Background is Essential

Like anyone and anything, in order to be fully understood, one must be given the benefit of a background. Even the master of masters would have an incomplete portrait without a backdrop, something to make everything come together.

So, in a nutshell, I married my college sweetheart, had 2 babies by him, and separated after almost only 5 years of marital "bliss". It was the second most emotionally painful event of my life, second only to the death of my dad. Ok, so what, right? I am not the first, nor will I be the last woman to have a marriage break down and dissolve.  I know this. But the reason I'm making this a post in itself is because I believe one must verbalize, understand, accept, and then lay to rest these kinds of life-changing pains before moving on to the next life chapter, or at least before an attempt to get on with life and renew oneself begins.

This is my attempt at that.

In my second blog (now inactive), I chronicled there almost 80 days, if i'm not mistaken, of pain after finally coming up against that wall that would permanently separate me from my ex-husband.  It was a "no" to the question of working it out, dished out with such carelessness, that is exploded in my like a nuclear bomb.  It took me almost 3 months to function well again, the first 30 days of this consisting of the supremely difficult effort to get out of bed and focus on one thing at a time.  I am glad that when the annulment decision came out more than 2 months ago, the pain I felt was not so all-encompassing, not so paralyzing, not so acid-all-over-your-battered-body kind of pain. It was still painful but this time it was manageable.  

I stumbled on an article in Elephant Journal that really described this period for me.

When we are going through separation and divorce, that sense of overwhelm can feel like drowning with nobody there to throw us a rope or life preserver.

These feelings of chaos and panic are usually compounded with the fact that we are not sure what to do or when to do it. Should-do’s, checklists and well-intentioned advice from multiple sources seem to contradict one another. And instead of feeling a sense of clarity when it comes to what we need to take care of—from the operational standpoint to the emotional—we end up feeling panicked, confused and hopeless.

No other time are these feelings of hurt, panic and confusion felt more acutely than in the initial weeks of separation. My husband had moved out right at the beginning of January 2011, after years of pretending our marriage was fine, after months of our denial, fighting and a few failed attempts to make the marriage work.

Even before we decided to split we experienced a roller coaster of emotions. When the split actually occurred, a whole new set of grief and confusion took its place. Looking back, the most accurate way I can think of to describe those initial weeks of separation is in comparison to nuclear fallout. Everything in my life seemed radioactive—my emotions were at their most raw and my sense of logic, rational and organization was at its weakest.

As adults, I think we like to consider ourselves rational people who are capable of keeping our calm, making informed decisions not guided by emotion. But I remember during those initial weeks of that first month, I didn’t feel any of those cool and calm and collected things. My sense of logic and organization was at its weakest—never had I felt so vulnerable, crazy or ashamed.

By some stroke of luck, my boss, who later became my mentor and dear friend, pulled me aside as I was leaving from work one day and handed me a brown paper bag.

“Open it when you get home. There’s something in it that you can use.”

The bag seemed empty despite its being rolled up tightly. Once I returned back to my apartment, I opened it carefully, not knowing what to expect. At the bottom was a half-slip of paper—a computer printout with the following words:

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was just what I needed, as if those words had been written just for me. For weeks and months afterward, I felt that they were the only thing keeping me sane. They were with me as the separation continued and the assets were divided as the court date came and the divorce decree was sent. These words were there for me even as I stumbled through the world of dating again, as I set out to make sense of loss and what life as a divorcee meant and how to derive meaning from it. Regardless of the drama and craziness that occurred in my life on a daily basis, those words stayed, providing the tough love and the encouragement when I needed them most.

Years later and after several moves, this yellowed and curled piece of paper remains taped to my bathroom mirror. It is one of the last things I read before I go to bed and one of the first things that greets me when I wake up. And regardless of what I’m going through, it brings me back to the time when that small bit of encouragement was a lifeline for my soul that was drowning at sea. And although its primary purpose no longer serves as the source comfort and inspiration during a divorce, it still provides the reminder of compassion and mindfulness so easily lost during the autopilot existence into which we sometimes fall.

For those still in one of the many stages of divorce and separation, the blunders and absurdities of which Emerson speaks are all too real and incessant. The drama, anger and arguments with lawyers and divorcing spouses can make us feel like we just want to crawl up in a hole and never come back out. The pangs of panic when we can’t imagine how we will ever function fully without a partner will make it hard to concentrate and harder to fall asleep at night. And there will be recurring episodes of self-pity when we are sure that nobody has ever enduring the hell that we’re living through.

But we must remember that those things are the blunders and absurdities that we have the power to forget. Every morning we are given that blank slate from which our spirits can remain high, disregarding the prior day’s sadness. And when we make that choice to start each new day with that sense of serenity and mindfulness, we will find that those days become weeks, those weeks become months and those months somehow become years.

And if we do it right, we have consequently made the choice to give ourselves a second chance. Our choice to rise above the madness and begin each new day serenely with too high of a spirit to be encumbered by our old nonsense truly does make all the difference.

She couldn't have said it any better. Give or take a few details that obviously separate this account from my personal one, the feelings, emotions, doubts, thoughts, they were everything that I felt.  I was lucky to have friends and family who were patient and supportive and who understood, and even if they couldn't empathize, they sympathized.

For me, the words I clung to in moments of despair were (ironically) from the Bible. Jeremiah 29:11-13.

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I say 'ironically' because anyone who knows me knows I have a healthy distaste for rituals I think are mindless (opium of the masses in a more diluted manner) and that I think the Catholic faith is rife with them. So I normally avoid anything that is too cliche in it's religiosity.  But this verse was my life vest, anchoring me safely through waves of emotion, from shore to shore, something I could let all my muscles slacken and rest on and I wouldn't drown.

And where am I now, today? Today I'm starting that "blank slate" mentioned in the article, at the same time trying to get to know myself again, or get to know myself period. It's that time of discovery I guess some do in their 20s. There are things I know now that I didn't know 10 years ago, realities I've come to accept no matter how bitter the pill, hurts I've buried and hurts I am still medicating, all the time getting older and raising two kids. I am not sure if I relish this part of my adventure, but I know it is necessary. It would at least be very interesting to see all the things I think are important and to get to know me again.

Not Another "First Time"

It's interesting to do this again but feel like it's the first time.  I started blogging almost 10 years ago. I was newly married and I just had my first child.  My world then was a mix of hormones, adjustment, rosy clouds of the future I dreamed I would have, sleepless nights, long work days, and hormones.  My first blog was all about what I was going through as a mother and wife. It was glorious since I had always had a diary in some form, since I was in grade school.

But my blogging stopped after my second child and then my separation, when my world as I knew it then, fell apart.

I tried to blog again, a new blog, this time as a separated, single mom to two kids with a renewed faith in the Lord, and it was cathartic for a while (as writing is and always will be to me).  But that stopped too when my annulment was in full swing. That was a time when I felt like all my words refused to come out; when they would swim uselessly in my head and my heart, becoming like a pond of stagnant, murky water.  I really thought then that I would never feel the deisre to start or the patience and calmness to write anything ever again.

I guess I was wrong. I guess when you've had words as your bestest friends all your life, you really can't shut them down or out. You really can't silence them or hide from them or decide to "unfriend" them.  They will always be there, waiting for you to be ready to take them up again, to use them again to work something out, to clarify, to define, to state.

So here I am on my third, and hopefully last, retry at blogging. I hope this time I can keep this going as I hope to use this to remind myself of who I am, at the same time, understand who I am at the core, why I believe in certain things, why I won't stand for others, and consequently, what dreams I may have and hold dear.