Lessons from the birds and the streams and the forest

I had an up close interaction with a Brown-headed Nuthatch today that left me with a sense of awe and recalibrated my perspective.

I went for a hike this morning at a preserve in the suburbs.  The day was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and in the 60s with just a light breeze.  I started at a lesser used trailhead and didn't even encounter another hiker until I had been walking for about 30 minutes.  When I got close to the popular waterfall and trailhead section, I just passed on by without stopping and found quiet once again as I reached the other extreme end of the park.  

It was in one of these quieter parts of the park with the trail to myself that I came across this little nuthatch.  He foraged for food in a dead tree not more than about five feet from where I stood.  He was completely uninterested in or perhaps oblivious to my presence.

What surprised me the most was how tiny this bird was.  I suppose when I observe them from a distance with my long lens, my sense of scale is off.  But up close its tiny size couldn't be mistaken.  To think such a small bird sings a tune that can be heard through the forest!  I often listen for its unique squeaky exclamations when I hike or explore botanical gardens.  Now I will be able to imagine its tiny size among the towering trees.

I spent almost four hours in the park.  I hiked over five miles among rocks and roots, crossing back and forth across the stream, testing my balance on rocks to avoid getting wet each time I crossed.  I discovered waterfalls I hadn't visited before and trails I had never taken.  

I left my camera behind on this hike and I didn't take many photos or videos with my phone like I so often do.  I wanted to be present.  I spent a lot of time listening to the birds and trying to identify them by their songs and chatter.  I sat down and even laid down on large flat rocks, sometimes in the middle of the stream to more deeply connect myself to this Earth.

I found myself recording voice notes of my thoughts with the sounds of the birds and water in the background.  I had never done that before but I am enjoying playing them back and hope they will be an inspiration for some poetry.

And about 2.5 hours into the hike, a thought crossed my mind that made me stop in my tracks.  A move to LA would mean giving up spaces like this.  Any neighborhood I was looking at was a long ways from some real green space.  Any attempts to connect with nature would be difficult without hours of time getting out of the city.  And maybe that is the most important reason why I probably won't apply for that job.  

I felt lighter after that realization.  All my other pros and cons that have been running through my head this past week hadn't hit at any core of who I am so weren't particularly persuasive either way.  This need to connect with nature is essential to my being.

So although my legs may be sore and I'm still trying to rehydrate from the hike, this immersion into the noisy quiet of the forests and the streams was exactly what I needed.  I think the birds help me drown out all the distractions and listen to the depths of my inner self.  And they remind me that the most important moment is always the present one.

Wasted nurturing

My body is fighting something.  It started with a sore throat and a loss of energy.  I have gone to bed early the last three nights.  The sore throat is gone but I have just a little congestion and I'm still a bit tired.

I skipped choir last night and after the last of my friends declined the plans I had proposed for tonight to go the art museum, I decided to stay home instead.  My body needs rest.

I've written before about how much easier it is to be sick now than it was when I was married.  Without his negative energy, expectations, dependence on me for so much, and walking on eggshells to try and not inconvenience him, I didn't have much energy left to nurture myself back to good health and that definitely wasn't something he was willing to do for me.  He might catch what I have!

I feel a little bitter at all the care I provided for him not only when he was sick but also when he was healthy.  And he has now managed to fool another woman into doing all that for him.  And yet, I sit here not even knowing what it would feel like to have someone nurture me when I am sick.

Why does it seem like charm and manipulation so often seem to go hand in hand with ease and success in this world where honesty and integrity stumble?

I suppose this is grief over the relationship I wanted to have in my marriage but didn't get, the energy I wasted on a man willing to take but not reciprocate.

Sometimes I wonder where I would be if I hadn't married him.  Would I have taken time to grow into who I was before jumping into a relationship?  Would I have found someone capable of building a healthy marriage with?  Would I have had a less bumpy start to my teaching career?  Would I have been better at maintaining a community of friends?  What alternative endings would I find in The Midnight Library?

Whiplash

I opened my Google Drive app on my phone this morning to type up the poem that started forming in my head during my commute.  My old and new accounts are still a bit intertwined so it was files from the old joint account that were listed in the recent documents on the main screen.  This one that I am going to copy and paste below had been last opened in August of 2024 (by me? by him? I don't know) but the title caught my attention so I opened it today.  It's what he wrote me for our 11th wedding anniversary in June of 2016.  It seems quite timely as the circumstances of my last LA job opportunity are fresh in my mind as I try and make a decision about this current opportunity.

For context, he was in the process of interviewing for his dream job (one I doubted would be good for him but there was no stopping him like many things with him, I tried to adjust to make the best of it).  Despite the fact that I wasn't getting the honest discussions about how this would affect our marriage that I had hoped for, a couple weeks prior to our anniversary I had concretely shown my support by applying to jobs in LA and other major cities where this career path would take us.  

My dear,

You are a tree frog to so many people. At work you do everything that’s asked of you and more. With me, I can’t imagine a more supportive person!

I have put you through a lot, between all the cars and a lot of career aspirations. Each time you made sure it was what was the best fit for me and that I truly would be happy. Then you supported me 100%. I couldn’t have asked for more and you could not have been any more supportive!

Overall, you have been through a lot, yet you always have such a positive attitude. I love how you smile at me and like to hold me and how excited you are to see me after work. Even if I don’t always show it, I notice all these things and absolutely love them; don’t stop!

I only hope I can be half as supportive as you have been for me. At work when times get tough remember your tree frog analogy. You are amazing at what you do, but you can’t take it all on. Just do the best you can, put in a hard day’s work and everything will be fine.

It’s hard to believe today marks our 11th Anniversary! On the other hand, it’s hard to remember my life before you.

I love you so much, my little tree frog!! :)

Love,

[ex-husband]

(I don't remember the tree frog analogy.)

Later that summer he learned that he was not selected for that dream job.  It was a hard rejection because that was his last opportunity to apply as the following year he would surpass the age limit.  For the eight years that followed, he silently let resentment build up towards me and as he discarded me he accused me of not supporting him in that career move.  It felt like he blamed me for him not getting the job.

First, I want to say that there is some relief in finding things like this.  There was so much gaslighting at the end that I had really come to doubt my own memories.  Writings like this (whether his writings or mine) demonstrate how much he was re-writing our story to fit his own narrative.  My memory wasn't bad.

Second, writings like this help me understand why I stayed.  This wasn't an isolated note he gave me.  I received countless cards, letters, post-it notes, poems, e-mails, etc. with similar loving language.  Yes, I should have been paying more attention to the fact that his actions didn't align with his words but it was writings like this that sustained my fantasy and fed my sense of loyalty.  How could a man who wrote me such lovely notes be bad?

Side note - I don't recall him saying beautiful things to me verbally.  I hadn't thought about that until this moment.  It makes me wonder if he wanted to make sure his efforts in the relationship were documented somehow so that he could be able to say "see, it wasn't my fault.  I tried."  (Maybe I've gotten too cynical.)

To add just a little more context to this, I suspect he started his one-sided emotional affair (I don't know what to call it) with his boss not too many weeks after he received the rejection from that dream job.  I so quickly went from supportive, positive wife to the reason for his misery and his need to find company elsewhere.  And then when we entered couple's counseling that next February, it was to fix me because he felt I was the problem in our marriage.

The end of our marriage felt like whiplash to me.  But when I review memories like this, I see now that whiplash was just the pattern and rhythm of our marriage.  The difference with the whiplash at the end was that hope disappeared that last time as the illusion began to finally crumble.

How alone I have always been

Eyes glazed over,
I sip my coffee
and savor the way it coats
my sore throat.
Eight hours wasn’t enough sleep.

The birds aren’t singing.
The train tracks are quiet.
Thoughts escape my attention
as I loosely hold that mug of coffee.
Silence overwhelms.

Bundled up tight I head out.
The bitter cold flows right through me.
Each kick of the scooter
seems to require more and more effort.
My breathing is shallow.

With cloudy judgement,
I wind between moving cars
on a busy street,
unsure of how I navigated across.
I am tired.

At a busy corner, I wait.
Movement of a shadow not my own
startles me.
I watch the light turn green
and cross the road.

Arriving at work,
the hum of the heating unit
syncs with the white noise
running through my mind.
I furiously write.

It’s in the silent moments,
like this morning,
that I realize
just how alone
I have always been.

Uncertain times whether I stay or go

There are uncertainties, consequences, and rewards with the decision to stay put just as there are with the decision to  head out on a different path.  And that is no more true than in this very moment with our current political climate.

Sometimes I question whether now is the right time to be considering moving states and joining a different office in a new role with a probationary period.  The stability of even just two years ago is gone.  Last time I made a move, I had no worries about the stability of the next office.  My biggest concerns were whether I would like my new city and whether my co-workers would be nice.  Now those worries are added to worries about shifting office priorities, disappearing funding, layoffs, etc.

But then I have mornings like this one where I have no idea what I'm walking into when I arrive at work.  Our number one in command sent out an e-mail at 4:10 Friday evening (after many had logged off) saying it was her last day.  Our number two in command retired on Friday.  One of our division heads was demoted a week or two ago.  Three people from another division suddenly appeared on my floor this month.  People in my very own office are jumping ship or getting pushed out faster than I can blink.

So if I'm going to face uncertainties no matter which office I'm in, why not do it in a new city with a new adventure and maybe more opportunities?

What a night!

I crashed a 75 year old's birthday party today and walked away with his business card and a challenge that only a tiny percentage of women have ever responded to his business card.  His intrigue of me started when I told him I walked so much I usually didn't remember where my car was parked and then I told him that I'm an Enneagram 5.  (That's when he gave me his card.)  And then my friends were intent on showing him my bird photography.

I know I'm a unicorn.  Maybe we all are.  It is always fun to get noticed.  (Re-reading this I realize I should note that he is married and his wife was present so this wasn't any sort of romantic interest.  It was just a fun chance to meet new friends.)

I should add this was all after my friends told me that they thought someone we had all met at the retreat was interested in me.

What a night this was!

Gratitude for Dads and Friends

I spent some time on my taxes today.  This year is giving me a lesson in qualified vs ordinary dividends.  I followed the rabbit hole to calculate a lower tax on the qualified dividends but it just seemed a bit crazy so I picked up my phone and dialed my parents' number.  

Surprisingly my Mom picked up.  She had a medical procedure yesterday that I figured would make talking really difficult.  She only had a short time before her voice grew hoarse but it was good to hear how well she is doing.  And then she put my Dad on.  

He does their taxes by hand every year and although I didn't think he had dealt with dividends, I knew he had dealt with capital gains.  I talked through what I had done and he pulled up his spreadsheet from 2017, the year he used the same worksheet I was using and confirmed that I was on the right path.  It was really nice to hear his encouragement and his acknowledgement at the end that I had figured it out on my own.  Maybe I didn't need him for specific answers but it sure felt good to be able to turn to him and to get affirmed by him.

Then when I hung up, texts started to roll in from an invitation I had issued to the art museum this Thursday.  None of this group is able to make it but my text invitation got them on my mind and before I knew it I had invitations from two of them to drinks this evening.  As people get so busy, maybe the key is just to find ways to keep in contact so that I'm on peoples' minds.  I probably am guilty of that myself - reaching out to those friends who are highest on my most recent contacts list.

So now, I've sent out an invitation to another friend group.  We'll see what comes of that one.

Slow Mornings

slow mornings
follow restless sleep

snippets of dreams still swirl

I sip my hot coffee.

slow mornings

reading with the Earth's rotation

the simple song of a towhee repeats

I breathe in the smell of fresh rain.

slow mornings 

challenge the silence

distractions put away,

I sit in my joy and sorrow.

slow mornings

fill the empty space

in the quiet after a train passes

I embrace the stillness.

slow mornings

bring me back to me

an authentic, present me

in my nightgown, I gaze out.

Los Angeles

Ten years ago, I applied for and was offered a job in a suburb of Los Angeles.  I can’t help but wonder if there is something about the me of ten years ago that is making me pause longer than I expected on this LA job that was posted yesterday.

I wasn't looking to move until that Atlanta job was posted last August.  And then that activated something in me to dream bigger.  So I have a list at my desk of districts that have lost their investigator and I have been weighing in my mind what it would take to get me to leap to something new.  

California wasn't even on that list.  But it was ten years ago.  And I wonder if this posting this week is a trigger or the right opportunity or both, I suppose.

Ten years ago, LA was about pleasing my ex-husband.  It was about supporting him in a dream that I knew was a terrible fit for him.  It was about shrinking myself to fit into the fantasy he had of himself.  And even a drastic move like getting a job in one of the cities where the job he thought he wanted would send him wasn't enough.  He blamed me to the day we separated for not supporting him in that career path.  That's wild to write it out like that.  That's delusion on top of delusion.  It's a reminder that no good at all came out of shrinking myself for him.  It hurt me and it never was enough for him.

If I had accepted that job ten years ago, it would have been a job I hated in a city that made my ex-husband even more miserable than he already was.  

So how does that relate to today?  I feel like I'm still trying to figure out me and where I fit.  Sometimes my gut reaction is to do the opposite of what the shrunken version of me thought was best because I don't always know where else to start.  But is that always the right path?  It's worked out a lot of times but this is a pretty drastic move.  This isn't quite so low stakes as signing up for improv class.

There might also be a piece of me that wonders where that path would have taken me.  Throughout life, we face so many crossroads and we never get to know where the opposite path would have taken us.  And although this isn't the same path as it was ten years ago, it almost feels like a parallel path.

Finally, sometimes I feel like I have to keep proving my capabilities to myself, as if I don't believe I can navigate a life on my own.  I know that sounds crazy with all I have accomplished in the past year and a half but it's a real feeling that maybe we all have.

Regardless, I need to tease out these other motives and find a way to focus on what might actually be best for me, not because I need to prove anything or explore a parallel path, but because this is the path I should take in this chapter on its own merits.

I didn't need him to choose me. I needed him to be honest with me.

In therapy last night, it came up how some people watch their ex move on with someone new and ask questions about how he can choose her and do things for her when he was not willing to choose me or do those things for me.  I have a lot of questions that keep swirling back to me but that is one I have never asked about my ex-husband.

I didn't need him to choose me.  I needed him to be honest with me so that I could have all the information to make the best choices for me.  Him choosing to marry me, making extensive future plans with me, writing me love letters (he later admitted he didn't mean), etc. all while internally only choosing and investing in himself and letting silent resentment build up left me with really incomplete information.  He made a daily choice for 19 years to keep me in the dark so that I would stay.

As I get news of his new relationship, I'm under no delusion that he is choosing her in any way that is meaningfully different than how he showed up in my relationship with him.  I fully expect she is lacking a transparency she will only later understand was missing all along.  

I see myself in her.  I remember the hope I felt at thinking I found my soulmate.  I remember the intense connection of the beginning.  I remember how fast I fell.  I remember the way he made me feel loved and adored.  I remember all the attention he gave me that first year or so.

Except now, with hindsight, I also see the way he used that intensity to get me attached quickly.  I see the way he manipulated and controlled me even from the beginning.  I see the hesitation in my journal that I was so quick to dismiss that should have made me slow down.

So as I hear about his accelerated relationship with someone new, it's like I'm reliving the cycle again.  It's like I'm re-watching that chapter of my life with the knowledge now of how horribly it ends.  Sadly, I can't stop the cycle from repeating again.  I wish I could but I can't.  

What I can do is look away.  That is why I removed social media from my phone.  If I don't open the apps, I won't see her profile recommended to me and whatever new profile photo she decides to display.  I won't be temped to navigate to his profile.  And without that distraction, I can focus on building this beautiful life I see unfolding in front of me.  I can spend my energy dreaming about where I might move next, where my next chapter might take me.

Social Media Time Out

Today marks Ash Wednesday, a time when many Christians give things up for Lent.  I've never participated in a church that really emphasized that and thus don't usually participate myself but there have always been people around me who voluntarily choose to give something up. 

With this trip my ex-husband is on, I caught myself today navigating to his Instagram profile to see what he was up to and to compare with the life I used to live.  What I saw reminded me of a type of trip we had taken many times and none of it aligned with me or what I enjoy.  So I backed out of the app quickly and opened Facebook where I saw another post (of many today) from someone taking a break from social media for Lent.  I had initially dismissed that idea when I saw earlier posts but now it was sounding like something maybe I should do.

I don't want to be tempted to follow along on his trip, to be reminded of all the compromises I made and ways I found joy in the things he enjoyed which he couldn't be bothered to reciprocate.  I don't want to be reminded of all the times he complained and sulked when we did something I wanted to do yet expected me to be present and happily participating in the things he wanted to do.   I don't want to be tempted to compare then to now.

I just want to enjoy my life for what it is, for what I have built it to be, for what I'm still working for.  I want it to stand on its own.  And I don't want him taking up any more of my headspace.

I also want to stop scrolling so much.  My Threads algorithm right now is a mix of politics and relationship woes.  I'm not sure either of which are a positive space for me right now.

So I deleted Instagram, Facebook, and Threads from my phone and closed those tabs on my laptop.  Can I stay off of them for all of Lent?  That's forty days.  I took a pause last year around Inauguration that lasted a number of weeks but I don't recall exactly how long.

What am I going to do instead?  I've got a puzzle with way too much green that I'm making progress on and a few more puzzles to pick from when it is done.  I started a book that I think is going to be really good so I'll do some reading.  I'll write.  I'll do some practical things like my taxes.  And I would really like to go through my clothes and some of my stuff to see what I can get rid of.  I'll get out and walk, maybe even head to the farmer's market on Saturday.  And I need to plan some things with friends.  Maybe there are even some events I can drop into or a class I can take.

I think this will be really good for me.

The rewards of discomfort

A quick lunchtime thought as my mind still processes last night’s reflections:  Now that my eyes are open and I see him for who he is and our marriage for what it was and now after an intense year and a half of growth and healing, I don’t think I would find any comfort in what used to feel familiar with him.

So as I sit in the discomfort of growth, longing for the comfort of something more familiar, I acknowledge that there is no path back.  It doesn’t exist anymore.  I don’t fit there anymore.  The only path is forward.  And despite the discomfort, I hold onto so much anticipation and hope for this path I’m now on.

Sleep

I slept.  

Not that my sleep has been horrible lately but it has been a bit interrupted and it often takes me a while to fall asleep.  I long for the days when I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow and if I woke at 3 am to use the bathroom (as has been common for years), I would quickly fall back to sleep when I crawled back into bed.

It's interesting, my marriage negatively affected my body in so many ways but it rarely disrupted my sleep until it all ended.  

But back to last night, the classical piano music had been playing for hours that evening as I made good progress on a 1000 piece puzzle with far too much green in it.  It continued playing as I wrote last night's blog post.  Then I took a bath.  I turned off my music intending to read but instead found myself just soaking in the hot water in silence as my mind slowly turned down the pace of the racing thoughts.

I crawled into bed about 8:30.  I had thoughts of reading but my eyes were already drifting closed so I just turned out the light and burrowed in deeper.  

I still woke up once as I always do, about 4:30 am, a little later than normal but the next thing I knew, my 6:00 am alarm was sounding so I must have quickly fallen back asleep.  The alarm confused me at first because rarely does it wake me.  Usually, I'm already up by that point making my lunch or getting ready to step in the shower.

This morning feels different.  I have barely spent any time scrolling.  I made a hot breakfast.  I paused at an e-mail I received last night with readings from a reflection I participated in Sunday morning and so I re-read my favorite of the three.  I'm sitting with my cup of coffee and just letting my mind settle a bit.  I feel more intentional.  I feel more calm.  I feel more settled.

And I can't stop admiring and breathing in the sweet smell of these purple bell-like flowers in the flower arrangement I bought last week.  Google tells me they are Canterbury Bells and that they represent gratitude.

Grieving the loss of the familiar

Why does he occupy so much of my headspace?  He doesn't deserve any.

Logically, I can look around and see everything that has improved.

• the peaceful piano music playing in the background instead of the noise of the tv
• the puzzle sprawled out on the kitchen table without guilt
• the smaller sizes of clothes in my closet from the weight I lost and keep off effortlessly
• the breeze of fresh air from the night flowing in
• the energy still lingering from the weekend
• the travel apps filled with vacation plans that better align with me
• the two vases of flowers that fill the room with a beautiful fragrance
• the solid financial plans I'm working towards
• the growing list of contacts in my phone of my community
• the smile from a friend who commented today "you are a foodie!" as we discussed her weekend at a beach lodge where I had stayed last year
• the pain free body that lays diagonally across the bed
• the joy I find everywhere, in just about every moment

I smile in making that list.  And I know it just scratches the surface.  I feel more peaceful and settled after creating it.

But it still leaves me at a loss for why I feel the way I do.  This vacation with her that he is on now is bothering me more than I understand.  What is it exactly I'm feeling?  I'm sad at the loss of the familiar, a familiar life that disappeared in an instant without warning.  The anticipation of cruise day, the thought of him exploring a ship we explored together, the first dinner of the cruise, etc. reminds me of that familiar life I used to live.  Cruising was our thing.  We took twenty cruises together and had six more booked before it all abruptly ended.

There is a comfort in the familiar.  The journey of the last year and a half has been anything but comfortable.  Maybe I'm craving a little comfort, something that feels a bit more familiar.  Maybe that is why this is hitting me so hard.

Let me go back and re-read my list at the top of this post before I hit publish as a reminder of the rewards of a little discomfort.  It's in the discomfort and the unfamiliar that I grow, heal, build, and eventually let go.

A cruise

I moved my car today after it finished charging and I ended up on a higher level so I walked past his parking space.  His car is parked in his spot.  They board a cruise tomorrow so the fact that his car is parked there means he likely decided to fly.  We would have driven.

I helped pay for this cruise deposit.  We had booked a cruise for January 2025 with a non-refundable deposit.  When we separated, I couldn't conceive of myself being able to afford cruising anymore (a belief I quickly proved wrong) so I let him keep the deposit.  While our finances were still tied, he moved it to a February of 2026 cruise, using marital funds to add to the deposit he moved.  Maybe I should have pushed back or had more confidence in my own ability to travel so I wouldn't be here today watching my money be used for his cruise.  But I didn't have that foresight.  With his Mom's birthday in mid-February, I always imagined he would take her on this cruise.  Considering her role in our break-up, I'm not sure why I was okay with that.

At some point last fall, I saw an updated invoice in our joint e-mail account where he had added her to this cruise.  

It looks like he is finally going to get to Key West, with her.  That was on our wedding itinerary but a tropical storm interfered with that port.

It's the ship where we celebrated our 10th anniversary, although it has been fully renovated.

I'm not jealous of the cruise.  It's only a five night cruise out of South Florida.  But I have feelings.  It's partially my money.  It's the port where we were supposed to snorkel.  It's the ship where we met Captain Kate (he kept that photo of us with her).  So there is a tie to this particular cruise that I don't think there would be had he booked and paid for a random cruise on his own with her.  So it is sitting heavy with me.

And he chose to fly instead of drive.  I don't know what to make of that.  Maybe there is nothing to make of that.  I think I find myself wondering what about me he mirrored vs what about me was authentic to him.  So I ask the question, is he flying because he is mirroring what she wants right now or is he flying because he wished we had done more flying and less driving with me?

It really could be either.  Everything about this new relationship screams he is either mirroring her despite his own preferences or he lied to me about some pretty big things.  Neither outcome feels good because it is either watching him repeat the same toxic cycle again or it requires me to acknowledging how much he lied to me and made me doubt myself or maybe both.

The Retreat

Friday night, we all sat in the chapel in the first session of the retreat.  We had each been given a small flimsy piece of paper and a pen as we walked in.  The theme for the retreat this year was Rest and Resist.  My pastor started the session by acknowledging we were going to start with some heavy stuff first before moving onto the rest part of rest part of the treat.  We took some time to talk in small groups about the burdens we are carrying both from all the heavy stuff going on in our larger world and any personal burdens each of us are carrying as well.

I sat with the couple who I had chatted with on the cabin porch after I arrived and a couple I knew of from church but had never really had a chance to talk to.  There was something just a little healing about naming the struggles we carry.  And although I focused more on those I see in our larger world and how they are impacting me at work, I did briefly talk about my grief journey and ex-husband.

And then we were asked to write our burdens on that small, flimsy piece of paper and towards the end of the evening, we all had a chance to place it in the baptismal font and watch it dissolve, as a way to metaphorically release our burdens.  In addition to the specific struggles I faced both in healing from the divorce and in facing the larger world, at the last minute, I wrote my ex-husband's name in larger letters over the remaining white space.  Sometimes just his name feels more specific and all-encompassing than trying to put to words my grief.

I won't pretend some magic happened in that moment as I watched it all dissolve but maybe it helped a little bit.

That night as I walked back to my cabin, I looked up and was awed by the stars so I stopped, laid down in the grass and dirt on the side of the road, tried to capture a photo with my phone, and then just took in the incredible view.

The next morning's session was about settling in and the tools we needed to do that.  Sometimes we have to recognize that things aren't going to get better soon.  Sometimes we are in for the long-haul.  Focusing too much on the end just makes us anxious and accomplishes little.  

Honestly, I could have lead this session.  Life over the last year and a half has really taught me to just settle in.  Life and the struggles that come with it can be our biggest teacher.  So often, I couldn't see an end in sight to the suffering I was experiencing.  Even today, my grief still sometimes overwhelms me.  And even today, there isn't an end in sight to the shit I'm experiencing at work.  Maybe because so much all hit me at once with so much uncertainty around it all, I couldn't focus too far on the future forcing me to stay in the present.  Or maybe I'm just wired to not miss the present.  Regardless, it has really served me well as it gave me the tools to cope, to grow, to build, and to hope.  

Here were the tools one my pastors shared with us all.  I couldn't have written a better list myself.  These are the tools that have gotten me through the hardest parts.

1. Finding quiet
2. Seeking out awe
3. Leaning into creativity
4. Practicing gratitude
5. Generosity
6. Community

Several times during the retreat, the term "defiant joy" was used.  There is so much power in joy.  I think we really underestimate its power.  Defiant joy is exactly what has helped me personally and what I think this world needs more of.

The last session on Sunday morning was about hope but not hope for a specific outcome as we often view hope.  So often we say "I hope that ...."  We were encouraged to divorce "hope" from "that" and embrace hope as mysterious and open-ended.

As the retreat came to a close, one more time we sang the song Centering Prayer which is about being where our feet are.  As we sang, people started moving together and putting their arms around each other.  There was no one right near me that I knew well and so I just focused on that song.  

Half-way through the song, I felt someone move near me and put her arm around my shoulders.  This was a woman who I had not spoken to at the retreat.  I didn't even know her name as it all happened.  We introduced ourselves after it was all over although we never had a chance to talk any further.  It appears she had stepped away from her husband/partner to make sure I didn't feel alone.  And although, I felt a little awkward, tears welled up in my eyes as it was all happening making me stumble on the lyrics of the song for a moment.

After the song, we ended the retreat with a time of communion.  We all stood in one large circle as the juice and bread passed from person to person, each serving our neighbor.  Once it had passed through our section, people started linking hands and the woman standing next to me offered me her hand.

This is what community is about - inclusivity, growth, consideration, care.  This is why I attended this retreat, to meet and better get to know amazing people like these individuals who remind me of the value of connection and encourage me to find my own ways to do and be more.

A spider

This morning as I was pulling out clean clothes from my bag, I noticed movement on the pile of yesterday's clothes.  It startled me at first until I saw what had caught my eye - a decent sized spider.

Completely recognizing that this is not a typical human response (especially from a woman), I went to grab my phone so I could get a photo.  The macro setting on my iPhone impressed me as I could make out its two larger eyes in the middle staring back at me with a less clear line below them (presumably of more, smaller eyes).  I wished I had my DSLR camera with me which would have captured an even sharper photo of this creature.

I let him be for a moment as I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth.  With the toothbrush in my mouth, I turned around to discover he had followed me into the bathroom.  Now that he was out in the open on the hard floor, I grabbed my folder to try and pick him up to bring him outside where I knew he would be much happier, but he ran from me and went to hide in the baseboards.  

At that point, I was really curious about what kind of spider I was looking at so after I finished brushing my teeth, I sat down on the bed and searched the internet for help identifying him.  He re-appeared then.  He had crossed the room and was looking up at me from the floor between the two beds.   (Or at least I imagine he was looking up at me, I understand they have excellent eyesight.)

I found it fascinating the way he seemed to follow me around.  Most spiders I encounter either stick to the corner where they have set up their web or run and hide from humans.  This one seemed to seek me out.

I tried once more to pick him up with the folder.  I wasn't successful doing that but in doing so, I had encouraged him to move towards the door.  Once we reached the door together, me still in my pajamas, I opened the door and watched him walk outside to freedom.

There was something about this encounter that really stuck with me.  It was a mutual curiosity that was refreshing.  And I felt a peace at being able to take my time with this encounter and enjoy it without interference from anyone else.  One of the lessons from the retreat was to look for the awe in the world, this was a moment where I got to lean into awe.

Am I an extrovert?

That seems like such a weird question to ask myself at the age of 44.  Am I an extrovert?  You would think I would know that about myself by now.  But the story I've been telling myself for the last four decades, that I am a shy introvert, just doesn't feel like it fits anymore and probably it never did.  But it's hard to let go of the person I truly believed I was for so long.  

So this weekend, I put it into practice.  I attended my church's retreat.  I'll have more posts about the weekend because it had a huge impact but I'm going to start on this subject of extroversion.  I decided up front that I wasn't going to let my default be to disappear on my own during free time like I had so often in the past.  That's not to say I wasn't going to listen to myself and what I needed in the moment.  I just wanted to override my default pattern of hiding.  I compare it a bit to my decision to put my shoes on anytime I am getting restless at home or struggling internally - just the act of putting my shoes on gets me to break the pattern and get out.  On this retreat, I was going to put myself in situations to break the pattern of isolation.

I arrived on Friday evening with about an hour and a half to spare before dinner.  There was no one hanging out in the cabin I had been assigned so after dropping off my stuff in my room, I walked the road past some of the other cabins.  I came across two women sitting in rocking chairs on their porch a couple of cabins down.  I asked if I could join them and sat down in a rocking chair.  After introductions, conversation flowed pretty easily.  It felt comfortable.  

Then at every meal and session, I intentionally sat at a different table.  Each time, I tried to find one where I knew at least one person at the table but not everyone.  As the weekend went on, it felt like I was collecting more and more people who I knew and who knew me by name.  I didn't come close to interacting with all 150 or so at the retreat but I had conversations with quite a few of them.

Unlike last year, I even attended the optional group game times.  Friday night, I learned a new card game as I chatted.  On Saturday, I actively helped my team almost solve the mystery.  I even was the representative for one of the mini games where I earned clues for my team.

I sang karaoke Saturday night (my song was "I hope you dance") and even got up on the dance floor to dance and sing along to "I want to dance with somebody" which was a full group song they chose to end the night.

And then when we had free time Saturday afternoon, I joined a small group of people to experience and talk about the labyrinth on the property.  And then as that group dispersed, I discovered many of my cabin mates hanging out on the deck overlooking the lake.  That's when I realized I was the only single person in my cabin.  This was a group of parents with their small children playing among us.  I was pleasantly surprised how they included me so well that I didn't feel out of place at all as the only single, non-parent.

Aside from sleeping and getting ready in the morning, there were only two brief moments where I found myself alone.  I had about 15 minutes before lunch yesterday and then about 20 minutes before breakfast this morning.  I took that time to sit in a rocking chair outside my cabin and write as I soaked in the view of the lake.  I did enjoy those quiet moments, I love my time in nature, but I also felt a bit anxious to get back to the group.

I won't say I never felt awkward or shy throughout the weekend.  I definitely had my moments.  But I really enjoyed all the conversations and interactions.

So here I am Sunday afternoon, back home after a weekend filled with people and my apartment feels really quiet.  My mind is buzzing with all that I experienced over the last approximately 48 hours.  I can still feel the energy running through me.  I think that if I was truly an introvert, I would instead feel exhausted after that experience.

The way I so instinctively focused on building community immediately after my ex-husband called it quits makes me wonder if deep down I knew this about myself.  Not that both introverts and extroverts don't both need community - they absolutely do - I just think it is more instinctive for one group vs the other.  And so as soon as I felt released from pouring everything into my now ex-husband, I finally had energy to follow my own instincts about myself.

Today’s Facebook memory

Five years ago today, my ex-husband made friends with a Canada Goose.  I captured the two of them with my camera.  It was a special moment of awe and joy.  Honestly, I smiled even today as I remembered the moment.

And then when I identified some birds we were looking at as Pine Siskins, he adamantly accused me of making up the name of the birds.  I had been reading about how that winter they were showing up in large numbers in our state, something that doesn’t happen often as they usually don’t winter this far south, so I knew to look for them.  I knew what I was seeing and I tried to explain what I had been reading about them. 

Later that day back at home, after he looked them up himself, he stopped accusing me of being wrong but I never got any sort of acknowledgment or apology from him.

Probably not surprisingly, my Facebook post focused on the first experience.  It is only in hindsight that the single photo (out of 10 photos) of two Pine Siskins triggered the memory of the accusations.

I had never thought about the polarity of those two experiences happening within minutes and feet of each other.  How often did I hang onto the joy I sought out to buffer the ugly moments?  How often was my joy a direct reflection of how I chose to view the world vs things he did to intentionally bring me joy?  

How much did I feed into my own delusions?  In this example none of my joy and buffer came from positive actions on his part towards me.  It was all in my willingness to wear the rose colored glasses.  I suspect this Facebook memory is pretty representative of the way I would hang onto the good I experienced to minimize or even forget the bad.

Although I often wish that characteristic of me hadn’t kept me stuck for so long in a toxic marriage, I do really admire the way I view the world.  So, if I feel a little nostalgia today as I replay the good part of this memory in my mind, I’m okay with that.  

Maybe I even needed a reminder of the good in him (even if it was a goose that was the recipient of his good that day), not because I’m putting the rose colored glasses back on but because maybe when they came off, my focus narrowed too much to just the bad and ugly I had missed or ignored at the expense of the larger picture.

Another dentist appointment come and gone

It felt a bit like I was marking time.  My goodie bag from the last appointment last July was even still sitting in the entryway basket just under my winter hat.  When I had scheduled this one last summer I had pushed it back to get it off the mid-July/mid January schedule.  I didn't want to be reminded of the anniversary every year of the day he so coldly ended it.  But I could still sense his ghost in the space.

Fortunately, it was such a beautiful day and I had the time so I walked to the appointment.  At 1.9 miles one-way, it is in that range where sometimes I drive and sometimes I walk.  On this occasion, I needed the walk.

I ran into a friend on the way there who I hadn't seen in quite a few weeks.  It was nice to get a hug from her.  And then on the way home, before I could even fully register, my feet were walking into one of my favorite restaurants to pick up a sushi burrito for dinner.  When I got home, I found my car and plugged it in so I would have a full charge for the weekend, put my dinner in the fridge and took a nap on the corner of my bed with the windows open and the sun filtering in on me.

So even with the appearance of his ghost, it was a peaceful afternoon.

The bartender

Yesterday evening as I scootered to choir I passed one of my favorite restaurants and recognized the bartender.  He is the one who has remembered me since our first interaction and always strikes up a conversation with me.  I think I have seen him three times now, a month or two in between each time.  I am a bit hesitant to admit I enjoy the attention from him.

So last night as I sat in choir and it was coming to an end early, I pulled up my phone to double check the hours of the restaurant.  I had time for a drink and maybe a slice of chocolate cake.  So after the ride home, I dropped my scooter off back at my apartment, grabbed my wallet, and then walked in and took a seat at the bar.

Recognizing me, he asked if I had been on any trips lately to start the conversation.  He was a bit more distracted on this evening as he texted someone on his phone.  He apologized and shared that he was communicating with his son's mother about who had placement the next day.  In between distractions, we talked about my latest trip and we talked about the Olympics which were on a TV over the bar.  He asked about my Valentine's Day plans so I talked about my church retreat.  He shared that he would be working at the restaurant on Saturday and would have his son this weekend.

I suspect he is single.  He is cute.  I would guess he is a bit younger than me though and him having a child is a dealbreaker for me if I was even at a point where I wanted to date again.  Plus I recognize that any interest he has shown in me likely has been more in a customer service role.  I get similar treatment from a number of the servers at this restaurant.  But it was just fun to have that attention and I wasn't quite ready to go home after choir.  I wanted to be around people.  

There is something I'm really enjoying about both observing people and how we all fit in this world together and being present and a participant in a way I wasn't before.

And as I type this I’m realizing how incredibly wild it is that I walked into a bar for the main purpose of having a conversation with the bartender.  The old me would have never done that.  Any limited conversations I had with servers and bartenders were just polite and practical, never personal.

The rain today

This afternoon I felt a need to get out of the office and grab a coffee at my favorite coffee shop around the corner.  My office doesn't have any windows and I didn't think to look at my weather app so I was momentarily taken aback when I stepped out into a light, steady rain.  A negative feeling of "ugh!" washed over me as I wrapped my sweater tighter around me.  It was such a foreign feeling that it actually made me stop in my tracks.  What was going on inside of me that had somehow turned my joy of rain into a complaint?

I don't actually know.  And it really unsettled me.

My ring broke

I bought a ring in those first couple weeks after he called it quits, the summer of 2024.  It's a bronze colored silicone ring with mountains etched on it and a sun rising over the mountains.  I've worn it every single day since.  It was my daily reminder that the light always follows the darkness.  I loved that ring.

I knew it wouldn't last forever.  It's made of silicone, not gold or silver or platinum.  I knew someday it would wear out.

I wasn't expecting though, the tears that flowed this morning when it broke.

I could buy it again if I wanted.  It's even on sale right now, 25% off.  But I think I was mostly attached to the phase of life the ring carried me through and that it was less about the look of the ring.  A new ring, even if it wasn't identical, wouldn't be the same ring from that phase.  It wouldn't carry that emotional attachment.

I think there is some fear that I'm not done with that phase in my life, that it broke prematurely.  Maybe that's what the tears were about.

Happy Valentine's Day!

As I signed the credit card slip at the end of the night, a realization rushed over me.  He never would have taken me to a place like this.  He never would have been willing to spend this kind of money on a dinner out, not because we didn't have the money but because it wasn't important to him.  I have really leveled up.  I may make less money than him but I have actually raised my standard of living.  I never would have believed it if you had told me I would do that a year and a half ago.

Tonight was so fun.  The food and drinks were amazing.  The atmosphere was unique.  The peace and wonder I felt were priceless.  And I bought myself flowers on the way home.

My only complaint is that my date (myself) was terribly unskilled with her chopsticks!  

Happy Valentine's Day (a few days early) to me!  The love I have been pouring into myself has revitalized me in a way I couldn't ever have imagined.  

My own significant other

Last week or maybe it was the end of the week before, I was standing in my colleagues office.  She had just given a fortune cookie to another colleague who didn't like his fortune and we were laughing about it.  She then turned to me and said "I have one more" as she handed me a fortune cookie.  With all their eyes on me, I unwrapped the cookie and pulled out the fortune.  I read it to myself first, laughed and then read it aloud.

"You will have a romantic dinner with your significant other."

The colleague who didn't like his fortune half joked as he walked out reminding me not to pick a stranger for my romantic dinner.

I have to say I had a moment of irritation.  It was the same day my supervisor had commented on my sweater saying I should wear it for Valentine's Day.  I had avoided Valentine's Day the year before and at that time, figured I would do the same this year.  I didn’t really want to be reminded of a couple’s holiday.

But then I thought about it a little bit more.  I have become my own significant other.  And I am a better significant other to myself than my ex-husband ever was to me, even in the height of our intense early dating days.  I don't recall him ever doing a single thing for me for Valentine's Day.  I remember the video I made him a few years back and a few other little things I did for him over the years but generally it was an ignored holiday.

I used to say we didn't need Valentine's Day because we did things for each other every day of the year, except he didn't actually do things for me the other 364 days of the year either.  So it was really just something I told myself to hang onto the illusion.  

It’s funny, he made some off-handed comment as we were breaking up that he wished we had exchanged more gifts over the years.  To make a wishful statement like that of something that he had the power to change as he walked out the door seemed really shitty to me.  It came across as one more thing he expected of me that he wasn’t willing to do himself or even communicate about, for that matter.

Anyway, back to today, this Valentine’s Day, and my fortune.  I’ve got a date with myself planned for this evening.  I’ve picked out a dress.  I’m going to try this new Japanese restaurant downtown.  And I might even go pick up some flowers.

Unable to process it all

I feel like I'm walking through life collecting little tidbits of information that I am not able to fully process but that I fear are having some sort of negative affect on me under the surface.  

A week and a half ago, I learned that my divorce attorney was diagnosed with a fatal illness with months to live.

Last week, a government attorney asked the court to hold her in contempt and arrest her so that she could have 24 hours of sleep.

Today, I realized the timing of my husband disclosing his crush on his boss and lack of attraction in me immediately followed a period of me investing everything into helping his parents after his dad's diagnosis and only about six months after me being offered a job in LA that I would have hated but was my way of concretely showing him my support for the career path he really wanted to follow.  His response to me showing up for him was to go find another woman.

Today at work we got a goodbye speech (with no specific exit date) from our number one in command and learned the retirement of the number two in command effective next Friday.  This is all many, many months before I expect the Senate confirmation process to finish.

And I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg.  What else is lurking below that I wasn't able to process in the moment but just tucked away to deal with another day?

His absence in memories

I've been seeing reports that more of the Great Lakes are freezing over than normal this year which has made me reminisce about a once in a lifetime opportunity I had to visit the Ice Caves on the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.  It appears they have not opened again since my visit in 2015.  We'll see if this year could be the year they finally reopen again.  I found my travel blog post about the day trip I took.    

Everything had to perfectly fall into place for that trip to happen for me.  First, the notice went out that they might be opening just days before the planned excursion.  And the planned excursion had all kinds of caveats as even if it did successfully open that year, it was very unpredictable how long the conditions would stay favorable enough to stay open.  In 2015, the caves would only open for 9 days.

Second, I wasn't fast enough in signing up so ended up on the wait list.  I suppose the e-mail warning people they needed the proper gear (ice cleats, hiking poles with metal tips, warm enough clothing, etc.) to safely walk across ice deterred some so enough cancelled to open up spots for us.

And then the day came, I had gotten off the wait list and conditions were still favorable to make the caves still accessible, so I boarded a bus for the seven hour drive up to Lake Superior.  When we arrived, my camera bag fell to the floor of the bus from the overhead shelves breaking the lens I had planned to use.  Left with just my zoom lens, I adapted.  I took more steps backwards to try and capture some of what I was experiencing.  And I took in more with just my eyes.  This was before I had a cell phone as an alternative camera.

One thing that stands out as I replay this memory in my head is the absence of my ex-husband.  I know he was physically present with me.  I bought two seats on that bus.  But I don't remember a single interaction with him or a moment we connected on this long day trip.  

I remember Victor who was in charge of the excursion.  I remember running into a client when we bought the ice cleats the night before at an outdoors store.  I remember the painter on the ice.  I remember a movie played on the bus TVs as I edited photos on that long ride home.  But I don't remember a single interaction with the man who took the trip with me.  Even the moment I discovered my lens was broken and unusable is a solo moment in my memories.  The sounds of the cracks on the ice I feel like I experienced alone.

It is so weird to think about how absent he truly was even when he was physically present.  I think that was the case a lot because as memories of the last two decades come back to me, it's the event or the place or the people I met there that replay in my mind.  Although he is physically present in most memories I have of those two decades together, rarely are any memories WITH him.  

It's almost as if he helped me compartmentalize the joy from the struggles, the daily grind from the adventures, the good from the bad.  Although, how much of that is his true absence vs me dissociating from his role in the positive things I wanted to hang onto?

As I ask that question, I’m reminded of our China Lights experience.  His Dad was really sick (in and out of hospitals, nursing homes, etc.).  It was the hardest year of our marriage and one of the worst years of my life.  I had been pouring everything I had into supporting him, his Dad, and his Mom when he told me he didn’t find me attractive anymore and had feelings for his boss.  We were in couple’s counseling at this point.

So we had tickets to China Lights which was this amazing display of lights at one of the local gardens.  We argued about something just before we left.  I don’t recall about what but I was determined not to let it destroy my enjoyment of the lights and so I put it aside for the hour or so we were there.  

I enjoyed the event but I later learned that he stewed the entire time.  More than once over the years, he brought up how I had ruined China Lights for him.  If I didn’t have the overlay of his perspective on that memory, I wonder if I would feel his absence from that memory as well.  Instead, it’s colored with a resentment I don’t truly understand.

I think this China Lights experience highlights my role in compartmentalizing and maybe even as a result keeping some distance between him and his negativity and the joy I needed to hang onto.  By compartmentalizing, I didn’t allow him to ruin my joy.

I wonder how much distance that created between us or was it my response to the distance he had already created?  Or maybe some of both?

A surreal weekend

What a surreal weekend.  The Super Bowl is playing right now.  I don't have a TV and so it is not playing in my apartment but I can't avoid it with the way it has taken over social media.  The Seahawks are playing the Patriots.  I've never been a big football fan but I will cheer for any team that is playing the Patriots for many reasons that I won't get into here, even better yet that their competitor is a woman controlled team.

But honestly, I don't think many people actually care about the game that is being played this year.  I'm not even sure the commercials that are usually the other focus are all that much of a focus this year.  Really, today, they are the side show to the musical entertainment.  The acts chosen to perform, Green Day as the opener and Bad Bunny as the halftime performer, were so clearly chosen to send a message to this administration.  And it's a message they got so clearly that Turning Point is putting on their own counter show with Kid Rock, a very interesting choice for an organization that calls itself Christian.

And this is the same weekend the Olympics opened in Italy where US athletes are publicly making statements about having mixed feelings representing this country and people from all over the world are booing our Vice President.  The very definition of patriotism and whether it includes criticizing what one feels is going wrong in our country or whether blind loyalty is required is being debated across many forums.  Is love without honesty really love?

It also happens to be the same weekend that in the middle of the night, our top leader posted a racist video of former President Obama and his wife which seems to have resulted in my social media feed being filled with clips of the Obamas demonstrating dignity and integrity, almost as a counter-balance.

And all of this came up at church today, right along side the planned sermon about dinosaurs.  Did you know that some Christians believe Noah brought dinosaurs onto the ark with all the other animals?  He supposedly somehow fit two brontosauruses measuring 75 feet long each (plus two of all the other dinosaur and non-dinosaur species) onto an ark that was roughly 450 feet long by 50 feet wide by about 45 feet high (3 levels).  

No, I don't go to a church where the Bible is read literally.  With all its contradictions within itself and its contradictions with the verifiable facts we know about our planet, I don't really understand how anyone can take it as the literal truth.  That's been a recurring topic in the sermon series that ended today at my church.

Here are a few quotes from my Pastor that have really stuck with me from today's sermon.  

"When we already know the answers, the questions don't matter."  How often do we decide our bias is fact and go looking for evidence to confirm our views?  This was in the context of the Bible and the way the Bible has been used inappropriately but it really fits so well in a much broader context.

"Our faith is far more mystery than science, more curiosity than facts."  

"Wonder at the possibilites of a God who is far bigger than anything the church has ever imagined." This last quote brought a few tears to my eyes.  I honestly don't know what I believe about God.  I've had a very love/hate, on-and-off-again relationship with the church.  I only joined this one for the choir and the community after I felt comfortable its values aligned with mine.  I appreciate that they encourage questions and don't pretend to have all the answers. My doubts feel like they fit right in.

But when I stand on the edge of a canyon or walk through a forest or sit with a bird, I can't help but feel a connection to a greater power, something larger than I can even imagine.  It's that wonder and curiosity that feed my soul.  So to sit in a church willing to contemplate something larger than any of us could possibly imagine or understand felt right.

The irony that this was all over a discussion about dinosaurs, something so near and dear to my ex-husband's heart.  And that despite his intrigue with dinosaurs, he seemed unable to grasp that wonder and curiosity in life.  Too many people today are completely unable to grasp the importance of wonder and curiosity.  Maybe that is part of what has lead us to where we are today.

But despite all of the chaos of the weekend, a robin and a towhee sang a call and response melody outside my window this morning, one last bud on my Christmas Cactus is threatening to bloom, and the sun was a giant, magnificent red ball just before it fell before the horizon.

Church

With a sermon topic on dinosaurs, I would have actually gotten my ex-husband to church tomorrow had we still been together.  Not that I ever pressured him.

I really hate how I had to carefully navigate within the context of my marriage my involvement in a church once we moved south.  Our marriage wasn't based on a shared faith.  Neither of us attended church or participated in a church when we first met.  I had grown up very involved in the Lutheran Church but had walked away from it in college when it felt hypocritical.  He had gone to a Catholic elementary school for a couple years but otherwise didn't have consistent involvement in any church growing up.  I knew he was pretty anti-religion.

So when I started talking about getting involved with a church in about year thirteen of our marriage, I didn't ever expect it to be an "us" thing.  I tried to be very clear that this was something I needed for myself and he was perfectly free to participate as much or as little as he wanted or even not at all.  I kind of hope that every once in a while, he would want to come hear me sing but it wasn't something I ever asked of him because I wanted it to be his choice.

He attended pretty regularly that first year or so before the pandemic and even came to an overnight church retreat with me.  I always got the sense that no matter what I said or how I tried to convince him I didn't expect him to participate with me, he still felt some obligation.

And then during the pandemic, I decided I wanted to officially join.  I really tried to have some serious conversations with him about this and when he casually mentioned worrying about how it would look to have a wife join but not her husband, I actually tried to talk him out of it.  I knew no one at our church would care.  Plenty of other wives had joined without their husbands.  But he wasn't willing to hear me or have a real conversation about it.  Ultimately, he decided to join with me.

After we returned to in person services after the pandemic, he started going less and less often which was fine with me.  But with each pledge season, I felt a bit more tension as we talked about what our donation to the church would be.  The amount we gave seemed pretty reasonable for the rich benefits I got from singing in the choir and participating in the community.  I saw it as the cost of my hobby and my social circle.  In hindsight, I realize now it didn't even come close to what we spent on cars for him on an annual basis.  It didn't even exceed the amount we spent on each individual trade-in which was happening 3-4 times a year.

And then when the divorce happened mid-year, he didn't even give a thought to the fact that his name was on the pledge as well.  He abandoned it as easily as he abandoned me.  He left me to have the conversation with my pastor about adjusting the amount to meet my single salary and removing his name from it.  The performance I actually never asked him to play of a church-involved husband ended abruptly with consequences to me, consequences I never would have felt if he hadn't chosen his ego and image over the authenticity I asked of him.  

Restless and unsettled today

I started a post this morning at breakfast about my perhaps misplaced but long-held belief that I was an introvert that I can't finish even though I keep going back to it, tweaking it, adding to it, re-writing parts of it, etc.  Most posts I write in one sitting - they just flow out often after hours of ideas whirling in my head.  When I get stuck on one like this, it usually means something about it isn't sitting right with me.  Sometimes I go back to them later when I'm ready.  Other times, they just sit as draft posts in my blogging account, sometimes never to be touched again.  I don't know what the fate of this one will be.

I'm restless today, maybe even a bit unsettled.  I did get out briefly.  I walked to the grocery store.  I stopped to admire the Valentine's Day section, picked up some chocolates that will take me months to finish, almost bought flowers, even contemplated a balloon that said "you're sweet."  He never got me anything or did anything for me for Valentine's Day and I'm getting really good at doing things for myself so I was trying to decide what I wanted this year.

Then I found the tomato soup I recently learned is actually dairy free.  And now that I have a dairy free cheese I like, I can make a grilled cheese and dip it in tomato soup!  I haven't made it yet but it sits on my counter waiting.

On my way home, the sun shone brightly.  I smiled as I saw some of the same groups of people walking the park that had been walking when I passed through the park on my way to the store.

But then I've been home the rest of the day.  I've taken a nap, started a new book (although didn't get very far), scrolled Threads, worked on my puzzle, tried listening to my playlist, and not felt like I accomplished anything as my thoughts escaped me.  It's the start of my period so I haven't been physically comfortable either.

Maybe I'll go make my grilled cheese and tomato soup and remind myself that even on my hardest or most unsettling days this year, I am still more present, more joyful, more real, and more true to myself than I was in my marriage.

A Friday night out

There's a tiki bar less than a block away from me that I have been meaning to try for almost as long as I have lived here.  As the work week came to an end, I decided I wanted to go find somewhere to have a cocktail on this Friday night and so this tiki bar came to mind.  

But I didn't want to go drinking on an empty stomach and I also didn't want to cook so I started my evening at the greek restaurant next door.  They have really gotten to know me there.  A manager stopped by my table welcoming me back and servers that weren't my server's made a point to greet me as well.  It really feels kind of good to be known.

And then after enjoying dinner, I walked over to this tiki bar.  I found a seat at the bar, perused the menu, and chatted with the bartender to get recommendations.  It was a really unique place with amazing drinks that were presented so well.  There was a flower in one of my drinks!  Another of my drinks was poured in a vessel that looked like a cobra snake!

I find it interesting how quickly I have become comfortable going out on my own like this.  I didn't even think twice.  I just decided what I wanted for tonight and went out and did it.  And what a night I had!

A dream about the man I met last fall

I had a dream about that man I met on my trip last fall.  I don't know what made me think of him.  I hadn't really given him all that much thought since the trip.  

In my dream, we were walking towards a restaurant.  He was following me, not at all unlike he did during the time I spent with him.  I accidentally walked right past the hostess stand of the restaurant we were going to eat at.  When I realized my mistake, I paused to turn back.  In that pause, he spoke up criticizing me about how I missed it.

I would rather do life alone than have a partner who just sits back and lets me handle life on my own, even worse if they criticize or silently resent me for the actions I take.  I never want to be with someone again who will so easily let me take the heavier load.

Impulse Control

Today my therapist shared with me a quote about aggressive driving and its tie to poor impulse control and inability to regulate emotions that really described my experience with my ex-husband.  It lead to a good reflection on the other ways his poor impulse control showed up in the marriage.

The first thing that came to my mind was the house we bought on an impulse.  One day we drove past a sign for an open house and we pulled in.  We had not seriously discussed buying a house at all before that moment.  After going through the open house that weekend, we put an offer in Monday morning.  I don't even recall looking at any other houses.  It turned out to be the worst financial decision we made together by a long shot.

As I sit here this evening reflecting, I'm stuck on why I would have gone along with that impulse.  I have been an over-planner, over-researcher, over-thinker my entire life.  And we didn't truly have money to throw away at that time.  This was in the first couple years of our marriage.  We would have barely been done paying off our wedding.  I had a measly teacher's salary.  I'm not saying we bought over our means - it was a very modestly priced condo.  But such a large decision like that should have received more thought.

Over the years, I felt like I had to learn to navigate when to just go with his impulses and when to try and slow him down.  Whenever I tried to slow him down, it created a lot of tension.  I wonder if in his mind, I became the problem in those moments.  I think it put me in a mother-type role with him which probably fed into his toddler-like push back on any opinion I had.

It had to have done a number on my nervous system.  I don't think I'm built for that level of impulsivity.  Add to that the fact that we never actually resolved any conflicts.  So we just kept jumping from one thing to the next without ever resolving what happened in the previous actions.  No wonder my body was trying to tell me my nervous system was a mess.

I studied in Spain for a semester in college.  I was intent on making the most of my time abroad and booked trips all over Europe every long weekend, school break, and even some short weekends.  I was making use of every second with trains that would come in at 7:00 a.m. with no time to spare to get to my first class of the day.  And although every trip didn't always go smoothly (thinking about the wrong date on the overnight train from Paris), every trip was meticulously planned, except two.  And when I think about those two trips, I remember more clearly the anxiety than I do the specifics of the trips.

The first was a solo trip to Barcelona.  I bought train tickets first and then couldn't find anywhere to stay until the very last minute so ended up in a hostel I wasn't comfortable with.  The second was a trip with two friends to Portugal.  We bought one way bus tickets to the first city with plans to figure out all the rest (hotel, transportation to the next city, transportation home, etc.) when we got there.  I don't regret either experience, I learned a lot about myself in both cases.  But it did confirm my personal need for a bit more planning and research before jumping into something.

So I laugh now as I try to align that knowledge of myself with the fact that I married a man with poor impulse control and I gave into his impulses so often.  I suppose the second part goes back to the fact that no one wants to have to be their spouse's mother and have to be the one to rein in their impulses.  I married thinking I would get a partner to make rational decisions with, not chase after his every whim.

But that still leaves the question as to why I would marry a man with such poor impulse control in the first place.  And I can't say I didn't know.  I have journal entries from that first year we were dating, before we were engaged or had even moved in together.  I talked him out of replacing his car.  

A mechanic had messed something up on his car and he didn't even want to give the mechanic a chance to fix it.  He was ready to just trade it in for something else.  This was after we had signed a lease to share an apartment the next school year.  I saw any money (of what little he had) that he threw away on a car in that moment of frustration as money he wouldn't have to help pay for the apartment we would be responsible for together.

As I try to still process pieces of my marriage like this, a year and a half later, I marvel at how I used to actually believe I had a good marriage.  Maybe that should be my reminder of the delusion I was living in.  My sense of reality got so distorted.  I was so disassociated from both reality and my body that I convinced myself that the fantasy he presented was my reality.

Missing an illusion

Sometimes I miss coming home to someone.  I miss having someone care whether I made it home safely.  I miss having someone to talk to.  I miss having someone to share in decision making.  I miss having someone thinking about and considering me.

But then I remind myself that I had none of that.  It was all an illusion.  It was a fantasy I was holding onto.  It is what I had hoped marriage would be.

I now have deeper conversations with my coffee cup every morning than I ever did with my ex-husband.  He didn't want to talk about anything where I didn't already agree with him or any topic where he perceived me as smarter than him.  

Whenever we visited his parents, we had the exact same conversation every single dinner.  We would spend an inordinate amount of time raving about the simple lettuce salad we were eating, the same salad each meal.  It was always the best salad.  In hindsight, it really represents the level of depth to all their conversations.  That is where my ex-husband's comfort level was, a level that was deeply unsatisfying to me.  That was all the conversation I came home to.

So when I strip away the illusion, I ask myself, is there really anything left to miss?  Sure, I'm left with the quiet of my studio apartment but most moments that quiet is a positive, so it’s only increasingly rare  moments where it feels too quiet.  Since his absence, I've actually developed so many relationships that have depth so I'm finally actually mostly meeting that need of mine.  And I now have at least four people who will gladly check in on me and track my location when I need someone to care that I made it home safely.

And let's be honest, I never really had a partner to share in decision making.  He was a hindrance more than a help.  I had to navigate his ego while still bearing the brunt of coming up with the best plan.  Decisions are actually easier now.

And all the work I have been doing building a community is resulting in a wealth of people who think about me and consider me.

What a weird dissonance to miss an illusion when the reality of today is infinitely better than the reality at the time of that illusion.

The physical sensations of the rain

A light, steady rain fell as I stepped out of my work yesterday.  As I scootered, I took in all the sensations of the experience, the water dripping from my bangs, the chill in my hands as they gripped the handlebar, that fresh, earthy smell, the soft pitter patter of the drops hitting the ground.  More than once I caught myself smiling or laughing out loud as I navigated the streets, sidewalks, and parkway paths of my commute or as I paused at a streetlight.  

And then I noticed that my left shoe seemed to have filled with water while my right foot seemed mostly dry still.  I puzzled over that inconsistency.  I faced the imbalance I felt with curiosity.  When I got home and took off my shoes, indeed my right foot was mostly dry and my left foot sat in a puddle of water and left foot prints everywhere I walked.

I really appreciate how I'm learning to be so much more in tune with me - what sensations I'm physically feeling, how my body is reacting, how I'm emotionally feeling, what pull I'm feeling towards nature, people, etc.  Every moment of life is now an experience.  I suppose that means I'm so much more present.

And I really appreciate how I now have the energy and time to ponder with curiosity things I don't understand.  I don't first have to manage someone else's uncontrolled gut emotions first.  I can just take in the feelings of a wet foot and focus my energy on why it might be wet (and ultimately how to fix it) instead of on how awful it must be to have a wet foot.

I disappeared into a book last night

I changed into my pajamas, curled up under one of my Grandma's lap quilts on the end of my bed with a view of the world at about 6:20 p.m., and opened up the Libby app.  The audiobook I had started last week which I can't seem to finish opened up automatically but I wanted to actually try reading something again.

I've really struggled with this.  As a child, I used to get caught reading under the covers with a flashlight after bedtime.  I was never far from a book.  My favorite series growing up was the Boxcar Children.  

Sadly, at some point during my marriage, I essentially stopped reading.  I don't know if it was the distraction of the noise - the TV was always on or if it was the way he drained all my energy leaving none for myself or if it was the mindless scrolling that at some point took over, maybe as a coping mechanism or something else.  It was a piece of me my married self lost.

I had hoped to reclaim this part of me once again after the separation but it has been a struggle.  My mind so often seems to wander too much to get lost in a book.  And the distractions on my devices are significant.  I've substituted audiobooks as I seem to have more focus for them so I've actually finished a few audiobooks in the last year and a half.  But as evidenced by the half-listened to audiobook in my Libby app, even that has been somewhat of a challenge.

So last night, I picked a new ebook from the Libby app, a contemporary drama/comedy with a bit of romance and I settled in.  With the exception of one bathroom break, can you believe I didn't put that book down until after 10:00 p.m. when I turned the lights out to go to sleep?  Libby says I'm 41% done with the book already!

I probably smiled as I fell asleep.  It felt so good to reconnect with that little girl inside of me that sometimes just wants to disappear into a good book.

Freedom

I just washed two pans and popped them dripping wet in the still warm oven which I used to cook my lunch and I laughed out loud!

My ex-husband used to hate it when I did that.  I always thought it made perfect sense to use the residual heat from cooking the meal to dry them for me.  I suppose his issue was that I often forgot about them and so the next time he needed the oven, he would turn it on not realizing the pans were still in there.  

I never fully understood the complaint because if I happened to do the same, I would just grab a hot hit and pull them out of there as soon as I realized my mistake.  They cool pretty fast on the stove top.  

And honestly, if I was cleaning pans while the oven was still warm, it meant I was on top of dishes which I would have thought he would appreciate.  But I never could do anything right.  He didn't like how I loaded the dishwasher either.

Anyway, I now store my pans in the oven so I definitely don't think twice about using that heat to dry them!  

Recalibrating how I see the world

I was talking with a friend at work about the loss of innocence and the way I used to focus so much on the good in people.  I mentioned I'm really trying to not make assumptions about people as I know how damaging inaccurate assumptions can be to relationships with the way my ex-husband assumed the worst in me but that has gotten harder.  

I feel like the best I can do now is just try to loosely hold them so that I'm open to adjusting them as I get more information.  But even that leaves me questioning relationships and people's motives until I can gather more information.  It leaves me with too much doubt.  And its probably amplified right now as I relearn to trust myself.

This struggle feels like such a loss of self or at least a deep questioning of self that goes beyond losing the self I was in the marriage.

She suggested to me that I didn't have to lose that focus on seeing the good in others.  I could choose to go through life with that perspective even knowing that I may sometimes get hurt and discover I was wrong.  She said sometimes for our mental health we make that choice to see the world in a positive light.

I think she is right.  And although it may seem difficult right now, I think I need to reclaim this characteristic I love so much about myself, my focus on the best in people.  I'm already proving I can do this with situations.  There's no reason I can't do the same with people.