The last half of 2023 was a shit show. Ending a twenty-nine year marriage isn't easy. Picking up pieces of shrapnel-like feelings left behind by a spouse, also not easy. Helping your children (grown or not) try to puzzle things back together, once again, not easy. In this case it all fell on one person. Me. That's not entirely true. There were a few others who were there for us. Our ride or dies. Believe me. Divorce and the process of getting a divorce really brings out the best or worst in people We discover who the real ones are and who needs to be let go. It was a long, hard four months that led to the final point of who gets what. Is that what marriage boils down to? Who gets the big screen tv? Does he keep all of his (gajillion) musical instruments so I can keep the house? Who gets custody of the youngest? Does it matter since she turned 18? Scanning photos of our life together and putting them into a Google photo folder. Taking down photos off the family room wall and rearranging new ones. Some people stayed up there, and some didn't make the cut. So petty. So heartbreaking. A word I keep using is "rearranging." That's what our lives have been since this started in August. Rearranging. Resetting. Restructuring. So much for happily ever after. I've been reading a lot of self help books. Things get better. Give it time. Keep working on myself. Meditate. Have some me-time. Oh, and smudge. Bless the house, manifest what you want and what needs to go. Good thing my youngest likes crystals and aligning her chakra. She led me through the process, one smoky room at a time. She told me I had to do the manifesting since the sage was sent to me personally. Mmkay. So I talked to the spirits in the house and told them what I wanted. For each room I asked for things I felt people needed. Peace, love, and sssooouuuulll! Kidding but not kidding. How do you erase twenty-nine plus years with the same person who was supposed to be your person for your whole life? Well, for one thing, you can't erase anything. Why would you? I would never erase my four incredible daughters. I would never erase the experiences, good and bad. These made me who I am today. They enhanced what I tried to hide within myself. Come on, now. Who doesn't love the snarky whit that is me? Those zingers that come out at the right, sometimes wrong, moments in life. I've always told my girls to be so many things; brave, strong, loving, emotional, kind, gentle, fierce, go getters... I said it, but I didn't live it. Until now. With each milestone of change, people ask how I feel. My answer is always, I feel sad and relieved. This is a new chapter. Fitting for an author, yes? I'm glad my sage roll is fairly large. This doesn't have to be the first smudging in our home. Anytime we feel a blessing needs to happen, we can light up that sucker and try not to set off the fire alarm. I wish you all peace, healing, inner quiet, strength, and a ton of love. Deuces until the next episode!
