play in perpetuity unless we find a way to stop the feedback loop.

And it takes more than desire to stop the pattern.

 

My biggest childhood wound was a fear of abandonment. I was fully aware of this fear, yet I didn’t exactly address it in the best ways. When my dad moved across the country, I convinced myself that I didn’t need a dad. I could take care of everything myself. When I had several friends die, I decided to push the others away before they could leave. In school and work, I set myself apart by always being willing to take on the extra tasks and responsibilities; I made sure I was too needed to be rejected.

But none of those really mitigated my fear of being abandoned; they just made me think they did.

In fact, the only way I got over my fear was to finally face it.

And, as it turns out, the fear of abandonment was worse than the abandonment itself.

 

One of the strongest memories I have of the end of my marriage is from one night shortly before he left. From what I knew, he was in Brazil on a work trip. He had been experiencing uncontrollable hypertension for months and, on a rare call from Brazil, stated that he had also come down with some gastrointestinal bug. He sounded miserable, alone and scared. Two days later, I anxiously awaited his call from the Atlanta airport, where he was supposed to arrive that morning. I tracked the flight online, noted its landing time and waited.

Hours went by.

Calls to his phone went straight to voicemail. Repeated checks of the website verified the flight time and safe landing. I paced the hallway, gripping my phone in my hand. The dogs paced with me, their nails clicking on the laminate floor. I sat down at my desk and tried to find a number to call in Brazil. I paced again when the anxiety-fueled tremors grew too strong. I had images of him alone in a hotel room, too sick to get help in a foreign country. I felt impotent. Helpless. I paced again. I finally located his out-of-state office’s number and called his boss. He sounded surprised to hear from me.

Minutes later, the phone rang. It was my husband.

“I’m so sorry you were worried, baby. My flight’s tomorrow.”

“Are you okay?” It was all I could think to ask, my legs giving out beneath me.

“I’m fine,” he chuckled,”But I need to let you go now. It’s too expensive. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

I wonder where his soon-to-be other wife was when he made that call?

 

That afternoon was my dress rehearsal for abandonment.

I experienced the real thing two short weeks later.

With my dad by my side.

My parents working together.

And my mom putting aside her own concerns for the care of her daughter.

 

I realized four things in those early moments after being jettisoned from my marriage:

I was never really abandoned in my childhood.

After really being abandoned in adulthood, I was strong enough to survive.

Accepting help doesn’t make you weak; it makes you real.

And the way to protect against abandonment is by letting people in rather than by keeping them out.

 

After facing spousal abandonment and thriving, I’ve even been able to find some of the hidden gifts.

 

It’s strange how life continues to present us with lessons until we are ready to learn.

A tutorial in perpetuity until we are ready to listen.

 

 

 

The Honeymoon Period After Divorce

Posted on by stilllearning2b

We are all familiar with the honeymoon period of a new relationship – those weeks or months where the relationship is everything and seems to exist in a world all of its own. The end of a marriage can also have its own honeymoon period while the divorce remains the primary focus. It’s not uncommon for people who seem to be coping okay during the legal process to suddenly appear to fall apart once its all over. Here is what to expect after your divorce is final and some ways to cope with the end of the divorce honeymoon.

The Letdown of a Goal Attained

Once you have accepted that the end of your marriage is imminent, the divorce decree becomes a goal to reach. Hours may be spent procuring information, signing documents and making decisions towards that singular objective. If you’re like me, you assign the decree some magical power; it is the document that ends one life and symbolizes the beginning of another. I was disappointed when it turned out to be just a stapled stack of (very expensive) papers.

When something takes an immense amount of our time and energy, we have a tendency to feel disappointment when it is over. Even if it’s something we desperately wanted to be over. If you feel this way once your decree is in hand, replace the divorce goal with a new one. Do something with a finish line. Start a new degree or certification program. Make a commitment to learning a new skill. A goal will serve two purposes: it will give you something to focus on and, once you reach the benchmark, it will help to rebuild your sense of confidence.

The Support Fades

In the early days of a split, friends and family often step up and step in. Your inbox is filled with messages of concern and condolences. Texts arrive with offers of dinner or drinks. You may have people offer to watch the kids or take care of your lawn. I was very fortunate to have my dad with me the first week after my ex disappeared and my mom to take his place for the next two weeks. I had a friend take me in and many others take me out. There was always a shoulder to cry on and a hand to help.

But eventually that fades as new crises come up and yours fades into the backdrop of life. It can be an isolating feeling when you realize that the support has faded. The solution? Be proactive. Meet new people. Make new friends. Ones who don’t know you as “the divorcing one.”  Be careful not to turn to romantic interests to meet your emotional needs; that’s a recipe for additional heartbreak.

Sympathy Turns to Frustration

In the beginning, you will likely find that people are sympathetic to your pain. But after hearing you talk about your impossible ex for the umpteenth time, they will grow frustrated. Some may disclose this to your face. Others may be more subtle and just pull away from your company. It can be difficult – often healing takes longer than other’s patience.

If you find that your sobs and stories are wearing thin, it’s time to find a new place to share them. Find a therapist. Start a journal. Join a support group or online community. Also be willing to recognize if there’s a message in your friend’s withdrawal – are you complaining without changing?

Delayed Pain

During divorce, you have to be strong. You have to be ready to talk to lawyers without tears obscuring your words. You have to be able to make major decisions that will impact your life for the forseeable future. You may have to keep it together for the sake of your children.

I remember using the tasks of the divorce as a way to keep me from feeling the divorce. And when the divorce was done, those feelings came. With interest.

Be ready for these delayed emotions to hit. It doesn’t mean that you’re sliding backward; it just means that you’re slowing down. Feel them. Face them.  And then show them the door.

Reality Sets In

There’s something about the divorce being final that makes it all real. Permanent. Even though I had not talked to my ex in eight months by the time of the legal finale, he was still tied to me in so many ways. But once I had that paper in my hand, I felt the weight of the reality that my old life was gone and nothing would ever be the same again.

When someone leaves our lives, they leave a void.  It takes time to not try to call them when you have a smile to share or need someone to hold you up. It’s difficult to accept that they are gone.

This is a time to focus on the good. Create your gratitude list. Celebrate your new possibilities. Yes, you have lost the future you had imagined. So dream a new one.

Burden of Responsibility 

I remember the shock I felt the first winter after he left. For the first time, I was solely responsible for my own taxes. It was scary. Unfamiliar. But that’s nothing. For those who are single parents who carry the weight of primary custody, the burden of responsibility is huge. You may now be the sole caretaker and decision maker for dependent children. That’s an enormous responsibility.

You may be afraid to tackle these once-shared tasks and decisions on your own. Yet, each time you do, you will find that your confidence and ability improves. The more you carry, the stronger you become.

Boredom

I can hear you laughing from here. “I’d love some boredom,” you say. I’m sure. Yet it can also be a difficult adjustment. If your divorce was drama-filled, you have adapted to that level of stimulation. And when it’s over, it can be a challenge to acclimate.

Be aware of your need for stimulation. If it remains high once your life gears down, you may seek excitement in unhealthy ways. Stick to roller coasters and horror movies.

Fear of Beginning

While you’re divorcing, you have a legitimate reason for not making steps towards beginning your new life. Once the divorce is final, the excuse is gone. And starting over is scary.

But so worth it.