Again, I’m so remiss with writing.   I have mountains of words and feelings inside my brain and heart…but I haven’t allowed myself to unleash them out into the world.  It seems kind of dangerous…and also tiring.

A few things you should know.

Going through a divorce is fucking hard. It’s interesting. It’s enlightening. It’s painful. Literally, your insides hurt.  They hurt like someone is using your innards as one of those balls that you squeeze in the palm of your hand to relieve stress.  My heart and stomach and chest and throat feel like that stress ball…..all squeezy and beat up.  It also feels like the world is using your soul as a bouncing ball….over and over hitting the pavement.  Each new hurdle..conundrum…judgment…just another smackdown against the cold hard cement…then bouncing up again. It’s the law of gravity.

You’ll never understand what it feels like to go through a divorce…until you do.  Period…….just like one never understands the intensity and heartache of being a parent or experiencing the death of a loved one…until they feel it entirely and completely through their own experience.

You won’t understand unless/until you are going through a divorce yourself…….   the strength you need to wake up every day and be there for your kids as only half of the team that used to be, protect them from the pain, wonder if your daily decisions are enough, feeling that you were the first person in the world to break their hearts…..all the while putting on a brave face, taking deep breaths, hiding your tears, swallowing the lump in your throat.  You think of your wonderful plans and intentions when you brought these babies into the world…and how you could never have predicted something like this.  However, things change. Being a grownup sometimes doesn’t make sense.   It’s tiring. all this.

You wouldn’t understand unless you’ve been through a divorce what it feels like to experience “support” which is really sugarcoated opinion, unwanted advice and judgment.  A. WHOLE. LOT. OF. JUDGMENT. People like to tell you what you should be doing and shouldn’t be doing and how long to wait to do this or that. or sometimes they like to NOT tell you…but what they are not saying combined with their body language and the not-so-subtle hinting, goes a long way to telling you everything. and it’s hurtful.

You might not understand how it feels to be moving onward and forward with different plans,  relationships and romance….and excited about your new beginnings….when your friends and family haven’t caught up to you yet. and some of them are too concerned with the rules written out by “experts” about these kinds of things rather than putting their arm around your shoulder and just accompanying you on the path that you’ve chosen….the one that makes you abundantly happy.

You’ll never grasp the magnitude of emotions involved in a divorce….. how one can feel the saddest they’ve ever felt in their whole entire life….. but also be verging on the happiest…..how one can be on the shakiest of grounds…scariest of places…..but feel rock solid in their core.….broken open to expose light and evolution within.

You won’t understand unless you have been through a divorce that you are learning about yourself in a way that wasn’t available to you before…when you were caught up in rote, roles, familiarity, and societal expectations.  You have reached a breaking point that allows you to challenge yourself, your history, your beliefs, and everyone else around you.  You might not understand that going through a divorce allows seeing others for who they really are and evaluating whether they are worth keeping in your life as well…… divorce begets wanting to divorce all the people in your life who aren’t raising you up.

You might not get it…… how excruciatingly lucky you are that your life plans have shattered like the broken glass of a large mirror…falling to the floor, sharp and hurtful.  As  you start to put the pieces back together…you see how clear and beautiful the damage is as the light reflects back your own beauty, sparkling in a way that wouldn’t be the same if it was kept intact, unremarkable.

As I spend time alone, as I start a new relationship, as I go out with my friends, as I spend time with my daughters, as I facilitate workshops for girls, as I travel and party and love and hate and act wild and crazy, as i pose for photos, as i laugh and smile, as I retreat, as I pull away from my friends, as I cry, as I struggle for financial stability, as I plan a new career path, as I do all of these things…. I am just me. Feeling my feelings. Being sad. Being happy.  Experiencing the process. Learning my lessons. Challenging my belief system. Changing. Growing. Knowing that the universe has brought me to this place in order to expand my heart and soul and watch me develop and offer my unique gifts to my daughters, my friends, my family, my lover, my world, myself.

I’m certainly not trying to pretend that divorce is wonderful..and I don’t want to give the impression that it’s the worst thing in the world.  Divorce is just everything. It is letting go and holding on… for dear life. It is Endings and Beginnings. All at one time. Magnified and electrified. It does not require a celebration, nor does it require a pity party.  It only requires strength, perseverance, hope, love, and true friendship.

You would have to have been through a divorce to truly and really understand.

YOU WILL FIND BEAUTY IN THE SHADOWS AS YOU FOCUS ON THE LIGHT.