A Bushel and a Peck

*Please keep in mind that this is only one side of the story. I write this not to demonize Stephen, but rather to express my own feelings and pain. He hurt me, but I have hurt him too, and I don't pretend to be perfect or totally innocent in everything.* How? How am I supposed to do this? How have I been doing this? Just over 8 years ago, I made what I thought was the second-best decision of my life. I decided to say yes when my best friend asked me to marry him. I had moments of doubt. Lots of them. Heart-wrenching uncertainty. Fear. But also comfort. Someone who was there in a way no one had been before. Someone who saw me and wanted me. Someone who sacrificed happily for me. Someone who made me feel like my wants and needs weren't silly or obnoxious. Someone who made me believe I was important after all. Someone who wanted to give without seeming to ask too much in return. And then there was God. Some quiet voice in my soul told me that marrying my be...

I've always been afraid that people wouldn't want me. Divorce seems to be the ultimate confirmation of that fear. But tonight, I realized that I have always kept myself small, limited - I've prevented myself from being a whole person - because I wanted other people to like me. I'm tired of folding up my soul. It's possible no one else wants my whole heart, mind, and soul - the deep, beautiful, unique masterpiece that those things comprise. It's entirely possible there is not a single person on this earth who wants all of that. Except for me. Tonight I sat in my car and cried. Cried because I hurt over being turned away. Cried because I realized that, throughout my entire marriage - throughout my life, really - I was never whole. Never. I always kept myself small in an effort to please other people - in an effort to make myself wanted. I cried because I realized that Stephen didn't reject the true me. He rejected the small me. The piecemeal me. The mirr...

The fractured heart has the potential to become more beautiful than it was before. But it is also often harder, less prone to trust, less likely to forgive. The fractured heart has learned its lesson - many times over. The more it breaks, the more it fights letting anyone else in. The fractured heart is tired of being broken. It's tired of being played with. My heart is not a plaything. My heart is a living, breathing piece of my soul. And I'll be damned if I let anyone play with it again.

Broken heart. Typically when we think of broken hearts, we think of a relationship ending, creating a big chasm in one's heart. My heart feels broken today, but there was no single defining moment that caused the break, no giant chasm that suddenly appeared one day. Instead, what I have is a collection of fractures. Tens, maybe hundreds of them. From the hurtful words and actions hurled at me, to the personal struggles of a loved one that happened to hurt me too, to being mocked for what I felt and believed, to being told I had to accept things that hurt me if I wanted to be loved, to being told I wasn't wanted over and over, to being replaced so quickly after we finally agreed to give up trying. Many, many fractures comprise my broken heart. I've been examining the fractures and binding them carefully. But sometimes they still ache. Sometimes, something shifts and it all flares up again. Sometimes, I unwrap the bandages to see how things are going and just looking at...

In two weeks, my divorce will be finalized.  I'm sure that'll hit me somehow. I don't know how, exactly, yet. But it'll hit me and I'm sure it'll be painful to some degree.  I've been thinking, off and on, about vulnerability - particularly in marriage. As is a normal part of this process, I've sometimes contemplated the possibility of getting married again someday. God has told me that I will, and I believe Him. Lately, though, I've been cynical about it. The true love I used to envision in marriage now seems silly and foolish. I see now that what I used to believe about true love had more to do with mutual codependent caretaking than it did real, healthy love.  Part of me is certain that making myself truly vulnerable to another human being will only end in pain. Again. There have been a few times over the last several months that I've sort of "practiced" being vulnerable the way I believe marriage requires. I haven't don...

This is a journal entry from this past summer. I'm going to be sharing moments like this from journals and memories as I process my past. Thanks for bearing with me. August 23, 2016 I went to check out the apartment (Stephen moved out last week) to see what kind of cleaning needed to be done. I brought the kids. I felt kind of anxious about it, like it would be emotionally difficult, but I still felt like I wanted/needed to do it So we went. And it was painful. That was the last place we lived together. I remembered a lot of the good times we had there, and my certainty that divorce is the right answer faltered for a bit. I'm sad that this beautiful dream I had for Stephen and myself, for our family, has crumbled. I thought of how happy we had often been together. I wondered if I was THE problem. I wondered if we should still try. But I also remembered that I'd felt afraid and trapped in that apartment. Even today, I felt angry and resentful. The kids felt somethin...