Last week, I shared my deep desire to stay married juxtaposed against a deeper desire not to be swallowed whole by the effort to do so.
Having cemented my feet at the crossroads of indecision for years, I desperately needed to move forward or spend the rest of my life dying of a broken heart. I couldn’t stomach lying on my deathbed having never taken the risk at a life with unconditional love, peace, and kindness.
My children had every material thing a Mama could dream of giving them. Some questioned, “Why would you give all of this up?” “All of this” equated to private schools, a large home in a beautiful waterside neighborhood, ski and tropical vacations, and zero worries about the future. In short: security and access.
Hear me loud and clear, Scalamandré drapes does not a home make when the heart is too empty to beat.
And so the process moved forward as messily as the marriage had.
Years of stress culminated in stiff joints and weight gain. A newfound rheumatologist was emphatic that I lose weight and eliminate as much stress as possible, lest my joints fail me decades earlier than usual. An autoimmune disorder was emerging and I had to act immediately to shut it down.
My body had grown accustomed to storing every trauma and conflict our family endured. I was the keeper of disappointments, outbursts, and negative emotions. To keep up appearances, maintain peace, and stop it from oozing from the threshold of our home, I buried it. I held it in the ligaments stretched between my shoulders and neck, squirreled it into the deep crevices of my joints, and stored it in the fat cells across the misshapen belly; the one never revered for growing three babies and giving them life.
My mind and body revolted. My hair was falling out in spades. My smile was either fake or disappeared altogether. It took 30 minutes to get out of bed each morning and work the stiffness from feet locked at a right angle. My doctor attacked the storm inside with medicines and I began to run. I ran in the daytime. I ran in the rain. I ran at night. And when my body hurt, I got on a bike and pedaled until I thought the pedals might fall off.
I did the best I could to be Mama, but my unhealthy coping mechanism was to disassociate. I bumbled my way through the entire experience like a zombie in an apocalypse.
The divorce took more than two years. I could not tell you the day it was filed or the day it was final, because it had been over years before papers were drawn.
There are many things I would have done differently. I pursued a relationship earlier than I should have or was ready. While it did not last, it was successful in its purpose. It taught me that I was worthy of love and companionship. That I was beautiful and desirable – something I hadn’t believed for twenty years. I was reminded that love can be fun and fulfilling, but mostly that it is possible.
In the beginning of my single days, I stuck with familiar connections. I didn’t have the capacity for unknown territory. I struggled to trust people’s intentions and wondered what they were hiding. Certain that every potential date was a mass murderer and that everyone was a threat to my children, I struggled to authentically connect or let people into the reality of my life.
“What man would want to date me?” I thought. I still have more than a decade of child-raising, need a tummy tuck, was not born for domestic labor, and have a penchant for impersonations and long-winded speeches about politics and social justice.
But after two seconds on dating apps, my tune changed to, “What man would I want to date?” Lord have mercy and bless it all.
Friends would say, “Make a list of what you’re looking for in a man.” And I would eek out a pitiful list governed by a mantra I learned at an early age: keep your standards high and your expectations low. But the dating profiles screamed back that I should keep both my expectations and standards low.
I soon flipped my focus and made a list of what I knew was true about me.
I am kind. I am open-minded. I am curious. I am smart.
I’m a good friend. I like to have fun. I am brave and adventurous.
I am flexible, patient, and forgiving. I am unshakably optimistic.
I dance to soul music when I’m cooking and art museums make me cry.
I love my family and try hard to make my spirit fruitful.
I decided it was time to like me again.
I stopped the negative self-talk. I drew hard boundaries around interference in my growth. I read books, listened to good music, and sat on the beach by myself. I went to the gym nearly every day. I smiled at strangers. I traveled alone. I went to bed earlier.
I looked at old photo albums and thanked God for the good times.
I decided to just be myself.
After 20 years of not succeeding in marriage, my biggest fear in dating was being stuck again.
And of course, there are all the other factors in midlife dating: our pasts, our baggage, our established families, our hurts. It is easy for those things to harden our hearts and freeze us into the safety of numbness, declaring, “I will never date again!”
I chose to trust myself to enact healthy boundaries and to end something when necessary. I fought to stop people pleasing and staying for the sake of another person.
I knew I needed to keep my children safe and chaos out of my life. Beyond that, I finally accepted that it’s okay for me to just enjoy something.
If I encountered someone datable, I would take the risk. For fun.
But I also accepted I didn’t need to have a partner to be complete.
But you know what comes next…I met someone. That I shouldn’t have met. And it could have only happened in the 24 hours that it did. And I like him…I love him.
So what now? The truth is, I don’t know. None of us do. Ask the parent of a teenager if the mother of a toddler knows what’s coming. You cannot know what you do not know and have not experienced.
What I do know is that I don’t have to trust everyone else in order to trust myself. And I also understand that I cannot control the outcome…of anything. For a long time, I couldn’t dive into a real relationship, because I was afraid it would fail, and I would be embarrassed.
But that is just reality. Marriages end, but they also last. Relationships change, but they also blossom. The future is uncertain, but it is also surprising. And some people will talk, but others will celebrate and support.
I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but today, I am going to read a book. And listen to music. I’m going to get last-minute valentines, check in with my girlfriends, and call my grandmother. And then I’m going to go on a great date.
The reality is I haven’t started over at anything. I am simply continuing along the path of where I was always going…forward.
And I am going to do the only thing that really lasts forever – that bears, believes, hopes, and endures. I am going to love.
My God, my neighbor, my family, my friends, this man…and myself.
