Today, I have been officially divorced for three years. It has been a long journey to this day, and one fraught with potholes and dangerous shoulders that are on the precipice of cliffs where you cannot see the bottom. And yet, I am still here, and, in fact, more hopeful for my future than I have been in some time. Giving proof to the words my mother has said over and over again, "It will all work out."
That is my mother's mantra for everything. And there is a lot of wisdom in it, because for most people, most of the time, sooner or later, things really do resolve themselves somehow. It is often not resolved as you would want them to be, or as you would wish them to be. But it doesn't mean that the resolution isn't better than what you hoped for or dreamed about, either. Sometimes we don't see the big picture, and in our blindness, we miss the larger opportunities for something better or more positive for ourselves that are all around us.
And so it was with me. When my ex-husband dropped that bomb into the midst of my already changing life, everything I had lived the last 20 years flew apart and splintered into a million tiny little pieces that I knew I would never be able to put back together again. The lamp was well and truly broken, and I couldn't see where the light was ever going to come from again.
With the perspective that a little time and distance allows, I can see that the lamp was broken long before he walked out of that door, and out of our marriage and family. The illusion was not only unhealthy, it was killing me by inches as I tried to fit into a mold that was the wrong size and shape for my life.
During that mind-bendingly painful and difficult time, there were many people who supported me, of course, in different ways, and from different perspectives. My mother, as expected, was a stalwart, always there, any time, day or night, giving lie to the idea that children grow up and go away and you get to have a life of your own.
I was ever present, calling her constantly to cry, to rage, to wail, to complain, to hurt with someone who would share my anger and my outrage and my pain in full measure. In taking on my burden, she did, indeed, take part of my burden away from me, and I will never be able to repay her for it.
Although, I must say, she is cutting into that moral debt with computer technical support requests recently. I would feel bad about mentioning it, but even though she looks very quiet and serious on the surface, my mother has a sense of humor about herself. She calls, we both sigh, and sooner or later, we get it up and running again, usually with the aid of remote assistance, truly the greatest invention since sliced bread.
The other night, she called and was having a problem getting online, and she said, "Well, I suppose I could call their technical support. They are supposed to be available to help people 24 hours a day." Okay, really Mom? I have a feeling that would not end well for anyone, especially the person on the other end of the phone, who may well end up with a mighty headache and no hair. We had better stick with the present system, since I owe you pretty much all my time to the end of my life, anyway, and I still won't have repaid the hours you spent listening to me the last four years.
On the upside, just to hare off on one of my usual tangents, if anyone from Microsoft is looking for a beta tester, trust me, my mother is just the talent you are looking for. She is capable of doing things on the computer that cannot be replicated elsewhere for any amount of money. My usual response to a call for help is, "How did you do that? I have never heard of that happening before." And she will usually say, "I didn't do anything. It just happened!" She is solid gold, trust me on this.
One of the things I absolutely love about my mother is her willingness to embrace new technology. I have no idea why elderly people have a reputation for being stodgy and resistant to change, because I am here to tell you, they are the ones who are willing to try anything. They have already lived through the worst life has to throw at them - I think it makes them adventurous. And she is clearly not the only one.
I recently learned that the over 65 crowd is actually the most connected demographic in the country. That is right, they are more likely to have online access than teenagers. They are using the internet to keep in touch not only with their children and grandchildren, but with each other as they retire all over the country, and with modern life, generally.
I wonder if there are a lot of other 40 somethings out there providing equal amounts of tech support to their own parents? Now that is a humorous thought - a whole generation of boomers, crouched over their computers at night, with a cell phone in hand, trying to duplicate the problems their parents have had on their computers so they can fix it. Maybe that explains the wrinkles and gray hair I have noticed on people my age (not me, obviously,) recently....
But anyway, getting back on topic....
My brother and sister-in-law have also been an endless source of support for me in this difficult transition period of my life, as both have experienced their own life trials, and brought much good advice and comfort to me. They were never critical or discouraging, only uplifting, even when I disparaged myself or my own life choices.
My sister-in-law is a wealth of love and caring, and always said just the right thing whenever I called to cry on her shoulder. She is a nurse, and I can tell you why she chose that very caring profession, because she is wonderful at healing the heart. She has given life to the old saying, good things come to those who wait. It's good she was waiting around for my brother to come by, because we are all better off for it.
My brother and I don't appear to be much alike on the surface, I am sure. He is all hard work and serious business, while I am the family flake, flighty and disorganized. He has his tools arranged in perfect order, and has a plan for everything, while I am lucky if I can find my shoes half the time, to say nothing of my brain.
He lives in Alaska, and visits my mother faithfully a couple times a year now, it seems, which I am sorry to say is more faithful than me these days. His kids are grown up, it's easier for him to leave at weird times. He has that whole mom-on-a-pedestal thing going on, too, which gets him pie and lots of kudos, while I myself am obviously a little more irreverent. Maybe that's why I don't get pie very often. Unless he's home. Then it's all about whatever he wants. Not that I am bitter about his most favored child status or anything. Just kidding. Really. I couldn't resist the temptation.
Anyway, when he visits, he has a list, as long as your arm, of things he wants to accomplish, and he usually works up to the moment he has to leave for the airport. Shockingly, he usually gets most of the list crossed off, too.
I admire his ability to manage time like that. I, on the other hand, generally leave the bed unmade, forget something vital, don't accomplish much of anything other than talking to my mom and perhaps relaxing a little, and when I leave, my mother is left with a lot of clean up work and very little to show for it. My brother shows me up as the slacker at heart I truly am, I'm afraid. It's a good thing I can do computer support, come to think of it, or I wouldn't be any good to my mother at all.
And yet, underneath those superficial differences, my brother and I are more alike than you would think. We are both passive individuals, unhappy with discord or dissension, and willing to subvert our own wishes to make everyone else happy. We married very similar people our first time around - he has a learning curve, so he was smarter on his second effort, while I just gave it up as a bad job all together and am satisfied to be single rather than take the chance of blowing it again, as I surely will, if I try. That first time, though, we both married assertive and willful people who barrelled ahead into every situation, regardless of the consequences. I think I am safe in saying that we both married people who are efficient at looking out for their own best interests, and they usually get what they want in every situation.
My ex's favorite line is, "No decision is a decision. Take control and make the decision, because even a bad decision is better than not doing anything and allowing circumstances to decide for you." It is not surprising, I am sure, that they treated us exactly as one would expect, before leaving us for more exciting pastures where the grass looked greener from our side of the fence.
My brother was able to commiserate in a very real way, and I am most grateful that he never said a negative thing about the choices I have made. Instead, he positively uplifted me, and allowed me to grieve for my loss without making me feel like I didn't have the right, since it was, after all, my own bed that I was lying in.
My children, of course, have quite simply given me a reason to live for the last four years. They got me up in the morning, and my daughter even went to bed with me at night for a long time, until we both had healed enough that we could bear to get through the long nighttime hours without the comfort of the other person there. Because of them, I can truthfully never completely regret the life decisions I have made. Without having gone through the valley, I would never have had them with me on this mountaintop. Or at least the side of the hill I am currently climbing.
I had many, many other people helping me, uplifting me, and even humoring me. In fact, there may or may not be a relative named Dave who, in treating me with the same sarcastic needling that he always has, allowed me to feel normal sometimes, and even boosted my shattered ego every now and then by allowing me to needle him back. I would tell him I am grateful, but then he would just get all puffed up, and he and his large head would never fit through a doorway again. But of course, that would assume that Dave is real, and as I have maintained all along, he is only a figment of my imagination. So never mind on that one.
There is one other person without whom I am not sure I would have gotten to this day, and to whom I genuinely owe my sanity, if not my life. The best advice I have gotten throughout this long journey came from someone who has been there herself, and who was willing to tell me the bald truth even when I was hiding it from myself.
My cousin, Rachel, is my guardian angel, because she guarded my heart from the lies and the half-truths and the twisting and turning that this process engenders. Without her slapping me in the face with reality, I would not be in the place I am today, grounded, sane and relatively free in body and soul and mind.
From the beginning, Rachel has forced me to confront the realities for what they were. I would tell her what my ex was saying, and she would tell me, "Oh yes, I remember being told that, too." Then she would tell me what was real, why she thought he was saying or doing whatever it was I was deceiving myself about. She would not allow me to lie to myself, or to delude myself into thinking anything that wasn't going to help me in the long run, even if it meant inflicting a little pain in the moment. Which is, over the long haul, far kinder than allowing you to continue living a lie, even if it hurts at that instant. And I don't think for a moment that it didn't hurt her to see me hurting, so I know that was a difficult thing to do. But having been there before, she truly understood what was best, even when it hurt, and I am thankful for her willingness to do it.
She also gave me the best advice, starting with the first piece, given almost immediately after my ex walked out. I kept telling her that I wanted to make him understand how I felt, and she said, "Tell someone who cares, because it will matter to them." She was so right about that, and I have given that same advice several times myself. I learned over time that telling someone who doesn't care how you are feeling adds to the burden, because then you add the hurt that they don't care on top of everything else. When you unburden yourself with someone who cares, it takes away a layer of the agony, and you feel less alone in the world.
Rachel was, at various times, my cheerleader, my cattle prod, my personal fire, and my teacher. She never allowed me to wallow, although occasionally she would enjoy the pity party for awhile with me. She also reminded me, by sharing tough situations that were in her own life at any given moment, that the world doesn't stop just because you are in distress. There is always someone who has it worse. Although, as she also pointed out, you probably shouldn't tempt fate by saying that, since every time you do, it probably will get worse. Trust me on this one, that is how it works. NEVER TEMPT FATE. Words to live by. Seriously.
I remember a point about a year or so out, when I told another friend, "I have now become the person that people point to when they say, 'Well, it could be worse.'" Things were pretty much of a mess, and trust me, no one I knew would have traded places with me at that point. To be honest, I wouldn't have inflicted my life on anyone else, either, because I'm not that mean. But I wouldn't have minded running away from my life for a little while and being someone else, just for the diversion of it all. That was the point at which I finally learned to stop saying it could get worse, and just accepted that it is what it is. Subtle, but important.
Rachel has been a tremendous role model for me as a divorced mom, and always encouraged and supported me in the effort to take the high road, even when I wanted to get down and roll around in the mud. She understood, from long experience, that you never feel good about it after you get dirty anyway, and it's just not worth the time and the trouble it costs you.
For everyone going through a divorce, I wish you a person like Rachel, who will slap you in the face with the truth, no matter how hard it is, because you need to hear it and accept it in order to move forward. Hanging on to the past doesn't move you ahead, it keeps you cemented in the pain of the present.
Rachel kept reassuring me that someday I would feel okay again, that someday, I would be able to think about life without feeling pain stabbing me in the heart. I remember saying over and over again, I just want to go to sleep and wake up in two years and see how it all comes out, and she told me that it would pass before I knew it, and I would be okay. She was right. It did pass, and the good news seems to be that I am, indeed, okay.
Last night I mentioned this anniversary to my mom, and she asked me if she should say happy anniversary? I replied that I really don't know what you call it, because happy is not quite the right word. And yet, I have to be able to celebrate that I have made it, and that I am doing okay now. I have a long ways to go in my life to reach anything like stability. I am still trying to find a way to support myself and my kids that will actually pay the bills, and I still have moments of hurt or resentment that crop up unbidden when I am not expecting it.
But I have also reached a place of indifference towards someone who blew my life apart. I can truly hope that he is happy in whatever life he has made for himself now, in the same way that I hope anyone is happy and not miserable, without it being personal any more. The opposite of love is hate, but the road to emotional freedom leads to indifference. I have reached that off-ramp, and it feels okay.
If there is anyone who reads this and feels like their life is in shards, I am here to tell you, hang in there, because it will all work out. And in the end, it will be different, but that doesn't mean it will be worse. It may even be better. You just never know.
