Finally I have managed to get this archived folder looking pretty close to the way I thought it ought to look.

I’d like to tell you more about why this material has been tucked away … but that will have to wait b/c this particular quest for brilliance has left me plum-tuckered.

Thanks to E and Google - all is right with the world again.

It will take me a bit to get the posts re-established and then the content will be moved to the archive tab for storage.

Yes, I know I’m repeating myself … but the hamster was running his little o’ legs off.

More interesting content is on the way …

We do not live in isolation. How’s that for a newsflash? I know it’s an obvious thing, but it’s easy to forget about the impact - good and bad - that each of us has the power, the capacity, the audacity to make.

Sometimes I wish for isolation. Sometimes I simulate it. But no matter how long I hybernate … hours … days … weeks … I struggle to deny that somewhere something is relying on me to do my part as a player in the universe. Grass cut, kid fed, email answered. As an adult, I have had to come to accept and respect that I live in a world that does not belong solely to me. My world collides with that of others … sometimes the collision is forceful and sometimes it is ever so slight. Whether it is a pleasant experience for me and the other players is hardly up to me alone … for all the factors and variables in motion, I can only take full responsibility for that very one that I control … me. It is a constant shaping … “me” … affected by the experiences of living … growing from the encounters with sorrow, offense, guilt, and joy.

Negative experiences give me great cause to reflect. Could I have done something differently, should I have done something differently, would it have made a difference had I done something … well - differently. There aren’t always answers to these very fluid questions. One thing done differently could yield an infinite number of unique results or it could yield just more of the same. It is really hard to say. I can say that from every negative experience I am determined to yield something positive. I know I have grown. I have learned countless lessons about myself and know I will learn countless more. I have gone to great lengths to understand me - not where it … the relationship … went wrong, but where I began to go wrong in my head … where I began to lose myself to my titles of wife, mother, professional … where I began to let others shape me instead of assuredly standing on my own. I know I have issues and I own them. Divorce has forced me to do this in isolation of the relationship that was my marriage, which is what makes it so sad. I most likely will never get to know what, if, or how. We certainly had our collective issues, and they were most likely born out of the issues we each carried in and throughout our marriage. With the marriage severed, those issues continue to remain, maybe even worsen - flawed communication … fraught with tension and frustration … always on the precipice of anger … held back only be willful restraint. It is from this place that I shared how I felt about his “girlfriend” … not about her as a person, but about the “it” of it all … It was articulated in the context of restraint. There are emotions, very bad emotions, that catapult to the surface when we are suddenly confronted with the reality that someone we so desperately want to love only wants to create a further divide. I acknowledge that he makes me feel. I own that most of what he used to make me feel was bad, and for that I have chosen to forgive him. I know I have forgiven him, because I actively chose to and knew it was essential to my own recovery. I feel I have forgiven him, because he no longer wrecks me just by being him. That’s a process that has moved me. I felt it. One day I will forgive myself.

I own my issues and I own this forum. This forum … this blog is my voice. I own that I will sometimes use my voice unwisely, unlovingly, raw and honestly. I do it for no other reason than to write about my life … my divorce … for what it actually is … for me. It is not always nice, but I strive to keep it real.

No matter how much I continue to cultivate my understanding of myself, nothing will improve my ex-husband’s understanding of me without his desire to gain that insight and vice versa. There are boundaries there and that’s understandable. I have my issues, he has his issues. I can hope he’s acknowledged, embraced, and maybe even worked through some of his, but that’s not for me to know. The only thing I can know is that I no longer own his issues, and had no business ever making his issues about me. I am separate and apart from him, and although a player in his life, I was never responsible to create his personal happiness and well-being. He has his issues … we all have issues … and they are his to own.

He recently shared that he had read my blog … that “they” had read my blog. I respect his courage in telling me that he was greatly offended by the comment I had made. It reminded me that I don’t live in isolation, that there are times when I collide into another’s space … that there can be a ripple effect. The productivity of that post-game analysis ends there. I tried to put it into context for him, but he was not interested. He was only interested in standing on his higher moral ground exclaiming his disappointment in me … pinning the issues that he says he doesn’t have on me … which is an old dance that I no longer know the steps to.

I don’t know if he’ll ever let that guard down, but I no longer pine for it.

Looking back, my ex-husband ceased to be my most treasured and valued best friend very early in our marriage. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m not sure if our relationship even ever got to that stage. There was a very brief time in those first few years that he was my most present and attentive friend, but there were always things that remained safely hidden behind the fences each of us kept hedged up. We never grew to that stage of bare-bones raw honesty. My earliest memory of being sad about those fences is the period of time when we were trying to conceive … I got pregnant quickly and lost the child in the same amount of time. “He” … the dad … was stressed and overwhelmed about work, and I let him focus on that, and was dishonest about how much I needed him. Instead I turned to my best female friend, and she was an incredible solace. I underestimated the significance of the loss - I packaged it neatly and tried to tuck it away, and she didn’t just give me permission, she encouraged the grief … what I failed to recognize was that I needed to be sharing this grief with the father of my lost child. Hence the divide began and swelled quickly from there. I began to run … from myself, from him … and he let me. If there had ever been a chance for us to grow together, that might have been it. Might have … might. Who knows. It’s history.

When you divorce, the loss of the relationship with your spouse is pretty obvious … unless you’re catatonic … which you are some days. There are also the tidily connected relationships. Your parents will always struggle with how to relate to your ex-husband, the father of your child. His parents share that struggle with you. There is tension and frustration. Not very long ago they shared in every occasion of your life … sometimes uninvited, but usually welcomed. They sent cards, they occasionally called. They cared and had the freedom to show it … now they don’t. I’m sure some in-law … or more accurately “ex-laws” choose to overlook this and continue to acknowledge your presence on earth - and I’m sure people in that situation are just as bothered, because the whole thing is quite naturally bothersome. What is far less apparent is the loss of your peripheral acquaintances. People you enjoyed staying in touch with, if only once or twice a year. People your husband went to high school with, guys he played hockey with and buddied around with … you know, the dudes who acted like buffoons at your wedding, and even though you glared you were secretly chuckling a wee bit at the spectacle. There has been so much going on that I’ve barely had the time to notice the evaporation of these loosely connected relationships. There in lies the odd catch-22 of it all - they aren’t necessarily the people you even think to share any of your news with - you failed to inform them that you got into law school, didn’t even consider telling them you bought your first house, and they are the last people you will declare your ecstatic-glee-filled news of new love to (if and when that ever happens) - yet you are bafflingly disappointed to realise that you are no longer the recipient of their news. Yessssss, just as you realize that your friends are magnificently yours, you understand that there are others you sort of miss hearing about on a more routine basis, his friends, who were sort of yours, in a very peripheral way, and they are just not there anymore … they have no reason to include you in their lives. So, you have to be satisfied hearing about these folks the old-fashioned way … through the proverbial grapevine. It is awkward … it is real … and ultimately, it is so not a big deal … save for the fact that you’ve discovered the magnificence of your true friends.

Mmmmhmmm. Now there’s something that’s worth wasting your time on. That’s a magnificent thing.

It arrives in your mailbox - the divorce order. It’s two pieces of paper and despite that it contains few words. It leaves you wondering - is this it? There’s nothing to sign. It only takes one. It’s all very strange. It’s all very strange. I wasn’t sure how I would feel. I felt nothing - not joy, not relief, not empty, not anything really. Well, a wee bit of confusion in trying to determine if that was actually it, all of it, or was there more to come. Once it sunk in, it just sort of sunk in. I’m still in denial about my ability/inability to save my marriage. I still wonder what could I have done, what should I have done, what if I had done … psychology says it takes six months for every year of marriage and I don’t have to wonder why. It takes a long time to get so established and rooted in your own life that you essentially forget about the other non-life, the one you were wishing would give you a do-over. For me, I think it might take a lifetime to actually forgive myself. Sometimes that concerns me - sometimes being pretty much only when I think about it, which can be often or not often depending on what else I have going on. It’s not that complex, it just seems impossible to let it all go entirely - I can find lots of things to numb it - alcohol, shopping, friends, food, chocolate, friends, life, busy-ness … but in the quiet stillness, I think of him and I and where and why it all had to go so wrong. And it only takes one …

The culture of hate. Divorce breeds it. Not just hate of each other, but the hate of oneself, of one’s own human-ness. I can see my friends cringing - “oh no, we’re not going here again”, I’m not, I’ve learned to manage it, but it’s still tucked away down there and I’m not sure it ever goes away. Not without some serious distraction, and even then, is it really going away or is it just being more effectively ignored? Kind of akin to the nagging child, non? Pain management of sorts. At one time, in one rant or another, I might have thought that it would be easier, life that is, if I just went ahead and hated him. That’s problematic though, because I still have to talk to him about things like daycare, soccer games, skating lessons, and poop (preschooler, for those that don’t know - the kid, not my ex-husband, but sometimes I’m left wondering). Ever try to have a nice conversation with someone you hate. It’s not fun.

“Hi - how are you? Did you have a nice day?” (with your fucking slut of a trollop girlfriend - is resonating in the back forty of your mind somewhere, you manage to push it down).

“I am great.” he responds, followed by the long pause that means - “Please don’t say anything else, at least not until I get the TV onto the game and muted so that I can watch the hockey game while you are nattering away about how I’m a useless putz who’s surely going to hell for my inability to love you.”

“That’s good, I’m glad to hear it,” you lie. A lot of restraint, and a lot of lying, I’m fine, life is great, I’m great, I love me, all lies you tell somehow someway in the 2 minute conversation that you wish wasn’t happening.

It’s not fun. At least now that I’m divorced, I am free to pursue other men to distract me from myself. There’ll be that flurry, that flutter that comes with the excitement of a potential new relationship. Surely it’ll be followed by some nausea, mostly at the perplexing thought of what one should wear, and then there’ll be all that pretentiousness. Gag. Maybe it’s best to just stick it out a little while longer … 

 … and it’s all rather anticlimactic.

The day before it became official, I drank champagne and gave a toast to endings and beginnings … and wondered at the miracle of time … life just keeps going with our without me. And I accepted that I am happy, scarred, but happy - and happy is okay … happy is most definitely allowed and okay … in spite of it all.

And that took two. Me and God.

It’s good, but it is all rather anticlimactic … and it’s good.

Some of my less finer means include focussing on the end rather than the way - it is so easy for me to get sidelined by the current desired prize that I compromise on the good path, I try and take that shortcut … it doesn’t necessarily fail, but it certainly prolongs the win. I used to persist and would inevitably end up right where I had driven myself to get, but usually too tired to enjoy the prize. I recently read a good commentary on progress - the crux was something to the effect of - two men head out in the same direction towards the same end, both get lost. One persists. One turns back. It’s the man who recognizes he is lost, turns back, and reconnects with the right path that makes the real progress. Maybe that’s obvious to you - but plough on had been ploughed into me to the detriment of legitimate progress.

I have always refused to turn back. Ahhh, but this battle has made me wise to that. It’s all in the recognition - to recognize the misstep, turn back, realign, recenter, reconnect … then step out - that’s greater progress.

Perhaps T is right - see his comment on the previous posted entry if you have no idea what I’m referring to - perhaps we can redefine the ends, but we’re stuck with the means. It is that simple, but maybe not that easy. The means for me are the core elements of my personality, which I know are all good, but capable of bad - depending on the perspective. For example - inner drive - when I want something, I am well fueled from within, which is great, provided I am heading the right direction. Inner drive is not such a great thing when you … how shall I call it - throw caution to the wind. There are things that you learn that you forget - like I’ll be darned if I know the Pythagorean theorem, I’m impressed I can even spell it. Wait a minute, asquared+bsquared=csquared - okay, maybe that was a bad example, unless of course that isn’t the PT … “I”, go ahead, I can take it. Regardless - there are things that have been taught to me that have totally escaped me, but the things that I have come to “know” those just don’t go away, even when I want to unknow them. I don’t always know the most right direction from all the one’s that appear good, but I usually can pick out the wrong direction based on things I “know”. Then there are my means. I want to unknow that I’m really really really impatient, but it’s in my means … I know it, and when I pretend not to know it, it whaps me. So - what am I to do with all my means, my ways … might as well embrace them. They are mine after all. That’s what I mean by yielding good - I have had to get reacquainted with all the bits, and in the pit I could wallow or I could find some way to laugh when the bits yielded less fine results. In the end it seems that it has been all about means management for me - finding a way to recognize the less right direction a little more quickly - or maybe even just finding a way to turn back sooner with less disdain for having misstepped.

How does this apply to the big question of dating. Well … I know that nothing could have interfered more with me coming to terms with the true grit of my being than trying to present myself to another person. There’s something about that gentle dance between two people that brings out the armour - layers of protection. In the past the first thing to be sacrificed was “me” in the name of “like me like me”. There’s a pattern in my previous relationships that reveals that I have always been surprised that they liked me and then addicted to that very same thing, which in turn led to a lot of compromising, which in turn led to me eventually hitting some kind of wall. Many times that wall was another relationship, which meant I never ever had to own up with my part of the failed relationship I had left behind, I never dealt with “me” - it was a constant cycle of just shifting the catalyst. I do joke at times that it’s quite by accident that I have spent the last year alone - the few opportunities I permitted myself to see evaporated either when I threw myself at him, or because of some other bizarre circumstance. Deep down I know it is divine. Boy am I relieved. What a blessing to have had this space and time … learnin’ the means, learnin’ to love my means, learnin’ to manage ‘em … lonely - only for a moment or two. I wouldn’t have done it with someone else. I couldn’t have done it …

I drew a line at divorce. For me - separated is married, and divorced is single. Why invest in something with potential when there’s a cap on where it can go … I never considered that to be a bad thing, because it gave me bucketloads more time to invest in myself and my friendships - the first two most likely victims when a new relationship does start. Divorce - I might not even be ready when that time comes, who knows. So I wait … managing my impatience, secure in what I “know” - those potential misadventures are best to be missed … for now.

The eighties seemed to be a period of personal redefinition. Remember how many times Madonna modified herself - she went from trampy almost-punk to svelte dance phenom with a few variations in between. I know there are times in my life when I sought to actively redefine myself. I recall starting every year of university off the same way - seated keen and sharp in the very front row hoping that my presence, my posture, my attentiveness would give off the air of smartness. It generally lasted a week before I realized I would have far more fun a few rows back - the quest for higher learning should never get in the way of fun. Nerdification is my only solid recollection at a deliberate attempt to redefine myself. It was too much effort really.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in university - I don’t know why exactly. It was run very much like an elite private school, and as a chronic over-achiever, the institution was a pretty good fit. It was the perfect blend of structure and repetition - once I mastered the pattern, I could get away with doing the minimum and still stand-out. I graduated very confident in my abilities and secure in myself. I don’t know when that changed … it may have started well before university, well before my wedding day, but somehow, someway, one day I discovered that I sucked. Nothing seemed to work, everything seemed hard, and nobody seemed to understand me. Every conversation was either awkward or superficial. I misunderstood. I felt misunderstood. I felt like a foreigner in my own life. I didn’t notice it happening. Things happened. Suddenly there were walls all around and closing in, and I was in a dark dark place. I made many bad choices in the dark, and those choices cost me my marriage and gained me myself. Many have said in comfort that bad choices only cost a marriage that is already lost. Who knows. I wanted to be my husband’s friend, I really wanted him to like me, I really wanted to be able to tell him anything and everything … even the scary things. I couldn’t tell him the scary things, and yet I think he was always a little bit scared of me, scared of me being unwell, scared of his inability to fix me. He couldn’t understand me and just wanted me to be a certain way, I’m not sure what way exactly … I wish I had known what way exactly.

I left first. I was not right. Not rational. Departing, I shaped my actions and conversations in a way that would show him I was strong, good, solid, and considerate of him and what was right for his life, his future. I gave him everything just so he couldn’t take it. I was really really incredibly stupid. I was lost. I had mistaken him for someone different, I suppose just the same as he had done of me. Who knows why this happens. It just does. In some ways it feels like a lifetime ago, and in others it’s a blip. The transformation over the past year seems drastic in many ways - comparing how I feel now to how I felt then is overwhelming. That person, she is the foreigner. Hindsight.

A year ago I would not have thought that I would ever return to my maiden name. On some level I think I craved and longed for my husband to rescue me, for him to see me as his damsel in distress - his wounds were deep though, and he went a different direction. I won’t deny my anger, my sadness, nor my regret. I also can’t deny that it has happened. Divorce is imminent. I never sought to re-define myself, it just sort of happened … wounds I had hidden, wounds I didn’t realize I even had were exposed, dealt with, healed. I got to the bottom of it, to the bottom of me … one day I woke up and realized I was ready. Ready to be completely alone, single, just me. It only seemed fitting to go back, back to the name I started with, not as a redefinition, but just as a fresh start. Still me … but refreshed.

I think it is important to note that there are five stages of grief - shock, anger, denial, bargaining, and acceptance. I cried my way through much of the past year. I think I might have developed an allergy to kleenex, but that’s really besides the point. The point is, knowing that it’s important to choose healing instead of despair is only going to be effective once you’ve been in the pit, recognized it, and climbed out … with friends and cheerleaders along the way … same-sex ones or really super-safe opposite-sex ones. You need to focus on what’s best … that’s you.

I did not choose the above path for myself … I certainly would have gone in a different direction, but there was some intervention, and boy am I thankful for that.

When divorce happens it is happening to everyone involved. Not just you - but your parents, your kids, oh yeah - your spouse, his girlfriend, his parents, your friends, your co-workers … everyone and everything is touched - you are consumed, absorbed, and in that place you can easily forget that they are touched. To anyone and everyone - it feels bad. It doesn’t matter if they get the drenching or if they get a gentle mist of it, it still feels bad. For starters, it’s just plain awkward. Everybody’s losing - there is just not a single right and profound thing that anyone can say that will make it all seem okay, because it absolutely is NOT okay, divorce is NOT okay … it sucks, and it is not how it is meant to happen. You were meant to get along, you were meant to grow, you were meant to support each other’s growth, you were meant to be 80, holding hands, content. It is not okay, and there is nothing that can be said. Then it’s painful - painful for them to see you hate yourself, painful for them to see you hate him, painful for them to see you hate life. Still, they say lots of things, but really, there’s nothing they can say. Remind yourself that really there is nothing they can or could have said. Then it’s really sad, really really really sad. They are sad to see you so sad, they want you to be happy, you want to be happy, you want it to be happy again. Nothing. Nothing can be said. Then it is weird - there are processes, legalities, formalities, papers … there are sides and no explanations, confusion … it doesn’t make sense. You know it doesn’t make any sense, and then they say “why? … why, why, why would he do that, why won’t he do that … why? And you have no answers. It would be easier to hate him, but you don’t … that makes it even more weird. I am hoping that there is another side, a peaceful one … maybe then, they will know what to say … or better yet, maybe there just won’t need to be anything said. Better yet.