Living-Deliberately.com

One week ago today the divorce was declared…a settlement having been reached two weeks before it was headed for a full trial. I’d gone into the courthouse under a very different set of expectations and came out before lunch with the whole thing rather done. There are still myriad of details of course, but essentially, the worst of it is over.

The true relief is that the trial, with it’s necessary accusations and contests, was avoided. And the reality of that relief will no doubt have a long ripple effect, at least the breadth of the dread I had of facing it. On my children’s faces, there is still that innocence protected, where so much other has been stripped away. Whether he realizes it or not, he did the right thing.

I took the week to absorb the news. There are scads of lists to be made, choices to discern. In the scope of “life altering events”, this one is a biggie and it seemed a “Divorce Moon” of sorts was called for. It didn’t involve anything tremendous…some quiet time to think, lots of work hours with worry set on the back burner, a trip to the ocean with children to swim and gather sea glass, conversations with friends, the therapist, a cupcake, and a margarita.

Since October I’ve lived out of a suitcase, a gypsie life not really a better fit than the too-snug shoes I’d left behind. We’ve seen new places and traveled and made memories that did their best to surpass their motivator. There’s been much love along the way…blueberry pancakes after living room slumber parties, snowy inns and goat farms, gas money slipped into my pockets when I was stone broke; friends who’ve let my cat have kittens on their porch, let my baby play on their trampoline, and family that built my children a new bedroom so they could put the travel bags away for awhile. Miraculously I didn’t miss the birth of my nephew and when I lost my beloved parish family due to logistics, it was a loss cushioned by love of others who understood that particular pain and sought to soothe.

For all the good and all the loss, I’m still just overwhelmingly grateful it’s a season that is done. Not unlike birth transition, it’s the hardest part and The Only Way Out is Through. And just like holding the wet and slippery infant that miraculously made its passage, this a beginning, not the destination. Categories of Life that had their “pause” buttons pushed will begin to play again and new ones will be uncovered in a maze of discovery once locked away. I have only felt the merest dawning of that moonrise; a week is, after all, not long enough.

And little children once socially hesitant, emotionally bruised, who started this season more battle-weary than we could find words for, show the most healing. Laughter and friendships and adventurous-spirits return, showing me once again that children make the most reliable barometers of environmental climate that there ever was. That I will protect this new daring trust on their part like a Mother Bear should go without saying and yet I want to utter the words. One does not go through the fire without knowing what they are fighting for.

There have been long hours, awake in the quiet of starry Florida nights, wondering how to live deliberately in a time such as this. It’s indeed difficult to do so when lying in a realm of limbo, no real closure available and decisions prohibited by ongoing litigation. I never felt free to exhale completely, to take a step forward without testing it with my weight several times before really relying on the integrity of the support. Last Monday I let out a huge breath and stepped off the curb to my car with confidence that had been building up, ready for the day it’s number would be called. I will not go forward with perfection but with determination, forgiveness, and curiosity. I suppose the point being, “I will go forward”.

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