Finding The You in You
This morning I spoke with a friend who is now going through the trauma and sadness of the dissolution of her marriage. She spoke honestly and vulnerably regarding the eventual loss of her children (currently teens) to adulthood and the recent acceptance of their needing to individuate from her.
I understood her circumstance all too well and for me the losses were premature. One year into divorce, I had to face an estrangement from my eldest daughter (15 years old) and 50% custody was reduced to a mere eight days a month with my youngest daughter (12 years old).
The anger and rage I felt was tremendous. I made the commitment to quit teaching to stay at home full time with my girls. I assumed I’d have each one in my life for 18 years. When they were born I made peace with the fact that their lives were theirs to live when they become adults which could mean living far away, even in a foreign country.
Initially, every day that passed without having my daughters full time was a torture. For two years, I threw myself into teaching 100% and when not teaching, I did everything I could to not be home and distract myself. I realized that my former life was non-existent. There was nothing reminiscent of my former life. I was no longer a full-time mother; I felt I was barely, if at all, a mother. I was no longer a wife nor did I wish to be one; I wanted nothing more but time to heal from the traumas of my marriage. And in some ways, the hardest loss to face, was no longer being a daughter when my parents passed away. They were always my anchor in all the phases that I passed through in my life. Poof! Gone! Finito!
Too much time alone, not enough patience with the healing process and copious tears shed on a near daily basis were my experiences most days. However, if I am completely honest I did have some great times (not many) in the middle of it all. I began meeting people from the cigar shop I frequented. I took up bike riding on the weekends with my new friends. I finally began camping and spending time in nature on a regular basis again.
Slowly life began to unfold and shift. A new routine evolved. A new hobby was realized (drumming). Life began to become a little lighter. Work started to take a more natural place in my life. It wasn’t the only thing to spend my time obsessing about. Little shifts were happening but in the moment life felt rather stagnant and still a bit raw.
Holidays were indeed the hardest until one Thanksgiving about three years into the estrangement. I decided to invite my friend Maria on a trip to the mountains. We had nothing planned and simply lived in the moment. We went to an Alpaca store I’d always wanted to see but never made the time to do. She bought me a beautiful wool sweater which still lights me up every time I put it on.
Maria and I decided to drive downtown to peruse the quaint stores at our leisure and when hungry we opted to check out what a casino buffet Thanksgiving dinner would look like. Not shockingly we discovered that we were not the only tourists with food on our minds. With a three hour wait ahead of us we chose to take our names off the list of hungry diners and headed for home.
There were times that day I felt sadness knowing my girls weren’t with me, but at the same time I was truly enjoying myself by doing everything non-traditionally Thanksgiving. Maria and I while driving home down the mountain saw Thanksgiving dinner being offered at a nearly 200 year old inn which I’d often passed in wonder. We pulled into the lot. There was no reservation needed nor was there a wait. In fact we were seated at the absolute best possible location, smack dab in front of an old, large, rock fireplace that looked much like the one I grew up with as a child. The food was horrible, but the ambience and warmth were everything. The adventure of the day was delightful and this place was like dessert.
In my soul, I had actually burned out on the holiday of Thanksgiving because of the work it entailed to sit down and eat for 15 minutes, 30 minutes at the most. The girls would go and do their own thing while I cleaned up, often alone. My reward for all that time invested was watching TV with my husband like every other day out of the year. Don’t get me wrong! There was beauty in that as well especially when the girls were young and the whole idea of having my own family was new and exciting.
Now, after my years of no longer having any traditions shared with family, I enjoy my new freedom to NOT have traditions. In fact, my tradition stance is to create new memories for holidays in vastly different ways, with different people and different places!
Going back to my friend and to all of you finding yourself in a similar plight— life is a mystery. It is an adventure full of trials and failures but it is also full of opportunity and possibilities. Without suffering I don’t know if most of us would ever change. Most of us would continue doing the same things we’ve always done because that is the way it has always been done.
Out of pain— if you choose not to stay in it— will come this realization that just because we lived our lives in the way we thought it was “supposed” to be doesn’t mean that was the best and only way to live. If you want to enter back into the arena of life, it will mean change, but also something oddly more profound—it will mark the beginning of going back to yourself. With open eyes you will begin to reconnect with all the things you dreamt of doing before you met people who changed your course.
When you were young you always knew what you loved to do. The problem is between society and your family often times you were swayed into forgoing those passions to either make people who meant everything to you happy or to simply fit in. The same can be true with marriages. Most marriages require compromise and others require a complete self abandonment to make it work. Either way you lose part of your “self” at the attempt to be fair with your spouse.
This space after loss— whether it be a marriage, an estrangement, or an empty nest—is time. Frequently this new found time can be torturous at the onset. It will seem eternal. But with patience and acceptance it will become your friend. Eventually, you will want more of it, crave it and wonder how many awesome miraculous things can you pack into it before your time to leave this planet arrives.
Time means life. You are alive! And as long as you are breathing, there are endless possibilities to shape your world as you see fit so long as you don’t fill it running away or towards someone to fix your sad emptiness. Pay attention to all the things you used to love as a child and love right now as an adult. Where in your life did you find yourself being utterly in the moment, blissful and smiling? Once you identify the experiences that brought you joy and made you happy, you will automatically begin to shape your life around those things.
It’s so easy to get caught up, like I did, in the resentment of all that isn’t fair. Try each day to remember what once filled you that is independent of your children and all the other people you feel you need to have in your life to be full. Think for possibly the first time ever about yourself and what makes you tick—what makes you smile all by yourself. This isn’t easy especially when you’re feeling despair. Don’t force it. Just be open to remembering joy and joyful experiences you’ve had.
I understand. I’ve been there. It hurts and it hurts endlessly until it doesn’t. Until one experience enters your life like mine did on Thanksgiving Day, when you’ve had such a lovely day you almost feel guilty that it was possible without your children, without your marriage, without your old friends and family. On that day, and it will come, you will realize you had the power all along to make your own self happy. That happiness starts with you, right now, today! What adventure do you want to set out and manifest? Take the time you have now and think!…