I had a dream last night

Although I feel like I have been dreaming more than normal this past year, I usually forget all the details before my feet hit the floor.  Often I just wake up with an impression and no details.

So today it's notable that as I sit here and type my dream is still with me.  My ex-husband and I had sit down together after some period of separation to talk about what we had learned and what went wrong.  He seemed hesitant at first to start so I offered to go first but despite his initial hesitation he was anxious to talk.

He started talking about a conversation he had with his Dad about what his Dad had thought he should have done differently in his own relationships.  His Dad told him that he wished he had valued what was in front of him.  And then I woke up.

It got me wondering what his Dad would have said had he still been alive.  Years later, my ex-husband told me he had never been close to his Dad which surprised me.  So maybe he wouldn't have listened to anything his Dad would have said.  

His Dad always came across as the level-headed, stable one of his parents.  He was the one that saw the effect of his Wife's meddling on us and on his other son's family.  And he tried to temper and counter it when he could, although never directly.  I watched a lot of passive-aggressive behavior from him towards his wife.  Maybe that's how he coped with her after so many decades together.  Neither seemed happy together.

I believe his Dad really liked me.  I believe he would have encouraged my ex-husband to work it out.  But maybe he regretted his own marriage enough that he wouldn't have.

I wonder what role his Dad passing away played in our relationship and my ex-husband's decision to stay as long as he did.

Society's expectations to pair up

Society expects people to pair up, especially women.  There's a growing percentage of women pushing back against that expectations and it is starting to become more accepted but they still face a lot of pushback and criticism.  

In the past year, the question has come up as to whether I will date or even marry again.  Other people have brought it up or even outright asked.  It's come up in the processing I've done to learn what went wrong in hopes of not repeating it.  And it's come up in therapy.

And at first I just wanted to pour into myself and not worry about what was next.  But as I gain more confidence in who I am and start to dream of a future, I find it incredibly difficult to visualize it including someone else.

In talking about this with my therapist this evening, my takeaway was that I need to reflect on whether this is my avoidant traits coming out because I fear getting hurt again or is this a move towards better aligning myself with who I am, someone who probably leans quite asexual.  

My crushes as a teenager were always people who were unattainable - a teacher, a celebrity, that boy I saw across the pool once when I was out of town who I created an entire persona around, someone I met at a folk fare and never saw again, etc.

I've never in my life sought out a romantic relationship.  The few that have come my way have come unexpectedly.  With my ex-husband I didn't even see our first date as a date, although I'm pretty sure he did.  I was a virgin when I met my now ex-husband not because I was saving myself but because I wasn't interested in sex.

I just don't see a sex partner as a need to have or even a nice to have.  I've always seen sex as an expectation of a romantic relationship, not a benefit.  Could that change with just the right partner?  Sure.  I don't live in absolutes.  Life has surprised me more than once.

So what about the rest that goes with a romantic relationship?  All the other roles?  This year has shown me that I can fill those either by myself or through a community of friends and family.  Over and over, I've found I can actually fill those roles better alone than I could with my ex-husband.  Now, I recognize that won't necessarily be the case in a relationship with someone different.  Am I hesitating because of my experience with my ex-husband or am I trying to be me even if it means pushing back against societal expectations?

One thing that really gives me hope is the way I dove headfirst into friendships this past year.  I've been burned by my share of friendships over the years and I know it has held me back in the past.  But it's not holding me back right now.  I'm being vulnerable and investing in these relationships even though I realize they might let me down someday.  I'm not letting fear hold me back from the rewards of emotional intimacy and connection.

So with the caveat that I know I am not the best predictor of my future behavior (as humans we are terrible at that), I believe that if the right person walked in front of me, I would give it a chance.

Good social media memories

Yesterday's social media memory was of me in my studio apartment surrounded by clothes and suitcases as I danced to my playlist and packed for a trip that I think fundamentally changed me and pushed me forward on my healing journey.  

I can't wait to see the memories that will pop up over the next ten days or so.  I imagine today's memories will be me boarding the Amtrak after work.  Tomorrow will the evening I first stepped into the streets of New York City.  What an overwhelming moment that was!  And then the courage I found with every step I took.  The grates I so boldly strolled across despite a lifetime of fear of them.  And the people, so many people that you could almost pick up your feet and get moved by the crowd!

In the moment, I was just determined to keep moving.  I think that was my silent mantra much of the last year.  But with every step I took forward, I kept experiencing so many rewards which encouraged me to take the next step.  It wasn't until I had hindsight though that I was in awe of what I did.

I still vividly remember my first divorce support group the Sunday I got back from this trip.  I think my Amtrak had arrived around lunchtime and my support group was that evening.  As we always did, we each had a chance to update the group on the past week (or couple weeks in my case).  As I retold each step of my journey - the train trip, my time in New York City, the cruise to Bermuda including a night boat excursion to the Bermuda Triangle, my time in DC, and then the train return trip, the eyes of the other women in my group grew so wide.  They could not even contemplate what I had done completely on my own.  Their reactions really took me aback.  

What's next?  What experiences will I boldly step into that will further transform me in ways that are fundamental?  Looking forward I know it will take courage to move to a whole new city, assuming I can secure a job in Atlanta (or another city).  I have a trip to Europe in a year and a half that I know will test me further.  And I'm sure there will be other experiences that I can't even imagine right now.  But I hope I never lose the awe I feel when I reflect on the ways life can transform and on the courage it takes to step into those transformative experiences.

Identity and Labels

I hate labels.  They box me in and limit me.  They come with expectations and judgment if I don't live up to those expectations, not that I pay all that much attention to others' judgments of me.  It feels awkward though to have to find ways to explain to loved ones when I evolve beyond a label, although that awkwardness is likely more just my own perceptions.  

I remember in high school when I started to understand my attraction towards girls, there weren't a lot of ways to describe what I was experiencing and so I played with the label "lesbian."  But as soon as I got kind of comfortable with that label in early adulthood, I became attracted to a man.  It was then weird taking him home to my parents or introducing him to my college friends after I had dated a woman the summer before.  I kind of just sidestepped those conversations and fortunately it became a non-issue.  

But I always wondered what I would say to the pastor I had confided in as a teenager, if I ever were to encounter him again.  We had sat down to so many good conversations about our faith and sexuality.  I influenced him and he gave me space for my voice.  I always wondered what he would think if he knew I married a man after all those conversations.

That wasn't the first time though I felt constrained with labels.  As a child, I wasn't outgoing enough.  I wasn't girly enough.  I wasn't "normal."  I was generally comfortable in my own skin but hated how I constantly had to push against the labels.

So here I am.  Divorced.  (I guess that's a label in and of itself.)  And I'm trying to figure out where to go from here.  Do I enter the dating scene?  If I do, am a heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, etc.?  Or maybe even asexual?  With my hairy legs and armpits and lack of makeup and an extensive skincare routine, do I even still qualify as woman?  Do I need labels?  

Where I seem to be settling is that I strongly feel like a woman who is very gender fluid in how I fit (and don't fit) into that stereotype.  And I suspect I lean more asexual than anything although I'm not willing to rule out a deeper relationship with a male, female, non-binary, or trans individual, if just the right person crossed my path.  Sometimes I fantasize about a deep emotional, maybe even romantic, yet not sexual relationship with someone.  I don't know if that even exists.

I guess what still keeps me from dipping my toes in the treacherous dating scene is the fact that I'm not sure anything is missing that I can't get from continuing to build my community of friends.  So for now, I'm just going to be me.  And I'm going to lean into the fluidity of not feeling like I have to put a label on myself.

"We live ourselves into new ways of thinking."

“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”
― Richard Rohr

This quote came up this weekend towards the end of our last small group session.  It made me pause enough to quick write it down so I could come back to reflect on it later.

Richard Rohr is one of the Enneagram gurus and so it seems appropriate to think about this in the context of being an Enneagram Five.  As a Five, I am a thinker.  If I'm not careful, I can get stuck in the thinking stage.  And although I find a lot of value in my ability to think things through and reflect, this year has really shown me that change doesn't happen without action.  My entire perspective didn't start changing until I started truly living.

It took taking that first step onto a grate in New York City in those first moments of being overwhelmed with such a place to start to find my courage.  It took literally losing myself on Jekyll Island last Christmas to start the process of finding myself again.  It took standing in a room full of strangers pretending to be an elephant in an Improv class to expand my view of who I could be.  It took many conversations around dinner tables with new friends to realize how critical connection and community is.

None of those things were easy.  I am in awe that I found the courage to do all of those things (and so much more).  

I've spent a lot of the last year and a half thinking and reflecting on my marriage and what went wrong - important healing work.  But in terms of building a new life, I really have boldly stepped into action over and over and over again.  I am truly living myself into a new way of thinking.  If I had stayed in my thoughts, I never would have even imagined what I now realize is possible.  And watching the transformation in my thinking this year makes me realize that the vision of what I think is possible today will continue to evolve in ways that I will only understand if I continue to live.

I think I know why I picked him

As I reflect on the journal entries I wrote in the early years of our relationship and his focus when it all ended, considering all that in the context of how I was raised, I think I have figured out why I initially chose him to marry.  Something just clicked in the last day or two.

Growing up, I felt like my parents (especially my Dad) bought my love.  And although they did occasionally say "no", I generally was given all the material things I both needed and wanted.  They also made sure to support me in all the practical things I needed for life.  I was the freshman sent off to college with a toolkit, a medicine cabinet, financial literacy skills, and the computer knowledge to set up the entire wing's computers (and problem solve the computer viruses my dorm mates managed to get and pass around).

My parents weren't all that affectionate.  They weren't particularly good listeners.  There wasn't a lot of depth to our relationships as a teenager/young adult.  It's not that they didn't try to provide those things but they just weren't very good at them.  So I turned to my friends' parents for those things.

In my ex-husband, I found the same familiar relationship, although it was masked as something more that first year.  When the mask fell after we moved in together, what was left was the familiar type of relationship I had with my parents.  And that was all I knew about relationships.  So even though it felt like something was lacking, I didn't know I could expect more.

He got a good job right out of college (one that made far more than my measly first year teaching salary) and consistently stayed employed in good paying jobs.  This allowed him to manage our money to make sure we could afford material things.  We never couldn't pay our bills and with very few exceptions, there was money for extras.

And then even as the marriage was ending, he easily agreed to a fair property split, left me all kinds of notes and instructions about my car, and made sure I had all the material things I needed to set up my own apartment.  I remember the way my pain seemed to be amplified with how he was worried more about whether my car would be taken care of than whether I would be okay emotionally.

But that makes a lot of sense.  When a relationship ends, all the masks come off and we are left with just what was truly authentic to who we are.  And the one thing that is authentic to him is that he is a responsible adult in all the practical ways.  Even if he isn't honest about his emotions and feelings, he is honest with his money.

Now the difference between my relationship with my ex-husband and my relationships with my parents is that my parents have evolved and grown over the years.  They aren't the same people who raised me in their 20s and 30s.  I'm not the same person I was over the various decades.  But it is that evolution and learning from each other over the years that has allowed us to create deeper relationships.

With my ex-husband, that evolution was missing.  He wasn't interested in growing or us learning from each other.  Instead of experiencing curiosity, he seemed threatened when I had knowledge in an area he didn't.  And he hated to explain his thinking so that I could learn from him.  So we never got to a level of depth.

But back to the point of this reflection, he was a familiarity in the face of an uncertain adult world that I was newly stepping into so it was easy to ignore when the mask of something more slipped.

I love you

This weekend I participated in a women's retreat at my church.  The theme was Embodied focusing on our relationships with our bodies.  A lot of reflections came out of the sessions and conversations with other women so I doubt this will be my last post on the topic.  Nor is it my first post on this topic.  A big part of my evolution over the last year and a half has related to my relationship with my body.  So this retreat was really timely.

The journaling session this afternoon reminded me of something I don't think I've ever written about.  Every night before we fell asleep for over two decades, I said the words "I love you."  It was a habit that was impossible to break and not having that routine was one of the most painful parts of the early days of the separation.  

So I never stopped.  In the silence of my new apartment,  I would verbalize those words each night before I drifted off.  I don't know who they were aimed at in the beginning.  My love for him (or the illusion of him) didn't just magically end when we separated.  So I suspect in the very beginning I was still thinking of him as those words crossed my lips.

But pretty quickly that shifted.  It became a nightly ritual to remind myself that I loved me.  

When I realized the shift had happened, it felt a little silly but it also felt really comforting and so I continued.

A year later, I admit that over time my consistency has faded some.  But at least a couple times a week, I still end my night this way.  Those words crossed my lips as recently as last night.

Running away vs towards something

I had a conversation in therapy last night about the distinction between running away from something vs running towards something that triggered a memory and got me thinking.  A little over 22 years ago, when I was dating my now ex-husband before we had moved in together, I wrote in a journal entry about how I wanted to stop running away from things.  I was in my car, on the road to his college town to spend the weekend with him, fighting the instinct to turn around and go back home to my own college.  I don't know why I was panicking in that moment.  But I saw that day as my chance to make a change and run towards him instead of running away.

In hindsight, I wonder if I was truly running towards him though or if this was more about my desire to stop running away from things.  A pattern I thought I could stop by just doing the opposite without taking the time to figure out if the opposite was really in line with what was best for me.  My journal entry seemed pretty short and dismissive of my fears so it makes me wonder.

There are some times in my life where I do really feel like I was running away.  I chose a college far enough away from home that I couldn't easily come home for a weekend.  I was trying to get away from my parents.  I've come across journal entries where I pushed friends away in college (and in hindsight I probably did this in high school some too).  I was running away from getting too close to people.

In my marriage, I really think a driving force for our move south was running away from his mom.  I followed his lead on that - he was clearly running away from his mom and the demands she was putting on him.  But I also was anxious to put some distance between her and us.

I also think there were a lot of times in my marriage where I was neither running away from something nor towards something, instead I was making the most of where the wind blew me, reacting to what he wanted.  That was probably most, if not all, of my marriage.

This last year has been different though.  It definitely started with me making the most of where the wind had blown me.  That was a really good place to start.  But I'm now making intentional decisions, big and small, that are leading to a future I'm running towards, maybe for the first time ever.

And I emphasize the word intentional.  This isn't just about doing the opposite of running away.  It is about evaluating what is truly in line with the future I want.  And so at times there has been a nagging thought in the back of my head warning me not to move to Atlanta just because I want to create space between my ex-husband and me which has encouraged me to reflect on the many reasons why such a move supports the future I'm running towards.  Putting some distance between him and me would really just be an added bonus.

I'll admit it is really scary sometimes.  But it is also really exciting.  And there is more purpose to my life now.  I have a vision that is clearer than it has ever been.  Every step I take to work towards that vision helps me feel more and more me.

Solitary Shadow on a Bench

Restless this evening, I found myself at my therapy bench long after the sun had set.  A light shined behind me creating this oversized shadow of the bench with a smaller version of me sitting cross legged upon it.  Lights reflected and glimmered on the pond in front of me as a breeze whispered through my hair.  

I don't know what lead me there.  This week has been accompanied by a sense of peace which feels in conflict with the circumstances that surround me.  So maybe I just needed space to be.

What my body tells me

I've spent the last year and half observing my body - weight, sleep, appetite, chronic pain episodes, menstrual cycle, focus and motivation, and now even blood pressure.  It's been really interesting and eye opening to see how my body physically responds to different types of stress.

So my sleep schedule is back to a normal, quite good routine.  I'm back to about eight hours of sleep a night, falling asleep pretty quickly, only waking up once with no issues falling back to sleep, and then waking up before my alarm to enjoy a few extra minutes of early morning quiet.  When I realized that this morning on day two of a government shutdown, it surprised me until I started reflecting over the patterns of the last year and a half.

It's not the threats to my job and my country (which have been great over the last 8 months) that cause me to lose sleep at night.  I won't say those things have no affect on my body because they are a significant stress but they aren't the stresses causing the obvious distress in my body.  I must be managing those stresses reasonably well.

The manifestations of stress in my body correlate very closely to the processing work I'm doing about my marriage and ex-husband.  And the impact of seeing myself in his new girlfriend a couple of weeks ago has resulted in a lot more feelings of peace about the end and a greater focus on how much better I am today.  So it follows naturally that my sleep would return to normal and that my blood pressure would be starting to go down.

It's astounding that the lingering effects of a relationship that ended over a year ago can have a greater impact on my body than the current threats to my job, finances, and freedoms.  That really boggles my mind.

Parallel Worlds - Delusion/Clarity, Joy/Darkness

What a time to live in!  As I seek clarity and become more grounded, I find myself surrounded by so much delusion and distortion.  And my joy feels out of place in a world with so much darkness.  It's like I'm living parallel lives in parallel worlds.  And it wasn't until I stepped out of the delusion myself last year that I found myself in this parallel world.

It seems appropriate to look over the table I sit at and admire the last flower of a bouquet, a reminder of the joy and friendships that have helped me find clarity, and the open hand-written journal of my work's current challenges with today's entry only have written, a documentation of a new kind of delusion, and this blog open on my computer, a representation of the distortion I walked away from last year.

More than once it has crossed my mind that maybe separating from the delusion of my marriage last year was all in preparation for this year.  Not that the delusions of either year are related to the other.  But both required and are requiring me to sift through what is real and what is not and to build something from that which I feel is real.

Exhausting day

I cried in my supervisor's office today.  I don't know if it was the exact moment that caused the overwhelming emotions or if it was a culmination of being shit on over and over again with such lack of transparency and so much incompetence.  Sometimes I feel like the way my work has treated me over the past 2-3 years parallels the way my ex-husband treated me last year.  And to have it all simultaneously happening occasionally gets the best of me, with today being no exception.

I honestly don't know why he walked into my office claiming he had "good news".  Did he really not understand the implications of the news he was sharing with me?  The good news was that I wouldn't have to work the shutdown aside from taking my turn in the rotation to support our limited essential cases.  

I'm permanently funded.  Did he seriously not contemplate that if he told me I would furloughed that I wouldn't then start panicking about what happened to my funding source?  He didn't even understand my pushback.  He didn't understand why I was questioning the status of my funding.

After I had thought it through, sat through another meeting about how it was affecting the whole office, received more e-mails about, I walked into his office and asked him about my funding source.  Together we called higher ups who gave more bad info even as I tried to explain.  They didn't get it.  My funding source hadn't lapsed which made me an exempt employee, meaning exempt from furloughs.

I admitted my lack of trust and how I felt there had been a lack of transparency in the office which affected that level of trust.  But in the end, he offered having me come into work every day and not furloughing me, asking if that would make me feel better.  I admit that I laughed inside as I realized I was turning down free time off.  I thanked him and left his office.

He showed up in my office a bit later to tell me about the call he had with someone from another office with the same funding as I have.  He admitted that in that other office, everyone with this funding source would continue working and not be subject to furloughs. 

I'm tired.  Why did I have to go through the panic, the questioning and explaining, the negotiations all for the end result that should have been offered to me in the first place?  And now as I type this, I listen to the speeches that are following the failed Senate votes.  Tomorrow I'll go in and after my colleagues tie up their loose ends, the office will empty out and I will face the quiet mostly alone.

But one silver lining in even this day is that I didn't have to go home and try and explain to my ex-husband why I didn't just accept the free days off.  He wouldn't have understood the implications of it all.

What did he add to my life?

What if my trying to figure out his insecure attachment style (avoidant? disorganized?) as an attempt to understand became an excuse and he really just is a self-absorbed asshole who avoids accountability and never grew up?  What if he just uses people to get the attention and validation he craves like a small child manipulates those around them?  Maybe it's really that simple.

Does the why behind his behavior really matter when we are talking about someone who has made it into his forties without bothering to consider how his behavior affects others and work to minimize the harm he causes others?

I understand he had a shit childhood and still has a toxic relationship with his mom but that doesn't mean everyone who tries to love him deserves to suffer.  At some point he needs to grow up and deal with his shit.

I'm a bit angry both at him and myself - him for making my life so much harder for the last two decades (which ironically worked against himself as well) and me for not reflecting enough to see how it was so negatively affecting me.  

I've now got a year under my belt of doing life on my own and I have yet to find an area of my single life that isn't improved upon from what I experienced in my marriage.  

• My finances are in better shape (yes, with significantly less income!).  
• My health is improved.  
• I actually have a comfort level with my car.  
• I get to feel and experience my own emotions.  
• My energy level is through the roof.  
• My joy abounds on a daily basis.  
• I can hear myself think.
• My community has gone from barely existent to constantly expanding and thriving.
• My travel plans are more focused.
• My values are more clearly reflected in my actions.
• I'm proactively acting on bigger career goals for myself instead of reacting to whatever fit with his career goals.

What the hell did he add to my life?  All I can see right now are the ways he stood in the way.  Have I just reached the point of bitter ex?  I hope not.

I just think it is so messed up that after 19 years of marriage someone can just announce to their spouse that they haven't been happy for a long time although they never brought it up before and can't really explain why.  Nothing I could have done would deserve an ending like that.  My expectation that spouses owe each other more communication than that is a bare minimum expectation of a marriage.  Maybe that was my wake up call to what a shit husband he was.

The Carolina Wren is back

I woke up this morning to the clear song of a Carolina Wren.  I've been hoping she would return, waiting to hear the sound of her voice.  I jumped out of bed to open the patio door and lean into that sweet bird's song.

She sang outside my window every morning and evening (except when it was raining) for at least six months starting within a few days of moving into this studio last September.  She was my most constant companion through even some of the darkest days of the last year.

So this morning, joy was the first emotion that ran through me.  I am so excited and happy to hear her again.  But then a few tears welled up in my eyes as I remembered the pain she sat through with me.  And then I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the role she played.

Maybe even more importantly, I have space and capacity to feel and experience all these conflicting emotions at once, something I didn't have in my marriage.

My Husband Costed a Lot of Money

I'm going to talk about the taboo topic of money.  And I preface this by saying I know I am privileged to have a decent paying job that takes away the worries so many have.  But money at whatever level is still a worry when you first separate after enjoying the benefits of a dual income household.  

I'm coming up on 12 months of managing my own finances.  I've got a head for numbers, had done our joint taxes a number of times in the early years of our marriage, and stayed aware of our finances despite letting him do most of the managing.  So I wasn't overly worried about taking on this task by myself.  

But I was a little worried about how far my salary would go alone.  My salary made up only about 37% of our combined income.  And living together allows you to share so many expenses so I knew my costs would be far more than half what we were currently paying.

So as I do every month especially, I go over what I spent and earned, what I have left over, and make decisions about whether to move money anywhere to maximize interest I could be earning and be prepared for the first of the month expenses.  And I often use this time to think further and do longer-range planning.

I've been learning about high yield savings accounts, making sure I understand the funds my retirement and HSA are invested in, and this week's research has been into mutual funds in non-tax deferred investments as I think through my entire saving, investing, and spending plan.  It's all quite fascinating and empowering.  I'm really learning a lot about myself through the process.  And I am amazed at how far my money goes when it is budgeted and managed in line with my values alone.

What makes me really pause though is that what I have accomplished in the last year would not have been possible with the amount of money we were spending on cars and with the way he was managing things.  He was more expensive than I ever thought he was.  And it's not that I didn't realize we were throwing a lot of money away to change cars so frequently.  I knew that.  I just didn't quite understand the extent to which it was affecting our bottom line.  

I also am seeing now that despite his degree in accounting, he didn't have the vision to make the most of our money.  He was responsible with money.  He never spent more than we had.  We both prioritized retirement so didn't cut corners there.  So I never had any complaints while we were together.  But I realize now that he wasn't looking at the bigger picture.

It makes me further question the imbalance in our relationship, although more on a curiosity level at this point.  I don't think any real harm came from this specific imbalance or his lack of vision.  And being able to see it so clearly now along side my incredible success on my own this past year boosts my confidence in a way it otherwise wouldn't have and makes me so much more excited to see what I can do with my future.

Unconditional Positive Regard

My therapist has used the term "unconditional positive regard" to describe the amount of grace I have extended to my ex-husband and the rose colored glasses view I have had of him for so many months post-divorce.  She has watched the evolution in me as I have processed and started to heal.  I think when we first started working together towards the beginning of the year, I was still talking very highly of him with little negative.  Bit by bit, I've gained clarity.  And seeing myself in his new girlfriend a little over a week ago was really impactful and likely a turning point.

So tonight she asked me whether my unconditional positive regard was starting to fade.  I found it interesting that I didn't automatically say yes.  I paused.  I said, "I don't like him very much anymore."  And then I went on to say that I no longer assume he had good intentions.  I feel like that last statement reflected something new in me, something I had not yet (until that moment) been ready to say out loud.

A big part of my unconditional positive regard was this assumption that he didn't mean it, that he didn't intend to hurt me in the ways he did.  I had every excuse ready on the tip of my tongue for why he behaved the way he did.

I'm sure I held onto that assumption for so long because I didn't want to believe that the man who promised to love me forever would intentionally cause me harm.  I didn't want to face the fact that I could have been that wrong about someone.  I didn't want to believe that someone I had given so much to could be that cruel to me.

That's not to say I'm going to sit here and try to parse out his intentions.  They don't actually matter.  But I do know that he chose to ignore the impact his actions were having on me.  He chose to stay in a relationship he wasn't willing to invest in.  He chose not to communicate with me.  He chose to misunderstand me.  He chose to silently hold onto resentments for years.  And he chose to lay all the blame on me.

So, yes, my unconditional positive regard is absolutely fading.  And maybe my hesitation to automatically name that tonight was that I fear when it is gone, I will no longer understand what I saw in him in the first place.  But maybe that speaks more to how far I have come and how much I have grown, to the point where I struggle to recognize the girl I was over two decades ago.

I miss the illusion that he was on my side

As the news this week hit closer to home, I woke up this morning missing the belief that I had someone in my corner, by my side to face life.  For one brief moment, I missed him.  That was one of the weaker illusions I convinced myself of in my marriage though.  He didn't hide very well where his priorities lay.  

I can still hear his voice and the countless times he told me, "You're never on my side."

I felt alone in those moments because the accusation came at times I was thinking of "us" while he was just focused on "me" (as in himself).  His mother even ganged up on with him once after he (likely at her urging) had called one of our financial institutions to complain about something and agreed to arbitration in a scenario where I didn't think we had a leg to stand on.  When I discovered what they had done while I was out, I was not immediately supportive and had a lot of questions (so I could understand the extent of the damage that might have been done).  She accused me of not standing by my man while he sat there silently.

It came up other times when I wouldn't agree he was right to drive aggressively as I feared for our safety.  Or when he wanted to buy another car and I was concerned with the impact on our finances and the impact on me physically in having to go through the draining process so frequently.  

I remember another time when he wouldn't stop complaining about the dog barking in the courtyard.  I had listened to his complaints.  I had empathized with him.  I had walked the apartment complex to figure out which apartment it was coming from and I had reached out to the apartment management to make a complaint.  But the complaining still wouldn't stop and it was a heaviness on me that drained me even more than normal.  So I told him I couldn't keep listening to the complaining and tried to change the subject and then remove myself from the area.  That is another time he accused me of never being on his side.

In conversations years later, it came up that he didn't feel I was on his side when he was applying for a law enforcement job that would have moved us around the country often, disrupting my career and kept us apart frequently as he traveled and worked long hours.  My simple desire to talk about what it would look like and how we would manage that big of a change in our relationship was enough for him to claim I wasn't on his side.  What frustrates me now is that I never even got that conversation, yet I still took concrete actions to support him.

Why did my needs or the needs of our relationship not matter in those moments?  He was accusing me of not being on his side while simultaneously himself not being willing to consider my side or even the side of our relationship.  The burden of looking out for us rested heavily on me and required me to be willing to speak up and push back against his self-focused views.  In reality, I never had a partner who was willing to face the world with me.  He may have been physically by my side and sometimes what he wanted may have aligned with what I wanted (helping me maintain the illusion) but he wasn't really working with me.  

So I may miss his physical presence from time to time (and the illusion that he was standing by my side) but all I've really lost in the divorce in this sense is someone who fought against my best interests.  I no longer have to spend energy monitoring his decisions and pushing back when it seemed against our best interests.

Last year, he accused me of being too strong.  That's because I could never relax and trust him to have my back.  I didn't have someone to lean on and share the burden of facing life's challenges.  I couldn't even trust that he wouldn't work against what was best for us.  I had no choice but to be strong.

Last year, he also told me he wished I would just agree with him instead of asking questions about the things he wanted to do.  He wanted me to unquestioningly trust his judgment.  Maybe if he had demonstrated he was considering what was best for me and our relationship in addition to his own needs and wants, I could have stepped back more.

So as the uncertainty of next week weighs on me, I'm going to lean into my reclaimed energy and joy now as I continue to face the world alone but without having to battle a partner who doesn't consider me.  I'm going to continue to dance in the rain and stomp in the puddles - what a metaphor that is for the way I have been facing the significant challenges of this year!

Symbols of me and my growth

Early last August, not long after he started talking to divorce attorneys, I ordered myself a ring.  I wanted to have something that would represent me and my journey and I worried it would be hard to take my wedding ring off when the time came - I thought having a "me" ring to focus on would help that.  So found this beautiful silicon, copper colored ring with etchings of the sun rising over the mountains.  It reminded me of how even after a night of darkness, the sun always rises.  I have put it on my finger every day over the past year and probably will continue to wear it until it wears out.

So this week as I celebrate my first anniversary of living on my own (with the anniversary of my divorce coming up next month), I thought I needed another ring.  Something to represent this next stage in my journey.  So I ordered one that spoke to me of the joy and included my favorite flower, the daisy.  Today it arrived.

These both are quite inexpensive rings but they are incredibly meaningful and they continue to remind me of the ways I have overcome and found a way to thrive even amidst challenging times.

A call from Atlanta

Yesterday afternoon, I sat at my desk at work when my desk phone rang.  It never rings so it startled me a bit.  And then I saw a 404 area code which I thought might be Atlanta.  My resume had my personal cell number which is the number HR had previously used when contacting me about the job I had applied for and I didn't recall giving them my direct line at work (although I'm in the directory).  But something still told me this was about the job.

When I picked up the phone and answered, the Civil Chief identified herself.  She told me how impressed they were with me and that it had been a really tough choice but that they had chosen the candidate from her office.  She went on to mention how much she enjoyed our conversation about claims data from the interview - a conversation that had left me flustered as I tried to recall the specifics of an analysis from more than four years ago.   She said she hopes they will post the second position soon, and to look for it if I was interested.  Then she paused as if my response to that mattered.  I told her, "yes, absolutely" so she encouraged me to apply again and said that she hopes she gets to work with me.  

I thanked her for calling me and expressed my own hopes that I get to work with her and her team in the future.  And then the call ended.

Despite it being a rejection call, it was by far the nicest call I had ever had in any sort of job search process and really meant so much that she took the time to make it.  And it only reinforced my feelings that Atlanta is a place I would thrive.

I expected this outcome (although not the personal call).  She had already told one of my references that they were seriously considering a candidate in their office and had tried to feel out my reference as to how likely it was that I would apply to a second posting.  And so I had already come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't get this first position and felt good about it because I see it as an opportunity to have just a little more time in my current city.

It's interesting though, my desire for a little more time has evolved quite a bit.  In early August when this was first posted, I was overwhelmed with the idea of moving on my own to a city where I knew no one, maybe even a bit panicked.  I had not anticipated such an opportunity would come up anytime soon.  But with time, my excitement has completely overcome the fear.  That's not to say I won't have moments of fear if/when things get more real but overall, I just see how good this would be for me.  

So now, my desire for more time isn't so I can come to terms with this change.  I see the opportunity of more time as a chance to lean more into the community I have built and enjoy the city I love before I move on to this next chapter.  And as these relationships still continue to evolve and grow, I can now see the ways I will continue those connections even when there is physical distance between us.

So I feel really good.  And I don't feel like this was a door closing.  I feel like this was a message of not yet.  Even if Atlanta never pans out, I know I will be ready when the right opportunity does present itself.

Friends

There were five us at table 40, the perfect table the way it was a bit secluded from the action of the rest of the restaurant.  Only one couldn't make it, and not because she didn't want to - she is the one I am probably closest too and has been one of my biggest supporters.  She just has a lot on her plate in life and last night didn't work out for her.  We'll get together one-on-one for lunch in the next week or two.

One brought me flowers.  Another bought appetizers for the table.  Another insisted on paying for the third bottle of wine even though I had told them the wine was my treat.  Really good conversation flowed freely as we celebrated life together.  We laughed.  We hugged.  And we stayed so long that we closed the place down.  A couple of them followed me back to my apartment when I offered a tour before we split ways.

I'm in awe of how far I have come in a year and how many amazing people have been walking alongside me through it all.  And last night's group of women aren't the only friendships I've been building.  I have another group of women from church and other individual friendships that are really dear to me.  

It blows my mind when I think about the very limited friendships I had over the first four plus decades of my life, how much I let my ex-husband be my social network for the last two decades.  I suppose there is a little grief at what I missed out on but until this past year I wasn't the person I needed to be in order to be receptive of these kinds of friendships.  These specific people also had not yet walked into my life.  So really I’m just incredibly grateful for the new life I’ve been given that is allowing me to connect on a deeper level with great people around me and the world as a whole.