I want to go home.

Photo attribution here. 

My parents divorced when I was eight. My mom took my siblings and I out of school early one day after they separated and we left on a "vacation" never to return. We stayed in California for a bit with family, then moved to Utah for a year or two. After that, the siblings that hadn't chosen to move back to my dad's house, my mom, my step dad and new little brother along with two of my five step sisters moved back to California into a place where there are three types of people. 1. The law. (Cops who don't want to raise their kids in LA so they make the 2 hours commute daily) 2. Those hiding from their past or the law. (Can't tell you how many kids from my high school there have died of an overdose. So sad.) and 3. Members of the witness protection program. I wish that was a joke, but it's not. Rural and isolated don't even begin to describe the bizarre universe that was my home for seven years.

By the time I hit my late teens I decided I would be better off living with my dad again. On my 17th birthday I packed up and transferred schools in the middle of my junior year of high school. It was not a smooth transition. I kept telling myself that I was just going to leave for college soon anyway, so I didn't want or need to make any connections there. After that phase there has been ten years of bouncing from one idea, one place, one school, one beach to another. 

Being quite unlike most Mormons I know, but loving the gospel with gusto, I have always felt an intense longing for my people. This coupled with my transient past made for an intense desire to find my place in the world. The long story short of that saga culminated (or so I thought) in my marriage to The Mr. and moving into our apartment in Long Beach, CA. I had finally, finally, finally found my place in the world. For a short time I lived this moment where I was satisfied with the life I'd created. I had found my home. 

Part of grieving my divorce is reconciling the loss of that brief moment of my place in the universe being found. I spent last summer in California with Sassy McLadyBoots and, after my first day of work as a nanny for the summer, felt this intense urge to drive "home" as I had hundreds of times after my nanny job in the neighboring city during my married life. I braved the traffic and spent the 45 minutes in the commute I made daily as a wife. I pulled up and parked next to the apartment complex I left my heart in and sat for a time. I then spent an afternoon walking the streets of the abandoned foundation of my marriage. After that, I wrote this:

July First, Twenty Thirteen

I am in love with the city of Long Beach

This one time I was married to a man who couldn’t see me. I’m tall and bright and was standing right there, so by all accounts it doesn’t add up. When we married we settled in Long Beach, California. To him it was rough enough around the edges and equidistant from our places of employment. To me it was everything that’s right with the world. The third day of house hunting he told me to make up my mind already. God picked me up that day after work and set me down on the corner of 3^rd and Junipero and in that moment, I knew.

Constructed in the 1920s, Spanish tile roof with hardwood floors, crystal doorknobs and quirky neighbors. When I brought him to it that night in spastic adoration the courtyard was lit with twinkle lights and inhabited by lovely lesbians sipping a red wine over cigarettes.

After moving in I at first mistook my enthusiasm for the city as just another element of the blissful sneaker wave of matrimony crashing down around me and turning everything upside down. This satiated longing in my gypsy soul explains at least partially why it took me so long to notice and accept that in the beginning he was just “tired”, then distant, then angry, then mean. He moved back to his neck of the woods, and in an ultimately self-sacrificial demonstration I pulled myself, kicking and screaming from the only place I could ever, in truth, call home.

Today I walk the streets heartsick and sobered, but inescapably on the verge of an orgasm of the soul at the sheer perfection that is my city. Ocean waves, calm and gentle lapping at the shore; kiss after kiss after caress the sea makes endless love to my city. Latin lovers have salsaed themselves into tree nymphs. Her leafy hair still holds the blossom. His skin on the branches that suspend her in perpetual elegance is smooth like glass. Stained glass in the windows of the churches of every denomination.  Tibetan Christians, Lutherans, Muslims. Thick air settles in your car, your hair, your skin – sticky, like a memory you just can’t shake.

The buildings are corporate and creaking, stable and filthy, artful and average, because here in my kingdom by the sea, you can be anything you want to be. Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and yoga in the park, open to the public and interrupted by a pickup game of soccer. A sexy, sweaty, stinky group of dark eyed Latinos at home scoring goals in my city.

The birds of paradise and palm trees are jazzercising in fluorescent purple, green and orange; sweating it out with the rest of us. The air is dirty and the cars are clean and glistening in the sun – or they’re not. The food is unapologetic in its -love me or leave me- essence and the freeways mock your impatience and lazily roar curses in stereotypically colorful language. Even the garbage cans lining streets are purple.

And everywhere I go in this town, so starkly juxtaposed, I see him and me. That endlessly awkward night at dinner. The time he slept in the car. The long walk I took down the pier when he started to change, desperate to clear my head of early signs of warning. The alley where we both giggled and kissed for the engagement shoot, and loaded up the moving van. The place I stared while we sat in our car and he told me he couldn’t love me if I couldn’t start being happy.

These memories, these blackened, charcoal, cancer coated moments growing stale in a dying corner of my mind—these are the only things I do not love about my city. These are the only things I would change.

I was married only a moment compared to the average divorcee, but I understand at least a taste of the sense of loss of place. I went to a support group once where a woman talked about the hours she'd spent driving around in her car, not wanting to return to her disrupted home and life. That's an element of this road we walk. Will I ever return to Long Beach to build my life again? 

Maybe. 

Or maybe not.

So much there I love and so much there I can't recover. I'll tell you what though, wherever I end up, however it goes, I'll make a life worth loving. I'll find my hardwood floors and crystal doorknobs in a brand new city full of streets I haven't walked, food I've never tasted, challenges yet to be discovered, miracles I have not yet fathomed, dust that's never settled over my not-yet-discovered vintage treasures, and people I have not yet had a chance to love, but I will love them. I'm going to keep loving, looking for and building the good and the best. Because despite the way I've been hurt, that's still who I am. That's who I choose to be.  

The Best Worst Day of My Life

Somewhere in the early days when all I could think to myself was, "When will this feel less like a semi just hit my life?" I was consulting the all powerful Google and found this admittedly arbitrary formula. Recovery time from a divorce averages about one half the length of the marriage. 10 years marriage = 5 years recovery and so on, so I planted the seed in the back of my mind that I would give myself the first full year to focus almost entirely on healing myself up, and I have.

This is the year I will always remember as the year I slept just as much as my body asked me to, which sometimes meant going straight to bed at 6pm and waking up 14 hours later. I ate any and every thing I wanted and I let myself talk about my experience endlessly, processing it out of me by virtue of sheer repetition. I bought myself presents --nice dresses and red high heels, jewelry, and a guitar. I took myself on weekend trips, road trips, trips to the theater and movies and beach. I bought myself a reliable car and moved back to the home I'd left in a hope to appease The Mr. Then, I allowed my soul to let go of 9/10 of my earthly possessions to pursue my education (another luxury out of reach to married Frowfrow) in the two things I love most - art and teaching...in Hawaii, and when a beautiful African man said to me, in his adorable accent, "Come outside, I'm going to kiss you." I said, "Okay."

To some this year may seem overly indulgent or self centered, but it has been exactly what I needed to get my sea legs back.  I had to learn that I can take care of myself. I can meet my needs. There isn't a man alive that can fix the broken parts of me, and I can stop looking, because Jesus and I are enough. My poor little terrified, broken heart and soul have been quieted, soothed, cradled and nurtured back into functionality, and I must say, today, 365 days after the best worst day of my life, I am thankful for what's happened.

I was making up a whiteboard for the students at work the other day and came across these wise words from the mouth of Oprah. "True forgiveness is when you can say, 'Thank you for that experience'." I cannot say I am grateful for every aspect of what the past three years of my life have been like, but last night when I was talking to God about the whole thing, this is some of the list we were able to come up with:

I'm thankful that I learned so much about myself through this experience,  that I now have a much deeper understanding of the importance of my own needs, hopes, dreams and establishing boundaries. I'm thankful that I get another chance at life, and that being in an unhealthy marriage helped me to see more clearly the things that are most important to me in life. I'm thankful that I know how much I love being a wife and how much I love having a husband. I'm thankful that I was married -- that someone, at least at some point, loved me enough to ask me to be his wife and that I had the time I did in Long Beach as a newly wed. I loved that short season in my life so immensely.

I'm thankful that dating again has opened my eyes to the things I did to contribute to the problems in my marriage and that I have all the time I need to work through those issues and becomes a healthier individual. I'm thankful that The Mr. had the courage to put a final stop to everything, and that he has been very respectful of my request that he not contact me again. I'm thankful for the new world that has opened up to me with possibilities that were once completely off the table. I'm thankful for all the long hours those who love me have put in with me--helping me move, inviting me over, flying me out for a visit, taking me out for an adventure, sitting in with me for the night, all the talking, all the prayers, all the hope and all the love. I'm thankful for the incredibly cathartic, healing experience writing this blog has been for me, and ultimately, beyond any other blessing to come from this experience I'm thankful that I have new understanding of exactly what my Savior is willing to go through, just for me.

So thanks for being a part of this first year of recovery. Thanks for reaching out to help me know I am not so alone in this unexpected stage of my life, and thank you, thank you, thank you that the first year is finally over. : )

Pick Up Your Pen

Photo attribution here.

I remember going in to work the day after The Mr. made his official declaration that he was done. I could have called in sick, but knew that if I stayed home that day I would just lie motionless on my bed, staring into the great black abyss of my future stopping only occasionally to wail like a banshee, useless phrases like, "Why don't you love meeeeeeeeee?" I chose door number two, behind which was an incredibly challenging five year old boy with behavioral issues out the wazoo with whom I was to spend hours playing pirates.

The memory is of me sitting on the floor in his living room. It was day one of Operation Don't Die of a Broken Heart. I listlessly watched the clock and congratulated myself every time 10 minutes passed. Minutes became hours, became days, became weeks and as the months crept on I began to formulate plans. Plans to get away. If I hadn't been completely broke, with an unreliable car, a year lease I'd just signed in a place chosen due to proximity to his work, and a commitment to stay at my nanny gig through the school year, I would have been gone faster than an ice cream sundae from my fridge at that time--which is essentially faster than the speed of light. And let's be honest, if even one of the above inhibiting factors had been absent I would have high tailed it to my beloved California directly following his "I don't"s.

To be brief regarding my love affair with California, it began in February of 2010. Knowing only that I had had quite enough of BYU for the time being and that I loved Sassy McLadyBoots, my friend who so brilliantly decided we should room together in our adorable apartment mere miles from the ocean, I embarked upon the 17 hour journey and immediately was smitten. When The Mr. and I married we moved up the road to Long Beach and lived in what I can only assume will always be my favorite apartment. Hardwood floors, big windows, Spanish style building built in the 1920s, crystal doorknobs, all just blocks from the beach and 1/2 an hour from anything we could ever wish for. Anything, that is, besides the broken bits of our dysfunctional families.

This fact was more than awesome for me, but as time went on The Mr. became more adamant that we return to his comfort zone. Under duress I complied, which ultimately left me where this entry began; broker than broke, utterly defeated, a soulless shadow of my funky, artful self and dying to get away. Back to the sunshine. Back to the ocean. Back to the place where I didn't spend my time wondering how I could make things even slightly less hellacious, but still not break a covenant.

Myself at 19 years old would have jumped ship and made the move on day one, but Lindsay of today has jumped ship enough times to know that a sinking ship is still drier than the ocean and strategy is far more likely to begat success. I saved my pennies, paid off the debts, worked my ass off and waited for the minutes, hours, weeks and months to pass. Get up. Go to work. Come home. Eat mind numbing food. Sleep. Repeat.

With the exception of a few beautiful souls sent to me from God, it was not a happy time. But it served its purpose because today, my friends, today I write to you from the living room of Sassy McLadyBoots herself where I currently reside. The sun is shining, the pool is clear and inviting, the streets are familiar, and the cells in my body feel like they're making that noise that Wally makes when he charges up in that weird movie about how technology makes us obease... you know the noise I mean?... I'm a nanny. Don't judge me.

From this glorious new place of rebirth, these are the things I have to tell you...so far.

1. Getting "away from it all" and "following your heart/dreams/passions/something shiny" are beautiful, important concepts imbedded deep in the human psyche for survival and while the grass may be greener here--or really there are just more palm trees which totally trumps grass anyway-- my second day here I nearly had a panic attack and the third day I cried like a baby and for twenty minutes thought The Mr. was my soul mate.

2. Seasonal Affective Depression is real, and one should never forcefully remove another from her ideal climate.

3. I spent the week long road trip down here and the last three days shopping in thrift stores with awesome friends and sewing my acquired purchases into fabulousness. This only solidifies the lesson God has been trying to teach me through the incredibly painful medium of a failed marriage that He made His kids the way He did on purpose. The things I want and like, the things that make me laugh or sneeze or nauseous are essential characteristics of His creation. Minimizing, ignoring or attempting to remove these seemingly insignificant or incidental elements is insulting to Him and only brings me down. Others who minimize or attempt to eradicate these elements also offend God. I'm His piece of art. It's no one's place to shape me but His.

4. When the moments come that bring up old (or perhaps very recent) stuff, that's okay. Here's what you do about that; you notice it, you take a deep breath, and you let it go. My mama taught me that, and you know what? She's right.

5. While not every Devout Yet Divorced Mormon can pack up and haul herself off to a sunnier destination-- I do recognize the intensely blessed position I am currently in-- I whole heartedly believe there is always, always, always a way to change things for the better. Always.

So keep your head up. Find what it is you look forward to and walk towards that, big or small. Be especially forgiving, loving, kind and generous to yourself during this time. Pick up your pen and start filling the pages. You are the hero of this story.

I like banjos.

Photo attribution here.

Something magic started happening recently. I was sitting around by myself one day, as I most often am, thinking, as is always the case. A happiness monster was sitting in my heart, chewing her happiness gum. She slowly blew a big fat bubble of joy and it rose up in front of me, getting bigger and bigger until it stood in front of me, equally as tall and twice as wide as me. The bubble of joy then burst and covered me entirely in a sort of a sticky bliss, as sweet as pie and twice as enjoyable.

That's the best I've got for describing what life's been like lately. Highlights from today so far: 

Sleeping in (that would be enough, but the list goes on!)

Some yoga and meditation in the morning and a breakfast of homemade carrot ginger juice.

A trip to the farmer's market where I purchased myself fava beans, sugar snap peas, a small bunch of asparagus, the most sumptuous salmon you will ever lay eyes on and a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, just for me, not to mention the most adorable jar of honey for my boss's birthday on Monday.

A trip to Target where a very cute employee (bearded, of course) offered to help me discern the price of my new adorable Important Things folder I've purchased in preparation for my move to Hawaii.

A delicious lunch of asparagus grilled with apples, pine nut couscous, water with mint leaves and the salmon from the market. It was every bit as delicious as anticipated. 

(This one is part of the meal, but was so freaking delicious that it gets its own bullet point.) Banana chocolate swirl Talenti gelato for dessert. I am pretty sure that half pint I just consumed was better than most of the sex I've had. All this to a backdrop of William Elliott Whitmore and various musicians provided by Pandora, all quite adept with a banjo and/or harmonica. I may or may not have done a hillbilly, knee kicking dance while I was grilling my apples and asparagus.

This is kind of a new thing for me-- being able to enjoy myself. At least it was submerged for quite some time in my recent past. The way it all started was that I began letting myself dream again. 

At first I just had this assumption that The Mr. and I would have the same dreams. A few love drunk conversations we'd had while cuddled up and cozy between kisses before he left on his mission had sprouted within me the idea that we wanted the same things. Part of The Mr.'s charm is his odd and fragmented way of speaking, especially in his letters. While they were chalk full of phrases like, "You are the apple of my eye and the reason some people think I'm asthmatic," they were essentially void of much that I could build on. So, being the romantic, creative, hopeful, optimistic girl I am, I started building ideas and expectations all on my own. I'm a dreamer, a planner, a romantic and an adventurer. Somewhere along the line between, "I met this cute bearded guy," and, "He says he doesn't want to be married anymore," I came to the heartbreaking realization that absolutely none of what we wanted out of life was the same. My attempt at resolving this during those years sandwiched between the aforementioned statements was to start tossing cargo out of the sinking ship. I didn't really need  to travel, did I? Maybe it was okay for me to get pregnant before I was done with school. Who really needs a bachelors degree? Or a husband who understands her sense of style, her jokes or her intense devotion to all things retro?

I often use the term, "ghost of myself," when I describe me at that time. It's the most accurate description I've got. Now, there's got to be some level of compromise in marriage. Two separate beings becoming one is a process, to be sure...but how far is too far?

Today the pendulum has swung as far back into Frowfrow Land as it can possibly go, and I am thoroughly enjoying the experience. Somewhere between today and the moments I experienced in September of 2012 there is a happy medium that I hope to find again someday, but today I want to say this. I believe it is the nature of certain individuals to give too much. It's a hard thing to be in these shoes, because we live in a religious culture that champions charity, sacrifice, service, selflessness, submission, obedience and devotion. I believe in cultivating these virtues, but today I need to say, God wants us to stand up for ourselves as well. He wants us to be treated well. He wants us to be healthy. He wants us to be kind and loving and helpful, and He wants us to be unrelenting in our stance that we are worth it too. What we want, need, love, learn and laugh at is just as important as the next guy. We don't have to be second citizens to be in God's good graces. There is a balance there, and God wants us to find it. Too far to the selfish side is no worse than too far to the giving side. God wants His babies souls intact. 

See? Even this cat is sad for me.

Photo attribution here. 

Part of the reason I started this blog is because there are few things in existence scarier to the freshly traumatized mind than the unknown. In the first few weeks of my breakup (and sometimes still) all I could ask those who had boldly gone before me was, "How long does this part last?" This blog is many things. An attempt to sooth your involuntarily frantic four year old soul by providing a basic trajectory for how things may or may not play out for you, is one of them. In that light, I invite you to please look the other way while I tell you how I really feel this day, about 4 2/3 months into divorce recovery. You may want to grab a little cheese to go with this whine.

I present to you, Ten Reasons I Have a Right to Feel Sorry for Myself:

1. My bike has been sitting on my deck in a state of slight disrepair for the last 6 months. The Mr. has the tools and know how for fixing my bike. I clearly cannot purchase tools or learn to repair it myself, and therefore cannot ride my bike.  (Appropriate responses to this may include, "Poor baby", "That scoundrel!" or, "I'd be happy to come do that for you!")

2. Everywhere I go in this town that I never wanted to move to in the first place is plagued with memories of my miserable life with The Mr. 98% are awkward and/or sad. 2% are happy. Either way I'm screwed.

3. I have watched every episode of Bones, transferring any inkling of hope I had for the male species onto the character Booth. (Don't judge! It was January in the dreary Northwest!) Not only am I up to date on the series and have to wait an entire week for an episode now, but I watched an interview and David Boreanaz is inexcusably and irredeemably idiotic .  *Bonus: I just googled his name to make sure I got the spelling right and the first autofill was, "David Boreanaz affair" followed by "David Boreanaz affair texts". Really? Texts? In the words of Meg Ryan in the film French Kiss, "All men are bastards."

4. I have absolutely no hope of getting laid in the foreseeable future.

5. Not only will I not be getting laid, but my shrink has advised that I should not date for the full year following my divorce because...

6. ...divorce rates apparently actually increase from the astounding failure rate of 50% for first marriages to something like 60% of second marriages and 70% of third. (He attributes this tragedy to rebound marriages, hence the year off.)

7. While #6 is really bad enough on its own, renowned psychologist, Dr. John Gottman who's got over 25 years worth of longitudinal studies on marriage under his belt relates in his latest book that people who remain alone after ending a relationship are a bazillion times more likely to have health problems related to loneliness... and die.

8. While I was typing just now, my cat dove face first into my pineapple salsa.

9. I won't be having sex tomorrow. I also won't be having sex on Monday. Did I mention sex is my favorite?

and

10. According to my shrink I have every legitimate reason to be sad, angry and upset. This will only dissipate with time.

So here's to me passing another evening with chips, a fresh bowl of salsa and some Netflix, sans Boreanaz, I can assure you. I'll let you know when my state improves. In the mean time you just feel free to think lots of thoughts like, "That poor Frowfrow girl, she deserves to win the lottery," only I don't play the lottery, another downer. You really shouldn't waste your positive intentions like that.

Maybe month five will be better?

She took a deep breath, and let it go.

So, funny story. Directly after composing the post below about the detrimental effects of contacting ones former spouse I had a week of ridiculous and illogical intense desires to contact my former spouse.

I was at my parent's house for Easter Sunday. Among the updates from Lady Pants (my step mom) and The Padre (what my little sis has always called my dad <3) was an offhand comment about how The Mr. had called Lady Pants one day on his lunch break saying he wanted to talk with her and The Padre. They weren't able to find a time, and that is the full extent of that story. The End. But somehow that is what commenced my downward spiral into the sinking kind of thoughts. Thoughts that, even inside my own head, sounded like an old, recorded version of myself talking to me. Sentences that start with; why, when, will he and I wonder spouted off in my head like those twirling sprinklers you ran through when you were young enough to put on a bathing suit without sucking in your tummy. The thoughts splashed about in my mind for a couple days 'till I was playing blocks with the kid I nanny on Tuesday and had this nearly overwhelming urge to grab my phone and text The Mr.

I know! Right?!

So I'm totally the girl that, when things are hard, just indulges her natural inclinations... like the inclination to eat popcorn, ice cream and cereal all day while marathoning my way through all 7.5 seasons of Bones. Or the inclination to buy myself a cheer up dress. Or the inclination to marry a man I hardly know because he's soooo cute and quirky. But this natural inclination, I am happy to report, I smashed the way a girly girl abolishes from existence the daddy long legs she discovers in her shower; frantically, and with great force. Therefore, I have the following tips for my fellow divorcees.

When you are struck with the desire to reach out... do it! But not to your ex. Send out a request to ten people who love you to remind you why you divorced the person you once loved and why you are better off without that person... on the double. I have now, conveniently located in my smart phone, an extensive list of incompatibilities to reflect on in moments of the logic stifling tsunamis of post-divorce-brain struggling to put the pieces back together.

Also, I discovered a secret weapon. This is for both the ladies and gents out there. Regardless of the fact that Pintrest is a corner of cyberspace largely navigated by women, it's a powerful tool! I now have at my fingertips a smattering of sassy, empowering quotes, images of beautiful places and things to bask in, and an entire page dedicated specifically to faces and physiques that could make a girl forget her first name, let alone her first marriage. All this and more to redirect my attention when the memories of the happy days get thick, for the low low price of a smart phone that I will not be using to call my ex-husband.

Also, in church on Sunday we kicked off a lesson on the value of the Priesthood in the home with Families Can Be Together Forever - thanks for that. My fight or flight is really more of a run away or cry - impulse and it kicked in immediately. Do not distress though my friends. I made, "I hate all the orphans in the world," my mantra throughout the lesson, and you know what? It worked! Who knew my advice would turn out to be so useful to me ; )

Hang tough. Some weeks are (apparently) rougher than others, but any way you slice it, it's another week between what is and what was.

If you love me at all, don't call.

When we first broke up the thought that The Mr. and I would somehow stop being involved all together was so mind boggling I just refused to accept it. I told him I thought it would be helpful for us both if we could kind of check in with each other from time to time, support each other.

This was my grand idea for how to get healthy after two years of a toxic marriage, and this is why God invented therapists.

I have this friend who is, in many ways, 100 times more interesting than me, but in many other ways we're like two peas in a pod. She expressed one of my favorite similarities perfectly at a friend's wedding a while back. She had just been spilling her guts to who I think was someone's parents that she'd met ten minutes before...? I don't really know that she was sure herself. She turned to me at a break in the conversation and said, "Whatever it is that makes people afraid to open up and talk about themselves, I think I have the opposite of that."

Which is why it should come as no surprise to you that one day in therapy I asked, in a slew of angsty, concerned, frantic questions, "But, I mean, should I keep talking to him? Like, maybe we could support each other through this! Maybe it would help us both to..." I'm sure I would have continued, but Professor Rationality (Let's call my shrink that. He's so very logical.) could have knocked me over with his cocked eyebrow.

"Why would you do that?" he said, his voice kind but dry. "It's over."

And you know what? He's right.

One of the best things I've ever done is decide to cut off contact with The Mr. as much as I can manage. There's the occasional text about a lease agreement or some detail about his Harley, but it has been at least a good solid month, maybe two, since I've taken his call. I can say unequivocally that it has been a profound step in my healing.

I mention this because I know this can be a big thing for some people. To be divorced is to have a relationship with someone that is likely the most intimate relationship you've ever experienced, while simultaneously being irrefutably toxic. The dichotomy is enough to disorient you and cause you to wonder if your should trust your own judgement several times over. At this moment in time, take it from me, four months (today!) in and going strong... or not so strong... or terribly weak at times, but going nonetheless!

Don't call him (or her).

Don't call him, and don't pick up when he calls you. Don't text him, especially when you're angry, and don't respond to his bitter or pitiful texts. Don't email her. Don't page her. Don't write him a letter. Don't send the Pony Express. Even a telegraph is out of the question. In every situation that it may seem remotely feasible just say no. 

I recognize some of you out there have children and joint custody and mortgages and such to work through. My heart goes out to you for all the challenges this must present. My advice is to find the system that works best for you with the least amount of direct contact possible and stick to it. (*Side note from 8 year old me: Dear divorced parents, Communicating through children is a terrible idea. One day they're going to grow up and realize what you did. Love, a child of divorced parents who communicated through her.) There is nothing more likely to mess you up in the head than poking around in a dead marriage.

Divorce means the end. Forever. Thank God for that! Even if you don't feel like it at first, build the habit. He'll show you ways to be grateful for it.

One of the things that my mom told me that was true could be paraphrased thusly: When you fill your life with the subpar and that which does not serve you, you have no room for the magnificent or for that which brings you joy.

You can do it. Let it go. Say goodbye. Open you your life to greater possibilities. You deserve better.