My Writing. My World.
I have a love-hate relationship with the 4th of July.
On the one hand, I am so, so grateful to have the freedoms that we have in our country.
And I am equally grateful for those who have fought to protect those freedoms for us.
My heart has been questioning a lot lately.
Questioning what was real and what was just an illusion.
I’ve been divorced for almost two years and it makes me so sad that I question every single one of the 25 years of memories I shared with my ex-husband.
One of my favorite visualization exercises is the one in which you picture your ideal day.
Starting with how you envision yourself waking up in the morning, you imagine everything about how you would want your perfect day to look. What time you ideally wake up, who wakes up with you — a sacred partner, a furry friend, rambunctious kids — and then how you get your day started.
I feel like I’m living a double life — but without the glamour of being a secret agent or a superhero.
When my husband of 25 years and I decided to “split up together,” we knew it wouldn’t be neat and tidy. Having committed to putting our children first — no matter what — we knew we were going to be taking on the brunt of the tricky logistics involved in letting the kids stay in our family home while we took turns coming and going.
But I definitely didn’t know I would feel like I was living a double life.
I’m struggling with the words that go along with divorce.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve even said the word divorce out loud. I’ve only written it. I just doesn’t feel right to me – it doesn’t feel like it describes us or our family’s situation.
We didn’t even want to use it when we told our kids, and I didn’t use it when I told my side of the family. I think I mostly say that we are splitting up. But why? Why does it bother me so much?
For the most part, I think it’s because…
I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting.
After my last article, I knew there would be shock and dismay and understanding and a flood of “I’m so sorry’s” and lots of love. And I was right.
What I was not expecting was the outreach.
Much like when we had our miscarriage in between our kids’ births – people came out of the woodwork. I couldn’t believe how many others had had miscarriages at that time and I didn’t know. Some of them much further along than me…and some of them multiple times.
It was like a secret club that you didn’t even know existed – and certainly never wanted to belong to.
I took my wedding ring off today.
Not to send a message to you — or to anyone else for that matter. I did it as an act of self-love. As another punctuation mark. Punctuating the completion of our marriage.
And it does feel complete.
It feels sort of odd that I didn’t take the ring off to mark an ending — as much as I did it to mark a new beginning. For me. For you. For our family.
