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!

Beauty Divided

Today I learned something new. I work a couple of mornings a week with the very darling Nelda. She is a young and active 94 year old. This morning she decided we would divide her African Violets. We carried the pots to the back porch and filled them with the soil made especially for African Violets. We took the large and overgrown one out of its pot....and began to divide it. I was amazed how easily it came apart. The plant had multiplied so there were five separate plants crammed into that one pot. We pulled off the lower limbs, placed them in the special pots Nelda had made in her ceramics class, and added the soil.



We then added the African Violet food to the water and filled the bottom pot with it. I had carried out one plant in one pot...but I carried in 5 plants in 5 pots. It was beautiful to see how the beauty was divided. Just as it was a new start for those pretty purple flowers, it was a new start for me. I learned something new and I have one more thing on my to-do list...buy myself an African Violet!

I Am Different Now

I am different now. Some days I look back and I think, "What the #%$@ happened to my life." I was happy way back when. I was a wife and a mother. That is what I longed for in this world. I volunteered, I scrap booked, I did family history. I baked, I lunched, I cleaned, I served. I did all the things that brought me, as a woman, satisfaction. We women are nurturers. It is not in my nature to bring home the bacon. Yet here I am, running to and fro, doing what I can to financially survive divorce and single parenthood.

I am not in a bad place in my life. That is to say that things could be a whole lot worse. I live in a nice house that I made into a home. It doesn't quite feel like home yet, but I do love to walk around and look and touch and smell all the things that I have brought into these four walls or planted outside. I marvel that I created this place. A place for me and for mine. But I am still new here. I am still adjusting to this new place on the cul-de-sac, but more importantly, this new place in life.

Each day I tend to listen a little more and speak a little less. At one time I thought I knew it all, understood it all, had it all. But then I realized I know very little and understand even less. And the only things I have are those that my Heavenly Father has decided to share with me.

I have been blessed over the last few months to spend time with some of the more "seasoned" individuals in this world. They sometimes say little, but the words they do speak hold significant meaning. They are not afraid to tell me I am seeing things wrong or heading the wrong direction. I listen, unoffended, taking in their wise counsel. Knowing they have been where I now stand. Knowing that although the world has changed significantly, the truths still hold.

I enjoy learning. Life experience has taught me so much. I like who I am now. I still wish for a gentleman to share my life with, but I like that I don't feel as if I have the world by the tail. I like that with the sorrows has come humility. A dependence on the Lord and on others.

I am truly being transformed.

Sometimes I am happy I have forgotten the old me. Sometimes I wish I could have a do-over. But that is not what this life is about. If anything, I can see progress. And to me progress makes everything okay. As Maya Angelou once said, "When you know better, you do better." Sometimes we are the teacher, and sometimes we are the student. But never should we be only one. If we are only the teacher, we miss out on a world of learning. And if we are only the student, we do not share that which we have learned.

I am different now, but that is okay. My only hope is that I am better. Better than before.