The Spider Web

While emailing back and forth today with Justin...aka Elder Moore...we began to talk about how one choice leads to another and to another and to another and before you know it you are wondering, "What if I had made a different choice to begin with?"

I began to think about a spider web. One thread leads to hundreds of other threads. It all depends which thread you want to follow as to where you will end up.

This concept, though maybe mundane, made me take an interest in spider webs. I found out that if a spider, if it makes a mistake, does not go back to correct the web. As long as it is structurally sound, it keeps going. I related this to my life. There are many mistakes in my life, a whole lot of holes, things I would have definitely done differently. But I can't go back, I just keep going.



Another interesting phenonema is that of community spiders. They work together to build massive webs. Though some researchers believe it is to catch more prey, I follow another theory that was presented. A web of this size is meant to keep predators out. The spiders work together for the safety of each other. I thought that was a beautiful description of something so massive and frightening. For them it provides security. A lesson we humans can take from the spider.



In the end, the spider web is beautiful. It is a miracle...just as it is a miracle that no matter what our life holds, we keep going, keep spinning, keep creating. Maybe the other threads of the web would have led to a better life, maybe to a worse one...we will never know. But in the end, I choose to see my life as a masterpiece. Even with all its imperfections, it is beautiful, like the spider web.

A Series of Divorces

In Webster's Online Dictionary, this is what I found under "divorce":

n. the legal dissolution of a marriage
v. part, cease or break association with
v. to separate or disunite

When one is married, that person lives in a community, in a neighborhood. Usually there is a home, and friends and church. There is life.

When a divorce between a husband and a wife occurs, that is only the first divorce in a series of divorces.

I have pondered a lot on what my life was many years ago and what my life is now. I lost my home, I lost many friends, I lost my trust in people. This past Christmas I spent the day without my children. Many weekends are spent driving or flying my daughter to her dad's house 4 hours away. Traditional family vacations are a thing of the past...there is no "family" and there is no money. The divorce, or breakdown of my marriage - became the divorce, or breakdown of my life.

I had always loved being a stay at home mother. I usually found other ways to supplement the family income by teaching piano lessons, running after-school care, doing data entry for UPS out of my home, etc. But my main focus, my main happiness, came from being able to raise my children. To be a part of their lives. To organize movie day, or ice cream day, or craft day, or spic-and-span cleaning day. When the children were in school, I enjoyed volunteering there or at the nearby care center. I loved scrap booking with friends, doing book clubs, meeting for lunch. But when a divorce happens, you also divorce from all those things.

Being forced to go to work does not allow for volunteering at the school, or spending time with children on their days off. It does not allow for nurturing of relationships with other wives and mothers. I loved being a friend and having friends. Now any phone conversations are hurriedly done driving to and from the job.

In "the old days" I could talk for hours with friends on the phone - during the day while their husbands were at work. Now, my free time is when their husband is home and they are enjoying their family. Those two different lives don't mesh.

The home I lived in was suppose to be the home I lived in forever. It was large enough to house a growing family. It was on a nice street with amazing neighbors. It was the home my children had grown up in. But when divorce hits, the parents divorce...and then they must divorce the home.

So the divorce with my former husband was only the beginning of a series of divorces. A separation, a disunion of everything I knew and everything I loved.

I don't ever want anyone to experience this level of "divorce". Yet at the same time, I wish people could understand how traumatic the whole thing is. As the statistics continue to rise when it comes to divorce, I continue to become more uneasy. Every time a public official or a celebrity admits to looking away from his wife and children, I relive the devastation that occurred in my life. I feel for those women and those children. I know the road they will have to travel is long and hard and painful. And for each one of those women, who live their lives in the public eye, there are many more "ordinary" women who also fall under scrutiny. No, our faces may not be plastered on the television stations or the tabloids...but we are looked at differently by friends, by family, by church-goers.

Many don't want to think that they treat a divorced woman any different than they do a married woman...but that is not the case. Do I wish I could go back to what I believed to be my happy marriage. Of course, some days that is all I want. To have my life back. But I don't want the life that was a lie. I want the life I thought I was living.

More often than not, I am thankful to be in the space I am in. Even though I don't have anyone to roll over to when I wake up in the middle of the night...even though I rarely cook a decent meal because who is there to feed...even though I carry the burdens alone without a husband to help me shoulder them...I remain grateful. Grateful that my eyes are opened to the plight of many in this world. There are many in this world suffering much worse than I will every be asked to suffer. But I do know great loss. And because of this, my heart and eyes are opened to what suffering is. I am not a victim, I am just a human. A human who has been through one divorce with a man...but who had to also live through the pain of divorce in many other areas as well.

This post is not meant to depress, but to educate. One purpose of trials is to learn compassion. We all walk a rocky road...it is much easier if we choose to hold each other up.

Change

I have a wonderful friend in Sandy. Each August she would bring me a jar with a caterpillar in it. The children and I would watch it all day long. It would wrap itself in a cocoon and hang from the lid of the jar. The cocoon would eventually change to black and we knew the butterfly would emerge soon. As the cocoon began to split open, the most beautiful bright orange butterfly would come out. It was wet and sticky. It would slowly begin to flap its wings...faster and faster and faster until they were dry and it could fly away. In the beginning it stayed close by...even on my finger. Then it would gather the courage to fly to a nearby flower. After a short period of time we could see it flying far far away. Thank you Janette for always remembering us and letting us enjoy this process of change.

Victor Fankl said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." I learned a lot from this butterfly...for it changed itself in so many ways. So much changed as my marriage began to fall apart. I became caught in a vicious cycle of survival. I think because I was left alone, I went into overdrive...trying to overcompensate in so many areas of my life. Before I knew it, I found myself consumed on many levels...and unable to find a way out. I am kind of an all or nothing type of girl. I knew I needed a change. I knew I needed to get out of all the situations I was in. So I left. I literally picked up my children, picked up my belongings, and ran for my life.

Looking back, I still believe I made the best decision for me. Life is hard, maybe harder than before, maybe not. But it is hard. I changed everything.

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." - Anatole France

This is how I feel. How can you live somewhere for 16 years, how can you be married for twenty years, how can you look back and wonder if any of it was real? If it even ever happened. So here I sit, 45 years old, and once again trying to discover who I am. Trying to find my place in the world.

"The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." - Alan Watts. And so that is what I do. I join the dance. Millions of people have been where I am now...and millions more people will find themselves in this exact situation. I am not special, I am not unique.

The butterfly, unlike me, has a life span of only a couple of weeks. Hardly time to change the world or enjoy its life. So much struggle, so much beauty...and then poof, it is gone. I, on the other hand, am still here. It will be one year since I ran away on July 28 and I am still flying. Thanks to the butterflies, change and miracles are very visual to me. Change can be good...change can be life-saving. But personally I prefer stability, security, consistency. Hopefully that is what I can create for myself now. The change has happened, now I just want to settle down...and feel settled.

With a Little Love - Anything is Possible !!!!!

This is the foreclosure I bought a year ago. I bought it sight unseen. Imagine my face when I drove up to it for the first time! I was so excited because I love it when I see potential.

This is what it looks like now. I can't wait until next year...and the next...and the next as the flowers grow bigger and bigger. This home will only become more and more beautiful ♥







Anyone want to come for a visit? My door is always open to my friends who pass this way!