Divorce blog…

The other day, I had a reader tell me I should write a “Divorce” blog…that things I’ve said have helped her through her own failed marriage.

The thing is…I wouldn’t know where to start.

Often, folks come in here and click on the “Damn Divorce” label to read every morsel of discomfort I’ve been through… others find me by searching various divorce terms.

Like “jerk.”

But much as they’re looking for answers…I don’t have them. In fact, I still don’t have answers myself.

All I know is that for weeks…months…years…I couldn’t get enough information to try to find some sort of reason why it all happened. I spent many hours in the “self help” section at Chapters with little success. I simply didn’t know what to do with myself… where to turn to sort it through. I was looking for any book, person, magic pill…that could possibly explain what I was going through…how to get out of my misery…how I could stop feeling.

Facing the end of a marriage that you didn’t see ending sends you spiralling through the seven steps of grieving. But unlike the “death” of a loved one…the person you love is still there…you can still see, touch, hear them but no matter what you do…they can no longer see you. You’re completely invisible. You’re the one who died.

You work your way through the various stages of grief but the stages aren’t in order…they bounce back and forth. Just when you think you’re through one stage you’re back to square one of not believing it’s happening. A look or a comment can have you believing  he wants you back…he isn’t really gone…he’ll come to his senses.

He didn’t.

It took me a long time to get to “anger.”

I have no answers…there’s no book, no blog, no magic step-by-step process that’s going to give you what you need to make it easier. Everyone told me it would simply take “Time”…I scoffed at the thought. I didn’t have the Time to give…I didn’t want to travel through that Time…I wanted a quick fix and quick answers and for someone to take the pain away so I didn’t have to endure it any longer but the thing is…it just took Time.

My blog…while it’s not a “Divorce” blog…everything written is about my failed marriage and how I got through. It’s about every single day…good and bad…putting one foot in front of the other and discovering the joys of living again. I’d been dead…and I am no longer.

While I don’t give details of how it ended and there were days I couldn’t write let alone breathe…this entire blog is about how I made it. And what got me from there to here… was Time.

The other day a friend said I was one of the happiest people she’s ever met. It’s true…but she’s a new friend…and if she’d seen me a few years ago she’d have to say I was the saddest.

There are still days that get me down. Still times I shake my head and can’t believe what happened. Still  moments I’m angered and bitter and baffled over what’s happened to my family and all those I love. Still nights I could curl beneath the covers and cry. There are answers that never came, an apology I’ll never hear and no understanding of where things went wrong or what I could have done to change it. But I know now…that nothing can make it better…and it doesn’t really matter.

I’m happy. Happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

It just took Time.