As I sat in bed this morning after a full weekend, I was reminded that in a few days I will have been legally divorced for half a year.
Seems fitting on this cloudy day to give you a brief update on my life, since I won't be able to meet with you all this week to catch up or grab a drink. So, here are a few questions you might ask if we did. Or just some questions I feel like answering right now.
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What's been going on lately?
2017 has so far been an interesting mix of experiences. I just returned from a dear friend's wedding and was privileged to share in the incredible joy of this new journey. Got to watch him dance with his beloved and see him at peace, and that moment alone was worth the plane ticket.
Got to spend a few minutes yesterday looking out over the sea with another good friend. I could have stayed there all day watching the waves roll and the clouds run to the horizon. The ocean is healing for me. It reminds me some things are constant and never change, even when everything else does.
Had an extremely busy season at work recently, culminating in an event which turned out extremely well. There's a certain pride in working for several months on a project and watch it come together beautifully in a way which benefits others. I've never been interested at all in developing my career, but it feels like I'm being blessed in the work I do during this time.
Came out of the holiday season surrounded by community and nourishing relationships, and have let that be a springboard into the paths I want to develop in the new year. A healthy combination of revisiting old relationships to give them water, and growing new seeds has been absolutely vital for me these last few months.
Been spending a significant amount of time being still with myself. In meditation; in silence; in just watching and listening and processing my heart and my mind slowly. It helps to step back and breathe. To remind myself to keep going when a day is long or a feeling is too hard to work through right now.
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How have you been doing?
This one is difficult to answer well, and changes depending on the day and the moment. So i'll just say some things and perhaps you'll understand them. Maybe turn on your universal translator for this part.
My internal everything is out of whack. I don't wake up at the same times as I once did. Often i'll be in the middle of talking with a friend and stop during a sentence because something comes to mind and overwhelms my ability to continue; which never used to happen. Sometimes I'll be processing an emotion and it floods every other part of my mind and breaks down whatever else was happening inside at the time. All my rhythms and systems and ways of being are all in disarray, or were destroyed and still need to rebuilt from the ground up. It makes me feel like a different person altogether, which is a little scary at times. Like being picked up and put in another mind/body/heart because the old one got wailed on with a hammer.
Being divorced feels the way I imagine waking up with a limb missing must feel; like trying to move a hand and looking down only to realize it's gone. Partly it just feels like nothing—if nothing can be a feeling. A void where there was something with gravitas. The rest of the world, inside of me and out, still warps to fit the space left by the absence. So it can be hard to know what to do next sometimes. ("How do you pick up something without a hand?" so to speak.)
I still go into Costco and pick out food for two people out of habit. I still leave space on the other side of the bed for an imaginary person to crawl in. I still turn to the passenger seat when driving alone and open my mouth to start a conversation before I remember there's no one else there. This in particular is incredibly sad to write out.
At times I feel happy in the embrace of friendship, and can cling to the idea that things are going to be alright in the end. Sometimes I feel a sense of being absolutely, utterly alone that I can't shake.
Sometimes i'm so upset about the events of last year that I become angrier than I've ever been about anything in my whole life.
And then, sometimes, there is a good day.
I've heard before, "It gets better." I don't think that's true at all. It just gets different.
I imagine i'll feel all these things for a long time. Some of them forever, I'd guess. I think divorce is like someone dying in this way; a person doesn't cease to be dead later. They are still just gone. Only the distance from that moment has changed.
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What are your five favorite drinks?
White Russian. Old Fashioned. Laphroaig 10. Vintage port wine. Any good amber beer.
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What are you looking forward to in the next bit of life?
Home. So much Home. Having a place of my own again to be still in and invite other people into.
Traveling to places with friends I've always wanted to go.
Going on dates over piles of ethnic food at some hole in the wall I've never been before.
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What are you focusing on next?
Internally? Continuing the grieving process, practicing gratitude, holding onto moments of rest and trying to get my life rhythms slowly back to a place of health.
Externally? Spending time with a few friends, looking into new business ventures, being out in nature a lot and trying out more new adventures.
A couple months out it will be house hunting, setting up a new space to flourish in, creating more art and engaging in new social groups.
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What is a book you are enjoying right now?
Next by James Hynes. Just started, but I'm liking it so far.
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What should I do with you next time we do get to see each other?
Let's find something to appreciate together. A good view of the sunset, a live band or a walk through the forest are all fine places to start.
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Love you,
David