Life is probably better alone.
Not that my life is bad…but any stretch of the imagination.
However, I am coming more and more closely to terms with the idea that less is more when it comes to people.
I feel like there is a constant thinning of the friendship circle and the “inner circle trust” which should be held by family is dwindling down to numbers dangerously close to zero.
I have had trust issues for most of my life.
With any remnants left which I coveted as an adult being blown to smithereens.
I have one friend from once upon a time I will tell anything and everything to.
One friend from adulthood who knows everything even when I don’t tell him.
And another who has someone whittled his way into my inner circle, perhaps intentionally, but I think quite unconsciously.
And that just about wraps it up.
I am not quite sure why…but I’m struggling with this whole concept today.
Perhaps it was due to a phone conversation I had with a lady I barely knew.
She is living a life I trudged through in a not so long ago past.
How we crossed paths?
I’m not sure.
But we crossed and like she told me, “I think that it was meant to be”
And maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn’t.
But our conversation resurfaced emotions I had long ago packed away and walked away from.
And now maybe I am reliving them.
And they are all issues that balance on trust.
How do you move on when the people you thought you could trust to the end of the world are those which betray you the most maliciously. Or most thoughtlessly. Or most intentionally.
My advice to her was to move past it by moving on with life.
I told her how important it was to build a network of support.
Find time to dedicate away from her kids and her husband.
Ease the pain of lonliness and confusion by connecting with people who would listen.
Make her laugh.
Cry with her.
Dance with her and drink wine with her.
I have her the name of some local women’s groups.
Some churches.
Some play groups.
Places where she could learn to exist on her own two feet and learn to thrive and appreciate herself as a woman before trying to tackle the shambles of her marriage.
I listened.
She talked.
I empathizes.
I listened some more.
She said I was inspirational.
I told her I was a fraud.
She laughed and said it was destiny that brought us together.
I laughed and told her I was a fraud.
Really just there passing on what worked for me when my life was crumbling before my eyes.
I told her it was a journey.
Much like that of an addict.
There are days when you feel strong and can move forward.
Which are followed by days of shattered hearts, confusion, pain and emotional regression.
I told her I moved thought weeks of my life in a fog.
And even now, there are days that I wander through in the same emotional murkiness that defined much of 2011 and the start of 2012.
I told her to sell Mary Kay.
That the women would make her feel like she was a million dollars and worth ten times that.
I told her to join a gym…even if it was to get an hour of alone time without having to worry about the kids.
I told her there were days I would bring the kids to daycare and just sit in the locker room and cry because that was all the strength I could muster.
And I told her it was OK to do that.
She said it was amazing to talk to someone else.
Someone who made her feel like she wasn’t alone.
Like she wasn’t the only woman dealing with a shattered marriage and a broken heart.
I told her women like us were a dime a dozen.
Just not enough of us were brave enough to talk about it.
And as we hung up, I felt like the fraud I told her I was.
There is no secret recipe to surviving a divorce.
They are emotionally, physically and financially devastating.
There is no quick answer or easy out.
Every day is a test.
And sadly, most days we find ourselves listing our failures and neglecting our wins.
It’s the way the game works.
Overall.
I’d have to say I’ve survived the dirtiest parts of the divorce.
I’ve resigned myself to a complete lack of power.
I’ve resigned myself to a future dictated by the law.
I’ve resigned myself to living in the shadows of a life I could have lived had I been stronger when I was married and had the opportunity to live the life I dreamed.
And even with all this resignation regarding any hope at a future,
I’m content.
I have healthy kids and a strong spirit.
And I have three people I know will live or die for me and my kids.
I’m embarrassingly poor.
Horribly unmotivated.
Ridiculously stuck.
But, I’m moving along.
Taking everything day by day.
Appreciating the good I have.
And watching the seconds tick by as each day narrows to a close.
I’m once again learning how to maneuver in the outskirts of life.
Hoping to exist quietly in the margins.
The roar I proudly shared with the world a months ago is slowly dissipating into a silent cry of solitude.
The fight in me is gone.
Dreams are fading.
Hope is strong.
Yet, I no longer hope for much.
I appreciate the now.
The quiet.
The moment.
Solitude.
So – after this page of rambling…what do we learn?
Divorce sucks.
Be strategic in who you make friends with.
Trust is just a broken concept.
Fighting for what is right isn’t always the best strategy.
I’m a fraud…not living what I preach.
I’m better off alone.
In the quiet.
Without the false premises of trust standing guard over me.
Safety in numbers.
The number 1.
