Most of what I presaged last March has come to pass. I've lost most of my possessions and savings, my marriage, and my sweet dog. I am in the process of figuring out how best to jettison my house. And yet, the grief of the past year is missing. Yes, I sobbed throughout the divorce mediation. And I sobbed when I learned about D's collapse. And I cry in my weekly therapy sessions. But behind all of that emotion is...emptiness. And maybe relief. And maybe, just maybe, the stirrings of hope.
I'm not sure.
I do know that loss of stuff is no longer part of the grief. As part of the mediation, I took the inventory of possessions and labelled them: D, K, and M. (M stands for marital possessions.) D initialed the stuff he plans to retrieve, now that he's back in Portland, and I faxed the result to my property managers. In looking over the inventory, I realized that, for the most part, I haven't missed any of it. There is some Grandma furniture that I'd like to cherish, there are boxes of pictures and letters and financial doings that I should go through. But otherwise....?
Last week my managers sent me 2 boxes of clothes, which are a welcome addition, and another small box of craft stuff. Much more remains, along with books, dishes, CDs, and Christmas decorations. All are nice to have, all give me joy, but if I never saw them again, I'd be okay. In fact, that would be a painless way to deal with it: just walk away.
Really? Have I reached that point?
Last year I was wandering around the house, agonizing over what was going in the downsizing estate sale. A few months later, I flung things in boxes, preparatory to moving here. At the time, I was thinking in terms of "what do we need for the next 6 months." So, the tough decisions were set aside. It was very Scarlett O'Hara: I'll think about that tomorrow (or in this case, 6 months of tomorrows.)
Now I find that, for the most part, my hasty decisions were as valid as the decisions I agonized over. In both cases, precious things were lost, precious things were kept, precious things were stored. And the same goes for unimportant things: while I tossed and sold a lot, I also boxed up paperclips for god's sake, scraps of wrapping paper for origami, jewelry bits to be reused.... and now that I've left D, I still have too much stuff: my 350 sq ft are crammed with linens, clothes, dishes, papers, books, furniture. I am not yet traveling light. And I want to.
But the real issue, of course, is how to lighten the emotional load. All this preoccupation with stuff is a distraction from the job at hand. It's easy to talk about moving on, traveling light, but what does that really mean?
After the divorce was final, I wrote a haiku:
Loss is emptiness.
It should be weightless. But no:
Tears have gravity.
So, how do I pay homage to the past 10 years and look towards the next 30 years? How do I jettison my tears, guilt, sadness? How do I store memories? and how do I take joy and hope and regain my bright, serene, creative self? How do I move on?
My friends and family and therapist are all advising me. It's contradictory. Most people see the last 10 years as a waste: I lost the self that they loved, while trying to maintain a partnership that drained me financially and emotionally, alienated my friends and family, and eroded my self-confidence and self-esteem. I get that point of view. But it's not the whole story. Clearly, I would not have spent 10 years on something that gave me nothing. There were joys experienced, lessons learned, friends made. I did not stop creating, making music, or feeding my soul. Those 10 years are part of me, and I need to acknowledge them, grieve over what I lost, and take what I gained.
D is not the demon of the piece. He is the man I fell in love with after my father died. He got me through that tough time, and he loves me and thinks me beautiful and talented. He is proud of my accomplishments. He is a good man. But, as E once said, he was a lousy husband. The power imbalance led to escalating emotional abuse, and I had given all I had to give. No one, not even D, blames me for leaving, for giving up. In the final analysis, I don't blame myself.
But the process? the process is driving everyone crazy. I wallow in grief, in guilt: What could I have done differently, why wasn't I strong enough, what is D going to do, why couldn't I be there for him and his sister? I whine: I've lost everything. I curl up in a fetal position. I cry. I can't make decisions, I don't follow through. I express my loneliness. I express my neediness. I cry some more. I don't know what I want to do with my life, and I cry about that. I don't have the confidence to start something new. I worry about debts, about stuff. I worry about self-care and self-talk. I worry about alienating my friends and family even more. I worry about being a burden.
One friend thinks the guilt is useless and self-destructive and I need to Just Stop. Another says, "pffft, feelings don't work that way. And you've raised whining to an art form. Your friends need to deal with it." Some friends think I'm an idiot for dreaming of eventually being friends with D again. The current estrangement should be permanent. Wish him well and move on. Others think that I will, in time, need to renew contact, for closure if nothing else. My therapist tells me to acknowledge the feelings, accept where I am: it's okay that I don't know what I want. But....do something about that negative self-talk.
Which brings me back to the beginning of this blog. What is really behind all this emotional flailing? That's what I need to find, in order to move on. Am I truly empty? Have I lost the ability to really feel, am I just going through the motions, running on my default whiny behaviors? What do I really want, where is my joy, where is the me that people want me to retrieve? I truly don't know, I don't recognize that woman they are describing. I don't believe the future is limitless.
But I want to believe it. I know that I have all the tools to do amazing things with the next 30 years, and the freedom to pursue those adventures. If I want to.
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