Another Friend to Talk to

I suppose there are a few reasons for the lull in my writing, but the most interesting one is this: I no longer strongly identify as, "a divorced person". A quick read through these posts would help you understand how significant this is. There have most certainly been times where that was the only thing I could think of to talk about with any person who entered my life. Now... now I just feel like...

I don't know.

A woman. A student, an artist, a friend, a human. I feel funny and happy and dynamic and compelled to do important things. I feel more healthy. I feel more normal. I feel more whole, and for this, I am extremely grateful.

I am 100% certain this is becoming broken record irritating, but I want to reiterate once more how very much time helps with healing. It does get better, with time.

All that is to say... I don't actually find myself ruminating on thoughts integral to divorce recovery of late, and I think that's ok. I do want to stop in and say hello and that I hope everything is going well, and I also want to provide a link to the blog of a friend of mine. He discovered my blog one day while in the worst moments of this road we walk and reached out to me. I am very glad he did. He too has started a blog chronicling his navigation of divorced LDS waters. The bonus is that his perspective covers so many things I don't and can't. He's more mature than I am, was married a lot longer than me, he has children and therefor still has to maintain a working relationship with his ex. Also, like the majority of my readers, he doesn't have the luxury of the option to pick up and move to Hawaii in order to nurse his broken heart back to health. I highly recommend his blog, and you can access it here.

In the mean time, I'll be checking in periodically and have a few posts forming in my mind. Keep walking, my friends. I get emails regularly and know there are so many more out there who do not write. Even on this lonely path, you are not alone. We are all in this together.

Skinny Love

Photo attribution here. 

Oh, hello there blogging world. I've missed you so. : ) Where was I? Ah, yes! Captain Amazing. It's been about two months that we've been dating now. Here's a time lapse recap of the roller coaster we've been on in the form of a short list:

-Intercultural romance and all it's glorious gaps in communication.
-My neurotic fear of being abandoned and the way it manifests in destructive ways, right before my very eyes as I'm watching, thinking, "Stop it, Frowfrow! Stop it! Stop it!"
-His views about how public my divorce should be and why which happen to conflict with my views about how public my divorce should be and why
-Learning to balance time together and time apart, how we act in public and what each other's pet peeves are
-The endless inquiry, almost from day one of our time together, "Are you two getting married?"
-The bliss of a first kiss
-The bliss of many, many more kisses after the first ; ) I did mention how very much I love kissing, yes?
-The hormonal deluge that ensues post many, many kisses, and the havoc it wreaks on the mind and body, plus the added bonus of negotiating how to handle that, having tasted the forbidden fruit in my marital days of yore
-The beautiful, powerful, healing blessing of being with someone who will hold my hand when I'm lonely, kiss me when I'm happy, make me laugh when I'm too serious or sad, listen when he's tired, talk when he's mad, and tell me I'm beautiful, just because

I'd be lying if I told you it's an easy experience. There are so many triggers, so much to wade through. The communication it takes to keep us going is fairly intense. I freak out and tell him we need to break up every couple weeks. Sometimes I tell him I just want to kiss him and punch him at the same time. Once or twice I've cried so hard I think he thought my eyeballs would pop out, but the man is kind, calm, stable and supportive. He's a tender mercy, straight from God to me via Africa, all with a backdrop of Hawaii.

And by the way, Hawaii is every bit as magical, beautiful and lovely as they say, and Art Education is my soul mate in the form of a major. My depression and anxiety are at a very healthy low, my stress is managed, my family is positive and supportive, and my boyfriend is hilarious, hardworking and handsome.  Also, I get to teach Gospel Doctrine every other Sunday, which makes my life complete.

There's not really much of a moral to the story this time, just a basic update. We're coming up on one full year out of divorce now, so the stories are likely to become a lot less epic or dramatic in terms of being directly related to divorce. It is kind of nice to see the way life is evening out emotionally, just like they all said it would. I'll keep posting here, hopefully about once a month. This would be a perfect time for some guest posts as well. How is life as a Devout yet Divorced treating you? What issues have you been facing? What issues would you like to have addressed in a post?

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. 

To share, or not to share?

Photo attribution here.

So, the other day this thing happened. I started attending Institute here, which I've really been enjoying. The first time I walked through the doors (thank goodness I was early and the class was pretty empty) this senior couple who had served in my singles ward here three years ago was setting up the class and they totally remembered me. They walked up with slightly puzzled looks on their faces and said, "Wait, didn't you get married?"

When I was in phase one I was very, very open about my matrimonial history. One, I'm an almost absurdly open person to begin with and two, the beast that is divorce had overtaken my body, mind and soul to such an extent that it really felt like I didn't have a choice. It was the only thing in my head to talk about. No matter how uncomfortable it got I just kept opening my mouth and out would topple comments like, "Oh yeah, my husband did that too," or "Yeah, well the first time I got married I wore a vintage dress, but I don't know what I'll do for wedding number two," or, "Oh my gosh, I know. Making out is my favorite. I love it, even more than sex!" As you might imagine, this lead to many uncomfortable moments in my small, young singles ward.

During my epic road trip down here which transitioned me from phase one to two in my Get On With Life plan, I pondered extensively the pros and cons of going public with the fact that I was once married. When an LDS person finds out another LDS person has been married and divorced, it changes the way the once married person is viewed; there is no way around this. Eternal marriage is such a deeply integral aspect of our faith that, especially while one is single, everything seems to be viewed through this three part lens of married, single or divorced. Once divorce is admitted everything in the life of that person assumes a new hue.

We divorcees can feel this shift, which is why so very many of us remain silent. The righteously indignatious part of me wants to buck this system, which is another reason I was so loud mouthed about my divorce in my last ward. It's kind of a shock when people first hear it, the "D" word, but my theory was that the more people I could expose to a real live divorced Mormon, especially a devout one, the more stigma would dissipate.

However, in  order to achieve this noble aspiration, one would need to take upon herself every awkward moment she could in order to break the ice, again and again and again. In truth, I'm just not strong enough for that. Also, through my deliberation on the drive I decided such an "in your face" approach is probably not the most effective anyway to change perspectives or break the stereotype of the bitter divorced lady. Better to let a person discover the elements of me as they come and allow my divorce to be just one more layer of my fairly complex life story. In the early moments it was impossible to believe, but the truth is, I'm a lot more than my two year relationship to a man with whom I no longer speak.

Having settled on a "need to know"policy for when to speak about myself,  I have also settled on the decision to anonymize the blog. You may have noticed. Many of you know who I am and mostly I advertise this blog through facebook, but we're at about 5,500 hits now and coming up as #3 in Google search for "divorced mormon blog". I'd love to see us continue to grow. I'd also love it if we could just go with my nom de plum Imogen Frowfrow (there's a funny story here, as you can imagine) as my name. Sometimes it's hard to have strangers know your story.

As for your decisions, because you will have many to make about how much to say about what and when, here's my advice (since you so clearly asked for it). When the moment is right, do not be ashamed to admit your experience. Shame and guilt are tools of the devil if they are not motivating us to change. We cannot change what has happened, and we should not allow ourselves to be shamed because of it. Hold your head high when you speak about your divorce. It (hopefully) has changed you, ultimately for the better and brought you closer to Christ. It's an experience many of us share in silence. Sometimes breaking that silence can be a powerful and right thing to do. Also, you have every right to protect yourself, to establish boundaries, to decide how much of yourself to share and how much to keep. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself a clean slate, and in moments it will be right to stay quiet, omit, or even mislead. Your experience as a married person does not have to define you. There is more to you than this. God will let you know which moment is which.

I don't mean to seem overly inquisitive, but are you alive?

Photo attribution here.

If that is what you have been thinking in regards to where the crap I have been for the last bit, I am here to tell you, I am, in fact, alive. Quite alive, actually. And well. Thanks for asking. Here's a glimpse at my to do list for the last and upcoming week.

1. Sort, price and sell off every one of my adorable possessions but my laptop, clothes and guitar.
2. Plan an epic road trip that includes (so far): an elephant, Shakespeare, a teepee, wellsprings rumored to hold nigh unto magical healing properties, two beach towns, one of which is Santa Cruz which is on my bucket list, a real live California Mission (I've never seen one), a visit with a life long besty and her baby boy, all in the company of Mr. Fabulous, another life long besty.
3. Creating a new wardrobe that consists of 25 summer dresses and one light weight raincoat.
4. Securing employment in California.
5. Securing hosing in Hawaii.
6. Writing a lesson for Relief Society about how we cannot fail if we do what God asks. (It's not as bad as the time I had to teach a lesson called, "Sacred Family Relationships" on Mother's Day, but the lesson has its inherent challenges.)
7. Rehoming my Siamese. (Sniff! Sniff!)
8. Celebrating a bazillion birthdays, all of which require gifts.
9. Getting a blog called Cookies and Punch (which you will love) up and running with Lady Chief Editor Pants.
10. Crafting goodbye gifts for the families I work for.

Why, you ask, are you doing all these awesome and crazy making things?
To which I am happy to respond, Oh. Because I'm moving, first to Southern California for the summer, then to Hawaii in the fall. See, I'll be finishing up my education in massage therapy and then pursuing my BA in Art Education, proving to the world once and for all that you can have your cake and eat it too. Because really, who's going to get cake and not eat it? Not this girl, no sir.

#secondchancesareawesome

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.

Love

Photo attribution here

I have long been prone to bouts of melancholy. When you deal with depression people like to give you to do lists and things to try, or maybe you make the lists yourself. Being depressed is miserable, so I understand the inclination, but this pattern inevitably leads me to a place where I personify a defeated lump of guilt. I am left void of inertia and worse off knowing what I should be doing and still somehow am not. More often than not I spend my days swimming through a sea of tentative anxiety while making efforts to appear as though I am just another one of the kids with nothing more to stress about than my phone bill. This has been life so long for me I cannot discern when it first began. However, despite this component of my existence and the challenges it presents, I do pass through times of great happiness. Today I'd like to briefly describe one for you. Once upon a time I was fresh out of high school... 

Eighteen is a beautiful age. I was off on my first adventure as a newly christened adult at Southern Oregon University. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life or really much of anything about what I liked or needed or wanted or didn't want, but I didn't care. I spent my hours meandering along the streets of the charming town of Ashland, Oregon relishing in the uniqueness of the cranberry hazelnut bread I'd discovered at the local bakery, or the sun soaked beauty of Lithia Park, complete with monologuing thespians and dread locked nomads who only ate organic. I had no money, I had no car, I had no idea what life would bring, but I had a profound appreciation for the freckles God put on the skins of apples just for me. Despite the troubled waters running deep within, there remained in me a relentless wellspring of hope. 

There are times in my world of slow moving blues and greens like that year in Ashland that afford me a brand of solace and joy I believe to be uniquely mine. I cannot say I leave the sea of overwhelming emotions completely, but I have intense moments of illumination and peace, melancholy notwithstanding. In my marriage, however, that light nearly died in me. So desperate for the healing affection that I was sure The Mr. possessed in some hidden corner of his ever increasingly distant soul, I offered him piece after piece after piece of me as a sacrifice. Without him asking I would hand him this peace offering, praying that there could be some way that we could be compatible, that he could love the me I was killing off in the effort to save us.

There's a day that stands in my memory as the day of last date we attempted. Dates were always hard for us. Turns out it takes more than chemistry to enjoy an afternoon together... or evening... or dinner at home... or a birthday. He was doing some work on my car before we headed out and I'd slipped away  to the local sandwich shop. I was enjoying a lemonade and the sunlight as it shimmered through some orangey red leaves canopying my table. Somewhere in that stolen hour the realization shimmered down upon me that for the first time in quite a long time I felt just the slightest bit like myself. For long stretches of our marriage I could not see the light in the trees. Beautiful blossoming Oregon unfolding herself just for me that spring was masked in kind of a hazy smog of confusion and panic. It wasn't that I didn't want to see it. You have to believe me that it wasn't for lack of trying. More than anything I wanted things--every day things, work things, marriage things, family things--to be normal. Healthy. Just to be okay... but they weren't. That day late in September I caught a glimpse of the happiness I once could conjure up within myself, even in times of distress. It giggled up from some unknown spot in my soul, fluttered about my face, close enough to see but just out of reach, and then disappeared into the leaves. The sun began setting and the Mr. and I headed off into what would be one of the more heartbreaking days of my life. It was ending. I could no longer deny that it was ending. 

That little glimmer of happiness went to some mysterious land to hibernate, not to be disturbed through the darkest months of winter. As it did I was swallowed up in the black abyss of my existence for the next several months. There's a reason this blog didn't start in November 2012. In those early months I retreated into the darkest, most terrifyingly lonely places I hope to never see in me again. In a stupor of heartache I spent my days dragging my body from one obligation to another hoping time was passing, but too discouraged, disoriented and afraid to count days or weeks. I was half drowning in my own personal rivers of sorrow, neither able to succumb nor escape.

This is depression. This was my reality. 

The writing I do is primarily what I call "vomit up your toenails" writing. I sit down and spew out whatever thoughts have been chasing each other around my brain all day in an attempt to get some peace. As I write this post I've been asking myself what the value in it is. Doesn't the world have enough stories of soul slaughtering blackness? You will only bring people down, telling them about those days, I think to myself. But I am choosing to record this despite those thoughts. I record this for you and for me. 

While I never want to relive those days, I also don't want to forget them because the contrast they strike is so stark to the way I feel today. In those dark moments the voice inside us says, "It will always be this way. No one understands you. There is no hope." But the voice inside us is a liar sometimes. I record the pain in its blackness so that no one has to feel alone in it like I did. Some posts I write here scrape the bottom of the barrel of my capacity for levity, but today it feels right to make plain that my marriage and my divorce have sent me unwillingly through a refining process where I felt turned utterly to ash; a shadow of myself floating away and disappearing into the wind. Just as involuntary as that experience was, a new wave is crashing. It's washing away the charred remainders of my miserable failure, satiating the parched and barren wasteland of my uninhabited soul, and reviving all that's best in me, teaching me something surprisingly beautiful and comforting. 

In those incomprehensible, disorienting moments where life went for the knockout, I lost hold of what I  thought was making me good. For a season I couldn't achieve the way I used to. I spent inordinate amounts of time sleeping, crying, lying around, begrudging, loathing, sobbing, swearing, wallowing and letting go of hope. I lost the ability to prove my worth through works, only to discover when the disillusioning fog dispersed that the goodness remains. Faith without works is dead, we are told, but like a submerged buoy this goodness, with a force outside my active will, burst through the surface of my rivers of sorrow. I didn't pray it that way, I didn't exercise it into existence, I didn't bake someone a pie or ask anyone their forgiveness. Having exhausted every other option I could think of, I got so sick of myself that I made a search of the house for all the shards of my broken heart. I packed them up and I took them to my bishop. I showed him the mess I'd made and I cried and cried, not knowing what I wanted him to do about it. That beautifully imperfect man of God smiled at me and put into words the things God had been trying to tell me during all the gnashing of teeth. Though these aren't the words he used, that day my bishop taught me this truth.

That goodness, the light, the hope and the very best essence of ourselves isn't something we can make appear or force into existence. The goodness burns brighter in and after the fire. It is driven relentlessly upward to float on in the river of life past the season of sorrow to show us that life does go on, even when we can't contribute. There is no mistake we can make, no covenant we can break, no sorrow or sadness or circumstance of life that could ever make us less to our God. Through the smog, the fear, the dwindling faith and the knockouts He sees our best selves and stands anxiously awaiting the moment we are ready to embrace the glimmer of hope once more. Sometimes that wait is a long one, but He doesn't tire of it. He stands close saying, "Take all the time you need. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere and neither is my love." They say if you're not paddling forward, your floating backward, but from this moment in time all I can see is that no matter where I am in this ever changing, exquisitely beautiful river of life my God is there with me, and today that matters more. 

Somebody Looks Fabulous

Yesterday was my friend's birthday. Over the course of my early healing I have had the occasional invitation to some sort of activity that the general public considers fun, but when a chronically depressed person is also in the throws of mega grieving, social interactions can become somewhat ridiculous. The brilliant blog Hyperbole and a Half describes the experience of trying to hang out with people unaffected by such tragedy perfectly with this cartoon.

I could no longer rely on genuine emotion to generate facial expressions, and when you 

have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating your face into 

shapes that are only approximately the right ones, alienating people is inevitable.

Because of exactly too many of the experience described above I generally find a way to eschew social interactions that require any form of genuine positive emotion displayed on my behalf. It's really best for everyone. But it was Mr. Postman's  birthday, and I love Mr. Postman. He's the husband of the girl I spent my first magic summer with, swimming endless hours in The Padre's pool, cruising around my small home town in her mama's Astro, listening to mix tapes of Weezer and The Weakerthans, sewing, painting and thrifting with the occasional round of laser tag. Her baby and I share a middle name, and this is not happenstance. Furthermore, for a reason inexplicable to me, people are always bailing on them. I couldn't flake on Mr. and Mrs. Postman. I just couldn't. 

And still, the morning of the party I woke up already inventing ways I could excuse myself from this terribly intimidating thing of going out to enjoy myself with people I love. "Maybe I could offer to watch her kids for her. That would still be nice and I wouldn't necessarily have to do any smiling... or I could just tell her I'm having a panic attack, which really isn't far from the truth. Alright. I'll simply explain that the idea of meeting a few friends for dinner and drinks is the most fear inducing concept known to my brain right now. She'll understand that. No problem. Where's my phone. I'll send her a text..."

But a text had already come. "Lady Lame Pants just canceled on us. Looks like it'll just be us 5." It's just like Lady Lame Pants to take my out off the table. Okay. I'll do it, I thought. I'll do it for Mr. Postman. 

I spent my getting ready time practicing my faces that I thought might be expected of me and doing the usual cavity search of my brain for anything I might say about myself other than, "I'm a divorced cat lady, nice to meet you." I finished tying my bandana, Rosie the Riveter style, and buttoned up the new blue polkadot shirt. Red lipstick. Last bobby pins. Deep breath. Practice smile. Well, the eyes are still stuck in sad land, but I've made a valiant effort. And out the door I went. 

The night progressed pleasantly. The practiced smiles seemed to be enough to squeak through the dinner conversation, and I lasted a full six minutes before letting some comment about my divorce slip out; possibly a new personal best. I wouldn't call it fun... what I was doing... but it was admittedly much less terrifying than I'd imagined going out into the world of the living would be. 

With dinner done we headed over to a trendy Barcade down the street. Now, a word about bars. Admittedly I am currently in the worst place to defend myself from titles like "stick in the mud", but the truth is,  I haven't really been interested in hitting a bar since I was about 21 and one day old. The thrill of surrounding myself with inebriated individuals was short lived, but tonight was Mr. Postman's birthday, so with that same sticky smile I diligently took my Shirley Temple to a Pac Man machine. The first few rounds I spent the minutes pondering the existential crisis of a society deriving joy from a deranged yellow dot chomping at other less deranged looking, smaller dots, then ultimately (in my case rather quickly) being overtaken by cartoon ghosts and dying a pseudo death, all in an attempt to get your money. Other people seemed happy though, so I mirrored that whenever it seemed like someone in our group was watching. But then something started to happen. Mr. and Mrs. Postman were playing a round of Dance Dance revolution and there was something so endearing about the way they were jumping and spinning in unison with such focus. It made me smile. A real live, from the inside smile. 

Photo attribution here.

When the barcade had served its purpose we hit the street once more to take our chances with another bar. Russian roulette lead us to a magical land where the people were smiling, the bar top was an aquarium, and the entertainment was several gentlemen in heels higher than Bob Marley and enough glitter to outfit an entire cheer squad. Yes, we'd stumbled (some of the group more literally than others) into my very first gay bar with a drag show. 

Now, a small confession here. The first boy I ever fell in love with is queerer than a two dollar bill (and still my favorite), and both he and The Mr. grow a beard in three days that could punch your dad's best beard in the face. The Mr. also rides a Harley almost exclusively. I guess you could describe my ideal man as kind of a metrosexual lumberjack, and lately I've been severely lacking in the metrosexual (or just plain homosexual) companionship department. Imagine my delight, then, as the following conversation unfolded. 

Sitting at the bar, inconspicuously sipping at my water, a tall, slender man approached me, and in a tone not unlike Jack from Will and Grace said, "So, my friend over there (who was bearded, for the record) and I are gay, and we just wanted to tell you, you are FABULOUS. We love you. We love your hair, we love your outfit, we love your lipstick. We think you are beautiful! Your whole look! You are like something off the silver screen, a 40s Starlette! We just can't get enough of you, and we thought you should know."

Now, spending time with such beautiful people as Mr. and Mrs. Postman and company, watching a fully grown black man shake his money maker in a hot pink mini and enjoying the magical experience of tropical fish swimming beneath my fingertips were all elements pushing me closer and closer to an authentic experience of happiness, but this sassy, happy, lisping doll of a man loving me up like he'd just rediscovered his favorite teddy bear was what finally put me over the edge. An authentic smile bubbled up from the belly of my sorrow and unforgivingly slapped itself across my face, bringing with it several traces of the girl I once was. The girl that laughs and smiles, sometimes for no reason, and gets out of bed in the morning without having to slay the demons of panic and despair on her way to the shower. The girl that gets pleasure out of the way sunlight looks as it filters through leaves in the afternoon, and repeating the word "elongated" in her mind over and over when she's otherwise unoccupied. The girl who can be happy.

Photo attribution here.

I made a kind of involuntary squeal noise of joy and hugged this man I'd never met. He gave me the biggest, fattest kiss, right in my ear, and disappeared into the night, leaving me glowing with a full heart, good company and the slightest recollection of what it's like to be me. 

I'm happy to say, this magical moment seems to have cracked open my crusty exterior just enough to let in some sunshine and boost me up to a place where I feel fairly prepared to get my "six months divorced" gold star and enter a new phase of healing where things are a fair bit lighter, freer, less tormented and (dare I say it?) hopeful. Now, I'm not recommending you find yourself a gay bar and wait for someone not attracted to you to hit on you, but in this documenting of my journey through the unknowable path of Mormon divorce recovery I will venture to suggest that moments of healing may come in unexpected packages, at moments you don't feel ready for them, while you're doing what you do out of love. 

Maybe you should get some...help?

For those of you out there who have heard this statement reluctantly leave the lips of your loved ones, you are not alone. There is a depth of grief that comes with certain life events that your average momma or papa bear just doesn't know what to do with. I sincerely hope you have people in your life that love you immensely and want very much to help you, and for some people that may be enough to get you to a healthier place. For those of us who have spent one too many nights rehashing the breakup with our best friend, bishop, sister or the poor, unsuspecting guy who sat next to us on a bus, there is another place to turn. We have the option of seeing a professional.

I've encountered three basic camps on this issue. 1. Camp Shrink-tastic. 2. Camp Never Can Decide-y Pants. 3. Camp I Don't Need Your Voo Doo. To the skeptic I say, okay. Don't get therapy. Everyone has to work this out in her own way. I sincerely wish you luck. To the enthusiast I say, I hope things are going well for you. The rest of this post is for group two, the as of yet  undecided on the topic. I'll write this in the way I imagine a Q&A session might go. You'll be the Q, I'll be the A. My qualifications to be A are: I have seen a shrink or two in my day. One odd, a couple totally unhelpful, one pretty good, and Professor Rationality (we'll call him) who I see now I like quite a bit. Also, I am, as an acquaintance once described me, "very opinionated".


Q: How do I find a therapist?

A: Ask your Bishop for a recommendation. He likely refers people in your ward for therapy often. If you prefer a non LDS counselor or don't want to ask your bishop, ask around or talk to your buddies, Google and Yelp.


Q: What do I look for in a therapist?

A: Decide what issues you want to work on and look for a therapist who specializes in that. If he doesn't do the work you're looking for, ask him for a referral. Also, you may prefer a male or female, LDS or non-LDS, etc. Do your research, then email or call. Feel free to ask a reasonable amount of questions before scheduling an appointment.


Q: How do I know if I found a good one?

A: This is an important question that most people don't consider. The first session should be an interview with the therapist where you ask him or her anything you want to know: where she went to school, why she chose this field, what her methods are, how she structures a session, etc. You'll need to feel you could build trust with your therapist and feel confident in her abilities to lead you on a path to healthier living. Don't be afraid to shop around 'till you find the right fit. It's important. Once you're in therapy, know that the process brings up a lot of emotions. It's not uncommon, therefore, to feel deeply after a session or to be very tired. Ultimately, however, you should feel hopeful throughout the work.


Q: How long will I have to be in therapy?

A: This one is really must be taken case by case. It depends on what you want to work out, how often you attend, what the theories of your therapist are etc. The man I see is pretty firm in his belief that therapy is one of many tools to be used for the time that it's useful. He recommends an appointment just once or twice a month and has no qualms with the idea that our sessions will likely end when I go off to school in September. This is something you will want to discuss with your therapist as early as the first interview.


Q: So, what happens when I get in there? I mean, do I lay on a couch and close my eyes and talk about my childhood while some grey haired balding man listens and writes down cryptic notes while occasionally parroting my expressions?

A: Good glory, I hope not. I have never been laying down. That would be weird. And I hate when people just parrot what I say in a validating way. How the session is structured is largely up to you and your therapist. He'll help you identify where your thinking patterns have become distorted and are causing you grief. He may have exercises for you to try (ie:writing a letter to someone who has wronged you), books for you to read, or practices for you to incorporate in your daily life to help move you through what you've been struggling with.


Q: Couldn't you just talk to your friend? Isn't it the same thing?

A: In some cases, talking to my friends has been way more helpful than seeing a shrink for me, but I happen to have phenomenal and wise friends and family who are kind, down to earth, and helpful. That being said, with the therapist I have now, I do feel like going to a session to work with him is different for these reasons.

1. I don't feel guilty burdening him with anything I'm going through.
2. It's a set time for me to "work" on important challenges regularly.
3. He's been in practice for 27 years and is very scientific in his approach. He is excellent in explaining
to me what is a normal reaction/function of the brain and/or body and what I can expect to come next. He puts things in a helpful context for me, helps me see where my upbringing or relationships were off or unhealthy. Sometimes when you've grown up in chaos or been in an unhealthy relationship for so long it can be hard to distinguish what's healthy and what's not on your own.
4. There's something about paying for something that causes one to be a little more invested, action oriented and concerned with results. I find this helpful and motivational.


Q: Isn't therapy for crazy people and sissies?

A: No. Well, I mean, actually yes. Counseling sessions can be useful for some forms of psychosis, however, all candidates for counseling need not display symptoms of psychosis or even neurosis. As for being worried about people thinking you're a sissy, that makes you a sissy much more than attending therapy. (Nipped that one in the bud, didn't we? ; )


Okay, kiddos. That's all I've got for tonight. If you think of any more shoot me an email or post in the comments below. I'll add any good ones to the list. Sleep well, and whatever you are doing to help yourself through this, I sincerely hope it's working.

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 : )

Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?

Somewhere along the line in the kingdom of Mormondom, somebody decided that when we die we will see a movie of our lives. We will sit there with Jesus and God, sharing popcorn and sometimes God will say, "Oooh, yeah. I remember that. You really shouldn't have had that impure thought" or "Bought gas on Sunday, I just docked you 10 points." Then Jesus chimes in and says, "Oh, come on, Dad. Maybe you could let him off easy for that one." And thus we strike the perfect balance between Justice and Mercy, the two eternal moral imperatives.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say... I do not believe that is how judgement will play out. I mention this for a reason. Stay with me here.

Everything I understand about God and Jesus and their united mission (Moses 1:38,  Isaiah 53:5) tells me there is more to life than an infinite list of "good"s and "bad"s that have been recorded during our lives that culminate in some final balance that will tip the scale of our eternal destiny one way or another. The God I worship and love is a teacher. His ultimate goal, His work and His glory is to take us from the moment we let Him in, and set out on a divine tutorial with us. That tutorial starts with a spirit, eternal but young and simple, and ends with a fully developed, immortal human being, shaped and molded, trained up and knocked around, then polished into becoming the very best he or she can be.

The gospel is too often taught in terms of black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. Anyone who's reading this blog knows that life is full of complex situations, tailored personally to challenge and stimulate the growth of the person experiencing them. I have a wonderful friend who was the closest thing I had to a big brother through my divorce... besides my big brothers, who are great... but they were not really around. Every now and then when I was up to my eyeballs and nauseated by the blackening skies ahead of me I would send him a text saying something like, "Do you think it's wrong to get a divorce? I mean, won't God be mad at me? A covenant is a really big deal, you know?"

My friend would wisely respond with comments to the effect of, "I think you underestimate how much God knows the human heart and how forgiving He can be. Divorce is one potential solution to a problem. Sometimes it's the best one."

He's in pretty good company with this mentality. I've been listening to conference talks on my iphone lately when I can't sleep. Last night I heard Elder Holland say, "In the words of that prophet (Joseph Smith) I too declare our Heavenly Father is more liberal in His views and boundless in His mercies and blessings than we are ready to believe or receive." (The Grandeur of God, General Conference, October 2003.)

I feel like I'm coming to a place now where I am starting to understand that God is an infinitely knowledgeable, merciful, just Man with a mission. He teaches us in black and white, but I believe that's for our own safety. Training wheels. We are designed to develop in our spirituality to become able to discern for ourselves what is truth, and then have the integrity to act according to it. The stark categories of "good" and "bad" give way to fine tuning oneself to God's will for us in that moment.

One day, very near the end of my marriage, I went to the temple looking for some clarity. I wanted so badly for God to say, "If you're righteous enough, if you two just get back to reading and praying more, be more dedicated to service in the church, if you look to me with all your hearts, your marriage can be healed," but God is wise and He knew better. What He told me instead when I asked was, "I don't want any marriage to end, but there comes a point where you have to protect yourself."

Maybe it's because I'm so literal that I've had such a hard time with this. A peak into the mind of me would show you separate bins for right and wrong. I'm always sorting and striving for the "right" bin. But when it came time to sort "divorce" into one or the other, I was nearly paralyzed for the better part of a year. My operating system would flash "wrong" in red and move on to the next decision, but as time went on, again and again and again the thought came up for classification. Should I get divorced? How can it be wrong when staying married feels so incredibly wrong too?

So for those of you out there who are a bit rigid like me, a little black and white and stuck on this categorizing thing, I leave you with this thought: the thing that is right is the thing that brings us closer to God, closer to peace, closer to healing, closer to being whole, always. There is no movie, in the end. There's only a being, cultivated by the life she lived. Every choice she made to come closer to Christ was the right one.

Top 10 reasons I'm happy I'm divorced

You know how we do that thing where we pick something to identify ourselves?

I'm a student.
I'm a mom.
I'm a doctor.
I'm an artist.

What am I these days? I'm divorced. And not only am I divorced, I'm divorced and sad about it. When I introduce myself I have to cavity search my brain to see what other significant facts I can offer about myself. When people ask me in my singles ward where I moved from I have to invent a way to explain why I was attending the family ward close by. When people ask why I'm in Portland or what I do here I have to find some way to not say, "My former husband told me if I didn't move here to be closer to his family, he'd come without me. I actually never wanted to leave my perfect apartment three block from the ocean in Long Beach, California." There's currently a lot of bitter in here, which I feel is fair. I mean, let's be honest, the last two years were painful in a way I found previously unfathomable. But today I am tired of being bitter and sad. If I have to be "the divorced lady" for a while, even in my own brain, I can at least be a happy divorced lady.

So, without further ado, the top ten reasons I'm happy I'm divorced.

10. There is no stinky man breath in my bedroom, or beard hair trimmings in my sink.

9. There are no guns and nothing camouflaged in my apartment, and there never will be.

8.  I can keep my hair as short as I like and rock as many mustard colored cardigans as I please without complaint.

7. I know exactly what I will never tolerate in a relationship again and how important my wants and needs are.

6. I can sleep in and work part time, completely guilt free.

5. I get a do-over at one of life's most important relationships, but I get to keep all the wisdom I gained along the way. It's kind of like being sent back to high school, knowing what you learned in college.

4. There is no one to steal the covers while I sleep, or complain about how much I spent on them.

3. I don't have to be a mom yet, and I never have to share custody with The Mr.

2. I get new first kisses.

1. I get to go back to school this fall . . . in Hawaii. I just got the letter of acceptance last week. This never, ever, ever would have happened if I were not divorced : )


So, yes, it's sad. Yes, my heart is broken. Yes, I had a moment yesterday afternoon where I sobbed like a baby for 30 minutes, but also, it's pretty freaking amazing. And it's good to feel and embrace that too. I firmly believe God doesn't want us to spend the rest of our lives rehashing or punishing ourselves for what happened, or grieving the loss forever. Life does go on, and life is a beautiful thing, especially when you're the one at the wheel again.

What's your number one reason you're happy to be divorced?

Oh, and PS - My good friend recently sent me a mixed tape for my birthday and this was on it. It's where the title of this blog came from. You have to see it. It's too good not to, and totally relevant to this post.

No Man's Mamma, Carolina Chocolate Drops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vujXNH-qRWc

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.