And then there was me

I moved out on a Friday. I had signed the lease the day before on the home that would officially separate me from my husband and I felt like I was moving in someone else’s body. I knew the motions to go through: pack the car, drive across town, unload the car, repeat. It took 5 trips to get everything I needed to the new house that day and I did it all while my husband was at work and the kids were at school. I couldn’t bear the thought of doing it with anyone looking on, not understanding why I was doing this. How could they understand? I was the only one fighting against the impossible current of an unhappy and unhealthy marriage. The kids remained cared for and nurtured, even in my white-knuckled grasp to survive. My husband remained oblivious to the reality that the bottom was falling out beneath us and comfortable enough with his blinders on that he couldn’t see his wife hanging off the side of the boat fighting for her life every day.

It wasn’t a surprise to him that I was moving out. I had told him 6 months earlier that I wanted a divorce. It was the day after his birthday and while the timing on my part was admittedly terrible, it was like a volcano waiting to erupt.

The embers had been smoldering in me for years and in the months before I told him the fire became uncontainable.

After I told him I wanted a divorce, we spent the next 6 months making last ditch efforts to salvage the unsalvageable and finally made the decision to sell our family home because neither of us could afford to carry the mortgage and our accumulated debt alone. The proceeds from the sale would allow each of us to start a new life debt free. At a minimum, a financial clean slate would help. That’s the only silver lining I could cling to.

So I told my husband on a Wednesday that I was signing a lease on my own the next day, and then put the wheels of my new life in motion. I did my best to ready the new space for my kids that weekend. I kept asking my soon-to-be ex husband to sit down with me to tell the kids what was happening. They deserved to have both parents telling them we were separating, and provide as much of a safety net as we could muster. I never wanted them to be collateral damage. But, he refused; there was always a reason why the timing wasn’t good for him. And so, that next Sunday I brought them to the new house, and got them settled into their new rooms. I never mentioned that this home would not be shared with their dad. Looking back, I would do so many things differently, but I hold a lot of grace for the version of me that made whatever decisions she did out of love and fear and confusion and hurt and hope that one day we’d see beauty on the other side of all this.

For two days, I made up excuses for why their dad wasn't there, hoping he'd step out of his anger long enough to put on a face of courage and hope for his children. But on a Tuesday evening in late January, I gave up on the idea of us providing a united front for the kids and I sat with each of them separately on our new back porch to tell them their dad wouldn’t be joining us in this home. I did my best (which wasn’t very good at all) to explain that we were both going to love them just the same but that life was going to be different, emphasis on loving them no matter what.

We all went to sleep that night wondering why and how and what and all the questions that held no answers for any of us. I laid down alone in a bed meant for two and whispered into the dark, and then there was me.

Three days later I dropped the kids off at their dad’s for the first weekend of the rest of their lives with two homes. One with their mom and one with their dad. I cried the whole way back to the empty house waiting for me. The kind of tears that flow hard and fast under the weight of all the unknowns ahead. The only thing I knew for sure was that we would be ok. I didn't know how, and "ok" felt as far away as the horizon, but I knew I would make sure we got there. I pulled into the driveway of my new home, walked inside to the deafening quiet of solitude and heartbreak and sat on the floor, letting the wall hold me up. The tears came again as they would so many times that weekend and I settled into the overwhelming loneliness of and then there was me.

It’s been 3 years and 5 months since we all began living a life split wide open and started carefully stitching the pieces back together. There are patches over patches as my kids and I have learned how to navigate our relationships with each other through lenses of confusion and anger and resentment. Those big, hard feelings gradually gave way to grace and patience and a commitment to love each other no matter what. I’ve had to remind myself over and over that a commitment to love is a long game and comes with struggles and challenges that catch you off guard and leave you breathless and empty. Commitment to love. The irony of that statement is not lost on me, the one that walked away from a marriage I committed my heart to 18 years earlier.

But the thing is, I finally realized that I had committed to loving myself first and that love for myself had died a thousand deaths until I no longer recognized the things that had once brought me joy.

I wasn't writing, I wasn't running, I wasn't reading. I wasn't seeking community and investing in friendship. The vast canyon between the girl who said “I do” and the woman who said “I won’t” was so great that the echos of a life once lived fully were barely audible. I felt like someone had scrambled the universe and I got lost in the shuffle. How far can you drift away from your own life without actually going anywhere?

And now here I am. The beauty on the other side. There’s been so much hard work to get here, so many stories of lessons learned waiting to be shared. But every single second, every impossible conversation, every ounce of pain I was convinced I couldn’t bear has been worth it. The things I once loved and lost are making their way back into my hands again and that impossible, dried out canyon is no longer a source of shame.

Canyons are actually beautiful when you stand on the edge in awe of what it took to form them.

Writing and reading are anchoring my soul again. Friendship and community are once again reciprocal spaces where the sacred of our lives is shared and no one walks alone. I've taken up new hobbies, stretched myself with new adventure and have fallen in love with the woman I am today. When the kids go to their dad’s I no longer search for something to numb the ache of their absence. Today I close the door, trusting that they know they are loved without measure or condition, and I take a deep breath filled with grace and love and exhale with the beauty of a life I am so proud to be living.

With so much gratitude for and then there was me.