Context from the early years

Life is really complex.  I’m not sure I can answer the question weighing most heavily on me and pinpoint any one thing that most influenced the losses I experienced in myself (related to my identity, my energy, my joy, my peace) over the life of my marriage.  So I'm going to start with some reflections about the early years of my marriage and even our dating years leading up to the wedding.

I think it all started with the pressures and expectations of adulthood and my first professional job which also happened to coincide with the beginning of my marriage. I graduated from college in May of 2005 and was married just a couple weeks later in early June. 

We had been living together for almost two years by then and with student teaching, teaching observations, a first grade program I ran, and my summer job, I had already been dipping my toes into that professional world and all the expectations that come with it. Teachers are often held to a fairly high standard.  Middle and high school students can be brutal and I quickly learned their parents can be worse.  I was already allowing myself to be conditioned to conform even before I had my teaching license. 

It was also a time of high stress - commuting across state lines that final semester, finding a job close enough to where he was already working, getting licensed in another state, and then planning a wedding on top of it.

My first professional job involved teaching classes at both the middle and high schools with class sizes that touched 40 and covered three distinct curriculums. And although I’m sure this is an exaggeration but it felt like every moment I was awake, I had a pile of papers in my lap for correcting, was planning a lesson, or was at or on my way to school.  It didn’t help that the Principal made clear he didn’t like me and as a probationary employee, I was dependent on whether or not he renewed my contract each year, something he chose not to do at the end of my third and final probationary year.  I was then replaced by a young, stereotypically beautiful, single teacher who was often so late I had to let her students into her classroom at the start of the day, who had lines a mile long of parents with complaints at parent-teacher conferences, and whose students were not prepared for the next level the next year.  That really left an impression on me.

So where was my fiancé/husband in all this?  He started his first public accounting job in December of 2004 before we got married and so we moved across the state line right before my final semester of college  It was clear from the very beginning of his career that he was not cut out for public accounting and that fist firm he was hired with was toxic and unsupportive.  It was especially bad during their spring busy season when he had overwhelming billable hour requirements.  I remember how my heart went out to him as he came home with the stories and as I witnessed some of it at work events where spouses were invited.

In addition to the stress of his job and his lack of coping skills for that stress, the intrusiveness of his parents on our lives grew after we got married.  They were visiting several times a year for longer than a weekend and almost always during the school year (but not during his busy season of course).  We even hosted Thanksgiving one year with his parents and his brother and sister-in-law.  

I have journal entries that talk about how my ex-husband was so concerned with the house being spotless and elaborate meals planned and prepped for each of their visits.  His mom especially was pretty critical and quick to judge.  She was always looking for the faults in people.  We argued about their visits a lot.  I didn't have the energy or the time for that during the school year.  I asked for shorter visits.  I asked for visits in the summer.  I asked for less elaborate meals.  I tried to pull back on the amount of cleaning I was willing to help with.  But he wasn't willing to set up any boundaries.

So I didn't feel like I was getting support for the stressful start to my career.  I was using some of my limited energy to support him in his stressful start to his career which at times was actively working against my own need to take care of myself.  And I felt like I was battling his intrusive parents and his unwillingness to set boundaries with them.

It really was a rough start to our marriage.  And his avoidance of conflict made it so much harder and we never could seem to finish an argument or resolve anything contentious.

We didn't stay here but it's not because we got better at communication or because his parents became less intrusive.  It's because life circumstances changed so we didn't have the added career stress on top of it all.    But it set up some dynamics that followed us to the end.  And between society's expectations of women and his mom's criticism (and some of the more subtle ways he mimicked her), it made me pull a bit more inward and conform more.  

And I think that at least on a subconscious level, the lack of much support from him as I struggled as a new teacher (and the active way he went against what I needed to avoid making waves with his parents) made me realize this was not a man I could turn to for emotional support.  

So why was I okay with that?  Why did I accept that?

Endure

The word "endure" is just not sitting well with me since it came up in therapy on Friday.  I think it is getting in the way of the processing I need to do.

For context, after describing my quite insane week, my therapist asked me if I felt like I was just enduring life right now.  I immediately said no.  I'm thriving right now.  But when comparing to how I feel now and how I felt during my marriage, I wondered if I was enduring life during the marriage.  I really think the answer to that is also "no".

The word "endure" seems to dismiss or diminish all the great things about my life while married - the laughter, the joy, the accomplishments, the experiences.  The word "endure" also feels like it negates my proven ability (time after time) of making something good out of challenging circumstances.

I don't endure life.  I do my very best to live it.

So now that we have gotten semantics out of the way, I do recognize a very real and impactful difference between married me and single me - the stark differences in energy level, the sense of self and freedom to lean into my quirkiness, the baseline stress, etc.  And I think it would be helpful to reflect on why that difference existed to such an extent.  What was it about my marriage that held me back, that drained me, and that stressed me on a subconscious level?

The little conversations I wish I could still have

Do I ever get to the point where I no longer come across things I really wish I could share with him?  

Yesterday, it was the parachute game at the brewery across the street.  Many years ago, early in our marriage, we had gone home for a visit at a time when his Grandma was in a nursing home.  We went to go see her and they had the parachute game on the schedule while we were there that my we thought his Grandma would enjoy (and I think was also some fond memory from his childhood) but the activity got cancelled.  

Every time we saw the parachute game after that, he pointed it out and we remembered her.  Although we didn't say out loud the part that bothered me most - despite his Grandma having all three of her children living within 30 minutes of the nursing home, no one had visited her since the last time we had been in town months prior.  And no one had bothered to open the letter we had sent her.  I know that bothered my ex, just as it bothered him that no one planned a funeral or memorial service for her when she eventually passed away.  Maybe that's why he thought of her every time he saw a parachute.

Last week, it was the memory of the Grackle that perched on the hood of our car and squawked at us as we drove the Black Point Wildlife Drive.  In recent months, I had discovered that the Grackle had quite a reputation and so had been named Gary and someone had even made stickers representing him.  I wanted to share with my ex what I had since learned about this Grackle.

And maybe the answer is these moments never completely disappear, they probably just become fewer and far between. It's not like I can or even want to erase two decades of memories from my life.

A new baseline stress level

We are going through what might turn out to be the most horrific times in my lifetime - the dismantling of our government, the attack on marginalized groups (immigrants, transgendered individuals, women, etc.), the lasting damage to global relationships, and the intentional destruction of our economy.  And I am in the very thick of that in more than one way.  

And yet, this feels like my year to shine, my year to thrive.  My capacity for joy is greater than it was at any point during the 19 years I was married.  The baseline stress that I had started to learn to recognize in my body over the last decade is not quite so consistent now.  My chronic pain is less frequent.  My struggle with weight is gone.  

I'm just so enjoying being me that so often the stress of my life feels like just background noise.  I ran into a woman this morning from a divorce group I participated in last fall and I said something that rung so true as I repeated it in my head - "I'm dancing in the rain despite the fact that I might lose job."  It's kind of crazy to think about.

My therapist last night in the context of all that is going on with my job and this country and the week I had just told her about asked if I felt like I was just enduring life.  And I'm definitely not just enduring life although I wondered out loud if maybe I had been enduring life while I was married.  That made both of us really pause.

I thought I was happy.  I thought it was a good marriage.  So how can I feel so incredibly different now?  How can I have so much more energy now?  So much more capacity for joy?  So much more ability to cope with chaos and insane situations?  Why is there a feeling of relief from what I thought was a good marriage?  There had to have been a disconnect between my conscious reality and my subconscious.  What did that disconnect try to protect me from?  What in my marriage created that disconnect?

On a parallel track in my mind is this realization that I lost in this marriage the essence of my quirkiness, some of the best parts of my uniqueness.  I'm realizing this now as I'm given this new chance to lean back into that quirkiness.  Long into adulthood, my sister would repeat the story of the day I showed up at high school on hat day wearing a gigantic sombrero.  She was mortified because she said people made fun of me for it and so she did her best to pretend she was not related to me.  But I just remember enjoying walking the halls in that hat.  I wasn't focused on what others thought of me.  I was unapologetically me.  And today I'm digging to find once again that unapologetic me and show it to the world.  So what was it about my marriage that led me to abandon that part of me?

I don't have the answers yet.  But I'm going to keeping sitting with it as I sort through the photos from this morning's walk through my local botanical gardens and go about the rest of my weekend.  And I'll be back here to write more as I have more to process.

If only he were a different man

As I sit on this stone bench, grounded to the Earth, amongst the song of countless birds, and next to the pitcher plants (a favorite of my ex-husband) at my local garden, I’m reminded of the many times I told myself over the past year, “We could have made this work if only….”  The reality is that there is only one way I can truly finish that sentence - “if only he were a different man.”

The question came back in therapy last night, “am I grieving the man or am I grieving the marriage?”

Trust

The words on repeat in my mind these days are “I trusted you.”  “I trusted you when I now realize you didn’t deserve it.”

All he had to do at any point he was struggling in our relationship was speak up.  He didn’t have to solve the issue(s) on his own. He didn’t even have to ultimately stay married. He just had to communicate. But repeatedly he chose avoidance over the hard conversations that would have either created connection between us or set us each free.  Instead, he sat silently resenting me while he watched me pour so much energy into him.

That's the pain that still hurts today.

But on the bright side, I got to stomp in puddles and dance in the rain both last night and again today on the way home from work.  My smile was so big as I looked back at myself in the mirror in the bathroom and changed out of my dripping wet clothes.  The pure, unrestrained joy I'm finding in between the moments of pain is moving me forward to such greater things.

I don't have to conform.

One really important part of my journey of discovery (at least in my opinion) has been sorting through expectations that society and others (including my ex-husband) have (or had) of me vs expectations I have of myself.  It is so easy to fall into a trap worrying about what others think of us that we lose sight of what we want of ourselves and what makes us each unique.

So it started with not shaving my armpits sometime last summer.  My skin was always irritated by the razor and I suppose I got a bit of inspiration from young female, beautiful celebrities openly showing off their unshaven pits.  I will admit that I got a bit self-conscious half-way through my cruise last October wearing formal wear and shaved them once.  

But then when I got back home from that trip, I stopped shaving my legs too and haven't shaved since.  When I was in college (and first met my ex-husband), I didn't shave my legs so this isn't a completely new thing to me.  But it has been a lot of years!  In the winter, it didn't show much except for my beach trips where I didn't care one bit what people thought but now it's shorts, sundresses, and tank tops season. 

The range of emotions and thoughts I have gone through during this process has been a bit incredible.   Self-consciousness, even a bit of embarrassment, experiencing new sensations, growing confidence, freedom, and even joy have played a role.  To sit through these emotions and thoughts, listen to them, and lean into them has taught me so much about myself.  It's made me feel more "me".  It's helped me let go of that which is not serving me.  It's put a smile on my face.

So I showed up at the Easter church service yesterday in one of my favorite knee-length, sleeveless pink sundresses with matching sandals and jewelry and hairy legs and armpits.  I felt beautiful.  And everyone complimented my sandals.

What a contrast from last year!

Today I sat in the choir loft looking out at a full sanctuary of joyful people.  The songs we sang were moving and uplifting, ending with the Hallelujah Chorus.  The message from our Pastor was clear and hopeful (and she reminded us twice, to make sure we heard it, that the message of Jesus's resurrection was first preached by women).  The flowers were beautiful.  And the weather was perfect.  I even took some extra time at my local park on my way to and from church to enjoy the Green Herons, Yellow-crowned Herons, and the Killdeer that was keeping an eye on her baby.  It was an Easter Sunday filled with so much joy for me.

Last year, I missed all this.  We were on our way back from Nashville in my ex-husband's latest new car.  The weekend had been mostly about him and this latest purchase.  I remember feeling disappointment when the delivery date of the Saturday before Easter was set as I had been preparing for the Easter service for several weeks by then.  But it was what he had wanted.  We did sneak in a visit to Cheekwood to see their gardens but any garden visit that included him always felt rushed because he didn't have the patience for all the photos I wanted to take and all the time I wanted to spend sitting with the flowers.

So today I'm going to sit with this joy.  I'm going to take all the time I want doing what I enjoy and I'm going to soak in the beauty of Easter.

Running into him at a Baseball Game

I went to a minor league baseball game tonight.  I knew there was a chance he would be there as our the team was offering discounted tickets to the apartment buildings around the stadium and this was something we had done often enough in the past.  I don't notice until about the last 3 innings when I went back to the section I had originally started in and he was seated by himself in the front row of that section (he had not been there in the first couple innings).  With a general admission ticket, I tend to move around throughout the game.

I don't know if he saw me until the end as we were walking out (although he probably did) and so our only interaction was a quick "hi" as we crossed paths on the way back to the apartment.

I was aware of his presence but not so negatively affected by him this time.  Maybe because I wasn't caught so off guard this time.  Or maybe I just couldn't see the look in his eyes this time in the dark.  Or maybe I can see through the look if I'm caught in a moment when my mind is clear.

 

I look back at myself and see the many evolutions of me - both during my marriage and since the separation.  Who I am today post-divorce has remnants of who I was in college when I met him.  Time and maturity has changed me but the core energy and quirkiness of my college years is coming back to me from being dormant for so many years.  People who know me well have commented on so many positive changes since the divorce, so clearly it is coming out in how I present myself to the world.

I looked at him today and I saw a man who is just the same as he always was, although maybe a bit older.  And if I back to the man I initially met, I'm not sure he really has evolved at all from that man. In recent months when I looked back at a journal from that time period, it was uncanny how the descriptions of him were still so accurate today.

So what are my takeaways from that?  First, I don't think getting the divorce solved his unhappiness problem.  I think I was just the easy scapegoat.  Although, if he never does the work on himself, he may never realize that.  He may just continue to go through life believing "the whole world is out to get (him)".  (His words repeated many times during our marriage which is why I use quotes.)

Second, maybe I outgrew him even during the marriage.  They say your partner in a relationship is a mirror - maybe the growth in me just reminded him of the work he hadn't done and didn't want to do on himself.

Things I could never do before

It's 84℉ in my apartment with the breeze and sunshine filtering in through the open patio doors.  Humidity is still low so I'm actually quite comfortable and I thrive off the fresh air and enjoy listening to the sounds of the world beyond me (even the train that is approaching now).

I had to set down my book and grab my laptop to write about this when I realized this was not something I ever got to experience while married.  He hated the noise.  He wasn't comfortable in the heat.  And so we never opened the windows.  The fan I took with me when we separated was one that had been so rarely used he looked at me strangely when I told him I wanted it.  

And then I think about this morning waking up to the golden hour light filtering in through the huge windows in my apartment as it is my habit to leave the blinds open.  It's such a pleasure to be able to enjoy that early morning light.  And again, it is not something I ever got to experience while married as he installed blackout curtains that were always closed in our bedroom and he kept most of the other blinds closed even while we were awake.  Now, the only time I ever close my blinds is on warm days while I'm at work to try and keep the sun from overheating my home while I am away.

I have enjoyed the quiet all day to focus on a good book with no TV playing in the background.  It was always a battle to get him to turn it off even for a short time.  You wouldn't believe the shock on his face when I made it very clear I did not want a TV.  Even up until the last day before I moved out, he questioned whether I was sure I didn't want one.  Seven months later, I haven't missed it at all.  I have one series I still enjoy (through Hulu) and I'm so many weeks behind on it, if that gives you any idea of how low of a priority it is.

I'm also surprised by how much environmental issues matter to me and how much I can lean into them now that I'm on my own.  There were always things I did before like minimize my daily driving - my kick scooter and feet get me most every day places and the switch to electric vehicles in the last year or two of our marriage.  And when we owned a house, I maintained a compost bin that he hated but made great food for our gardens.  

But I'm doing more and more.  One of the first things I bought as I was setting up my new apartment was reusable zip lock bags and despite the way he rolled his eyes when I made that purchase as we were separating, I love them!  And unless I'm already in my car for another purpose, all of my grocery shopping is to the local store I can walk to with my cart where I tell the bagger to skip the bags as they load the items directly back into my cart.  

I've switched to bar shampoos, powder laundry soap, and am researching alternative deodorants that are natural and have less plastic. And the supply of paper towels he gave me when we separated is going to last my lifetime at my current pace - I'm not even halfway through my first roll!  There still is plenty more I can and hope to do but I'm just relishing in the freedom I have to make those changes.

Anyways, I should get back to my book - it's really good and it sounds like a musician is warming up at the brewery across the street for a bit of entertainment before I head to a minor league ball game.  I just wanted to write about the joy I realized in the freedom to make my own choices that better align with my values and establish routines that better fit me.

Finding peace in nature even on a day my brain feels so scattered

I woke up before 6 am this morning, got out of bed, got dressed by the light of the golden hour filtering in through the patio windows, grabbed my camera bag, and stepped out into the hall of my apartment complex, locking my door behind me.  And then I had a flashback.  My ex-husband and I cruised a lot together.  My favorite time of day was the early morning before anyone else was awake.  I would often set a silent alarm on my smartwatch, get dressed in the dark to avoid waking up my then husband, and sneak out onto deck to catch the sunrise, sometimes grabbing a cup of coffee from the cafe on the way.

Today felt a lot like that except there was no one to worry about waking up while I got ready and when I opened the door to the outside world, the salty air of the ocean didn't greet me.  I then spent over an hour sitting still with a pair of Green Herons and both an adult and an immature Yellow-crowned Night Heron.  The adult Yellow-crowned Night Heron hopped up to the platform where I sat to be eye-to-eye with me although he still kept his distance even as he expressed his curiosity.

I feel like there are lessons to be learned from every interaction I have with nature.  Today it was about quieting my mind, listening intently, and being present in the moment.  It was a break and a distraction from the self-focused questions that have been running through my mind about how someone who appeared to be happy one year ago as we traveled together could suddenly turn on me and discard me so quickly after.

This morning's time at the local park with my feathered friends served its purpose in the morning but I'm struggling to hang onto the effects of it more than normal.  My mind is just so scattered today.  I've tried to write several blog posts before this one only to abandon them.  Maybe I'll abandon this post too before publishing.  Or maybe it's okay to remember the beauty and connection of this morning and to also accept the moments of struggle that are scattering my mind on and off throughout the rest of the day.

Why does it still matter?

In the space and time that has passed since the separation and divorce, I have realized that I am better off.  I have so much more energy.  I'm developing some great friendships that are so positive.  I'm learning new things about myself and developing new skills.  I'm leaning into the joy of life more than ever.  I'm healthier maintaining the weight I lost last year, eating differently, and joining exercise classes in addition to walking more.  Surprisingly, I'm even feeling good about my financial situation, something that I feared most having to support myself on my one, quite a bit lower salary.

So the divorce was good for me.  Some might even say "all's well that ends well."

So why does it still matter that I have so many unanswered questions about what happened last year, why he made the decision to dump me, and why he treated me so poorly in the process?  Why am I still stuck on not understanding what was in his head?

No matter how much I focus forward on the good ahead of me, I still can't shake the bizarre turn to last year, the disconnect to anything that makes sense to me.

Rewind back to the Why's

I've made a lot of progress.  I thought I was past all the questions of why.  I thought I had accepted that I likely never would get the answers I seek.

But the photos of last year are bringing back all those questions.  I look at the ones from today that show the two of us on the beaches of Grand Turk with what appear to be genuine smiles on our faces.  And then I see the photo I took of a Mangrove Cuckoo, a bird we had never seen before and likely never will again as it is pretty uncommon.  It was an exciting find for both of us.  I'm going to include a photo I took of the bird because I want to remember the Mangrove Cuckoo.

There's such a disconnect from the memories of that trip and where we were at six weeks later when he told me he was questioning our relationship, and in hindsight, I believe his decision to leave had already been made.  He just took the next six weeks after that to find all my flaws to justify his decision in his mind before he finally told me he would be filing for divorce.

So what happened between April and late May?  Was it something during his work travels in Philadelphia or the week he spent in New Orleans?  What happened to cause him to just flip a switch?  

How can someone walk away from a two decades-long, serious relationship with so little communication and so many unanswered questions and be okay with themself?  How can someone do that to someone they claim to have loved and committed to?

Even with all the work I've done to move past it, I struggle with the significant number of unanswered questions.  Will I ever truly be okay with not knowing?

Single Life

Maybe it's my personality.  Maybe it's the way I was raised.  Maybe it's the circumstances I was thrown into before the divorce was even final. But one thing I have not struggled with that I hear many single people struggle with is doing things on my own.  It's kind of odd to reflect on now.  Before the separation last summer, the last time I really did anything was 2002, the semester I studied in Spain.  Yet I transitioned back to being single (in this regard) as if 2002 was just yesterday.

I took myself out to dinner tonight, asked for an outdoor table where I could watch the activity of the city, sipped a glass of wine, and enjoyed some Greek food.  I didn't feel lonely or out of place.  I just enjoyed it.

I've gone to the beach alone.  I've visited a number of my favorite gardens alone.  I've seen an Improv Show, grabbing drinks before hand alone.  I've gone to a baseball game alone.  I've gone to an art show alone.  I've wandered New York City and Washington DC alone.  I've taken a Bermuda cruise and an Amtrak overnight train ride alone.

I don't wait for people to be available to join me.  I don't even ask people most of the time.  I probably should get better about that.  It would be a good way to better foster some of the friendships I'm building and my guess is that there are people who would join me from time to time.

One year ago today

This evening, Facebook reminded me of memories from years past from both Facebook and Instagram.  I could turn off memories but I don't want to because so many of them are positive. Today's was harder though.

On this day one year ago, I embarked on a cruise with my ex-husband.  We woke up at a hotel on the water and watched the sunrise.  We paid the small specialty dining fee to have a quiet lunch at Johnny Rocket's on the ship with views of the harbor.  I'm sure he made use of a drink ticket to get a milkshake.  We enjoyed our first dinner at the perfect table for two in a quieter section of the dining room with an excellent waiter.  And as the night came to a close, we walked the promenade where I had one last drink, a sangria as we walked past some of the music acts.

On that day, I had no clue what I would be facing in the months ahead.  I thought we were happily married.  His mind had to have already been headed for the exit though. How does someone pretend like that?  It baffles me, just boggles my mind.

Over the next days, there will be a lot of memories - the walks on the beach including the day it rained in St. Croix, the off-roading dune buggy adventure that he always wanted to do, the spotting of the sister ship to the one we were supposed to be on together last September, the sunsets, the Brown Boobies that soared along side the ship, and then Gary the Grackle that rode on our hood through the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge drive (we didn't know his name was Gary though at the time - I just learned that this year, I wish I could tell my ex-husband his name).

I'm going to focus on giving myself a lot of grace as I move through these next 10 days or so.

Who we think we are and how others view us

Last night, I started reading the book "Becoming Nicole" by Amy Ellis Nutt.  I wasn't more than just a few pages into the prologue when a statement really made me pause.

She writes:

Who we are is inseparable not only from who we think we are, but from who others think we are.  We are touched and loved, we are appreciated or dismissed, praised or scorned, comforted or wounded.  But before all else, we are seen.  We are identified by others through the contours and colors and movements of our bodies.

I started to touch on this idea with my post yesterday about not recognizing myself and being fascinated about how others may view me but I hadn't taken the thought this far.  As I have marinated on this thought over coffee and then as the water poured over me in the shower, I've realized how the relationships in our life are intertwined with who we are.  And this isn't just about our romantic relationship - our friendships and relationships with family members play a role too.  I suspect there is even a minor role in the random interactions we have with strangers throughout each day.

My reflections have led me to two takeaways that I think are important.

First, we have the power to uplift people through the way we treat them, view them, accept them, etc.  We can either have a positive or a negative influence on someone.  It's our choice to make and if we don't take the time to self-reflect, we can't be intentional in that choice.  I want to intentionally uplift people, bring out their good qualities, and be that positive influence.

Second, we have the power to choose who we let into our close circle.  We get to choose people who will uplift, look for our good, accept us, reflect back to us in ways that positively influence us, etc.

With all that said, I think we need to be careful to not let this blind us to the need for growth and improvement.  None of this means, we shouldn't challenge each other to be better and to grow.  I want people in my life who challenge me.  But I want it to be done in a loving, uplifting way that is a positive influence.

I'm still spending too much energy on him.

I'm a bit taken aback to realize how much of my therapy session yesterday evening I spent on my concern over what I expect my ex-husband is currently facing in his job and what support he may have for that.  And then since then, I have found myself on Reddit twice reading the comments from people who work in my ex-husband's agency.

Those thoughts seem to take up more space in my head than what I'm going through - the job opportunity I'm mulling over, the support staff meeting on Friday where it was brought up how many of us are planning for retirement, the lack of information about my own agency's plans, the emergency case that came up and changed the whole vibe at work on Friday, the ethical questions my colleagues across the country are facing and the consequences of sticking to their ethics, the tight timeline I have to transfer money in the middle of a volatile stock market, etc.

My first reaction to that is that I'm just incredibly capable.  I know how to handle my life.  I'm ready to deal with whatever comes my way.  So I don't waste a lot of time worrying about it.

But I think there is more to it.  I think I respond to my life that way because I spent two decades prioritizing my ex-husband.  I spent two decades taking on his emotions, worries, and challenges that all I had left for my own was to deal and move on.  There wasn't time to stress or worry about me.

That's not all bad when it comes to my own life.  Worry gains me nothing.  It's not all that productive.  But I need to stop the worrying as it relates to him.  I'm tired this week.  I have less energy.  I thought it was because I was doing too much.  But maybe it's just because I'm sending too much energy his way as I worry about how he is handling it all.

I don't recognize myself.

I received some sports bras that I had ordered in the mail today so I tried one on and stepped in front of my bathroom mirror.  The woman who looked back looked so foreign to me.  And it wasn't just the shorter haircut or the weight I've lost.  I've had months to get used to those.

It was the way she held herself and the way she looked back at me.  She had a confidence in her and came across as no-nonsense.  The self-consciousness I feel didn't come across at all.  There was no indecisiveness apparent at all. 

And there was something quieter, softer in the back of her eyes, maybe a wariness.

I wonder if it's just the fact that my self-concept hasn't caught up to the discovery and growth I have experienced over such a short time.  Or maybe something still doesn't quite fit yet.

Sometimes my mind wanders to how others might see me - to how my subconscious and conscious self comes across to others.  It's quite fascinating to think about the many different people we are to each of those we are close to and how those people differ from our own view of our self.

Whatever decision I make will be the right one

I'm at a crossroads.  An opportunity has unexpectedly stepped in front of me and so I'm evaluating the pros and cons of it.  As I was talking it through with my parents this evening, I realized something about me.  I may agonize over what to do when faced with a big decision but once I make the decision, I just make the best out of it.  I don't live in regrets.  I don't spend much time contemplating "what ifs" about the past.  Even with my marriage, I have really tried to stay away from what ifs that contemplate trying to undo what already has been done.

And so I ended up the call with my mom by saying "whatever decision I make will be the right one" and that was quite freeing.  So I don't know what I will do but I will sleep on it.  I will consider it.  I might talk it over with a few more people.  And then I'm just going to go with my gut.

I'm resilient.  I always land on my feet.  I know how to make the best of situations.  I can do this.

I worry more for him than I do for me.

I start my morning each day by browsing Reddit to see what horrors face federal employees this week.  My agency rarely gets mentioned and my leadership has been silent but what is happening to the rest of the government and what we are seeing being asked of people in other offices is already causing some people to jump ship.  So regardless if I eventually go through RIFs, damage is already being done.  It's also shifting my relationships with colleagues.  

But it's not me I worry about.  I've gone over my budget.  I've been saving money to put in a rainy day fund.  I've got a resume reasonably up-to-date.  And although I really don't want to leave my job - I really enjoy the work and find it meaningful, I would welcome a new adventure.  And with no real ties to my city, I can expand to so many opportunities.  I am resilient.

It's my ex-husband I worry about.  This was his dream career.  I remember him talking about it back when we were in college and dating.  When he got that first job with his agency in another city, I didn't even hesitate to start packing.  We were both so excited.

And then I watched him finally start thrive in a job.  He had struggled so much at his previous jobs in the private sector.  But this was different.  This was where he found his groove.  He had some missteps as he advanced - taking on a management role was not for him but he found his way back to what he loved.

His agency is coming up frequently these days - probationary employees fired and then rehired but put on administrative leave who now may come back next week (which probably affects many of the people he was mentoring), a second push to get people to resign, offers of early retirement, the cancellation of leases on the office buildings that house the employees, notices of upcoming RIFs.  

I haven't talked to him so I don't know what specifically of all this is directly affecting him but I imagine much of it is.

I don’t know who he has to talk to or lean on anymore. When we were married it was just me. He isn’t close with his brother. And his mom voted for this plus has so many of her own anxieties and issues that she has never really been an emotional support for him. And he has never had any real close friends.

I also can’t imagine what it feels like to know your mom voted against your interests and for someone who may destroy your dream career. That just sits so heavy with me as an outsider looking in.

So although I know I can’t be there for him (for multiple reasons), today I’m going to hold some space in my mind and heart for his pain,  struggle, and maybe grief.

A foreign experience

I looked down at my feet hitting the bricks, moving to the beat of the hip hop song in the middle of an urban park in the south and was transported back to 2002, a 20 year old version of me.  The experience wasn't the same in 2002 but the feeling was exactly how I remember it, like these were parallel experiences.

And it wasn't really about one exact moment in either case.  It was a moment that represented a larger time when my life just felt so foreign to me that I wondered how I had ended up there.

In 2002, my eyes kept glancing down at my feet hitting the brick and cobblestone of the sidewalks in Valladolid, Spain.  My every waking moment and even many of my dreams were in another language so much so that when I called my parents random Spanish words would flow out and they had to keep asking me what I meant.  And my nights were spent wandering those streets after a late dinner, anything to get out of the small home of my host family.  It was an unfamiliar schedule, an imperfect language, a culture I didn't fully understand, and me constantly stepping out of my comfort zone as I tried to experience everything.  It all felt so foreign from who I believed myself to be.  And it literally was a foreign country and experience.

Today's feeling of a foreign experience was more metaphorical, although there are still parts of the southern culture and even occasional phrases I don't fully understand.  And I definitely have been constantly stepping out of my comfort zone as I allow myself to break the artificial limits I created and truly lean into who I might become.  And the feeling of everything being so foreign was just as strong.

I still love him.

I’m going to be honest. I still love him and care deeply about him. Those feelings may never really go away. 

AND I recognize that I am not what he needs now. 

AND I have decided that it’s time to finally love me more. 

All three of those things are true at the very same time.  Maybe that's what makes the healing so complicated.  I'm trying to find that space where I feel good in the life I create as I move on without erasing the past and while embracing the impact my past has on my present and future.

Deep Thoughts

The way he looked at me on Friday is still with me even as I have moved forward and bounced back from the grief it caused me.  I wonder though, how self-aware he even was of the way he looked at me.  And I wonder how accurately I ever interpreted his expressions.  There is too much space between his conscious and subconscious thoughts, my conscious and subconscious thoughts, and the way we each express those thoughts.

So when I say it unnerved me how much power he still seemed to have over me in that moment, is it really power he has over me?  Or is the power in the perceptions that I allow to persist in my mind?  

Action is the Antidote to Anxiety

A colleague told me this a few weeks back - "Action is the antidote to anxiety."  The idea is to focus on taking action on the things that we can control, being ready with our response to life's challenges.  I think there is a lot of truth to that.

With the uncertainty in my job, I've spent some time combing over my budget, figuring out what a bare bones budget looks like and focusing on how building up the emergency fund I think I may need someday.  I've also cut a lot of my non-essential spending.  My resume is mostly up-to-date from the job I applied to last year and I have copies of any relevant personnel documents at home now.  I've also started thinking about which cities I would enjoy living in if I find myself job hunting again.  If I lose my job (or feel the time has come that I need to leave), I'm ready to deal with it so I'm not worrying about it so much anymore.  If it happens, it will just be the next adventure in my life.

When my marriage fell apart last summer, I spent those first weeks and months focusing on the things I could control - developing a budget, downloading statements of all our assets and debts, looking for apartments, making lists of the things I wanted to take with me, building a social network for support, etc.  Honestly, it didn't leave me time to worry much and when worry did creep into my mind, I could go over all the plans I was making.

Action won't solve all my worries but it definitely lessens them quite a bit.

It's a new day!

I ended my post last night with "Tomorrow is a new day."  So here I am on this rainy day to share that a new day did indeed come.

No matter how far along I feel like I have come in this healing journey, inevitably something comes along that knocks me back down.  And although I hope those triggers happen with less frequency over time and have less of an impact, I imagine this will be my life for some time still.  I don't know if you ever truly get over a great loss.  You just find a way to grow from the experience and put it into the right perspective so that you can move on.  

So back to today, I woke up to the sound of rain.  I love rain.  In planning for my walk to church, I put on a pair of quick dry shorts and sandals and pulled out my rain jacket.  The rain was pretty steady and clearly had been quite steady for many hours as the puddles were abundant and deep.  

I paused only for a moment when I reached that first puddle before I stepped into the cool, ankle deep water.  The feel of my feet in the rain water gathered on the ground restored something in me.  Joy bubbled over as I stomped in the next puddle and danced in the rain.  When given the choice, I even turned right onto the street with an even larger puddle.

When I arrived at church, I was ready to lean into the energy and love that filled the building.  I even had a chance to sit next to a new friend when the choir joined the congregation to listen to our new interim senior pastor preach.

I'm sure that yesterday won't be the last day I struggle to pull myself out a funk.  But it sure helps to see the pattern repeated over and over of getting a chance at a new day.  It makes moving through the pain more bearable when there is a certainty of joy to follow eventually.

I'm just lost today.

I'm restless and lost and a bit down today.  I'm struggling to find the joy.  I tried walking the park a bit and even sat on my therapy bench around mid-day.  I was out long enough that I actually see some color on my shoulders.  And then I came back and finished my audiobook and napped and drove myself crazy before I pushed myself out the door again, this time to the baseball game.

The weather was mostly perfect, except for a short rain shower which I actually usually enjoy.  The temperatures were in the upper 70s with low humidity and a nice breeze.  Attendance at the game was light enough that I could find some good seats, first a few innings near right field and then the rest of the game right behind home plate.  I drank a beer from my home state and had a funnel cake, which in hindsight may not have been the best choice.  It was all a nice distraction but it didn't do much for my mood.

I kept thinking about the last game my ex and I went to.  It was a Thursday because I remember laughing about how with the drink specials, my beer was cheaper than his bottle of water.  He didn't watch the game or interact with me all that much because he was so focused on a book.  He wasn't typically a reader but for some reason, he really got into the Harry Potter books last year and the year before.

Although I wasn't someone who needed all his attention everywhere we went, I remember it sitting different with me this time.  It was those in-between months after he told me he was questioning our relationship but before he finally called it quits.  He kept wanting to do stuff together as if that is what would help me figure out our relationship.  This was one of those things.  That ballgame was his idea.

In hindsight, I think he just wanted distractions so he didn't have to actually face our relationship.  I'm pretty sure his decision was already made by that point.  

In later conversations with him, it became clear that he wasn't even making use of his therapy sessions to talk about his marriage or decision to leave.  It sounded like his sole focus was on building up his self- image and confidence.  I don't say that to dismiss the importance of that work.  It's just so wild to me that someone would divorce their spouse without any warning or much of an explanation and not even use their therapist to help process it, clarify their decision, or even figure out how to communicate better about it.  I actually asked him to cover his therapy costs out of his own funds when I realized this.  To not even take advantage of his therapist to learn how to be kinder and more honest in how he ended the relationship just made an already cruel breakup feel even worse.

But I digress, I'm not sure how I veered off onto the topic of his therapy.  But maybe the meandering of this post is just a really good example of how lost I feel today.  Well, it is late so I should get some sleep.  Tomorrow is a new day.

He was a good partner in so many ways.

So much of my processing lately has been on recognizing and trying to understand the things that went wrong that I couldn't fully see at the time.  But today I'm flooded with all the ways that we acted as a team, as partners, all the ways that we were so well aligned.

In two decades, we faced a lot together and handled it quite well.  I think about all of the job changes and moves we made.  We lived in ten different homes located in four different areas!  Sometimes it was navigating a job loss or a complete career change in addition to a move.  In one case, we took a huge financial hit with a condo that was underwater.

In thinking about the conversations we had, the decisions we made, and the physical work we did side by side that came with each move, I just can't imagine a better partner in it all.

And it continued with conversations we had, decisions we made, and work we did to fairly split our lives as we divorced last year.  We didn't even need attorneys to help us except make sure the documents were drafted accurately to reflect our agreement.

And it wasn't just in the big things like a job change or move, it was the every day - the routines we established, the ways we worked towards financial goals, the travel we did together whether it was a day trip or an international vacation, etc.

If we could have open, honest, transparent conversations and find so much alignment in facing the practicalities of life together, why was he so unwilling to have similar open, honest and transparent conversations about us?  

I didn't expect this.

I was walking away from a line class dancing exercise class at the local park, smiling and laughing to myself about who I had run into which isn't really relevant to my story so I'm not going to get into that part.  But I was in a good mood, kind of in my own world walking back to my apartment when suddenly I was pulled out of that mood when I realized the person heading towards me was my ex-husband.

I've never had such a range of emotions run through me in such a short space in time.  He smiled at me, the kind of smile I have never seen him give anyone but me.  And as I walked past him, I realized it was a smile I hadn't seen in a long time - like so long ago, that I don't actually remember when it was.  I didn't even realize it had been missing in recent years until I saw it again this evening.

As soon as he had passed, the tears started rolling down my cheeks.  As I type this a new batch of tears fall freely.

This was a man I loved with all my heart.  If I had actually had the power, I would have done anything to fix us.  But it wasn't something within my power.  He had to want that too.  He had to be willing to put the work in too.  And he didn't.  He wasn't willing.

I don't know what I saw in his eyes and smile tonight.  I don't know what it represented tonight.  And I realize now that I don't actually know what it represented when he used to so freely look at me that way.  Was it a form of love?  Or maybe a feeling of comfort for someone he knew would hold his hand? Or what?

When you go through so many of life's ups and downs with someone, face the world together for so long, it just blows my mind that they could just walk away without even trying, without even talking.

So my heart is breaking again tonight.  I miss that look he used to give me.  I miss the way it used to make me feel.  I miss the man I married.

I defined myself too narrowly.

Yesterday evening, I gathered with three other amazing women.  The conversation flowed as if we had been long-time friends yet this was only our first gathering all together.  And time flew by so fast that the first time I checked the time was as we were getting ready to end the night, 3 hours and 40 minutes after I had arrived.

There was no place for judgment around that table.  We were just women lifting up other women, listening to each other's stories, and holding each other's hands.  I don't have adequate words for the feelings I felt in the moment.  I just knew that I had a place at that table and that it was exactly where I was meant to be.

And it was the kind of thought provoking conversations that follow me long after we have parted ways.  So this morning, the first thought in my head was about how I had boxed myself into a corner so often throughout my life.  It was insight that came out of the story of one of those women.

I don't know how often over the last months I have commented to someone that something I'm doing is so out of character or how I don't know what made me sign up for something.  There is this incongruence that I have felt between who I believe I am and who I'm proving I can be.

The divorce gave me the freedom, maybe even the encouragement to question how I have always defined myself.   I'm unravelling who I am because society pressures me to be that way, who I am because of expectations from my ex-husband, and who I am just for myself.  But my mind hasn't fully let go of that narrow view of myself and so doubt creeps in and I question how incongruent it feels at times.

So it's time to more fully let go of those limitations that I created when I decided who I was without leaving space for more.  It's time to embrace the both/and of life, the contradictory things that can be true at the same time along with all the gray space between.

And I really hope my connections with these amazing women continue to grow and that they continue to keep me thinking deeply about this world I live in.

My Transformation

It's so weird what I am going through - this transformation.  I'm stepping outside of my comfort zone.  I'm overturning ideas of who I thought I was.  I'm leaning into new experiences.  I'm separating out what was tied up in others' expectations of me vs what is aligned with my own expectations for myself.  And as I encouraged myself to do in a New Year's Day post on Threads, I'm bolding stepping into this year.  

So much of it doesn't make logical sense to me.  But it all feels so authentic and right.  And that contradiction makes it such a weird experience to be in the middle of as it is unfolding.

Today I participated in a hip hop cardio class at the park near my house.  I've never done a class like this.  I'm not particularly coordinated and I wasn't sure of how in shape I was.  But I went anyways.  I found myself a spot about two-thirds of the way back and towards one side - close enough to see what was going on but not enough to be in the spotlight.  It was a big crowd by the time the music started.  Some of the moves felt so awkward.  And I missed plenty of steps.  But I had so much fun!  

And I must have been doing something right because about half-way through the instructor looked my general direction and through her microphone yelled out the encouragement, "I see you pink shorts!"  I admit, I looked around to find the person in pink shorts only to realize it was me!  

A year ago, I would have been embarrassed to be signaled out like that.  I've always thought I'm quite introverted and thought I hated the spotlight.  But today, I just smiled and poured more energy into the dance moves.

Reading more into something than is probably there

He liked my Instagram post today.  It was of a Trillium from one of the botanical gardens in my state.  I'm not surprised he is still watching my Instagram.  It's a public account.  He is still listed as a follower and I have no interest in actually blocking him.  

It also isn't the first time he has liked a post or watched a story or made a comment about a posting in an e-mail exchange since the divorce although it doesn't happen often.  The last time was probably four or five weeks ago.

I'm not sure he particularly enjoyed our garden visits when we were together, flowers and plants weren't really his thing so it seems an odd one to like.

I'm really curious what would make him continue to follow me so closely, what goes through his head when he decides to like a post.  

Sometimes I wonder where his head is at.  Sometimes I wonder where his head was at when he decided to end it.  And it's not that I believe any good would come of talking to him and asking him - he never could be truly honest with me before so I doubt he could be truly honest with me now.  Plus I'm not sure he even always knows what's in his head.

I wonder if he continued to read my travel blog after the divorce.  I'll probably never know and it really doesn't matter.  My focus is on moving on and tonight I'm going to go find out how uncoordinated and out-of-shape I am with a hip hop cardio class.  It should be interesting....