She Ain't Heavy, She's My Brother

Photo attribution here. 

Two weeks ago I was sitting in sacrament meeting, sketching, minding my own business when God asked a favor of me. In a very polite, yet insistent way He said, "Will you please go out yourself as a divorcee by bearing your testimony in front of your entire ward?"

I have made a lot of progress in being open about my relationship history. All my close friends know and I discuss relevant details when they come up, but any time I'd considered sharing the facts in one of my Sunday School lessons, I had always gotten the feeling that I would be doing myself more harm than good. Then, pretty unexpectedly, there I was--sitting in the congregation of my BYU--Hawaii ward with my hands shaking so harshly that I had to stop sketching. That's how I know, by the way. That's how I know He wants me to get up and say something--jitters in my belly and my limbs. Makes for kind of a funny moment for me, but who am I to complain about the way God chooses to speak to me. I asked probably three times, "God, are you sure?" And He was.

So, I did it. I wasn't very happy about it, but I did do it. At the time I thought it must be for the sake of someone in the congregation. I thought it must be pretty important if God was going to go to all the trouble of outing me for it. Maybe there was someone out there who it helped, but now I am not sure.

I have one real guy friend here. He's a musician, a thinker, a talker and a tender lad of twenty-two. We are perfectly content to plant ourselves somewhere on campus and talk each other's ears off until security finds us and reminds us that it's well after midnight curfew and we need to be on our way. A couple nights ago we were engrossed in just such a conversation. I was explaining to him about my guts and how deep down inside them I feel like being transparent about the things I deal with (my divorce is just a drop in the bucket of a dysfunctional family) would be an unbearable burden and nuisance to anyone I opened my mouth to. "So you feel like you're inflicting yourself on the people around you?" he asked. And I had to admit--yeah, I really do. And it occurred to me in that moment that that mentality is at the heart of my deep seeded loneliness. I feel so alone often in my life. I feel misunderstood and undervalued and mostly I feel like all that I have gone through and am going through is just too much for any acquaintance to take in, so I don't show it. And this is what my friend, we'll call him Brown Pants, has to say about that.

"Well, that's a load of shit." Which was followed by, "Sharing experiences from your life with your friends makes the relationship better, not worse. I can't fix it and I can't completely understand the experience, but I can empathize with you. It's good to know--the things you go through. It helps me understand you."

I went on to tell him about how I had already burdened him enough with stories about my life (my divorce, depression, family problems etc.) and how everything I disclose is so heavy and I don't want people to think I am just drama, but also how it's not fair because this is just the hand I was dealt and I can't do anything about that and I try so hard to be healthy and happy, functional and progressing but no matter what I do I will always be divorced and that separates me from the rest of the crowd and makes me a heavy load to bear as a friend so I need to compensate for all the issues I have by being an especially excellent friend and... (Yeah, it all came out as a rapid fire run on sentence, just like that, but it ended with...) Don't you feel burdened by all that I tell you about my life? It's just so heavy.

To which he responded with a very simple but sincere, "Not really, no."

If the atrocity that was my marriage had continued the other night would have been my four year wedding anniversary. My aunt just got diagnosed with an especially aggressive form of cancer and my mom was recently served divorce papers, so I was a little emotional. I called Sassy McLadyBoots, and like the rockstar best friend she is, she snatched me up and fed me gelato 'till I felt better, but there was something in that exchange that was, like the Brown Pants moment, surprising to me. I've always considered myself a particularly socially savvy person. Not that I am super popular or do any kind of networking, but that I understand people. I am absurdly empathetic and have always been able to pick up on the moods of others. So the other night at Sassy McLadyBoots' I was perceiving that it was getting later and she wanted me to go home. I'd been venting at her, so I was sure that she had had enough of my emotionally heavy banter and said told her I would start heading home. She looked at me, totally confused and said, "Why? I thought we were having fun."

When you have been hurt by someone, I mean really, intentionally hurt by another human being, especially if it goes on for long, it alters the way you perceive yourself. I consider myself very healed at this point in my recovery. I have done the work, seen and paid my shrink, written my blog, talked it out, and moved on in my life. But here we see it clearly--my misinterpretations, the way my views of life have been skewed by destructive influences remain.

I think God wanted me to let other people see this horrifying thing that's been lurking in the depths of my belly, riding my shoulder, whispering in my ear, "Fake. Liar. Burden. Worthless. You have no right to ask for help." He wanted them to see it so that when I watched their faces for the shock, disgust, repulsion and pity I would see, it's not an ugly thing at all. It just is, like a red sweater or a tuna sandwich. It's one of the many building blocks that make up me. To most it's largely insignificant to their daily lives. To those who care it's a way to understand me, relate to me and hold a space of love and acceptance.

Realizing these things is a strange mixture of painful and alleviating. I am more broken than I thought, but I am also a lot more whole. I'm a lot more lovable, more acceptable and valuable than I had apparently thought. So goes the journey of divorce recovery. Two steps forward, one step back--but we keep walking.

Losing What We Call Lovely

Photo attribution here.

The day before I started packing up to leave my Long Beach home I went for a walk on the beach. The Mr. had already taken a job in the next city over and was staying there, so I was alone. Of all the things I loved about that city, the lifeguard towers were one. There's something so iconic about them. They symbolize the best things in life--summer, sunshine, ocean, bare feet, vacation, spontaneity, freedom. But the summer was ending, and so was my marriage. I was a year in, but there was a part of me, just below consciousness, that feared it even then. It was a long and slow beach walk, and towards the end I climbed up on a tower and sat and stared.

Rusty metal. Chipped paint. The smell of salt. Cityscape to the right. Slow, lapping ocean. Gritty sand. Sunset. Losing light. 

I took a picture of myself in the lowlight, trying desperately to hold on to what was already, in a way, gone. I remember sitting there, trying very hard to be brave and positive, to have faith in God, in my husband, in my ability to pull it together, but in a place so deep I couldn't let even myself be aware of it I was terrified. Terrified of loss and terrified of the future. Terrified that I would never have anything so lovely as the early days of my married life in Long Beach, ever again. 

Last night I went to Waikiki with some friends for--are you ready for this?-- Spam Jam. Apparently Hawaiian residents consume some ridiculous number like 3 million cans of Spam a year, and just to prove we're proud, we have a whole food festival to honor this strange canned "meat". It was a group of girlfriends and I driving down together, busily chattering on about internships, secret crushes, embarrassing moments and frustrating school policies. When we got to "town", as we countryfolk refer to Honolulu, we disembarked and weaved our way through drum circles, fire dancers, a mime, a Michael Jackson impersonator and every Spamtastic abomination you can fathom. Spam tacos, Spam ramen, Spam burgers, Spam T-shirts, sports bras, hats, an entire wave constructed in cans of Spam, a Spam impersonator and the world's most unlucky puppy sitting with a can of Spam strapped to its head, victim to endless photos and an adoring public. 

It was fantastic. 

When we'd had enough of that we headed over to a frozen yogurt place. Here I purchased my first treat in one full month. On my list of thirty was the task of giving up sugar for one month's time, and it just so happened that the four weeks came to a close last night. Coconut and caramel flavored frozen goodness with fresh strawberries, toasted coconut flakes and a slice of waffle cone on top--heaven. 

I took my treasure across the street and the five of us lady friends climbed up the steps of a lifeguard tower to bask in echoes of Waikiki nightlife, the smell of salt and the familiar feel of grits of sand beneath our feet. A quick glance at the cityscape to my right and I was instantaneously transported to my Long Beach lifeguard tower. I was nose to nose with my old self. She was hesitating on the precipice of her headlong dive into the brutal years ahead. I looked back into the eyes of my pre-divorce self for that brief moment, and saw how desperately she was trying to peer into her fate. I saw so much fear in her eyes--fear that all the beautiful parts of our life had already come and gone. I realized that the Waikiki me was an absolutely unimaginable figment of a possibility to that scared little Imogen in Long Beach. That Frowfrow wanted her Long Beach life. She wanted her cranky, ill suited husband, half working cars, dead end jobs and a lifetime of bending herself in half to force a square peg into a star shaped hole. She clung to the life she was losing so desperately that she could see nothing else. She couldn't believe in anything better than the dismal path that lay before her, so she lied to herself and told herself it was all ok. It was what she'd always dreamed of. 

I've been addicted to sugar pretty much my entire life. (Stay with me, this is all coming together, promise.) I know it's not healthy. Sugar causes cancer, diabetes, heart disease, jacks up my blood sugar, is clinically proven to be addictive, messes with my depression, and is in no way an adequate substitute for human affection, no matter how much I lie to my subconscious. Did any of this matter? Not at all. Why? Because throughout my life I was scared. I didn't want to let it go. I needed it to numb and distract myself from all the turmoil incessantly churning in my stomach. If I have a stomach ache over Swedish Fish or Ben and Jerry's then I don't have a pit in my stomach about my parent's divorce, the homework there is no one to help me with, my relationship with my mama, my unanswered questions for God, the way I can't seem to choose a life path, a major or a career, my failing marriage or the lurking possibility that now that I am single again I will die a lonely cat lady weaving dream catchers out of my own hair to take to market. (That one was for you, Sassy McLadyBoots.) If I abuse sugar I can blame it and my addiction for my problems. I needed that distraction, at some points of my life more than others--the years before and after my divorce most especially. I didn't want to let it go, just like I didn't want to let go of the fantasy that my Long Beach life was all I could ever dream of. But then... I did. 

The one month of living sugar free came as easy as a wave crashing on the sand. It just was. I didn't even really have to try. I just let myself acknowledge, I don't even like this stuff. It makes me feel like crap. I let myself eat an occasional PB&J, some yogurt or a granola bar, but the cookies, cakes, chocolate, ice cream and late night trips to the vending machines disappeared all on their own, and so did my obsessive desire to eat at every convenience. I just let it go, and when I did, everything was fine. 

I want to pull all this together now to say this: beautiful things will come. Sticking with something because we think we need it to survive, unhealthy as it may be; keeping a death grip on something out of fear that it's the best we will ever get; believing nothing else will come along for us and we will be left miserable; all of that is a lie. All that grasping, in the end, doesn't help. It doesn't make the good things stay, it just invites fear, and fear taints the lovely we do have in our lives. It paints it, so we don't recognize it for the glorious little moment of kite flying, balloon holding, baby smiling, first kissing, new learning, big laughing that it is. We miss it. So when we find ourselves panicked, desperately grasping, strong faced, but terrified in the soul, let's just remember this my brave friends: nothing we need ever dies.

Nothing.

And there is lovely in store beyond what you now see as possible. There will be more lifeguard towers. There will be new friends laughing, fresh flowers waiting, brand new favorite foods, hands to hold, freckles to kiss and lessons to learn, but we've got to learn to look for and see the good, not hunker down and brace ourselves for the next tragedy. 

"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.

I still get sad sometimes, and that's okay.

Photo attribution here.

I spent a lot of my childhood riding in the back seat of a car, watching the road--quietly contemplative. Speeding along the freeway I would watch as the pavement holding us would silently split into two lanes--one with a brand new destination. We'd cruise along, parallel with the new road. Two that had been made from one. I'd watch as the new road rose or sank, then took its own turn and silently peeled away from us and disappeared from my view. I'd wonder then for a moment where that road went and how it could disappear, so smooth and silent. When I think about The Mr. now, I think about the roads. One road split into two, silently going their own ways.

When I first got back into classes here in Hawaii I was completely immersed in the healing that comes with creativity. Particularly there was a drawing class that took all the time, attention and focus I could afford it. I loved it. My professor was excellent in pointing out where I was going wrong and teaching me how to fix it. I marveled at the return I got on my artistic investment over those few short months.

In this class an interesting thing would sometimes happen. I'd be so lost in trying to capture the core shadow on the sphere I was drawing that I probably morphed into a full on mouth breather and didn't even know it. The kind of concentration it takes when you are first learning this stuff is nigh unto Jedi Master in training concentration. I'd be full on in the throws of mastering the force of my charcoal pencil when all of a sudden, a still frame from my former life would flash through the feature film of Frowfrow Goes Back to College and Loves It. It was such an unexpected juxtaposition that the first time it happened it almost knocked me over--it was so dizzyingly disorienting.

When I take stock of my life, the things I want to be and the things I've accomplished, the phrase, "divorced" inevitably filters through. Every time it does my brain does a double take. No, I'm not divorced. I'm not the type. I wouldn't let that happen to me. I'm not stupid enough to marry someone I would have to divorce. I wouldn't break that promise to God.

And yet, I did.

I am.

I can't take it back or unmake the decisions that brought me to and through that. I can't know better in time to not make those mistakes. I know God doesn't hold it against me, but I still can't help feeling like I can't ever get my slate completely clean.

I'm divorced.

In my memory bank there's ring, a proposal, a wedding day and a wedding night. There's a family ward I attended and an apartment I decorated. There are plans I tried to make and promises broken. There's the first times and the last times, the endless efforts of making it work, the cruel things that can never be undone and the way it unrelentingly would not renege until my soul was lying motionless on the floor, bereft of any ideas for what I could try next. There's a foundation--laid and abandoned.

I'm divorced.

And now I'm in my second chance at life, and it's a nearly surreal life at that. I put an ocean between myself and anything I'd ever known. I indulge every creative impulse that flits through my mind. I spent an hour today lying on a private, aqua beach reading for pleasure. I sleep in on Sunday, go out on weekends, skinny dip in January and have nothing I can logically complain about in this freshly constructed world I've built for myself. But there is always this part of me that is somberly saying, No, you don't understand. You don't know what it was like. 

I'm divorced.

I was married. I took a full on face dive leap of faith into the tea cup of a quick marriage. I make my conscious efforts to move ahead, to live in the present, to embrace the now, to learn from my mistakes and to cultivate gratitude, forgiveness and love--but I will never not be divorced.

That makes me sad.

So please, when you meet someone who has been through it, withhold judgement for a moment or two. Give the person space to be who they are--now. Let the divorced people you meet know that it's okay to be okay, that they are not categorically dismissed because of life experiences, and that life is full of tough choices. None of us get out unscathed. There's a unity to be had in sharing our stories, regardless of the source of the scar.

Part Three

I know I've written before about the importance of breaking all contact with an ex if at all possible, but I have an update for you on this topic. About a month ago things with The Mr. were in a place where we weren't talking, really just because there wasn't anything left to say. All the finances are sorted, possessions divided, words spoken, papers signed. But when you have been in such an intimate place with someone closing the door completely somehow seems caustic-- even while rationally acknowledging the trauma leaving the door even slightly ajar brings.

I was driving--windows down, sun shining, so I didn't hear the phone ring the first or second time. When I checked the message it was something I would have swallowed as sweet in days gone by. The Mr. wanted to know how I was doing. He wanted to know if I was happy.

There's a voice inside me that never lies and is never wrong. When I met The Mr. that voice said, "No thank you." But I kissed him anyway--a lot. When he proposed that voice said, "You do not know this man. How can you marry someone you don't know if you can trust?" But I told the voice to be quiet or we'd never find love. When The Mr. and I would sit in a room together, 15 months into our mistake that voice would say, "He's not here in the room with you. He's already gone." I would tell the voice, "No. He's the one who loves me."

So when I heard The Mr.'s voicemail I stopped for a moment and asked the voice what she thought. Two days later she replied in the form of a text message I sent The Mr.

I got your message. Thank you for your concern. How I'm doing is information I no longer feel comfortable sharing with you. I know you feel guilty for things from our past, but that's between you and God now. I wish you the best of luck in sorting it out and sincerely hope you find peace. Please do not contact me again. 

It wasn't easy to send, but it was easier than all that work it took to smother out the voice for those two years. My mama says that you don't have room for good things in your life when you won't let go of the bad ones. Mental energy is finite, after all. Since I calmly but firmly closed the door to all that pain, beautiful things have started happening. Or perhaps the more likely truth is that beautiful things were happening all along, but in closing the door I finally was able to look up.

My life is in the process of changing in big ways this week, not the least of which is where I reside. I am moving... again. But this isn't one of those little hopping around moves I've done every six months up until now. This is a mega leap of faith move from my seemingly eternally cyclical existence betwixt a few west coast states-- to a distant tropical island. 

I've never been to Hawaii. I've never rented a car or bought a one way ticket without any idea when I'll be coming back or really any desire to find out. In nine days I start part three of my Three Part Plan to Get on With Life, and I just want to say, it's coming together shockingly well. 

I bring this up, not to rub it in your face that I'm finally getting healthy when you likely have come to this blog in a state of profound grief or concern. I bring this up because I remember vividly the days that I was incapable of believing that things could ever, ever, ever get better, and I remember the day I started listening to that voice in me that never lies and is never wrong. 

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. 

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.

Happy Monday

This week I have a list of ten things that are better to do than think about that one time when you were married.

1. Go buy yourself a fancy salad, a box of Lucky Charms, a gourmet burger, or something equally as affordable yet frivolous. Eat it with gusto.

2. Wink at the cute grocery checker, shamelessly. 

3. The next time someone asks you about your ex, pretend you're wearing giant Audrey Hepburn sunglasses, rockin a ridiculously long strand of pearls and smoking one of those long, slender cigarettes, then say in your best English accent, "Oh, darling, that was my first husband."

4. Next time you are alone in your car, scream at the top of your lungs. It can be a word or a phrase or just a scream. There was a lot of this going on in June Bug (my sweet ride) last December between my nanny jobs. I can attest to its effectiveness. 

5. Remind yourself of the mood elevating properties of very good chocolate. We're not talking Hershey's. Say it with me - Godiva.

6. Hang out with a kid. A happy one. If you can't find a happy kid, watch the video linked in "Chin Up, Buttercup" above that's made by a kid. 

7. Get a professional massage. If you can't afford a massage, get one from a student clinic in the area in which you live. Sometimes these clinics can be just as good, if not better, than someone you google, and they're usually about half price.

8. Watch your favorite trilogy all in one night. Star Wars, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, or just choose your favorite three Wes Anderson films. You really can't go wrong. 

9. Think of your least favorite memory of your mother-in-law for three solid minutes. Then open your eyes and realize that never has to happen again. : )

10. Hug someone you don't know. Don't say anything. Just hug, smile, and walk away. 

See? You feel better already : )

It's okay to be okay.

Photo attribution here.

My divorce was finalized November 27, 2012. In December I was living alone in a two bedroom apartment, trying desperately to figure out how I was going to make the ends meet, how to get my body out of bed every morning and how to get myself to stop crying in inappropriate locales (read: work, church, family gatherings, grocery stores etc.) I made the very conscious decision that I would go ahead and celebrate Christmas that year, all alone in my apartment with my cat. I bought a tree, some gifts, a little tinsel, found a Pandora Christmas station and felt so improved I decided to make what seemed at first to be a courageous decision to throw myself a little Christmas party.

The day of the party I was a mess. I spent my day dreading the looming evening. I was exhausted, chubby from all the comfort eating, my social skills were rustier than a VW Bug in Hawaii and I terribly, deeply, unmaskably sad.

Driving home from work that day I passed, as I always do, the apartment where The Mr. and I used to live together. That day there was a great deal of holiday traffic that unavoidably stuck me smack dab in front of that apartment for what must have been 20 minutes, but felt like forever. I sat there, sobbing, screaming, pounding my steering wheel, cursing like a sailor and hating every last thing I could think of about my life.

When I got home, family came and helped me pull myself together. Guests showed up one by one and were sweet and congenial. They even wore the Ugly Christmas Sweaters I'd requested, then personally reneged on. In retrospect I know they must all have been wondering why on earth I'd decided to throw a party less than four weeks after filing for divorce, but ultimately it's a memory I'm grateful for.

After that horrible night revisiting my painful past, trapped in my '73 VW Bug at one mile an hour in suburban hell, I decided something must be done. I pass that apartment every day on the way to work. It's not going away, and neither is the disaster my marriage became. It's a part of my life the way that apartment full of 1,000 dark memories is part of my commute. After that Christmas party day I implemented a new practice.

Every time I pass that apartment, I say a prayer of thanks that I am not married anymore.

The first time I did this, I felt like I was lying to God. On top of that, I thought it was a terrible thing to do. How can I be grateful that I broke a covenant? And express that to God? It just seemed wrong. But the fact that I would pass that apartment every day for the next foreseeable future, and the amount of pain it brought me every single time... I had to do something.

It's been almost three more months now. That equals 96 trips or so passing that apartment, once on the way there, once on the way home. Sometimes I feel a twinge. Sometimes my heart breaks just a little more. But sometimes, I don't even notice I'm passing it, and sometimes I actually feel grateful. I see just a little more clearly how horrible we were together, how unhealthy and unkind. I see how my life is improving every day we are apart, and I realize the truth that God does want us to be happy, both of us, and that this phase can be a blessing too.

Maybe this comes a lot more naturally to some of you. I've spent all my life trying very hard to live up to what I believe God expects of me. And yet here I am in this place I never wanted to be. It's a place that is ambiguously referred to as a "trial" in Sunday School. Not much else is said about it in doctrine I can find, other than the passing reference in conference talks. There's just this overarching, vague sense that it's wrong to get divorced. If it's wrong and bad... then shouldn't I feel... bad for doing it? Should I be perpetually miserable and destroyed for having failed so badly at it?

Today I say no. And here's what I've got to back it up:

Psalms 146:5
Proverbs 3:13
John 16:33
Romans 14:22
Psalms 35:9
Psalms 118:24
Luke 2:10-11
And for those of us really stuck on the fact that we messed it up, Job 5:17

I know God, and He wants His kids to be at peace, to be healthy, to be loved and to be happy. He understands intimately the moments when we just can't be, and He aches with us. In the moments when we can, He feels joy.