Ride

I was in the winter of my life...It takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is...I was always an unusual girl...I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing due North. No fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean, and if I said I didn't plan on it turning out this way, I'd be lying...because I was going to be the other woman, the one who belonged to no one, who belonged to everyone, who had nothing, who wanted everything. It was a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn't even talk about and pushed me to a nomadic point of madness that both dazzled and dizzied me.                                                                                                                                               ~Lana Del Rey, "Ride" 

 

 

Shattered

My great grandmother gave me a beautiful Victorian vase passed down from her grandmother.  I often used the vase to hold dried roses, carefully preserving the brittle burgundy symbols of love.  The dead flowers displayed in my deceased grandmother's vase were simple gestures of my significance in another person's life.  The irony of the dried-up, brittle petals that were my marriage escaped me at the time. 

Several years ago I accidentally dropped the vase on the kitchen tile and it shattered into a bazillion little pieces.  Angrily, I blamed myself. Then I grieved. Upset, I scolded myself for being so clumsy.  Eventually, I accepted my reality, grabbed my broom and swept the pieces into the dustpan, forcefully tapping the remnants into the trash. For some time after, I would find shards of green vase under the dishwasher or hiding in the tile of the grout.  Every time, I scolded myself all over again, never forgiving myself for my lack of grace.

Just like my vase, the ability to piece my life back together is gone...long gone.  I wish it were as simple as scolding myself, sweeping the pieces into the trash and moving on, but life just isn't that effortless.  Instead, I continually pack pieces of my broken marriage around with me.  I have to accept the cutting remarks from my teen-age daughter, who cannot even begin to understand the complexities of the heart.  The sharp cutting pain of guilt when my little tender-hearted son's lip quivers with pain at the mere question, "how are you feeling about things lately?"  The actually word divorce is too difficult to deal with.

The difficulty with carrying around metaphorical shards of glass is that everything about divorce isn't horrible.  Starting over in its own right is freeing.  I have a certain new power over my life which is refreshing.  After so many years of continually questioning and trying to do the "right thing," I have some closure to certain answers.  However, even with the solidity of certain answers, I still grieve.  I continue to struggle with the remaining razor sharp pieces.  With time, I have discarded certain pieces, and eventually, I hope that most of the remains can be tossed aside.  Although, watching happy families enjoying one another's company in a restaurant will never be easy for me. I am forever reminded of what I couldn't rightfully preserve in my own life.  Clumsy me.

Divorce Sucks

Here I am. It's not pretty. Among many other interests, I've decided to blog about my divorce and all of the parts that SUCK or ROCK, whichever perspective I might chose on any given day. Yes, "suck" seems like such a poor word choice and yet nothing fits quite so perfectly. Divorce SUCKS your finances. Divorce SUCKS your time. Divorce SUCKS your energy. Divorce SUCKS your emotions. Divorce SUCKS the happy out of life. Divorce is not for the weak of heart or mind. Therefore, as hard as I look and search through my mind and an online thesaurus (which will not accept the connotation for suck that I would like) for a word that would better fit the description, I just can't seem to find one that will accurately describe my experience as well as the word SUCK and all of its pop-culture, modern meanings. And yet, as horribly suckish as divorce is, over 50% of all American marriages are ending in divorce according to the Census Bureau. I can't help but question why so many of us chose to end our marriages, tear apart all that we have created together, separate all of our belongings and friends, hurt our children, become community outcasts and suffer the emotional suck that comes with a divorce? I truly can't even begin to comprehend the madness of the world, but I have some of my own understandings and I hope to answer many of these questions for myself someday. I'm always one who finds importance in delving into her own madness. I'm on a mission to dig through the muck of my emotions and somehow come out better; if that's possible. I think at times it will be hard to be honest with myself, especially when the topic is painful, and lets be real, divorce is painful, no matter who instigates the actual process, but I am here and I am on a mission. Divorce sucks, but I'm still breathing. I don't want to give up on the possibility of a beautiful life waiting for me. I will muck through this suck.