I know it’s been awhile since I posted. I haven’t known what to say, and I haven’t wanted to say what I know.
My husband and I are still going our separate ways. Let’s be honest, although we’re still living together, we went our separate ways long ago. I posted something on Facebook recently that said it all. Something like: Of course it rots if you drain the formaldehyde from it.
This journey, that I started when I asked for a separation on New Year’s Day, has been MUCH more painful and MUCH more jarring than I would have expected. It’s taken me three + years to get to this point, but I really thought I’d be unscathed as I untangled.
Instead, childhood issues I never dealt with have pummeled me nearly constantly. And the reality that this marriage was a living breathing thing. The marriage has died, and all that’s left are the artifacts and assets, there to remind me when I least expect it and am ill equipped to handle it, that it’s over.
There’s been gifts in this, but they are hard-won, paid for with a river of tears.
I haven’t cried really in 45 years. Instead, I’ve been angry. Angry is easy. I’m not angry anymore. But my river of tears is still flowing at springtime, mountain melt pace more than I’m comfortable with.
I’ve been writing a great deal since January. I’ve written several essays and poems that I’d like to get published. I started sharing some of my writing with friends, reading it to them. I always thought just writing it down was healing. As it turns out, writing it down was only capturing that moment. Reading it to them is when the healing really started happening. I’ve gotten extremely clear that writing and story-telling are what I’m here to do. Sharing my story, helping others find pieces in it that will help them, is what I now know will ultimately heal me, too.
I’ve had to face the financial cliff we’d fallen off of. I knew things were bad, but I had no idea how bad they were. I’ve had to make some hard changes, but in a way, I see that they’re going to benefit me and give me the freedom I’ve been longing for, for several years.
I’m closing down the physical office of my business, and my employees are going to be virtual for awhile (that’s the plan for now – stay tuned – it’s changed several times. 🙂 The reduction in overhead will give me more flexibility in pricing projects, reducing work hours to pursue other passions, give us a business opportunity to learn and expand our services in ways we wouldn’t be able to do if we were suffocating.
I’m opening my heart and my life more to friends. I’ve always heard people say “I couldn’t have done xyz without my friends”. I’ve had friends, but I’ve never let them get TOO close. In the past three months, though, I’ve had a surprising number of friends show up in powerful, meaningful ways that have truly made an irreplaceable difference to me. I’ve spent hours and hours talking to them, figuring out what happened, learning about myself, going over it all from childhood til now. Nearly every person I’ve told about this has contributed something to what I know, something to my recovery. And the few times they’ve said something negative, that’s been a lesson for me, too.
I’ve got some great questions in my head to think about, to stop myself from going off the deep end. I’ve learned about self-soothing. I’ve been surprised countless times as I discover the true nature of our relationship and of who I am inside.
And slowly, I’m starting over. I know what I want Point B to be. I know what I want to do with my life now, I know how I’m going to get my debts paid off. The road there, though, that’s not so clear. The Plan changes by the hour, but I’m now gaining confidence that soon the right plan will show up for me, and I will be on a faster path than I am now.
My health has definitely suffered from this. I’ve gained 20 pounds back from not eating right, not sleeping, not working out enough, not drinking water. The okay part is that I know how to get it off, and I’m still working out some. The energy to pay attention isn’t there yet, but I feel like it will be soon.
I’m about to start training for the San Diego Marathon in June. I ran my first ever marathon in February. The metaphor of running for my life while running for my life carried me through both the intense emotional and challenging physical realities I was up against. The next marathon I run will be challenging as well, but I’m hoping to take the lessons from the first one, and have an easier go of it the second time around.
I’m hoping for the same thing in my life, as I train for this marathon. I’ll take the lessons I’ve been learning, the hope I’m starting to have, and now that I know what my goal is going to be, start getting my plan together for the next leg of this journey.
The baby steps I’m taking (running shorter races, figuring out where I’m going to live in a month) will get me from here to there. Maybe in bursts and lurches, but it only matters if I cross that finish line.
Originally posted on SparkPeople.
