Mama Didn't Say There Would be Days Like This

I’ve wanted to get back to the ‘ole blog so many times since I last stopped writing that it is almost painful to start up again. I would think about it from time-to-time and I would try to understand the myriad of things that has happened to me in the last nine-ish months that would prompt a cathartic writing process. I’ve been told countless times by my therapist that journaling is a way that so many people deal with the stressors of their lives and they find great solace in reading their words during less depressed or manic times and they take pride in understand how they got through it. I guess it hasn’t really hit me until this very moment that that would probably work for me, as my little conceited self likes to look back at what I’ve written with pride. Hey, it beats heroin, right?

I think that I’ve struggled so deeply in the last nine months to try to understand what is going on in my life that a public display of emotion is something that will help my stars align, so to speak, and will help me understand that my feelings can be those that are shared by other people…or with other people.

So for anyone reading this that doesn’t know me personally (or maybe you do know me personally and we just haven’t had the chance to catch up), you’re probably wondering…what the heck is going on in her life? Well, most first and most notably I’ve separated from my husband after nine years of being together and almost five years of marriage, and I’ll tell you…NO ONE told me how painful that would be. Even in the face of a time of unhappiness garnished by an event that threw me over the edge, I still had no idea that a separation could be so innately soul-crushing even while you’re trying to put on a face of bravery and ease. No one told me how dealing with the un-twining of an intertwined life could be so weird and foreign, and how losing a lifestyle could be so insanely liberating and so insanely death-defying all at once. Yeah, I’ve known lots of people that have separated/divorced, including my maternal grandmother that divorced when it wasn’t cool and lived most of her life as an independent single woman, but even the women that I’ve been closer with than anyone in my life couldn’t have prepared me for how I’d feel about the whole thing. I guess this is the kind of feeling that people say you just have to experience. Let’s never do that again, okay? Secondly, I’ve moved back home with my parents. At first (and admittedly from time-to-time), I’ve looked at this situation as a sign of stepping backward or defeat or whatever this country has conditioned me to feel about returning to the womb, but I’ve decided to take the approach heralded by so many other countries and look at living with my family as an opportunity to get to know them better and to have a shared experience. Let’s face it…living with your parents can be extremely fun. Living with your parents can also be extremely bizarre as an adult, but these days, I’m choosing to look at this glass as half full because looking at it half empty has never gotten me anywhere. Thirdly, I’ve completely fallen off the wagon of exercise and diet. Let’s face it…I had other fish to fry at that point, and though there are some women that find it really easy to hunker down and stick to their diets even more through a series of unfortunate events, I’m not one of them. I’m not proud of this truth, but it is my truth, and the sooner that I deal with it, the sooner that I can begin again.  I feel as though I’ve let the biggest sigh escape from my body and that maybe this is the beginning of the newest part of my life. All because of a little blog not unlike a bazillion blogs out there that women are writing to explore every facet of what it’s like to be woman.

It’s pretty cool that this would happen to me today, as I am slated to go to a weekend-long women’s retreat this evening and I’m pretty darn excited about it. The line-up of activities and speakers looks great and the ability to know that there are other women in my space that could help me heal is incredibly uplifting…even in its prospect.

Here's to 2015