The Real World

I just ordered a book titled "Life after Rejection." Ironically, it was an ad on this blog and I thought, "Huh, I am feeling rejected. Wonder what it has to offer." It offers up a religious perspective on the feelings one encounters during a divorce, and it can't hurt, right? Admitting to the feeling of rejection isn't such a bad thing either, and I realized this week, during the long drive home from Buffalo that holding back, staying strong, blanketing the negative emotions that I am feeling because of this rejection isn't helping me. That's why people go to therapists, and I've siphoned all the strength I can possibly get from my family and friends, and I've siphoned all the strength I can get from my own heart too. I need a refueling of perspective, I think. Feeling angry and righteous helps, but it's a mere Band-Aid on a wound that is broken open wide. I think I've taken a step forward though. I'm not writing this blog from a depressed state of mind, not feeling sorry for myself, it's more of a recognition that I need help to get over this. A book, based on God and pinpointing the topic I am feeling, can't hurt. Plus, I like to read.

It's easy to say that a positive attitude, an attitude of gratitude is the way to heal. That is not to say that it doesn't help, but it's hard sometimes to see the light through the shadows of reality. And this is the real world and if I am going to give all of myself to myself, to the children, to the rest of the people I care about in my life, I have to get over this feeling of rejection, and yes, guilt. All the people who care about me have reiterated that this is his issue, not mine. But it doesn't make my feelings go away. Some days I can see it clearly, but other times I blend into myself and feel all mixed up about my role in the divorce. I haven't been fair to him in some instances - making bigger issues out of smaller things, but I realize it's a protective mechanism because facing my ego in light of this profound rejection is enough to crumble even the Hulk, who as we all know, thrives on his anger and becomes very powerful. Eh, that's not me. Plus, my eyes are brown.

I've had women contacting me, having discovered my blog. They tell me that I am so strong, and so helpful to them as they struggle through low self-esteem, fear, rejection, and love for the husbands that treated them so poorly. I read some of their messages and I just want to cry. I am familiar with their struggles, I went through it. This is the real world - it happens every single day to so many people and it's sad. I doubt that there is any straight path one can discover that will make life easier through the journey of divorce. Everyone is different. These women, God bless them, are at different stages. I realize just how blessed I am, especially right now. I've made it through the roughest parts - letting go and acceptance. Now I just have to work through the rejection part. I'll never understand his reasons for leaving, but I have to stop thinking it's a complete rejection of me. I may have had a role in it, but a complete rejection would make me less desirable than a rat in an alley, because all the attendant pieces - the lifestyle, the children, the house, our respective families - are also being left behind. How is it that a person can reject all of those things? I see it as a huge loss - and it is a reflection of his feelings for me - a complete rejection of everything good because of me. And that is very hard to swallow. Yet in that same vein, it helps me understand a little too.

I am seeing reality, that's all. And if I am going to move forward, be all that I can be - which is anything I want to be! - I have to accept the rejection somehow. Hopefully, this book will help me do that. "Ain't no church bells ringing, ain't no flags unfurled, just me and faith and the hope I'm bringing into the real world."

Loneliness

It opened in my chest like an umbrella, overcrowding all the intimacies I’ve arranged with family and friends in the past few months. That hint of a shared smile, a shared secret from long ago, when it was just us and the kids. Our future dreams still intact, the past as graceful and placid as it used to be, the emptiness of the present forgotten for a moment, a split second. How familiar that smile was, how powerful to have opened the umbrella, like a peacock’s tail - beautiful and stifling in my face – darkening the light inside. Protecting me as an umbrella should? No. Blocking me. Me. Heavy and open and dark. Now a recluse, if only for a few hours, but alone nonetheless. Alone and wanting, forgetting the injustices, blinding my eyes from the facts and factors of what happened, what is happening, what will continue to happen. Recognition of a shared love for our children the only string binding us now. The vows meant nothing. The promises in front of friends, family, God meant nothing! Yet loneliness haunts me like a demon, foraging my successes and wants and achievements of all these long months. The umbrella shall fall in time – it shall fall and close upon itself and open me up once again to the truth. But for now, the demon caresses it, and the isolation from missing what I supposed to be true leaves me desperate, lonesome and alone.

Decide

Fall in love. Fall in love so completely, so freely that your heart soars above the clouds and a lump lodges itself squarely in your esophagus with the thought of losing it all.

Heal a broken heart. Cry so hard that you fear dehydration and chapped lips forever.
Never forget it.

Use your knowledge of this love and this loss to dip your feet into the boots of another person and walk around in them for awhile.

Feel passionate about something – anything. Use that passion to make the vacation plans you can’t afford; to write the story that won’t sell; to simply have a dream to hold tightly in your hands. Taste the passion. Let it swirl around in your mouth awhile.

Study people for their insecurities, their strengths, their passions and help them get over them, use them or find them.

Make money your second, third, fourth priority but never your first.

Call your Mom – from the kitchen, from next door, from a different city, or through a prayer
Just call her, she’s there.

Paint a picture as a child would- with green cats and purple bushes and yellow skies.
Paste it on your refrigerator a little while

Forgive someone for a wrong.

Learn that your lover is not your problem-solver, not your identity, not you.

Don’t commit a crime – even if you won’t get caught. Choose right. Discard wrong.

Be honest. Be loyal. Be real. Be that positive person you emulate and envy.

Hug a child close to you and see their smile and wonder at their own footprints in the sand

Fall down hard in the next snowstorm. Let your arms and legs move freely. Make an angel.
Be an angel.

Notice the sky at dusk. Drive 90 mph for a few seconds with the windows down
and the music loud; or get yourself to some peaceful stretch of earth at five in the morning just to see a gorgeous sunrise.

Remember not to slump.
Keep eye contact.
Smile a lot.
Make someone belly laugh until tears form in the corners of their eyes because of something you said or did. Revel in that.

Humiliate yourself and shrug it off. Then do it again, and again.

Breathe.
Have faith.
Have hope that you’ll live passionately forever.
Decide to live passionately forever; decide to love with everything you have inside you, around you, beside you.

Decide.

Over the Hump

Well, I made it through my first holiday... all in one piece. I spent Thanksgiving in an inebriated bliss but that's just the way I planned it and my family took over with caring for the kids and keeping me abreast (ha, turkey!) of the goings on. All in all, it was okay, until, that is, the alcohol wore off. But, I am over the hump! Gotta love this time of year.

Actually, I didn't drink too much, just a couple happy ones with my brothers and brother-in-law. We spent time swapping stories and doing dishes, and of course, eating. I realized though that I am merely half a person right now, especially during the holidays. That's what you get for devoting everything to one person for over eight years. I am not ashamed to say it. I did it. I gave it my all and slowly, slowly I am pulling myself back together. There is no shame in loving and really, what's the alternative? If I hadn't given my whole self, well, I wouldn't be feeling so terrible right now, but I would have only felt half the joy too. The joy far outweighs the pain.

I heard that once. Maybe, after all this is over, I'll believe it.

Just looking to get through Christmas and into the new year. 2008 here I come, my eyes on the horizon, full steam ahead.

Across the Border

I spent seven hours driving back into Maryland from my hometown, thinking about everything that has gone on in the past several months, the past several years and where I am today, and the blessed people who made me who I am. I am so lucky to be able to say that the people in my life are real. They are real, and wholesome and full of character.

Facing divorce - with the journey beginning tomorrow afternoon at mediation, I am sad - so sad that the good intentions made during the vows were replaced with doubt and unhappiness. Yet, as with all my blogs thus far, I've tried to anticipate the future with a hopeful heart. I listened to Tracy Chapman, Matchbox Twenty, Jann Arden, Jackson Brown and a slew of other performers trying to find the song that could aptly describe how I am feeling today - the eve of stepping away from the dream I've had my entire life (to marry, love, and enrich my life with an unbreakable union) to an unknown future.

And I found the song, not in a love song, but in a folksy Springsteen song - and like everything he touches, it is perfect. My love and I - that's me and the person I will be when I step across the border. We all have two sides, the greatest thing we can achieve is to co-exist amicably with that other person and if we're lucky, as best friends...

Tonight my bag is packed

Tomorrow I'll walk these tracks

That will lead me across the border

Tomorrow my love and I

Will sleep 'neath auburn skies

Somewhere across the border

We'll leave behind my dear

The pain and sadness we found here

And we'll drink from the Bravo's muddy waters

Where the sky grows grey and white

We'll meet on the other side

There across the border

For you I'll build a house

High up on a grassy hill

Somewhere across the border

Where pain and memory

Pain and memory have been stilled

There across the border

And sweet blossoms fills the air

Pastures of gold and green

Roll down into cool clear waters

And in your arms 'neath the open skies

I'll kiss the sorrow from your eyes

There across the border

Tonight we'll sing the songs

I'll dream of you my corazon

And tomorrow my heart will be strong

And may the saints' blessing and grace

Carry me safely into your arms

There across the border

For what are we

Without hope in our hearts

That someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters

And eat the fruit from the vine

I know love and fortune will be mine

Somewhere across the border

Killing Time

Tuesdays: the night that I am free from the children to do whatever it is that I want to do. Since the separation I have spent many Tuesdays drinking beer or wine or martinis at home. Every once in awhile I'll meet a friend out and have a beer or two with one of them, maybe dinner. Not tonight. Tonight I want to dive straight into the pool, hoping against hope that I am jumping into the deep end, thereby avoiding cracking my skull wide open.

Where do I start? Do I start with the memories? Perhaps a rendition of every detail isn't necessary, but maybe I can juxtapose the memories made with the memories-to-be-made. Shallow waters. I'll stay away from the memories.

How about the regrets? Shall I dive into them, thereby drowning myself because of the unending depth of them? No, too deep, too many things to pull at my ankles, to keep me down. I doubt I'd ever be able to get out of that pool.

How about the pool of shame? Greasy waters. If I jump into that I'll emerge dripping and shiny, unable to remove it from my body, hair and from the inside emerging outside.

Shall I think about the children? Hell no. I can't do that without tripping on the concrete first, cracking my skull open, falling into the shallow end and sinking to the bottom of the deep end.

How about the future? Maybe it is time to surmise and surprise myself, and all of you. My future is not going to be spent poolside, that's for sure. I am going to be on the beach, basking with the kids rolling beach balls across my tan legs, burying my ankles in the sand after we've finished building our sandcastle. The heaviness will have been left with our winter clothes, packed away into a plastic garbage bag for the dump.

Isn't that the way it's supposed to be for me? To think about what is waiting for me in my future - the beach, the sun, the warmth?

I am standing on a two foot square of concrete, with four 26' rectangular pools surrounding me and I am simply unable to move without diving in. I just can't do it tonight, I want to, I just can't. I simply do not have the proper swim gear available. I'll stand here, letting my legs cramp up from being in this position, avoiding each of the pools, stretch once in awhile, maybe stand on one foot, do some jumping jacks... and wait. I'll stand here and wait for enough time to pass, for someone to miraculously hand over some floaties, rings, flippers and goggles so that I might find the courage to position my hands over my head, bend at the waist and swan dive into one of them. Maybe paradise will be available to me, maybe my fairytale ending will crown me the next Cinderella, or maybe I'll just pretend that the answers are somewhere hidden in the bottom of a beer bottle.

I think I'll just take a long bath and call it a night.

Always Smiling

Paige asked me this morning, "Mommy, how come you're always smiling when you look at me?"

Do I tell her that she and Tony are the reason I exist, and that my smile comes from knowing that I will always be their mother, that I'll be able to see them grow and learn and that I'll be able to help them sort through their troubles like no other person in the world because they are the love of my life and I will never stop loving them? Do I tell her that in her eyes I see potential for the greatest happiness in the world? That her innocence is still untarnished and that I see that she can hold onto her own happiness if I do my job correctly? Do I tell her that God made her just for me and that I am smiling because I see Him reflecting back to me when I look at her? Do I tell her that when I look at her, happiness swells into every part of my body and that she and her brother are the most amazing things in the entire world? That they are a puzzle to me, a solution to me, a question and an answer? That every single thing that hurts in this world - all the troubles, tears, pain and sorrow - stop when I look at them; that they keep me in the moment?

I opted for a simple answer that seems to encompass all of this. I said, "I can't help it, you are beautiful." And the smile that lit up her face with the sincere recognition of what she is was awesome. It made me more beautiful too - I couldn't help but mirror her radiance.