So much has happened over the last few years, I don't know exactly where to begin, but let me start by saying that I am getting a divorce.
Now let me continue by saying that this is the hardest thing I have ever gone through in my life. I keep looking back on my life and comparing it with what I thought my life would be and I just about want to throw up every time I think about where my life is right now. On the surface I think it looks rather grim, and believe me I have spent a lot of time, and some sleepless nights going over and over again in my head what is happening, looking at what my life is like right now, what it used to be, and what it may be in the future.
Yesterday I was at Sam's Club, not because I really needed anything there, but it's close to work and it was Friday night and the only place I had to go was home to my new bachelor pad, where I knew I would be all alone on a Friday night. My kids only 2 miles away from me, but unable to see them because its not "my weekend" (blech, my stomach wants to hurl just thinking about it). While I was there I picked up a gallon of Skim Milk and a big huge bottle of laundry detergent. I remember picking up the 115 load bottle and thinking, "this is going to last me forever since I'm the only one doing laundry at my house" (truth be told, I get to go to the laundry mat since my paycheck is now having to cover 2 households and lawyers aren't cheap). As I was walking around I looked down at my cart full of 2 items and thought about how just a few months ago when I came to Sam's Club I bought tons of food, filled the cart for my family, I loved grocery shopping for them because it gave me a sense of purpose, of doing something for them, it made me feel needed. It hit me that that was a former life that is no longer a part of my life. That life that I had become so familiar with was then, and this is now, that chapter is over and this is my new chapter. It was a very strange feeling. I reflected the first time Sara and I went to that exact Sam's Club together when we came to Utah. It was Winter 1995 and we were in a strange place, but I remember that somehow the Sam's Club felt like home because it looked and felt the same inside as it did in Phoenix. Fast forward 21 years and I was walking alone through the Sam's Club (I have been to Sam's alone many times, but this alone is a different alone. This is the I am really alone, and when I go home I will be alone, I will eat alone, and sleep alone, and do everything alone). I looked at my 2 items and realized that I didn't need anything else so I meandered (in no particularly hurry) toward the register and it struck me how ridiculous the 2 items were, how pathetic it was to not buy a lot of food to take home to my family. I felt sad in that moment and had to surrender it away to God to handle for me or I would cry right there in Sam's Club. What would my 21 year ago self say if my current self could go to him and tell him that in 21 years I would be getting a divorce? I did not ever expect this, it's so hard.
I have spent so much time beating myself up over it, to the point that God actually told me to stop it! That's right, I asked and he told me to stop beating myself up for my past. Somehow I thought it was noble to beat myself up about it, like somehow inflicting pain upon myself for my past would help to make it known that I am truly sorry and that I deserve what I get and that it I suffer enough just maybe I can be forgiven...someday. Well, that's not what God wants at all, he wants me to stop it and move on. It's been hard to stop. Somehow, there is a comfort in beating myself up, like somehow that has become an old friend. I had become accustomed to pain and I found that it was hard to let it go. Insane huh? I had always thought that what I truly wanted was happiness, and in the end what I really felt like I wanted in that phase of my life was to sit in my heap of pain and wallow in it because somehow that justifies me. God was not pleased, and now I understand why, I was allowing my own emotions to rule my actions instead of taking the reigns and being in charge of my own life.
So I started surrendering my right to beat myself up. I surrendered each time I denigrated myself in any way, every time I called myself stupid or told myself that I am such an Idiot, I had to stop and surrender that to God and let it go. I have had to learn to let go of the comfort of my own pain and choose happiness. Oh, it's not as easy as that, and it has taken a long time to see changes in my attitudes and thoughts, but it is a slow steady change. I have come to learn that happiness is not something that we simply choose. It is something that we work for. I cannot just decide one day to be happy and "viola!" I am happy. No, happiness is a lot of work, it's like Love, we can get glimpses of it given to us, but lasting love requires a great deal of work on our parts. If we want love, we have do do the work that cultivates love. Likewise, if we want happiness, we have to do the work that cultivates happiness. It's like there are laws that, if followed, lead to different virtues that bless our lives, but living those laws requires work. When I was younger love and happiness were generally easily come by, but now that I'm older I have to work harder at them. I think that this is by divine design, God allows us to feel these when we are younger so that we know how desirable they are, now that I am older, it's not so freely given, I have to work for them. I have thought for some time that there must be something wrong because I don't just easily feel love or happiness any more, I thought maybe there was something seriously wrong with me. But now I understand that God expects me to work for these things, and as I do they are both right there for the taking, so long as I am obedient to the laws surrounding these virtues.
I am actually glad that I discovered this because it makes me feel like I understand better why things are the way they are. I understand that I really do have choices in my life, I can choose attitudes, thoughts and actions that lead to anything I want, and life is so much more than what it appears to be on the surface. The end result is simply that, an end result, the true miracle is really in the journey. Happiness is the end result, the journey to living a life of happiness is the real miracle.
So I am not sure what all to say about the divorce right here, I will probably expound on my experience in later posts, but for now my heart is full of what I have written. Divorce is a very unfortunate outcome of a complex maze of choices, of sins of omission as well as sins of commission. I am guilty of both, and have beat myself up for them over and over again, to the point that (like I said earlier) God told me to stop it. I have wished that I could go back and have do overs, perhaps if I had just done this or that, or said this at just the right moment, or perhaps if I had not done this or that, then the outcome would be very different. But alas, the outcome is what it is and it's important for me to surrender any thoughts about what might have been
