The Story

Here it is. In the deepest, darkest, most fearsome places of my imagination, I could not imagine I would be here, standing upright, on this day. Three-hundred-sixty-five days ago, my husband packed a bag and left our home, never to return as a husband. The observance of that this weekend was compounded by the big fight that usually erupts between two people who have a lot to fight about because the stars aligned and marked the calendar for that day to be a bad day until the end of time. As in, yesterday morning at 9 AM I was standing in front of my fridge reading the label on my bottle of rosè, comparing it to the contents on a bottle of Juicy Juice, trying to decide if rosè is acceptable as juice and therefore an appropriate drink for that particular hour. Don't worry. It isn't.

Tomorrow morning, I will wake up so much different than I did when I woke up one year ago. Tomorrow, I'll be able to dress myself. I'll be able to feed my children. I'll get through the day, from beginning to end, without feeling the grip of terror, probably even without crying. I will not be wondering all day what will happen to us. And even though my mom will be here to help me, just like last year, it will not be because I cannot take care of myself or my children. It will be because I have no camp this week and I do not want to pay a babysitter for three whole days.

 

It is not as fresh. I remember what I felt like, what I feared, what thoughts filled my days. But I no longer feel that way, fear those things, or think those things. Though I hoped and prayed and reasoned and responded, I knew what I denied would happen.

 

 

One year later, here's what I know:

 

I am fierce. I feel weak, because I cry and I flail, and while there are things I choose not to let into my Bubble of Function, I fight when I should say nothing. I try to save when I should let mistakes be made and not protect anyone from the consequences. I have rabid determination that this cycle ends with these children, who will, as God is my witness, grow up to be husbands and dads and strong leaders in their families. Some Saturdays I close the curtains and the blinds and sleep in a cocoon from sun down to sun up on Sunday. So that I can be unstoppable again on Sundays.

 

I am not a single mother. I am single. I am a mother. And most days, I wake up kids and tuck in kids and do everything in between all by myself. But there is a dad who is present. There is a dad who goes to doctor's appointments and school meetings, who shows up when there's trouble and is doing his best to lead an awkward little boy through puberty. I am not doing all of this alone. I am sharing it with the other person responsible. The division of labor is completely unfair, but my kids did not lose their dad.

 

I am nothing without my kids, my animals, my best friends, my sister, and my parents. Nothing. Those people remind me of my value when I cannot find it. I want to be the person they believe I am.

 

 

He is who he is. I accept the truths, beyond the lies he tells himself, and I forgive him for being a flawed human being. I forgive him for being unable. I forgive him for giving up on us when I never gave up on him. I do not let go the mistakes he makes and the ways I feel he shortchanges the boys sometimes. But I always speak up and we always make peace about it, and vow to do better. He does not ignore my concerns or complaints. He responds to them.

 

The fear evaporates when you prove to yourself that what you are afraid of is not that bad. In fact, you barely noticed that the things you were afraid of are behind you.

 

I no longer believe in "soul mates," that there is one person meant for each of us. Cynicism has not turned my heart bitter. I believe in each person there is a heaven sent purpose. Perhaps that purpose is to be witness your decades of life and be your spouse until death parts you. That was not what he was for. When I was fourteen, I met him in a band room, and the life I have with Jake and Landen now is the reason for everything that happened in the last nineteen years. That is the "why" of our mate-ness.

 

The hurt lasts long after you stop crying about it. One year later, I'm still grieving. It was my life and it was my family and it was my dream that it would work with the person I've wanted it to work with since I was fifteen years old. A long time ago, so long I cannot remember where or when, I read that when we lose someone, we should not feel like we lost a piece of ourselves when they go. We should feel like we added to our lives from the experience of knowing them, that a piece of them stays with us. That's just untrue to me. When someone holds prominent space in your heart for nineteen years, that space is held sacred forever.

 

 

Even though it is logistically challenging and physically and emotionally exhausting, and so damn difficult there are no words to describe the strength it takes, being alone with Jake and Landen 75% of the time is the best part. Not the worst.

 

The reality is not as bad as I feared with every particle of my soul that it would be.

 

Go to therapy every week, even when you think you're okay and could skip it.

 

When you don't know what to do, do nothing. What you should do will be crystal clear to you in the moment that you are required to do something. Be still. Be still. Be still.

 

Fear is what we create in ourselves when we have no answers. The difference between Clean Pain and Dirty Pain is critical to managing fear and to surviving anything.

Most importantly, just like no one really understands what goes on in a marriage between two people but the people in it, no one really understands what happens between two people in an unmarriage but the two people in it.

 

It's been a year since we stopped living together, but it was another six months of "touch and go" before we called time of death at the beginning of this year. So I still have six months of railing, flailing, crazy, over-emotional, batsh*t bitch allotted to me until I really have to get it together. And even then, this has changed me. Changed who I thought I was going to be and what I thought I was capable of. I believe in myself more. I believe in the absolutism of love less. There will be another love for me, and I am convinced there is a daughter in my stars, but this loss has changed the eyes through which I will experience everything that comes after it.

All of these lines upon my face, tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I've been, and how I got to where I am...