Take my hand, we'll make it, I swear...

I'm in Oregon, as I occasionally am; eating ice cream, as is often the case; in a giant floral muumuu, which is a special treat bringing me inordinate amounts of joy.

I just drove from San Diego to Portland and stopped at nearly every thrift store for the entirety of that stretch. The muumuu was purchased in the last thrift store on my last day of this endeavor to collect clothing for a vintage one-layer-modest clothing line, and it will always be a treasured memento.

As for the trip, north of San Fransisco I drove almost exclusively on the 101--which is gorgeous and quirky and I highly recommend it for road tripping fodder. South of San Fran it was the 1 (or PCH) for as much as I could manage. What that means is that I basically just spent the last two weeks careening my way along rocky cliff sides overlooking a vast ocean, then popping into the redwood forrest, then hopping back out to the Oregon coast in time for sunset lit lighthouses and blustery evenings of cold noses. Oh, Oregon. You're so silly. Don't you know beaches are supposed to be warm? : )

Anyway, I just wanted to check in to say:
1. I'm alive, and quite well, thank you.
2. I haven't forgotten you, or my divorce, but...
3. 18 months divorced (oh my gosh, almost 19 months! I didn't even realize that till I looked at my calendar just now) feels pretty dang amazing.

I am pretty sure it was the 18 month mark for me where I really broke free from the captivity of my post-divorce pain processing/wallowing. I hesitate to even call it wallowing because that word has such a negative connotation and processing is highly personal in its nature and time frame--but a girl knows when she has transitioned from sincere grieving and processing and into purely unproductive wallowing. Wherever I was at 17 months, I am not there now. In all honesty I feel like a completely different person. I don't miss him. I don't hate him. I don't think about him much. I don't wonder where we went wrong or wish we had only… I don't think we could have made it work and I don't wish I had never met him. I just see what happened, and I accept it for the absolutely soul killing adventure it was.

And I see it as over.

That chapter is complete. I've tried to close the book before, force the chapter to end, but there is a difference between slamming a book shut because you are sick of reading and naturally completing the chapter. I've finished up that section of my life by living one day after another. Some might congratulate me for getting to this better place, but the truth is, all I did was keep living one day at a time. Breathe in, breathe out, repeat. Some of those breaths were laborious. Some were filled with spite and regret. Others were zoned out and disconnected, but I have accumulated enough of them now that I have arrived at nearly 19 months divorced. I did it! I existed through that time, and now, here I am in my floral muumuu eating ice cream and not thinking about how sad it is to be a divorced lady. I'm excited for what the next chapter will hold. All the foreshadowing in divorce recovery chapter seems pretty promising. I can't wait to see what is about to happen. There are so many ways the story could unfold from here.

I know this process is highly personal, but I do want to offer every reassurance I possibly can that things do get better. I remember people who had come through it telling me that and how I didn't feel like I could believe them because they seemed so healthy and lighthearted. How could they ever have experienced what I had and come out the other end like that? There was just no way in my mind that could happen. No heart could ever recover that destruction...and yet, here I am--a surprisingly lighthearted Ghost of Christmas Future, to tell you this:

Don't you give up. Don't quit! Don't you turn your back on God. We need you and the faith and fortitude you are cultivating even now in the world and the church far too desperately. My brother, Jesus, is real and He is there--for and with you. He has been the whole time, even and especially the times you couldn't and can't feel it--He is, because He loves you and He always will. He will help it get better. He won't let it stay like this forever. He loves you too damn much.

Keep your chin up. One foot in front of the other. If it's a lay in bed kind of day or week, then let it be. It won't last forever. The sun shines down eventually. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat.

The Bottom

Outside the door of my dorm room apartment there is a drinking fountain. It's not just any drinking fountain. For reasons apparent by clicking here, Sassy McLadyBoots and I affectionately refer to this drinking fountain as The Magic Fountain. Unlike any other fountain on campus it endlessly brings forth the most soul quenchingly refreshing water--crisp and cool in the palpable plumeria breeze. Every morning when I wake up, and usually before I go to sleep I fill up my water bottle from The Magic Fountain. This is to say, I slip out from between my sheets in my vintage sleepware, put on my lightweight robe--the one with the big flowers, and open the screen door (because the front door has literally never been closed in my almost year long stint here) and step out onto warm cement and into sunshine. Sometimes there is a rainbow. Usually there are tropical birds. Always the temperature outside is exactly the same as the temperature inside, and inevitably I have this thought:

I freaking love living in Hawaii.

Every. Single. Day.

I have been aware of this state of being for quite some time, but today I am especially cognizant. I am leaving Hawaii tomorrow. The reason I am leaving Hawaii is a really happy reason. It's a cause I created myself and have spent months preparing for, even years dreaming of. With the help of one of my closest and most amazing friends I am launching a vintage inspired, modest, women's clothing line--dresses that can be worn in just one layer. I will be on a sumer road trip, (which may make me less available for a bit--don't worry. I'm coming back!) driving through California and Oregon, visiting people I love more than my own kneecaps, stopping to thrift in every town I come to, and blogging about it. Apart from the addition of a VW Van, this adventure could not be more packed full of my happy making-est things in life, but here's the thing.

I don't want to go.

I'm going, and I am certain that I will thoroughly enjoy the experience, that it will be even more fun and adventure than I can currently wrap my brain around, but in this exact moment and in the moments I spent this evening breathing in a little ocean air… I don't want to go.

This is a really exciting development.

I am 29 year old. I spent a five year stint living in one place and a seven year stint living in another, and still I have moved 30 times. Throughout the entirety of my adult life I have decided after about six months of living somewhere that the unhappiness/uneasiness/discontent/frustration I feel is because I need to try living somewhere else. Now, I know I live in Hawaii now and everything, but hear me out. I don't think this wave of contentment I have been basking is entirely about the sun and the breeze… and the plumeria… and the… WAIT! Those aren't the only things. I have a different theory about why it is that for the first time in my life I am content.

I've struggled with depression my entire life--long before I knew what to call it or that everyone didn't feel the way I almost always did. I pull myself together well. I get things done. I find things to be happy about. I find people to love and project to be involved in, but up until recently I lived with a persistent nagging at my heart. It was like a four year old that you are trying really hard to ignore because you are on the phone getting important information from a fast talking banker. If you can plug your ear hard enough and close your eyes tight enough (or move from place to place enough) maybe it will go away.

Then, one day about 15 months into my marriage that nagging four year old had an absolute melt down. No--he morphed into a vengeful, demonic, fire breathing dragon twelve times the size of my house. He scared the crap out of me. I hung up the phone with the banker, sat down and stared for a good long while. Then, I started taking an anti-depressant, seeing a counselor, and divorced my husband, in that order.

I think it was that terrifying, fire breathing moment that did it. I mean--ok. I know. I can't lie, the melona soft serve at Country Rides and Grinds is off the hook and the papaya that grows on the tree in my courtyard is ridiculous. The art I get to do daily is deeply healing and sometimes I can feel the sun frying anything you might call, "the blues" out of me. But I tell you this now, I have had delicious food, fresh fruit, art projects and sunshine all before, and I have never felt like this. There is something about bottoming out that changes a girl. The sadness I lived with before was legitimate and warranted, to whatever degree, but the fire breathing dragon moment is what changed my life. I had to decide--do I stay this way? Or do I make a new path? How much do I want to change? How much am I willing to sacrifice to get to a healthier place?

I let go of my pride and got on some medication. I released preconceived notions and judgements about who gets divorced and why. I sold every possession I owned for peanuts from my adorable two bedroom apartment with the hardwood floors, checkered kitchen tiles, and big windows. I set aside all my fears about what it would be like to start completely over… again. (I cannot adequately explain to you the depth of my emptiness at the end of my marriage. I gave the endeavor the marrow in my bones and walked away with nothing but a broken heart.) And slowly I began to risk involvement with your average, everyday, flawed human beings again.

I've seen the bottom now. I know the ugliness of it. I know the lonely and the empty and the hollow that live there, and I'm not afraid of them anymore. I let them and the fear of them go too, and because I did, my melona soft serve tastes a little more melony. I spend more time in that gorgeous sunshine. I second guess myself less and can make new friends with fun stories to tell and moments to share. I see a little more clearly the goodness and the beauty that exists in every day life around me, and when sad or stressful things happen, they hardly register on the Richter Scale. I just pause my conversation and tell the panic rising in my throat, "I have seen the bottom. I know the fire breathing dragon, and you, sir, are not it." Then I go back to my plumeria and papaya, my deadlines and projects,  my homework and hard work--invested, present and appreciative. I have seen the bottom. Jesus is down there. I don't have to worry about being alone anymore.

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. 

"You're divorced? What happened?"

Photo attribution here. 

On the issue of telling people I am divorced, I have two opinions:

1. The incredible shame of going through a divorce in the church causes many to clam up about it. I believe it's because we're not talking about it that those not touched by divorce are not thinking about it, therefore they stand in judgement by default of our culture, and the shame remains. Opening up about what life is like in the post marital world is the only way to open people's eyes and hearts to empathizing with us. It's hard, but we can do it.

2. It's none of your damn business. Leave me the hell alone.

I often feel these both, simultaneously.

When you tell someone you're divorced they always want to know one thing--what happened? The reason I don't like this question isn't what you think. I have no problem talking about my experience. I find it pretty cathartic--as is evidenced by this blog, it's just that I have no good answer for the question that can be conveyed in a 20 second window. This is because when you are a Latter Day Saint, there is an unwritten rule that there is a short list of reasons that make it "okay" to get a divorce.

1. Your partner is beating you black and blue.
2. Your partner was unfaithful.
3. Your partner has an addiction - usually drug or pornography - that is negatively affecting your family.

And really, with the exception of number one, these issues are not a hall pass to the courthouse to file. As a people we favor reconciliation in pretty much every case, and while no decision regarding a marriage and family should ever be taken lightly, I think this, "There are three people in my marriage and as long as God and I are two of them we can get by," mentality is doing long lasting damage.

I need to reiterate to you here that I deeply respect the marriage covenant. My relationship with The Mr. would have passed its expiration date six months into the marriage if we had not been sealed in the temple. Three quarters of our time together was spent turning myself inside out to avoid the inevitable. In the end there was no other way to retain even a shred of my self worth or identity than to let it go, and still somehow I feel guilty for finally releasing the long dead weight of the relationship.

When people ask me, "What happened?" I have no concise answer. I have spent days and weeks of concerted effort trying to encapsulate into a simple phrase the kind of life it was being married to The Mr. "We got married too fast." "He wasn't kind." "He changed when we got married." "We were just too different." But none of it covers it, and I know--because before I crossed over into this no man's land I would have done the same thing-- that while people have sympathetic feelings and faces, many of them are ultimately trying to discern what I would be like to be married to and if the break up was my fault or his. Ultimately they want to know if I "tried hard enough" and if the break was justified. It's not really the individual's fault. It's a product of a religious culture that honors lists of dos and don'ts. Divorce is a don't. I know that, but to convey the nuance of all the different layers of hell that I lived for those two years is impossible in a 20 second window, or even 20 minutes. Knowing that someone could think I would tap out because I was too tired, that I would walk away when the going got tough, that I don't have it in me to be in a healthy relationship, that I made this choice out of selfishness, or that there is any part of my soul that feels okay about breaking a covenant with God is extremely painful and insulting to me. It leaves me feeling unknown and completely misunderstood.

One of the hardest and most heartbreaking aspects of the end of my marriage was when I would show up at The Padre's house, completely distraught, bawling my eyes out, trying so hard to convey what was going on. The Padre and Lady Pants are sympathetic people, but they are (fortunately for me or I would be the last one standing in the family) very active in the church. While they have both gone through divorce, the counsel they gave me was essentially--So sorry this is happening to you. He's just a young guy. He shouldn't treat you like that, but he is your eternal companion. I hope you two can work it out. And off I would go, back to the vortex of my marriage to see again if I could make sense of it. I can't really blame them for not being able to give me what I needed in those moments. They were doing their best, I'm sure, and couldn't know the full extent of what was going on behind our closed doors, but what I needed was for someone to tell me it's okay for me to think of what's best for me. It's okay to own up to how horrible things had gotten. It's okay to put myself first this time. It's okay to say enough is enough.

Because my relationship didn't fit into scenarios one through three, there is a small part of me that refuses to die off that still says, "It could have worked out. I should have tried harder," and I don't think that's fair. I don't want anyone else to have to live with that feeling. My life with The Mr. was full of half working cars dangerously jerry rigged, camo shorts and black socks, beard hair trimmings left in the sink, a tragic lack of social skills or understanding, his inability to settle on a career path, a constant fear that he was going to get fired, pressure to have a baby when I wasn't ready, discontent at my desire to complete my education, lack of spiritual connection or involvement, and a complete dismissal of any element of me that slightly resembled an artist. In the last couple months I've seen three plays, started a student activism blog, joined the music club with a trip planned to the symphony, hand crafted a pitcher that looks like a whale, made the perfect salad bowl in ceramics, started juicing, planted an herb garden with fresh mint, made plans to launch a vintage inspired clothing line, and learned to properly capture a human likeness in charcoal.

The Mr. and I do not belong together.

He didn't hit me, cheat on me, turn to porn or pot or suddenly develop an affection for Neil Patrick Harris, but when I was with him, all that I loved about me hid itself away in a deep, dark corner of my soul for fear that it would continue to go unnoticed, unappreciated, dismissed and rejected. He was not good to me and I was not right for him. We are better off apart. As clear as God speaking to Moses, night following day or the human body needing oxygen, that is the truth. Can't that be enough?

As a culture we are endlessly looping through this idea that a list of dos and don'ts will be what saves us-- that it's somehow an all inclusive package to salvation. This mentality is how we end up criticizing those who drink coke but have no qualms serving brownies with every meal. It's why we can feel justified telling ourselves that home and visiting teaching members of our faith alleviates us of the opportunity to better the world at large or to reach out to our non-LDS community. This mentality disconnects us from the Sprit and our core knowledge of what is right and wrong. It creates a blinding hyper focus on a fear that we are somehow deviating from the list.

When we do what we do out of fear--fear of losing, fear of disappointing, fear of punishment or falling short-- it is not the same thing as when we do it out of love. The point of this existence is to become changed beings. Fear does not transform us for the better. The right thing for my parents to do in that time was to reiterate to me that the destructive elements of his behavior were absolutely unacceptable and help me remember to value myself while I was married to a man who couldn't find anything about me to love. The right thing for me while I was in that relationship was to say, "I will not allow you to treat me or anyone this way. You are not being a good husband and will not make a good father to my children. If this is the life you choose, you choose a life without me." The right thing for any of us to do in the myriad of situations life throws at us is to look inside, connect with that voice that never lies and is never wrong, and follow it--end of story. The dos and don'ts are guidelines. The voice is a lifeline. Pushing it aside for the sake of the list doesn't bring us closer to salvation, it alienates us from direct revelation. It separates us from God.

I want to go home.

Photo attribution here. 

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

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

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

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

July First, Twenty Thirteen

I am in love with the city of Long Beach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe. 

Or maybe not.

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

It's hard not to have sex, said the Mormon girl.

Photo attribution here. 

And that Mormon girl would be me.

*Note: as you may have guessed, this post is about sex. It's not explicit, but it is direct. If that makes you uncomfortable, you probably shouldn't read it. 

Recently I got my first ever request for a post on a particular topic: post marital sexual deactivation. This is a post I've been wanting to write for quite some time because, frankly, I love sex, and it's really hard to go from having semi-regular access to it to zilch. Second, this is something every divorcee faces but no one talks about, and by now you know how committed I am to talking about the important things that make your average Molly Mormon/Peter Priesthood squirm. On that note...

First of all, I want to kick this off my saying that I know it's, like, a thing to run around saying we feel sorry for men and their ginormous sexual appetites and how it's not their fault and it's all evolution and they have a biological need to spread their seed and all, but I just want to throw it out there that there are many, many women--LDS and otherwise-- with healthy libido, and plenty of men I've met that can either take sex or leave it. So men, you are not alone in the struggle to fly solo after your companion has jumped ship. And women, you are not weird for liking, loving, missing and/or needing sex. So when we all got this letter tucked in with out divorce decrees...

Dear no-longer-married-person, 

Don't have sex anymore. Not with your former spouse, not with your (not yet married to) "future spouse",  not by yourself, not with an elf... Do not have sex here or there. Do not have sex anywhere. 

Good luck with that. 

Love, God


...it's safe to say that men and women alike had issues.

We all have different attitudes, experiences and opinions about sex, but no matter where you fall on the spectrum, if you are recently divorced you will have to reconcile your sex life (or lack of sex life) in some way or another. We as LDS people have an interesting, complicated relationship with sexuality to begin with. We are taught to fear it, but look forward to it. We love it, but fiercely try to control it. We have rules dictating our sexual behavior a mile long and we are accountable for our actions. In fact, it is not only considered appropriate, but it's expected that our leaders will ask us probing questions about our sexual conduct at any moment. Our eternal salvation is perpetually at stake.

With that magnitude of significance and consequence lacing our biological, God given desire to procreate it's no wonder that we get spazzy about sex. As for those of us who have experienced sexual intimacy, we find ourselves in an even more complex position where we did our best to transition from forbidden to sacred and bonding (or at least just plain fun) and now, not only are our souls torn up from the dramatic shifts in our lives, stress levels high, moral compasses whacky and ideals all in question, we have the task of un-familiarizing ourselves with a notoriously relaxing, pleasurable, relieving, happy making activity we once enjoyed. Oh yeah, and we're so lonely we can't watch an insurance ad without bawling.

All that is to say, I hear you! I know. It totally sucks. I hate it, and I'm sorry. Unfortunately, this, like many other things in our lives right now, doesn't have an easy answer. God loves us, is aware of us, grieves with us and ultimately, so far as I can tell (because there really is no literature on this that I've been able to find) doesn't make any moral exceptions for us. We are commanded to be abstinent once more. That's the long and short of it.

That being said, I do have a few thoughts and tips for those of you who feel similarly to the way I do about this issue. Having made it nearly 18 months now without a gentleman caller knocking at heaven's door, this is my advice:


1. Embrace and accept it. It is what it is. No amount of suppressing, avoiding, fixating, indulging, blaming, guilting or denying will make this go away. Craving sexual intimacy is not weird, it's not wrong and while it will likely vary in intensity from time to time, it's not going to go away, and that's okay. This is a moment in time. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to step out of its way and let it happen.

2. Remember that acting on impulses will likely bring momentary relief or enjoyment, but ultimately, when that fleeting experience is complete, we are where we left off, but with less of God's Spirit. I think we can all agree, we could use as much of God's Spirit as we can get these days. Premarital sex is still (now to me, having seen first hand what the bonding power of sex can do) terrifyingly dangerous, especially in the state we're in, and pornography is a cheap counterfeit that sincerely has the capacity to dramatically distort our view of this sacred thing we crave. (Click here for a great website with more on this.) Ultimately, no matter how much emotional pain and turmoil we're in, it's just not worth it. It's just not. 

3. Closely related to #1, try not to beat yourself up about it, because things do happen. Guilt serves one purpose and one purpose only: to motivate us to change. If it's not motivational, it's just another tool in Satan's kit. Accept and love yourself, no matter what you're going through and how close you currently are to following Christ's gospel perfectly. The love of God is endless and cannot be withheld from you if you will look up.

4. Do your best not to dwell. We all have memories of the past and hopes for the future, but letting them run rampant in our minds can only bring us down. Acknowledge that there will one day again be a time and place for that, and allow your mind to be freed by any one of the following:

-Climb a tree and see what you can see.
-Dance with a child, or have her tell you a story from her imagination.
-Take up a sport or some sort of physical fitness hobby. There's more than one way to release endorphins ; )
-Look outside yourself to see the needs of those around you. Help someone in some small way.
-Read a (wholesome) book that takes you somewhere new. The library is full of cheap vacations.
-Make a bucket list and start crossing off adventures.
-Write out how you feel. Sometimes just writing it out, then chucking it will get unhelpful things out of my system.
-Make new (platonic) friends.
-Join a club - hunting, knitting, cycling, dancing, you name it. The more foreign to your regular routine the more brain capacity it takes to learn, the less brain power you have to spare for unhelpful pining.

You get the idea.

I'm not saying it's easy. Heaven knows the struggle I've had and still have with engaging fully in the present life I live. So much time missing and wishing. I am saying, however, there is a high road. In all of the deluge of confusion, pain, grief, frustration and heartache that comes with the end of a marriage, I have found that the most long lasting satisfaction comes when I do my best to take the high road. It's hard, but we can do hard things.

Keep your chin up. Like everything else it gets better with time... sort of : )

my side of the bed

Photo attribution here.

I don't know if this is something all divorcees do, but I like to mark milestones. I still remember congratulating myself for making it ten minutes in to my first day back at work the morning after the bomb dropped. I counted days up until I hit six months and I counted months 'till I hit a year. Now, I count waves crashing, beautiful boys smiling and hours remaining 'till my homework is due. Today, however, I would like to pause to note and commemorate, as of early this month this blog is officially one year old.

Congratulations, blog. You made it through your first year!

In order to celebrate this occasion I want to share with you a post I wrote just before this blog was created on another, more private blog I'd been keeping. It describes life in the early stages of recovery. I want to share it because I was remembering today how desperately I wanted to know, in that time, how long my life was going to look so much like the seventh circle of hell. Often times when I am feeling sad I convince myself that I am the only one who could ever possibly understand or experience the pain I feel. This is just not true. While I haven't felt everything you've felt, I do want to offer you this glimpse (and believe me, it is a very small, watered down glimpse) into what life was like in January of 2013.

This is my life now.

I wake up at 6:30, fall back asleep till 7. Freak out that I'm late and jump in the shower. Eat a PB&J on my way to the car (have I mentioned I need to go grocery shopping?) before slapping some makeup on my face as I drive. I then spend 4-6 hours with a five year old boy. His mom is a stay at home mom, and does indeed stay at home while I am there, at times. I don't blame her for needing the break. He just got kicked out of his third preschool. 

After job one I head into town (a 45 minute commute) where I spend the rest of daylight nannying two considerably calmer children. After job two I come home to my apartment where it is cold and dark and there I meet some mail addressed to someone I don't know, mystifying stale smells, and my disgruntled Siamese. Everything in the house is exactly where I left it. Not one thing has changed or been touched by an outside force of any kind. All that's there is me. 

I find anything mindless to do for the next few hours, then I go to bed.

I sleep in the bed The Mr. and I bought with some of our wedding cash. That bed, my newlywed and recently divorced bed, has many, many memories. The relationship in all its extremity was experienced here. Giddy. Love drunk. Elated. Orgasmic. Exhausted. Optimistic. Confused. Concerned. Cuddling. Compromising. Talking. Fighting. Fearing. Feeling. Praying. Pleading. And oh good God, so much crying. This is where I was sitting when we decided to separate, and this is where I crawled moments after he walked out the door.

I still used to sleep on my side, in the beginning. I found that I would turn over in my half sleep and find myself alone. That's no way to start or end a night. Now I sleep in the middle. I surround myself with pillows and my cat hops up to join me, whether I like it or not. I bought new sheets and a new duvet cover. I painted the bedside tables, right over the back sides where we'd painted our initials in hearts at The Mr.'s suggestion. I put a new skin on the bones of my life, but it doesn't change that the flesh is all still missing. Empty. Quiet. Calm. Free of the chaos that was killing me, but... dead. Just a little bit dead. Painted and spruced, clean and calm and... unrelentingly heartbreakingly wrong.



And now,  a brief synopsis of what my life looked like today.



This morning I woke up around 8:00 to the sound of tropical birds and lawn mowers. Oh, Hawaii-- how you can have such a laid back attitude about pretty much everything in life, but such an affinity for ear drum blastingly loud lawn care equipment in the wee hours of the A.M. is beyond me. In ceramics I turned in my latest two creations. The teacher was clearly impressed, because I am a pottery ninja. Sheri Dew came to speak at devotional today. Sweet of her to drop by. Book of Mormon class was thought provoking, as usual. Our teacher loves a good question, and you know how much I love to ask a good question. 

I ordered some new t shirts from my favorite site because they are having a sale and then hit the grocery store with Sassy McLadyBoots. The lime Tostidos were on sale, making them almost the price they would be when I'm not shopping on a remote island. Clearly, God loves me. A woman from my mission is in town, so we met up for the night show, which means I spent a couple hours watching my adorable roommate perform the hula and countless dudes from my classes whoop and holler and slap themselves and play with fire... shirtless. 

After the show I stopped over at Hukilau beach and did a little yoga, stretched, prayed and took some deep breaths while the wind fussed with my hair and did her best to tip me out of tree pose. Then, back to my twin bed in a shared dorm room which, I realized last Sunday, is starting to feel impressively and unexpectedly like home. The Padre asked me today if I'm coming home for summer break. For the first time in my life I could truthfully say, "I don't know, I think I might rather stay."

Perhaps you're tired of me saying this, but I need you to know--things do get better. The painful things diminish and new things steal your focus. Mundane things. Scary things. Exciting things. Things so unexpected and hilarious you almost forget you ever had a no-good-low-down-rotten-or-at-least-not-ideal spouse in the first place.  Life may not be extraordinary every day, but you have within you the power to move in a positive direction. You have within you a way to make it through.