D is for divorce … and denial.

When my toddler woke me up this morning at 5 am it felt like every other morning.  Exhausted mom fights the energy of a sassy toddler after only a few hours of interrupted sleep adjusting to a new environment. After conceding the battle, up I got with a cup of hot coffee, grabbed my sweater, and headed out to the deck.

I am sitting in a cabin in the middle of the forest with my children, mere minutes from the beautiful BC ocean.  Never underestimate the power of trees.  Combine that with the morning calls of the local birds and a side-splitting belly laugh from my three-year-old and you’ll find me in a moment of awe.  My dog sits at my feet, happy to be unleashed and free within the trees, his head perks up as he hears our friends waking from sleep inside the house.  

It’s rare that I have a moment of peace like this where it hits me.  The impact of the last two years and all that has happened. The life that I have created for myself and my children since the break up of my family.  The new friends that have slowly folded into my life with such grace and ease it’s like we’ve known each other for lifetimes.

It’s been a year of firsts for me.  Almost 2 years since my husband and I parted ways, but technically about a year since I started to climb out of the fog that surrounded my days of grief.  I pushed it aside.  I started dating within mere months of the separation.  I chose to tell myself that I was fine.  This was what I wanted. I could do this. The sadness leaked from me at random times, always catching me off guard.  Knocking me on my ass when I least expected it. 

I wasn’t okay.  I questioned myself constantly. I had no idea who I was outside of my marriage, outside of my extended family.  Outside of being a wife and all that comes with that label within my circle. 

I now had to learn how to be a mom without a partner. I had to do the nights by myself with a child that has health difficulties. I had to manage the sports schedule and the emotional outbursts and the day to day grind of parenthood on my own. There was no longer anyone to turn to if I needed to ‘tap out’ for a minute to catch my breath or hide in the pantry (preferably with chocolate or wine). No one to wrap their arms around me at night and tell me everything was going to be okay while sharing a laugh at what came out of the kid’s mouths that day.  Now my nights consisted of sleep meditations and body pillows so my bed didn’t feel so big and empty.  Occasionally I allowed my ten year old to fall asleep in my bed watching movies, just so I could hear someone else breathing beside me.  Snuggling up with my children, savouring these moments while they are young, saved me from some deep nights of despair. 

I was alone. And I was in denial that I was not okay. 

Here it is though, I counsel people on how to move through grief. I help them transition through important moments and trauma in their lives. I am the person that becomes their cheerleader and reminds them that life is supposed to be difficult and it’s okay to not be okay.  Yet I wouldn’t admit to myself that I was not okay. I am a self-proclaimed expert on moving through emotion, but that, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that my emotion won’t catch me off guard sometimes.  I am human and my heart was very sad. 

Since our separation, much like the breakup of any long-term relationship, the rediscovery of who you are outside of that is probably the most beautiful, awful, heartbreaking, exciting, mind-twisting journey that one could experience. Who am I if I’m not a wife to this man? Who am I, if I go to dinner without him? Where did my friends go that we spent so much time with? Where did his family go? Who can I talk to about the kids? Who am I without him beside me?  

I had no damn idea. 

I had to start practicing what I was preaching to my clients.  I needed to pay attention and realize that life would be what I created it to be…without my husband. So I finally dove into it and made a promise to discover something new about myself every single month that I didn’t know before.  

Only once a month … can’t be that difficult, right? HA! But I did it, and I’m a determined person when I have my mindset on something, so I dove into myself and focused on healing the damage that I had done to my own heart over the last 3 ½ decades. 

What a discovery.

Funnily enough, I discovered that I am not alone.  I found out that I thoroughly enjoy laughing at my own jokes, I like beer and can tolerate certain country singers. I rediscovered my profound love of live music and like to make up rap songs about my kid’s behaviour. I’m a decent cook and strive on being intellectually stimulated where I learn something new every day. I have uncovered the truth about friendships, re-evaluated my self-worth and what that actually means. I found a voice, my voice, and that it holds a level of authority that I didn’t think was possible. I created boundaries with family and kept as true to myself as I absolutely could.  I learned to be unapologetically vulnerable no matter what the outcome. I allowed myself to change my mind and live in a confliction of emotion so I could figure out how I felt about something without the influence of other people’s opinions. I learned that life is messy and that won’t ever change, but if I could just dive in and enjoy myself in the middle of the mess, I could have a lot of fun.

I learned that I love.  I love in full. I have chosen every day since then to embody love as a state of being, instead of a goal to feel with someone else.  Whether I’m loving myself or putting myself to the side for a minute to love you, I will love with everything in me for the rest of my days.  I learned that language is the most powerful weapon in the world and should be honoured with integrity. Your word is your heart. 

I learned a hell of a lot. Just look at how long that paragraph is, and that’s only the tip of the metaphorical iceberg that is single parenthood while building a business and attempting a dating life in the world of Tinder & Bumble. (don’t even get me started, that’s another post altogether)

Today, this morning, as I sit within the trees listening to the sounds of kids and birds and the laughter of my friends, I am grateful for my year of firsts. For the embodiment of love.  I am grateful that I stepped up, stepped out, and finally began to create a life for myself and my children that is unparallel to anything I thought was possible those first dark months of grief.  I’m grateful I finally conceded and dove into it, so I could find myself here, forest bathing at 7:00 am on the Coast of British Columbia.  

So here I am.  Alone, but not alone. Excited, grateful, in love with life, and diving into the mess.  

Today, I am more than okay.