The Life You Had is Gone

Posted on by stilllearning2b
life gone divorce

“The life you had is gone.”

I would tell myself as a lament and in an attempt to force acceptance.

“You now have the opportunity to create a new life.”

I would continue, in a hope that optimism also operated on the “fake it until you make it” principle.

“You can now build a life you want. A better life.”

I was desperately trying to see the good in the devastation that had become my existence.

“But I don’t want a new life! I want my old life. With my husband. I want our imagined and planned-for future. I want what I had!”

The pain of loss and the fear of starting over challenged my resolution to move forward with the energy of an obstinate child.

I didn’t want anything new. Anything else. Anything different.

I wanted what I had. Or at least, what I thought I had.

When I tried to picture a new life, a life without him, my brain responded with the muscle memory of a comic artist who has drawn only a single character. All I could picture was him. I would see myself older and he, changed as well by the years, would be by my side. Like watching a silent movie, I envisioned the life experiences we would daydream about on long car rides or late nights on the deck. I saw things changing around me – new jobs, new homes, new friends. But always, he was the constant.

Even as I reminded myself that it was gone, I resisted letting go. I wanted what was known. Comfortable. I railed against the unfairness of it. The theft of my dreams among the obliteration of his promises.

“But it’s gone,” I reminded myself throughout these visions. “You’re wasting your energy. Throwing good money after bad.” I became my own drill sergeant. “Move on! Drop it! Let it go!”

“But if I let it go, I have nothing,” I whispered back at myself.

I tried to force a new identity on the man in my life vision, but it was like trying to fit a child’s mask on a grown man – it couldn’t block it all. I tried to blur his face in my mind, to smudge him enough that he could be anyone. If my inner voice and I had been female characters in a movie, we would have surely failed the Bechdel Test because all we talked about was a man.

“It’s gone. It’s gone. It’s gone,” became the words that punctuated my footfalls as I ran countless miles in an attempt to purge him from my body. At night, I filled the pages of my journal with both memories and pleas.

I held no love for the man I battled in court. He was a stranger. A monster. I wept for the man that I thought I wed. I cried for the loss of an illusion. But damn, it sure felt real.

But illusions rarely stand the test of time. Like most apparitions, it began to lose it opacity with time. I started to accept the delusions inherent in the former life I pined for. The old existence with its new blemishes no longer held the familiar appeal.

“I can’t build anything new until I release the old,” I was mouthing as I woke up from a dream. A dream where I was alone. Alone and happy.

“The life you had is gone.”

I reminded myself again. Only this time the words had lost their dreadful weight and were infused with a sense of curiosity.

“The life you had is gone.”

“And I wonder what will come next.”

Ten Life Events That Can Trigger Unexpected Grief

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On Friday we said goodbye to a dear friend of my husband’s. The grief was thick in the air as we shared stories and perused old photos. (An aside – I think listening to the eulogy my husband delivered is the proudest I’ve ever been of him!) None of us were surprised by the heartache, this man’s life impacted many and his his death leaves a void.

Later that day, I did some maintenance work on my school website. I found myself caught off guard by a sense of loss when I encountered the roster from last year’s eighth graders, who have now moved on to the high school. There is no tragedy in this situation; children are expected to move on. Yet even though my rational mind understand this, my heart still grieves a little for these individuals that will no longer fill my classroom.

We expect to mourn the major losses in life: death, divorce and estrangement. Yet grief isn’t limited to the obvious. In fact, any time there is loss (or simply the feeling of loss), there is grief. Here are ten common life situations that can lead to unexpected grief:

 

Having a Child

From the moment a child is born, the parents begin the process of letting go. Some experience a yearning for the freedoms that life offered prior to children, grieving the loss of the life they had even as they feel overwhelmed with love for their offspring. Others struggle with accepting the child they have and grieve for the child they dreamed would be theirs. For all parents, the completion of one stage and the advancement to another is bittersweet, both a time of letting go and a time of celebration. And of course, at some point, the child is no longer a child. “Empty nest syndrome” is simply a culturally-approved way of describing the grief that accompanies the launching of children.

Graduation

Look at the faces at any graduation and you’ll observe a mixture of excitement for the attainment of a goal, fear of the next step and grieving for the completion of an era. Graduation signals the end of the identify as “student.” There may be other, related, losses if a move soon follows graduation. Finally, for many, graduation serves as a benchmark for the end of childhood, prompting a grieving process for the end of a life stage.

 

Marriage

Much like with the birth of a child, marriage may signal the end of a certain lifestyle. Even when the change is welcomed, there may be some sadness for the life that was traded in. In addition, some find that by choosing one person, they grieve the loss of the potential of choosing others.

 

Moving

The most obvious loss that accompanies moving is the lack of access to friends and/or family. Other casualties are not so apparent. You may find that you grieve for the way the light used to shine into your former kitchen or that you’re still aching for your old neighborhood coffeeshop. This sadness over the change often leads to a feeling that the move was a mistake.

 

Aging

Bodies break down. And as they lose efficiency and display more wear and tear, it’s easy to grieve for the younger – and more resilient – self. It’s funny, most of us are self-critical about our bodies, especially when we are young. And then we look back at old photographs and wonder how we could have ever disparaged that youthful and healthy body. Aging-related grief may be over form or function as both looks and health tend to decline.

 

Fertility Struggles

I am happy to see the attention that this is now receiving. Couples that struggle with fertility are in an endless cycle of hope and despair, grieving for the pregnancies that don’t occur or the ones that end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Additionally, there is mourning for the lack of “normal” fertility as they observe others bear children without any obvious issues.

 

Health-Related Changes

I had to go gluten free over eleven years ago. And I grieved over bread, tears and everything. Health problems often dictate lifestyle changes, whether it be giving up a type of food or staying away from certain activities. These changes can be more difficult than anticipated. When you’re told you can no longer do something, you mourn for the time when you faced no such restrictions.

 

Retirement

Like graduation, retirement also signals a shift in your identity. Additionally, it is often closing out one life stage (adulthood) and entering another (AARP mailer recipient). This is a common time for people to grieve the life choices they made (or didn’t make) because they begin to realize that time is limited.

 

Eliminating Material Items

Even for the non-hoarders, material items often carry emotional weight. As such, when we take a load to Goodwill or hold a garage sale, there is often an ache that accompanies the release of the items. These things have been allowed to symbolize a person or a particular moment in time. And so by relinquishing the items, we are allowing ourselves to let go.

 

Making Decisions

If you opt for Choice A, you have eliminated the possibility of selecting Option B. And that’s how life often works – we make a series of decisions, each one eliminating the possibility of deciding to take a different path. And sometimes, we become overwhelmed with all of the roads not taken and we grieve for the imagined possibilities that are left unexplored.

 

 

Loss and therefore, grief, are a normal part of life. It’s okay to mourn what you no longer have. Just keep in mind that grieving is not meant to be a full-time job. Learn how to live while you weep, find gratitude while you grieve and move forward even as you honor what was.

10 Empowering Thoughts to Hold Onto When It’s All Falling Apart

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Does Time Heal All Wounds?

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When people contact me early in their divorce experience, the edges still rough and the emotions raw, I often find myself saying, “It’s early still. Give it some time.” It’s counsel I hate to give because it suggests that the pain has to be endured before it can be erased. Yet it’s also truth; there are some parts of healing that can only be addressed through the passage of time.

Time is a critical component of healing from loss. Yet it is no panacea, containing all of the answers.

What time does…

Time Softens I like to think of time as flowing like a river. When you first experience loss, it is a rough and jagged stone, thrust suddenly into the stream. At first, the river is diverted, pausing as it navigates this alien and unwanted intruder. In time, the river wears away at the rock, softening its edges and incorporating it into its topography. The loss is still there, but the serrated edges that sawed through your heart are worn into a blunt edge that provides a constant, yet bearable, pressure.

Time Muddies Memories At first, memories come in great waves, slamming into your gut without notice and stealing your breath away. The images play across your brain in high definition and the current reality pushes in with its ugly disparity. As the calendar advances, these memories lose some of their clarity, the details fading like linen left in the sun.

Time Permits Acclimation When you first experience loss, it’s like the gaping hole left behind by a missing tooth. It demands your attention. You worry at it. Obsess about it. Over a period of weeks and months, the shock and novelty fade. The need to talk about your situation will become less pressing and your mind will begin to make space for other things again.

Time Provides Experience The first time through any difficult experience is always the hardest, as the coping mechanisms and strategies have yet to be developed and you are not sure what to expect. Time gives you ample opportunity to practice breaking down and making it through. Each time you feel the pain, you get a little better at being with it and moving through it.

Time Allows For Opportunity Time supplies you with opportunities to implement the modalities that help with healing – counseling, journaling, mindfulness, movement. All of those strategies require time and repetition in order to be effective. Time also allows for new experiences, reminders that even though you’ve experienced loss, you’re still living and there are smiles to be found amongst the tears. Those moments of respite give you hope that things can be better.

 

What time does not…

Time Doesn’t Mean You Forget You will never forget. Time does not erase all memories, delete all pain. It’s still there, but there is also space for you to live alongside of it.

Provide Automatic Processing Time doesn’t do the healing. You do. If all you do is wait, you’ll feel much the same, only with more wrinkles. Time simply gives you the space and opportunity to work through it.

Time Doesn’t Provide Understanding Time won’t answer the “why” question for you. It won’t reveal why life is harder for some of us than others and why bad things can happen to good people. What time does give you is some perspective that suggests that maybe understanding why isn’t really that important.

 

Time may not heal all wounds, but it helps to cushion you from the emotional wound, becoming a sort of insulating layer. And with that distance, you have to space to breathe, to process and to live again.

 

 

The Mistake You May Be Making With Your Divorce Pain

Posted on by stilllearning2b

“Why am I still hurting so badly?” the email implores of me, the writer speaking of her ten-year-old divorce.

As I read her message that details her divorce and her continued and prolonged sadness, I found myself thinking about how the modern western world handles death.

Before the rise of the modern medical and funeral industries, death was truly a family affair. Most people died at home, where there bodies were then washed and dressed by their loved ones. This intimate experience provided an opportunity for the survivors to come to terms with the loss and to grieve together. Denial or avoidance of the reality was simply not an option; there was too much to do.

Death has now become sanitized. Distanced. We have the ability to turn away when it becomes too much. We can keep the discomfort at arm’s length while we fill our minds with no shortage of distractions. By avoiding the grief, we prolong the grief.

And we’ve gotten quite adept at avoiding pain.

Not only when it comes to death, but also when it comes to divorce.

At first, it seems ideal to try to give the pain a wide berth. After all, we’re often advised, “If it hurts, don’t do it.” But sometimes that detour around the discomfort is an endless path and the only way out is through the thick of the heartbreak. Here, let me guide you.