"I'm blessed."

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm turning 29 years old. Twenty nine. The number that comes right before thirty. I spent a couple years living in the midwest of the US. When you ask someone how she's doing today in Missouri she'll reply, "I'm blessed." Today I have to say, there is no more accurate a description for my current state.

It's funny. When I got home from my mission and immediately threw myself headlong into The Mr. (who was leaving for his mission in 30 days and counting) I was 23 years old. I spent two years waiting for him, three months dating/engaged to him, two years married to him, one year grieving him, and now... I'm here. I applied to this campus fresh out of high school. There was nothing discernibly wrong with my application, but they firmly bid me good day, even after petitioning my rejection letter. Not to be deterred I applied again at the age of 20, and was likewise rejected. This third application to get my education in an isolated, paradise, safe haven was the the dialysis treatment that allowed new hope to start pumping through my crusty old cat loving, divorced lady veins. When I got my acceptance letter I literally, immediately dropped to my knees and cried and sobbed and gushed out thanks to my benevolent God for my chance to start this new life.

When people here guess how old I am, I find it an interesting coincidence that they almost always guess 23 years old. It's like I've been transported to another universe where I applied to Hawaii instead of Provo when I came home from my mission and the whole thing with The Mr. never even happened.

But unfortunately, it did happen, and sometimes I get really stuck in the sadness of it all, the wrongness, the injustice, the tragedy. I find myself re-impailing myself over the same broken, distorted memories again and again: trying to discern where it started to go wrong, wondering if there were things going on I missed, recalling the way his voice sounded when he called me to say, "I don't love you anymore," wondering how I could have ever been so stupid.  This is a terrible habit that I do not recommend and lately I've gotten almost overwhelmingly fed up with the deep mental groove this pattern has worn in my synapses and psyche, and I've been making my most conscientious efforts to change it. Today I experienced some success.

I've mentioned this before, but it's in one of the first posts here, which was almost a year ago now, so I feel like I'm justified in revisiting the concept. It's something I need to be reminded of again and again. Sometimes we get so caught up in the wrongness of what happened. I find I can almost feel guilty or inauthentic being okay, healing, moving on, even being glad or grateful for it. Today was a beautiful reminder that it's okay to be okay. As I walked to class today instead of fretting about my long dead love life with The Mr. and how I might have saved it if I had only…I thought about how he was strongly opposed to me going back to school to finish my bachelors degree. I thought about all the times  he was completely emotionally disconnected when we had sex and how empty I felt after. I thought about the time I got pregnant, how I was going to tell him I was expecting, but before I could he sat me down and told me he was almost at the end of his rope in our relationship. I thought about how the stress, panic and anxiety I felt during that pregnancy was so palpable it may as well have been a bowling ball, unexpectedly careening around my world. I remembered the cruel way he responded to me in my desperate loneliness and depression during my miscarriage, and then I thought about how that baby would be just over one year old now, and how different my life would be if she were.

After all that I thought: Thank God. Thank God I went through a divorce. Thank God I don't have that kind of life irrevocably laid out before me. Thank God I get a second chance. 

I am 29 years old in one day and counting and I get to spend hours a day with charcoal and clay, learning chants in Hawaiian and planning trips to leave the country, learn languages, build businesses and dream as big and as free or as small and as me as I want. I am the luckiest girl. The luckiest, and it's okay for me to feel it. It's okay for me to let it be.

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.

The hardest part is over.

Photo attribution here.

Six months ago today I came home from work to a cold, empty, dark apartment where everything I had left that morning was in the exact same place that I'd left it. The stillness that had at first comforted me because of its stark contrast to the chaos that had overtaken my married life was then a resounding, deafening hollowness. Sitting at that silent kitchen table I tore open the notice from the courthouse. I stared at it for a few full minutes. Final. Eight short days after filing the paperwork my divorce was final. My face was like a garden hose with a few pinholes in it during those months. I hardly noticed when the tears were streaming out anymore. Two small, slow, uneven streams raced down my cheeks once again to see who could slip and splat down onto my chest first. I stood outside myself for a time and took a mental snap shot of that moment, then sighed and went straight to bed.

Those days I was like someone on the brink of dying of thirst who had fashioned herself a contraption of leaves to collect enough rain water to take a gulp, distancing herself from death.one moment at a time, one drop at a time, one gulp at a time. I didn't think I had it in me. If there had been an escape button I would have hit it. I would have cried "uncle", called in sick, lied my way out of it, quit, gotten a doctor's note, anything I could think of I would have done in an effort to excuse myself from the living hell that was collecting moments to test the hypothesis that "time heals all wounds". But that's the thing about healing up from tragedy. We can't go over it, we can't go under it, we can't go around it, we have to go through it.

To all those who are going through their own personal "it"s, know this: I wouldn't trade beautiful little ordinary old today for any given day of my married life. It does get better, drop by drop by drop.

I don't understand.

Photo attribution here.

The most universal question in this Devout yet Divorced community must be the question of why?  Why did I let this happen? Why did she do this to me? Why didn't I see it coming? And inevitably we throw God in the mix, like most of us did when we were getting into this mess. Why, when I asked God if I should marry my ex did He not say no?

It was two years in the making for me, asking that question. I'd been faithfully awaiting the day when he would come home from his mission and pop the Q. I was absolutely dying for him to while simultaneously being scared out of my mind. (I mentioned the track record for my parent's marriages, yes?) What this confusing combination culminated in was a sincere, but kind of haphazard moment stolen at work, of all places, where I directly asked God if I should marry the man I had long ago devoted myself to. His response was interesting. What He said was, "You can. It's going to be difficult, but you can." I quickly interpreted this to mean - you will probably have financial troubles. The Mr. hadn't gone to college yet. *Note: That's not what God said. But was I troubled with such trivial things as what I was certain would only be monetary? Of course not. All you need is love. If that was good enough for John Lennon, it was good enough for me. The thoughts that The Mr. could ever be anything but adoring, devoted and endearing, or that John Lennon likely was a bazillionaire when he wrote that song had not even entered my twiterpated consciousness.

Getting married after a short courtship is a gamble. I won't speak out completely against it, because I've seen it work out. However, there is no avoiding the fact that it is irrefutably, undeniably, (to me now) terrifyingly a gamble. So if this gamble was destined to work out so tragically for me, could God have said something like, "Absolutely not," or, "Sure, but it's a terrible idea and will break your heart and end in divorce," instead of, "You can, but it will be difficult"? After all, Latter Day Saint women are up for difficult. Our lives are built on the backs of pioneers who walked across thousands of miles of frozen ground without shoes, burying their babies along the way while their husbands were off on missions. Difficult? We got this on lock.

Perhaps your story is similar to mine. In retrospect we see moments of doubt we harbored. We wonder if that feeling was a warning that we ignored in the wake of romance. Or perhaps you took every precaution, and felt 100% assured. Either way, the answer is yes, He could have been more clear. And I'm convinced now after this most recent study, that He may very well have wanted to be. So, why wasn't he?

These thoughts come from Moses 7. The Lord has taken righteous Enoch into his bosom and is showing him the state of things. Satan has a chain around the world, causing there to be darkness, and he's laughing. The Lord, which is to say, the God of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ, is watching the earth and crying. Enoch is confused. He asks Christ, (paraphrasing) How can you be so upset about these things? You have millions and millions of creations in the world. How can you weep over this moment?

Christ then responds, "Behold, these thy brethren, they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the garden of eden, I gave unto man his agency. And unto thy brethren I have said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood." (Moses 7:32-33)

I have always admired Job for one powerful phrase he contributes to the Bible. After trials that make even the heartache of divorce feel minimal, he boldly declares, "Though He (God) slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15) I can think of no better application of this verse than to these moments where we find ourselves again and again asking God why. I have had moments in post divorce aftermath where I have felt crushed, eviscerated, even slain or betrayed by God. These feelings are real and can feel completely justified, but somehow they always leave me lacking. There is no light in them to sustain me. After nights of masticating these thoughts for sleepless hours I am left once again seeking truth. The truth I've found is this:

Jesus Christ (and therefore God, since they are one in purpose and character) loves me, enough to cry over what He sees happening in my life. If He loves me that much, then there is a part of Him that wants to prevent any pain from befalling me, especially knowing that He would have to suffer that same pain in Gethsemane. When, knowing all, He chooses not to interfere or even leads us to pain, it must be an even greater act of love. As a teacher, mistakes and heartache are some of God's choice tools for sculpting our character. He allows us to make our choices knowing He will ache with us, He will grieve with us. And when we cry, the God of the Old Testament does not remove the cultivating force from us. His tender heart cries with us, the workmanship of His own hands. I cannot know why some things will come or others have passed, but I do know that the Man who is willing to walk even this road with me is a Man I can trust.

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.