unmarried. a blog
"Tell the truth about what it's like to be human."
- Cheryl Strayed
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It's funny. When someone breaks their silence and finally admits that things are wrong, it creates a ripple effect. It's as if that proverbial vail has been lifted and suddenly you see anew. Whether it's been painfully obvious or pretty discreet, it's there in all its visible glory. The last few weeks of my "coming out" as a soon-to-be-divorcee has welcomed, or shall I say re-welcomed friends into my life. Some for lunch. Some to commiserate. All to connect. And what have I learned from being open and honest with myself? That many are stuck living with their secrets. Listen. Deep down I'm scared shit. That was, and still is, my fear of this transition. But it's no longer a secret. Deep down so many people are staying married because of this same fear, this secret. It takes balls to admit that things are wrong, someone recently told me. To which I replied: If the queen had balls she'd be king. The if is the problem here. Many people sadly choose to suffer through situations then find themselves (later on) sitting with an if. Plenty of us have an if hovering above. An if could look like this: If I only finished college. If I would have saved more money. My ifs were making it uncomfortable in every way. Mine were: If I stay, knowing what and how I feel, how will that impact my kids and their perception of love? If I could finally live a true 50/50 co-parenting situation then...(insert neglected desires here.) My ifs were too loud for me to ignore any longer. And I asked myself this: how is living this way comfortable? Why am I choosing to stay in something that is no longer serving me in the way that it should? Isn't that false advertising?! I'm not here to promote divorce. I am here to tell you that life is too short to remain in your ifs. Face your secrets, face your ifs, and do something about them. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed thinking, "Huh, I shoulda did things differently. If only I had more time." The time is now. Really. xo Dawn People like to own things: cars, houses, clothing. People will go out of their way to own these things by way of making money. Work, gambling, scheming.
What people don't like owning is their person: behaviors, words, feelings. People will go out of their way to avoid these things in an effort to unown them. For example, yesterday I took a hit of the lowest kind. Regardless of the irrelevance of that person's existence in my life, it was still hurtful. And I reacted. Mama bear mode was in full effect. I also let it affect me in ways that it shouldn't have. The lesson for me here is on ownership. Yes, I own a house, and yes, I am selling said house. But, putting material objects aside, the true thing that I own throughout any process, especially of the buying-and-selling kind, is that of my reactions (proactive or otherwise.) Should I have cried, kicked, screamed to process and allow myself to feel all the feels, of course. Should I have posted a rant on Facebook, probably not, but I'm a writer and writing is my way of processing. Now that I'm on the other side of that situation and those feelings, I can proudly say that I handled it much better now than if this were my younger self years ago. I'm still a work-in-progress and, by the looks of it from yesterday's ordeal, so are many others. xo Dawn I’m a Gemini. And, like any Gemini would, I study the rules. Immerse myself in the rules. BECOME the rules.
Only to break them. Now that my life is taking on a new form, with all its persistence, I’m creating a new set of rules. Rule one is to remain healthy. Note: I hate exercise. Like, really loathe it (my favorite anti-exercise saying is, “The only thing I run is my mouth.”) But, in true one foot in front of the other fashion, I must keep this body of mine in decent condition. Being forty is fickle. Especially now that I'm three-years in. So, I signed up for yoga. It’s the only thing that I can somewhat connect with. And this class isn’t your average ooohh-ssaaaaa ooommmm experience, it’s yoga tone. The tone part is anti-yoga. More along the lines of a militant “drop-the-fuck-down and give me twenty” after you’ve just quietly mastered balance in a tree pose. It's a bipolar paradox. I love it. My sessions start this week. Rule two, no wallowing allowed. To be honest, there was a time in my marriage when I was taking antidepressants. At first, I took them for postpartum. But a couple years after the births of my children, I began to realize that I was still depressed. And it wasn’t because of them. I loved them. did everything for/to/with them. Still do. But the sadness wouldn’t go away until I recently realized why. After some deep conversations with myself by way of journaling, I finally admitted what was going on, which was the hardest pill to swallow: I was taking antidepressants to suppress the very thing that was making me depressed: my marriage. So naturally, after deciding enough is enough with both the pills and the marriage, I prescribed myself with laughter as the medicine for a more desirable lifestyle result. My current way of accessing the funny will be through, Humor is the New Black!, an online writing class that studies comedy. Guess what? This writer can’t effen wait! Rule number three. Well, I don’t have a third rule. Three is too many. I guess that's why they say three’s a crowd. If you "adjusted" the rules you currently follow, what would you change? Just food for thought. xo Dawn At the start of every year, self-help gurus encourage people to choose one word instead of an entire resolution. The purpose is to reduce the stress that'll occur when said resolution fails. After all, let's be honest, most resolutions do fall by the wayside by February. But a word, a single, little utterance of a word could be just the thing to catapult a person into the actual doing of something bigger than them. Something positive. Or, at the very least, something forward-moving. Courage. That was my word for 2022. This year my word is persistence.  What's your word? Think about it. Or not. There are no rules here. xo Dawn Your second life begins...with the ring. I stumbled upon a saying, "Your second life begins when you realize you only have one," which is also the title of a fantastic book by Parisian author, Raphaelle Giordano. In the novel, main character Camille earns lotus charms varying in color as she achieves certain levels of success on her quest to a happier life. Each color symbolizes an elevation in rank. For me, transforming the engagement ring into an independence ring is the indicator of my journey. By removing the diamond, which will later be gifted to my daughter in a different form of jewelry, and replacing it with onyx (black = the highest achievement), the ring will be worn on my right hand, my dominant hand, as a reminder of the hard decisions I had to make in order to regain my self. If you're here reading this because you are going through a similar situation, ask yourself what thing could represent your journey. If not an object, then maybe a word... xo Dawn Standing in the middle of our quiet kitchen prepping dinner together, I stopped and looked at Jim. A firefighter, he must’ve felt the burn because he glanced up. What's the matter, hon? That’s all it took. My blood, as hot as liquid magma, rushed to my face as my lips parted. At once, all my truths came bursting out of how I hated him for always putting his job first, of how I loathed my role of being his wife, and finally admitted the picture-perfect suburban life we created was choking the actual life out of me. This, on a day that should have been celebratory as it was the worldwide release of my debut novel titled, F.D.N. Wives. A day where I thought we’d go out and champion a major accomplishment, my major accomplishment, but was met with a “money’s tight” response. This remark was on the heels of a trial-and-error period where I previously expressed the severe lack of affection and the lather, rinse, repeat cycle of our coupling. Revealing this deep secret of my sadness, this "malaise of the middle" of our fourteen-year relationship was hard. We did try. But after a year that consisted of counseling, attempts at dating, and even a trip to Disney (with-and-for the kids), we couldn't salvage what I knew was unsalvageable. And the "money's tight" was confirmation of it. There's a saying about greener pastures, about leaving to find something better. I'm not removing myself from the marriage to find anything "better," rather I'm looking to regain my independence. An identity that requires what it took to be a wife which, at least for me, is reminiscent to a karate student working toward a black belt. xo Dawn |
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