On a new start

Almost everyone reading this right now knows my ex's name, but I'm going to start calling him "ex" from now on for privacy's sake -- not because of any cold and bitter estrangement. We're doing well, co-parenting smoothly, and life is fine between us. Whenever I write about "us" or the divorce or the healing process, I'm going to focus on how I feel or felt, emotionally/mentally, instead of specific details or conversations we had. Onward ho. 

My most intense breakup happened senior year of high school. After a school dance, I got in my Jeep and drove my boyfriend home. As we pulled into his driveway, he turned to me and began The Talk: he loved me, but didn't believe in love, I was taking away from his schoolwork, life was about more than love. It was literally crazy talk. I was blindsided and devastated; there was lots of Maybelline mascara on the upholstery.

I drove to my friend's house down the street and banged on her window to get her onto the snow covered porch. I kicked and cried and drank a few sips of her stepmother's wine. Which, in my head, was the equivalent of snorting a bag of coke. Then I drove to a big sleepover at another friend's house and fell asleep on the hallway floor in my clothes from the dance. I woke up, blissfully forgetting for a minute what had happened. When I remembered, I swallowed an acidic wave of nausea and drove home before anyone else woke up.

That breakup pain lingered for months and months. I was consumed with a hurt I've never -- thank Jesus -- experienced since. I had really loved him, really thought we were going to be together for a long, long time. I felt humiliated and confused and heartbroken. I can't even imagine the music I played to comfort myself. (Phish?) Of course part of that unique level of hell was the terrible landscape of high school. I had to see him everyday at lunch, in our chemistry class, at chorus rehearsal. And we shared all of our friends. (Still do! 16 years later! Ha?) We went from this intimate relationship -- we were only 17, but did have a weirdly deep connection and ended up getting back together for years in college -- to nothing and I could barely handle the change without dry heaving in the stalls. '

Anyways. That was a bad, bad breakup that still makes me shudder. In retrospect, there were definitely some signs we weren't going to live happily ever after in a Boston apartment paradise, but the breakup was still really out of the blue and sudden and when we're taken by surprise -- whether we're getting dumped or fired or going through a miscarriage -- the pain and anxiety and fear that come with an already bleh situation just skyrocket. At least for me.

I'm guessing other people feel the same after sudden bad news or weird life changes and so might have imagined when they first found out about my divorce that I was experiencing that deep well of dark and bad. I think that's why so many people have been reaching out to me, with delight and a touch of shock, to say how happy I look. They say I'm glowing, that I look free and content in all my pictures. And... they're right. I'm happy. I feel free. I promise I'm not putting on a weird Instagram fake out show.

It feels weird to admit that and harder to explain how or why. Did I want to get divorced? No. Was I so excited about being a single mom to two little girls? Also no. But I'd been going through a slow burn breakup for two years, a breakup so gradual and insidious I didn't realize it was happening until it was pretty much over. So instead of finding myself, now, in a sudden state of aloneness after years of comfort and companionship (which, I think, lots of the unmarrieds think married life is always like) I'm actually in a similar spot as I was a year ago. Heading to bed alone, giving myself pep talks, working out problems on paper or through long walks and drives. I mourned the end of something that once was good over such a long period of time that there never was this huge DUN DUN DUN moment. I slowly processed, over days and months, much of the hurt and change and got so used to emotionally supporting myself that I'm just in the groove now, it's just the norm. I don't miss anything because, well, there's nothing to miss.

But I worry that sounds too sad. It's really just explanation for how I'm doing so okay. Because I'm rolling along like I have been, how I've grown accustomed to functioning, but now I can subtract that singular feeling of being alone while not being alone. That is the worst, that is what makes a person cry at night. Because when support should be so close, but is so far away, you start to believe that life will never feel bright again. But this right here? This new life is filled with simplicity and hope and peace. I go to bed exhausted and sore, but without tears or a heavy heart. I wake up bleary eyed, but focused. It's like a second chance at grownup life and I'm so grateful to have it.