Would he really have been an asset in a time like this?

I hope someday in the future I look back on this time and realize I overreacted.  But in the meantime I am extremely alarmed and terrified.  The new administration is trying to dismantle our government, the very government I work for.  I get daily e-mails trying to convince me (and every other federal employee) to resign.  The news is filled with articles about all the people being fired and pushed out.  A billionaire has gained access to personnel databases and maybe financial databases.  And that doesn't even consider the things not affecting me directly like the attacks on immigrants, transgendered folks, and other marginalized groups.  It feels like we are in a really dark time.

And I will admit I feel especially abandoned.  In a time of such uncertainty about my job, our country, etc., it's hard being alone.  I often think my ex-husband and I could have weathered this better together.  It's hard not having someone to fall back on financially.  It's hard going home at the end of the day without anyone to talk to.

But then I'm reminded of the reality of our relationship.  If we were still together, it would be on me to regulate both our emotions.  It would be on me to be the stable presence.  And any attempts to try and vent or talk through what we were experiencing would be met with concerns I was somehow criticizing him.  I had long ago turned to the comments' sections of online newspapers to feed my need to interact with people on current and life events.  It was the comments' sections I went to when I need to vent or talk through life's craziness.

So the idea of a supportive partner is really appealing.  But that's not what I had so going back wouldn't actually give me that.  Maybe I'm better off.  No, I don't have the financial support should the worst case scenario happen, although I don't think my parents or sister would let me end up on the street.  But I don't have to regulate his emotions or suppress my own to not trigger him.  I can just be me and find people who will be more supportive like friends and family have been.

I feel so lost and out of place.

Yesterday I wrote in this blog, "Can it be possible that for every right decision I make to move forward, I feel more lost and out of place?"  And it has resonated with me ever since the words fell onto the page.  

Today, I did some research into what it would be like to join the PeaceCorps.  What a crazy, out there idea to cross my mind!  Not that joining the PeaceCorps is crazy but that I just don't see how it fits me at my age, with my health problems, with my preference for some comfort, with my loneliness being as far away from family as I am, etc.  But there is something about it that so intrigued me.  But I think it is an effort to latch onto anything I can as I flounder lost out at sea.

I don't know when I'm going to find my way.  I don't know when I'm going to pull out of this funk that is trying to pull me to the darkness.  But it's all really scary.  I've never felt this lost before.  I've never felt this unsure of myself.  I've never felt so out of place.

Sitting on my bench in the rain

Random thoughts, a poem of sorts, from my walk this afternoon.  I'm not going to try to clean it up because there is something raw about it that gets at the moment.

no sunset today

the still water of the pond

is broken up with droplets of rain

one of the resident ducks complains nearby

the tip of my nose is cold

the park is quiet

a fog of depression hangs over

as I sit on my therapy bench

I don't notice the wetness

aside from the raindrops on my cellphone screen

the life I once knew

seems so very far away

the taste of good beer enjoyed a few hours earlier

sits heavy over me

I breathe in and breathe out

a shiver runs down my spine

Can it be possible that for every right decision I make to move forward, I feel more lost and out of place?

I didn't have any fairytale ideas of marriage and love.

I went in believing that there was a comfort in having someone beside you that knew your every flaw and strength and who quietly chose to sit by you through the good times and the bad.  I never expected constant fireworks or even the fiery vision of love you see in the movies.  It was the constant, the subtle, the quiet that mattered to me.

I didn't expect there to never be arguments or disagreements.  I wasn't choosing someone who was a clone of me.  The very benefit they added to my life was founded on the fact that they would have different ideas and opinions than I would.

But I did expect that they would want to work through those disagreements with me, that our combined perspectives, knowledge, and skills would make us stronger as we faced the world, not that we would feel the need to face each other or that it would ultimately end in a husband vs wife divorce case.

He grew uncharacteristically interested in romance movies as our marriage ended.  They felt like rubbing salt in the wound but I wonder if that was the only form of "love" he had witnessed.

Life's Twists and Turns

My life has taken its fair share of twists and turns - job changes, complete career changes, moves across the country, divorce, etc.  And in all of those cases except the divorce, there was lead up to the change.  Countless decisions were made along the way such that the change wasn't a huge surprise even if it wasn't always exactly what I expected.

That's not the case with my divorce.  A year ago today, I truly thought I was happily married.  In April of last year, I was traveling with my then husband thinking everything was just fine between us.  I encouraged him to take on more of the teaching assignments he enjoyed so much last spring knowing I would miss him the weeks he traveled but without a concern beyond that.

I think about the times I talked to people in choir and at work about how he was traveling and that it was nice to have a few days on my own but then I would start to miss him.  And then that talk grew silent and at least two different people (one in choir and one at work) followed up and sensed something was off by my response.

There was no lead up, no evidence of a declining relationship, no increase in arguments, no change in communication.  One day I was telling people how I was counting the days until he would be back from his work trip because of how much I missed him and the next day it was over.

So how do I flip that switch in my brain?  If it can happen to me so abruptly like that, how do I lean into my resilience and pivot on a dime to something new?

When I feel most alone

I'm getting used to managing day-to-day stuff alone.  It is kind of nice not having to coordinate with someone else or consider someone else's needs when I plan my schedule, decide what to eat, choose how to rearrange my kitchen cabinets, or whatever else I might want to do.  But it is so lonely when it comes to facing the bigger challenges of life.

The new administration is turning the country upside down in ways that are and will continue to very significantly affect me and my community.  To not have someone to talk to about those changes, to fall back on when things go wrong, to figure out how to navigate how to respond, to be a comforting presence, etc. is really scary and lonely.

Ice on the Pond

I was on my way to work this morning passing through a city park where I have spent countless hours.  My mind was racing and I was chasing it down a rabbit hole of unproductive thought.  Negative emotions coursed through my veins as I lost sight of the present time and moment.

And then the ice on the pond caught my eye.  I dropped my foot to the ground to stop abruptly and then took a few steps closer.  The window pane effect of smooth sections of ice covered the entire pond.  A quick glance at my wrist told me the temperature was 20*F.  It was beautiful.  The awe I experienced in that moment completely cleared my mind.  The rabbit hole was gone and forgotten.  And then I heard the song of a Northern Cardinal in a tree above me.

Life may be hard, some days will be harder than others.  And it is really easy to get stuck in our minds and chase down rabbit holes.  But if we let her, Mother Nature has a way of getting us to pause and reminding us what is truly important in life.

I'm in a rough patch.  I don't know how long it will last or how long it will take me to heal so that my life feels right once again.  But if I can stay attuned for what Mother Nature has to show me, I know I will get through it.

It's time.

It's time to stop obsessing over that which I will never be able to understand. There's a quote that keeps coming back to me.  First a friend shared it with me fairly early on in my journey.  It's resurfaced a time or two on my social media feed since and showed up in something I was reading but for the life of me I can't find it in this moment.  The gist of it is that if you get bitten by a poisonous snake you don't go chasing the snake to convince it why you didn't deserve to get bitten.

So I'm choosing not to care anymore.  His problems are his problems.  His reasons for doing what he did are his to deal with.  He can face the consequences of his decisions all on his own.  It doesn't truly matter why he did what he did.  What happened, happened and now I get to choose what I make out of it.

Notice that reframing about what I get to do.  I have been given a chance to rethink, recreate, and make something completely new.  I get to take all the lessons I learned from the two decades with him and make something new of myself.  And the possibilities are endless.

So it's time to truly reclaim my birth name and all that I want it to represent.

So this past weekend, I started with small habits.  I'm on a social media cleanse so that I can build some healthier habits on how I want to spend my time.  There's value to the community I find in social media so the end goal isn't to eliminate it.  I just want to put it in a healthier place.  I'm on day 3 of no social media with a goal of 30 days before I re-evaluate.

I'm reading again.  I'm downloading books through the Libby app and it feels good.  It's funny how I got home from my trip today and wanted to finish my book before I even started looking at my photos or working on my blog.

I want to get out and do more hiking - the exercise, the fresh air, the connection with nature, the chance to birdwatching, etc. it all is doing me so much good.

I am doing something that the former me would think was absolutely crazy, and maybe it is!  I have signed up for a 13 week Improv Class.  I'm introverted and fairly shy and I don't think I'm all that funny but who knows what will come of it.  Worst case scenario, I'm out 13 hours of my life and $130.  In the grand scheme, that is a tiny price to pay for something I might get something out of.

And I'm keeping my eyes open career-wise.  Although I love the city I live in, I'm not particularly tied to this location or this job.  There was a posting for a job that really interested me in Vermont but ultimately, I decided I just couldn't do Vermont so I'll keep my eyes open for the next opportunities.

So just wait and see what I make of myself.  I'm not passively sitting around waiting for life to happen.  I'm going to go out and find great things to do and be.

Dear Ex-husband

Dear Ex-husband,

I'm stuck.  I have spent six months trying to process what you did and I can't make sense of it.  I've tried to piece together the few clues you left.  I've heard the few words you spoke repeated over and over in my head.

You know how I used to get so frustrated when you would just tell me pieces of a story or your thought process on something expecting that I could read your mind to fill in the rest and it was like pulling teeth to get enough out of you to understand what you were trying to tell me?  It's that times a thousand except it isn't some small story at stake.  It's my understanding of our entire two decades relationship and my ability to ever trust again that is at stake and you aren't here to pull out the rest of those details.

You walked away without any sincere communication attempt.  You made the decision to leave without ever telling me there were problems.  You made no attempts at repair at any point.  You just silently let resentment build up.  Did you think it would get better if you just buried it?  Or did you think you didn't deserve better?  Or that our marriage didn't deserve better?

You blamed me for things you never bothered to tell me until it was too late.  You blamed me for things that you actually did.  You re-wrote history to minimize the good and make the bad look worse.  You discarded me as if I were worthless trash.  Do you know what kind of trauma I am going through to be on the receiving end of that?  It wasn't a normal breakup which would have been hard as it was - it was a discard as if what we had was meaningless.  My brain can't comprehend that to be able to process it.

And then you buried all your emotions and were so cold to me as if I were less than a stranger you met on the street.  That coldness in our last interactions only made the confusion and chaos in my mind worse as we so abruptly went from a married couple I thought was happy to less than strangers.

So I'm stuck here.  The tears still roll down my face.  I don't understand how you could do what you did to a fellow human being let alone a wife you claimed to love for two decades.  I can't even imagine how miserable of a person you must be to be able to do discard me like you did.  

And so my heart continues to break.  The pain won't go away.  I take steps towards healing and then fall right back to the raw pain.  And at the same time I feel so sad for you.  Sometimes I think this would be easier if I just felt anger at you but I don't.  I just imagine the internal struggles you must be facing to do what you did. 

You had a wife who loved you with all her heart, was loyal to you, was consistent, accepted you as you were, saw so much value in you, and was willing to walk through any challenges with you.  Why would you discard that without even an attempt at trying to fix what you thought was wrong?

How do I ever learn to trust again?

Sincerely,

Your Ex-wife whose heart you shattered when you tossed her in the trash

Being willing to change and grow

There was a conversation we had as it was all ending last summer where he was focused on my flaws (and perceived flaws) and he briefly brought up trying couple's counseling before he called it quits.  I don't remember the exact words I used but I told him that it was time to focus on his end of the dynamic and that I wasn't willing to have conversations about what was wrong with me until he started doing that.  I didn't want to waste time in couple's counseling only to focus on me.  He was flabbergasted and interpreted that to mean that I was unwilling to change and so he quickly shut down the idea of any counseling.

He didn't actually hear my response to that because he wasn't willing to listen.  I had spent more than a decade adjusting how I showed up in our dynamics, trying to find ways to improve our communication.  I had listened to every hint of a complaint he had made and tried to make adjustments.  I thought I had made a difference and maybe I did since we lasted so long but I realized in that moment this past summer, that it didn't matter how much I did if he wasn't willing to work on his half.  

It wasn't that I was unwilling to grow.  I will always look for ways to grow, mature, and improve.  For me, it is a never-ending journey in life.  It was that I was done trying to carry our entire relationship on my own, something that I'm not even sure I was aware I was doing until that moment.  I deserved reciprocal effort.  And honestly, our communication problems really stemmed from his unhealed trauma.  Fixing my response to that hadn't and couldn't heal his trauma.  That was work he had to do himself and until he did, he would continue to depend on unhealthy coping mechanisms that did more to sabotage our relationship than they did to nurture it.  

Because of how much he kept to himself, it wasn't until this past summer that I realized how big of a gap had grown between our emotional maturity levels.  I had spent the last two decades growing into a mature woman and he had done a really good job masking his lack of growth during that same time period.  

From the outside to those who know him superficially and even to those who think they know him better, he really looks like a put together, mature, responsible adult.  I think he had developed a protective persona that allowed him to present himself to the world in a way that he was confident would be socially acceptable.  I suppose self-reflecting and maturing would have required him to leave that protective persona behind and maybe that terrified him.

Maybe I should feel angry he chose to run instead of growing (and sometimes I do feel moments of anger) but mostly I'm just really sad.  He must really be struggling to discard a woman who loved him so much she would have stood by him and held his hand as he did that healing.  He must be really miserable to make that choice and making that choice instead of healing will likely just lead to more misery.  That's a horribly sad way to live.

Why did I think it was a good relationship?

Watching my long-term marriage get so carelessly discarded without warning or much explanation has made me question so much.  Every moment of my more than two decades relationship has run through my head more times than I can count as I search for different perspectives, interpretations, understandings, etc.  I keep looking for what I missed.  And in the process, I'm recognizing things that weren't so great.  So I keep coming back to this question - why did I think it was a good relationship?

I was not blind to our communication issues.  I used to get so irritated when he would tell me just half of what he was thinking about a problem or just half of a story.  And I don't mean like the just the first half or the second half.  It would be random pieces between the beginning and the end such that what he was saying just didn't make sense to me.  So I would ask him questions to try and fill in the gaps in my brain.  And he would usually get a bit defensive as if I should already know the answers to the questions I was asking but ultimately, he would fill in the gaps and a lightbulb would click in my head when I finally had enough to understand what he was trying to tell me.

And there were things he just wouldn't talk about until it blew up and then he still held back some of what he was thinking.  The relationship we had with his parents, especially his mother was one of those topics.  She would interfere in ways that made me really uncomfortable and that at times seemed to pit my ex-husband against me.  I really tried to separate the boundaries I needed related to how her actions affected me specifically and our marriage from the his own relationship with his mother.  My goal was never to stand in the way of his own relationship with his mother.  But I didn't realize that wasn't enough for him.  He wanted me to like his mother, be close with her, and just accept whatever boundaries she wanted to cross.

And in the most recent years, I realized he was holding on to a lot of negative assumptions that weren't necessarily accurate.  That made me worry that I was making my own assumptions without getting clarification, so I worked hard to start verbalizing the assumptions that formed in my head as a check.  Unfortunately, he would just sit silent when I did that.  I don't know if that was because my assumptions were accurate and he didn't want to admit that or if his conflict-avoidance coping mechanisms got in the way of him speaking up when they weren't accurate.  I tried to explain to him what I was doing and that I really wanted to hear clarification from him but still got silence.  This probably should have been my biggest sign that he wasn't invested in the relationship at all.

Okay, so for a post about why I thought it was a good relationship, it's probably not a good sign that I haven't gotten to that question yet after four paragraphs.  But I'm still not ready to abandon my trust in my judgment for two decades.  I truly felt good about us until last year.  I can't throw away all the good feelings I felt for so many years.  So why did I think it was a good relationship?

Our values were aligned (except maybe our understanding of love and marriage).  I truly feel that we both want the same things out of life as it relates to career goals, not having children, travel, saving for a reasonably early retirement, etc.  As much as we struggled with communication, we rarely disagreed on major decisions.  We seemed to effortlessly tackle together financial challenges that came up, decisions about moving across the country, homeownership vs renting, etc.  As odd as it sounds our communication problems didn't get in the way of working as a team at so many aspects of life.

My ex-husband is a good man.  He's respectful.  He helps others.  He tries to be considerate.  He has good intentions.  He was always honest and transparent with our money.  He pulled his weight around the house.  He's intelligent and knows how to critically think.  Even with how awful he treated me this past year, I don't doubt all the good that genuinely existed in him.

I just really enjoyed being around him.  We went on great adventures together.  We laughed together.  I enjoyed doing life with him.  I liked him as a person.

And there weren't any major needs, I wasn't getting met somehow.  I could fulfill a lot of my needs on my own and although my social network wasn't truly adequate, it did exist and helped me meet other needs.  So I didn't ask much of him.

Finally, because of all the amazing things I loved about him, I was willing to accept his challenges.  If I had to work a bit harder at communication to try and bridge the gap, I was willing to do that.  If I had to let go of some of my annoyances (such as related to his mother or the way he would complain sometimes), I was willing to do that, because I loved him and enjoyed being with him.  And I thought I found the right balance of advocating for the boundaries that were really important to me and letting go of the rest.

Six Months Ago He Discarded Me

I have a dentist appointment today. It’s triggering me and looking back at the calendar I think I understand why. 

On Monday, July 15, 2024, my ex-husband and I went to our dentist appointment together, as we always did. While we were there, they made an appointment for both of us six months later (today, Monday, January 13, 2025).  That night before we fell asleep, he told me he wanted a divorce.  The pain of that moment is still with me as if I have been transported back to that time and place. 

Early the next morning, I dropped him off at the airport to spend two weeks with his mom, a trip he had been planning for some time. One of the first things he did when he got to his mom’s was call and change his dentist appointment (and his eye doctor appointment, an appointment we planned to go together later that month).  I found out when the change confirmation e-mails appeared in our joint account. 

It felt like a slap in the face that he was that anxious to get rid of me, that anxious to discard me.

Now today, I get to go in to my dentist and explain my name change.  They watched us arrive six months ago as a married couple. Today I arrive alone and divorced and remembering how the person I thought loved me for over two decades could so easily discard me. 

Avoidant Discard

A post came across my Threads feed today about "avoidant discard", the first time I had heard this term.  And it described in great detail how my marriage ended and why it was having such a traumatic impact on me.  It resonated with me in a way that nothing else has since this all started.  The lack of closure, the vague explanations, the abruptness of it all, the hidden struggles with no interest in working on them, the decision to breakup that happened before I even knew anything was wrong, the prolonged state of stress due to unanswered questions that created a feedback loop, the things I became aware of about our relationship after-the-fact, etc.  The thread ended with a sentence stating that "this can make it much harder and take longer to move on."

Looking into it further, it appears most common with people whose attachment style is fearful avoidant.  But if my ex truly is a fearful avoidant, how did our relationship last as long as it did?

Here's a YouTube video that really resonates with me.  

When does it get easier?

I don't have a clue what the trigger was but these past two days I'm back stuck in my head as my body fills with both anxiety and grief.  It's been six months since he called it quits, almost 4 months since he filed for divorce and I moved out, and almost 3 months since the divorce was final.  That all seems like yesterday and a million years ago all at the same time.  And to think, a year ago this time I was blissfully unaware the way the rug would be pulled out from under me.

Sometimes the pain is as strong as that night he called it quits.

So I sit here alone in my apartment as the tears roll down my cheeks.  I don't even know who to turn to.  The tears will eventually pass.  I'll wash my face.  And then tomorrow I will slip into my chair in the choir room as if everything is alright and Monday morning I'll chat with my colleagues as if the nights don't even happen.

Haven't I cried enough tears?  I'm not even sure this man deserves my tears.  But maybe these tears are for me.

This is what I want to know

I realize I will likely never get the answer to this question but this is what still keeps me up at night sometimes.  How could someone care so little about his wife of almost two decades that he would not even make an attempt to work on the relationship first?  That he would walk away without any attempts at all to repair what he saw was wrong with the relationship?  

It's been almost 4 months...

It's been almost four months since moving out and cleaning out our apartment, almost four months since our last attempt at a conversation about what happened, almost four months since he told me he "would add it to (his) list" when I asked him if he had discussed with his therapist why he had done this.   

Has he gone on any sort of self-reflection and healing journey like I have or has he just buried it deep hoping it won't resurface like he is so good at doing?  Does he still blame me for it all or does he recognize how his childhood trauma affected how he showed up in the relationship and how he viewed it?

Sometimes I imagine the conversation I would like to have.  It's interesting though how that conversation in my head is constantly changing and never goes how I want it to go.  Part of me wants to find better closure and hear the ways he has gained clarity since we separated.  But the other part of me recognizes that is very unlikely to happen.  So my brain is creating this conversation I want to have and at the same time showing me how unproductive the conversation would be.  Does that make any sense?

As things were ending last year, I was a bit blown away by the things he was finally verbalizing, things that were so distorted from the reality I knew.  And as I gain more time and space away from him, I am realizing that there are pieces of his distortions that he had actually convinced me were true despite the fact that they weren't accurate or were taken so far out of context.

The more I reflect and the more I find writings from my earlier years, I realize how much of our marriage was based on distortions.  Those kind of huge distortions don't get untangled easily even if he were willing and open to questioning them.  We are talking about decades (maybe his entire lifetime) of him not being honest with himself.  With that kind of self-deception, it's no wonder he couldn't be honest with me.

I still kind of wish we could have that conversation even if it doesn't go the way I want it to.  Maybe it would all feel a little less abrupt.  I think that is what I struggle most with these days - how abruptly it all ended - how abruptly we went from a couple who I thought both loved each other to essentially strangers.

Someone to talk things through with

Twice now in the last week or so I've come across something that tossed and turned in my brain as I tried to figure out the best path forward.  Once it was related to a travel decision I had to make.  Today it was something more connected to politics.  

Each time as I sat at my kitchen table, I wanted to turn to someone.  I wanted someone to talk it through with.  I wanted someone to share in the decision making.  

As it related to the travel decision, my ex-husband was someone who would step into that role.  We made a lot of decisions together, a lot of great travel decisions, probably because our thinking was aligned.  I eventually called my mom who was helpful in providing her own thoughts but she wasn't invested in the outcome of the decision so it wasn't quite the same.  It all ultimately rested on me.

And then today, as I sat at my kitchen table, mulling over in my head the recent politics affecting social media and another mass exodus to a new platform, I wanted to turn to him to talk it through.  But then I paused.  He actually wasn't a good person to talk through controversial topics with.  He shied away from anything where he knew we didn't already agree.  He took disagreements about anything as criticism.  

So it was this really weird moment when I realized I was missing him over something he actually never did even when we were together.  I wonder if my glasses were so rose-colored I saw a relationship that didn't actually exist.  If so, is it possible to actually miss him.  Or do I just miss the potential of having a good partner?

Someone called me brave yesterday.

Someone called me brave yesterday.  My first response was to point out that I don't feel brave.  I had to remind myself that being brave isn't being without fear.  It's having that fear and facing it head on.  I guess I do fit that definition.  

I think this year has shown me that you can either sit back and let life happen to you and then blame the world for being against you and making you unhappy.  There's not much bravery in that at all.  It's also not a life-giving way to experience the world.  But some people do just that.  My ex is a great example of that.

Then there are people who make something out of what life gives them.  They don't sit back and hope for better times.  They make something good out of what they already have.  That's not to say they don't experience sadness, grief, anger, and all the other negative emotions.  Life won't always go how we want it to.  But they recognize there is something to be learned from every situation, they know that nothing is all bad so find whatever little good they can along they way, and they move through those challenges with purpose.

Last year was an awful year.  The heartbreak of the man I loved for two decades walking away without much of an explanation or warning was more than I could have ever imagined before it happened.  The fear of going out in the world completely on my own for the first time as a 42 year old woman was overwhelming.  But when I look back at my writing, my photography, the videos I posted to Instagram, etc. the amount of joy, happiness, and even peace I see in myself is incomprehensible given the year I had.  All that joy didn't happen by chance.  I made it happen.

The evenings and nights are the hardest still

In the Quiet of the Darkness

a poem written by me

In the quiet of the darkness
the evening grows long
as the sun sets early
and the temperature drops.

My eyelids droop deeply
searching the escape of sleep.
I seek out a distraction to stay awake,
a podcast, an audiobook, social media….

In the quiet of the darkness
I find warmth under my Grandmother’s quilt.
Eyes closed, sleep now escapes me
as the film of my life plays and replays.

You in a starring role feel so close.
So many questions remain
although the tears have long dried.
I drift off to sleep.

In the quiet of the darkness
a train rhythmically rattles by,
a Carolina Wren sings her song.
Morning has come too soon.

I'm actually learning to enjoy my quiet.  There is no TV noise.  No one is complaining.  I'm not mindlessly following the schedule of someone else - I eat when I want, sleep when I want, go out when I want, etc.

But the evenings and nights are still so long.  My eyes droop before the clock even reaches 7:00 p.m. Am I really tired?  Or am I just seeking escape from my mind wandering?  I know part of it is that over the last few months my body has decided I will wake up at 4:30-5am most mornings.  If I sleep in all the way to 6, it feels like a miracle.  And so when I'm getting up that early, my body is naturally going to be tired earlier.  But I don't think that's all of it.  

There's just something about the darkness that makes the stillness a bit harder.  And interestingly, for all the struggle I have to stay awake until what I consider a reasonable enough bedtime, once my head hits the pillow, my brain goes into overdrive and I am no longer sleepy.

So this poem above started forming in my head this morning at 4:30 a.m. as I knew I was too awake to fall back asleep again but wasn't quite ready to crawl out of bed.

Maybe I was Meant to Learn Things from Him

As I reflect on my ex-husband's passive approach to life - things happened to him vs him going out and making things happen, I wonder if he wasn't put in my life to learn what not to do.

I don't hope for a better 2025, I step into 2025 with skills ready to make something better of 2025.  It's my actions that will make 2025 a better year (and that didn't make 2024 as bad of a year as it could have been), not my fanciful hope.

I didn't just feel love for him hoping that feeling would stick around, I actively chose to love him and nurture that loving feeling.  That may seem like a subtle difference but it really is not.  It's the difference between letting the wind blow you wherever it might take you, good or bad vs actively setting your path and adjusting as the wind tries to push you one way or the other.  The former is never going to bring you happiness because you don't own your part in it, you don't invest in it.  The latter might not always be roses but you recognize what you can control and make the best of it.

Another example is that I have grown and matured over the years where he has stagnated.  Reflecting back on my adult years, I can clearly see three periods of significant growth.  I am not the same person today that I was 15 years ago.  I have evolved, matured, learned better communication and coping skills.  I'm not done by any means but I'm clearly on a journey progressing forward.  In comparison, my descriptions of my ex-husband today in journal writing are almost identical to my descriptions in the months leading up to our wedding.

And finally, he taught me how little external pleasures (material things, experiences, people, etc.) can create lasting happiness.  I used to watch him start researching the next car before the new one we had just bought had even been in the garage for a weekend.  It is a bit eye opening to see how fast he went through those moments of happiness before he returned to his generally miserable self.

So maybe sometimes people come into our lives to show us what not to do.  I'm going to keep deciding my future, growing, and finding my happiness from within.  And I'll be a happier person because of it.

Into the New Year

It's a bit weird to think about how a year ago today, I woke up completely ignorant as to how radically changed I would be when I started the next year.  Being single, not having children, and not having family close by leaves me so much time to think over the holidays, maybe too much time.  So I've been replaying the last year in my head, reflecting on what I have learned, thinking forward to what I want to bring into 2025, and spending some time sitting with my grief.  I've wanted to write an end-of-year post for this blog but haven't known how to start it or what exactly I want to say.  So here I am, still not sure what I want to say but we will see what comes out.

What I have learned:  I am a strong woman who knows herself well.  When the shit hit the fan, I instinctively knew what I needed to do to cope, to move forward, and to start healing.  And I trusted myself enough to follow what I instinctively knew.  It's funny how amazed people are at how well I am doing (and I do feel great about how I have moved forward) but they don't see the little girl inside of me who crumbled so many times yet found the strength to pull herself up each time.  

Happiness isn't something you can go out and find in material things, experiences, and even other people.  It is something internal.  It is being able to sit with yourself and be happy with who you are and how you are showing up in your relationships, community, and world.  I think I knew this deep down.  I wasn't one of those people constantly chasing shining things.  But realizing how miserable my husband is no matter what shiny new object he chases really drove home this point. 

Relationships with friends and family are more important than I think many adults realize, definitely more important than I realized.  Your spouse can't be your whole social network.  You need other outlets, other people to talk to, other people to turn to, other people to widen your world, etc.

Don't underestimate the importance of sitting in the stillness.  It's that pause that grounds you, slows you down, gives you chances to reflect, and helps you find clarity.

What surprised me:  I did not realize how much peace and joy I sacrificed in my marriage.  My ex-husband was a very negative person who complained a lot.  And I knew he was negative but I didn't realize exactly how negative he was and how much it was affecting me.  I think I was starting to get there in the end though as he demanded validation (which in his mind included agreeing with him) for every complaint he made.  I instinctively knew that wasn't good for my mental health and so had distanced myself from his complaints.  I'm not sure I was fully aware I had done this as I think it was a gradual distancing over time but in the end it was clear that is what I had accomplished.  

It didn't take many weeks apart to notice the peace I felt.  And as a result of that peace, I experienced more joy.  I could dance in the rain instead of walking silently next to him while he complained.  I could admire the scenery pass by on a road trip instead of burying myself in my phone to try and avoid participating in his aggressive driving and complaints about all the other drivers.  I even sat through stop and go traffic at one point since the separation with a smile on my face as I took in the quiet and peace of him not being next to me.

Furthermore, I felt more free to experience the full range of emotions both negative and positive.  I didn't have to temper my response to external factors to make sure I wasn't dismissing his negative response or adding to the negativity myself.  I can now let myself feel annoyance, anger, frustration, etc. knowing that it will pass quickly as I know how to manage it myself.  I don't think I was aware of how much I was helping him regulate his emotions during the marriage.

What do I want to bring into 2025:  Empathy - I discovered I have a great capacity for empathy and it just makes everything better.  I view others' behavior through a lens of trying to understand vs trying to criticize.  It leaves space for people to be human.  It helps me step back from the unproductive blame game and look forward to solutions that will be lasting.  It focuses on root causes instead of bandaids that often make the underlying problems worse.  Many people have told me that I have been too nice in how I talk about my ex-husband, even this blog is filled with empathy and grace towards him.  But I think that is an important part of what is helping me heal and walk away from this a better person.

Connections with Mother Nature - I want to continue to find grounding and peace in the beautiful world around me - the birds, the waves, the trees, the streams, etc.  Having this connection helps me understand my place in this larger world and brings me so many feelings of peace.

Being present - I want to be better at being present in the moment, putting away the phone and focusing on the people, scenery, experiences, etc. that are right in front of me.  And that includes lowering the camera sometimes to just take in the view instead of always viewing everything through the viewfinder.

Happy 2025!  It's now time to boldly step into this year and make it a good one.