Almost two years ago was the final end
of my marriage, a moment that I never had wanted to come, but I knew it was the
end when I saw how much the girls were hurting and how things just weren't getting better. Every few years felt like another midlife crisis, but I didn't
know back then about mental health or trauma and I didn't know what was happening.
By the
end, maybe I still didn't fully know what was going on with him, but I knew that
the multiple times that I had tried to have a conversation about (for instance)
*how can we work together better the next time we move* and how difficult it was
to be patiently sitting and waiting for him to speak as he held his head and
swayed in the corner of the room trying to use his "feeling words" he said. It
was difficult to follow whatever he was trying to say when so little was said out loud for over several hours.
I always believed that marriage was about
cooperation. Facing life together, enjoying the beautiful parts of life and
supporting each other in life's journey. When he told me a little over two years
ago that he didn't want to be married. He said that being a husband and father was an
obligation that he didn't want. That he had felt "forced" to marry me-- He had
said the forced thing a few years before which sent me into a deep depression at the time (around Valentine's Day in 2020) for a few months until I had convinced myself that he hadn't meant it. But this
time. I knew that it was the end. If I had known two decades ago that he felt
"forced" to marry me (translation, that he didn't WANT to marry me) I never
would have married him. The absolutely lowest of possible bars is wanting to be
with the other person. I had just enough self worth at that point to realize that I deserved to be with someone that wanted to be with me.
As painful as this is to talk about and admit-- (Who wants to admit to anyone else, let alone themselves, that they are unwanted?) it was
worse at the time and trying to accept it. Even after he said he wanted a divorce
and was very very sure of this, I would wake up from a dream where in I thought I was
loved and have to remind myself over and over again, that I was not. I told
myself his words over again -- "he doesn't want to be married to you" -- radical acceptance of the truth. I have
been grieving my marriage since 2018 when he first told me about his depression.
It started out because at that point there were 14 years of marriage where he
had hidden how he felt! I never wanted him to be miserable, but it turns out
that there was nothing I could do. I expected less from him as a partner so he
wouldn't be stressed, but that didn't matter in the end. I helped him get his car, which he
turned into another obligation and stressed himself out with cleaning it. I
couldn't ask questions right because somehow even asking him how work was would
be triggering. I could literally be whispering and he would get upset and tell me I was yelling. His perceived reality just didn't seem to match the reality that I saw. But even though he said over the years that I didn't ask questions right, he never
could tell me how I was supposed to do it.
I remember the years
previously, how I had so loved having people over! Because when friends were
around he would actually seem happy and talkative! He would talk about his day
when other people would ask what work was like and I got to hear stories that I
never heard when it was just us.
"Grief is love persisting"-- I have such a
great capacity to love that it has taken me a while to accept the truth and let
go. You see, he said he felt forced to marry me, but he had asked me to marry
him hundreds of times! And he moved half way across the country to marry me--
does that seem like I "forced" him? People choose what they want to think and
they choose how they will respond. It is possible that he never loved me at all,
or maybe he loved the version of me that he had imagined and I just wasn't perfect enough for him. He said as much in that first year we were married. For years I
remembered that first year as the year of contempt. I would plan dates for us
and he wouldn't talk, or he would tell me how he missed his friends and why
wasn't I more like them? The contemptuous looks were so numerous, but when I
asked he wouldn't admit he was upset or anxious (I only knew for sure when he
told me 15 years later.) There was one moment in that first year where he looked
at me with love. I held on to that moment so hard! But now I understand just how
anxious I was around him and how dysregulated my nervous system truly was. I wasn't
myself, but because I was so in love I couldn't see clearly.
The years of living in Dallas away from any emotional support as I poured
myself out to my girls took its toll on me. Every time I visited family I would
be renewed though and could go back and keep going. I so often wished that things could be better but I couldn't at the time point to or express what felt off.
Once I knew about the depression, his lack
of emotional support made more sense. How can you be an emotional support to
others if you can't even be that to yourself? Truly any other awful thing I
could imagine cannot compare to the trauma of having a suicidal spouse. At the time, I described it to myself like having a spouse with a terminal illness-- I felt like I needed support and people offering casseroles but he said it wasn't my secret to tell people. So I desperately tried to calm myself and tried to reach out, but at the time, just didn't have the bandwidth to try and get people together. The idea of organizing a lady's craft day at church was an expressed idea and wish and then I literally couldn't move forward. It seems odd to remember now, but simply getting myself not to shake in panic during choir was all I could do at the time. I wore essential oils and sniffed them to calm myself multiple times and hour. The
layers of that trauma as well were so difficult. Being lied to is a betrayal, and every time that I asked him what was wrong or what he liked or didn't want and he lied, that was 14 years at that point of inaccurate information. How can you show love to someone if they hide who they are?
Other layers of trauma were that I was dependent on him financially, I
was "following" his lead, I didn't have any other support there really. I didn't
know till later how often he would refuse invites (that we got) without telling
me. I also didn't understand why people treated me "weird" until later when I
put the pieces together that they had only known me through his distorted
mentally ill (depressed) lens. He presented me to people as if I were always mad at him or always
depressed.
I was desperately in need of comfort and love, but I gradually had
found ways to cheer myself up over the years. I did so much to try and cheer myself up that I really didn't know how depressed and low I was. I am naturally an optimistic person. My mom sent me this beautiful glass cup for my birthday and I knew she loved me and I knew she wanted me to have this glorious cup, but I also knew that something was wrong with me when I saw that cup and thought to myself that I couldn't drink from it. Like I wasn't worthy to drink from such a beautiful cup. Somehow I had grown so starved for love and care that I didn't feel worthy of a cup! It seems almost silly to me now. I no longer feel like a failure as I did then-- I couldn't figure out at the time how to feel better. I kept trying to avoid the foods that hurt me, but there must have been something else and I didn't know what it was. How would you feel if the person you loved and was supposed to love you behaved like they wanted away from you? It is hard to reach out and make friends if even the person who vowed to love and cherish you doesn't seem to want to be around you. The place where you are supposed to feel secure and safe just isn't there. So I didn't know what was wrong with me. I felt like a failure.
I tried to make things work better down there, but just kept blaming tx instead of acknowledging how unloved I felt. He seemed to get mad whenever I
was happy. He said once that my potted garden was a burden/obligation to
him. Do you know, I love to see the people that I love enjoy something! Even if
I don't enjoy it myself-I love seeing the people I care about happy. So comments
like that were always confusing to me. I would use money from groceries as I
budgeted or from my own earnings, so it wasn't like I was a big spender on my
hobbies.
Once I knew about his depression though, I was able to learn about mental illness and besides learning to not blame myself for his choices, I also learned techniques to help myself and my girls.
Because he had been in the mental hospital and I didn't know what the
future would be, I knew I needed to get a job at some point. Sooner rather than later. But trying to be there for the girls
and easing their anxieties while also trying to calm my own anxieties and figure
out how to start working again was extremely stressful.
The first sewing job I got in 2021 though started because I felt a strong sense to google search for one. I was
following the lead of the Holy Spirit in that moment and just woke up one
morning and felt compelled to look. I got the job working for a woman with an
etsy business. It didn't pay much and was very part time, but going out to pick
up the sewing and coming back to do it gave me some courage and a tiny bit of
money-- it felt like getting unstuck from the pandemic enclosure and just making
good progress. That led me to getting a better car as well (my old one kept
needing dumb and expensive fixes!) I didn't know at the time that God was
preparing me to be strong enough to leave.
In 2022 I woke up again with that
overwhelming nudge to search for a sewing job and that is how I found the job at
the fitting room! I really loved that job, even though it took me so much
courage to even go to and try to get it, and then to keep going back. It felt
like this death of an era (which it was) of me being a stay at home
homeschooling mom. I was now a working mom, while still trying to homeschool. And
then packing up the entire place for the move to the junky apartment. By December of 2022, all that I had earned
that year, some $16,000 was no where to be seen. His overspending, the cost of
moving, the more expensive rent, just all the things. I was so exhausted. Again,
my efforts were "not enough"... I had been working and saving in order to pay off my
car (to save that monthly expense) and to save up for emergencies or moving
costs. But we didn't end up in a better or cheaper place. Trying to improve our finances did nothing. All that year as well,
he had grown more distant and rejecting as well. I think I know why now, but
that isn't my secret to talk about. Suffice to say that I was unwanted and
rejected and I felt it even though he hadn't said as clearly yet.
That Christmas we
saved a kitten. And this cat that I ended up taking to my moms (Mitzi) was such
a comfort. I had forgotten what being comforted and loved felt like. The peace
of a cuddly purring cat that desperately wanted me (she crawled in my hoodie!)
and was so happy to be with me was God's love to me in that moment that I will
never forget. I still had hope that our marriage could get better, but the clues
that he didn't want that were pretty clear. He asked or middle daughter once
when they were alone if she would want him to stay in tx while she and us girls
moved away. It was quite traumatizing for her to be asked such a question at the
time. Especially since all of us girls were traumatized by the thought of him
dying since he was suicidal -- He was gone so very often when she was little, working late almost
every night. Our youngest says that if it weren't for the pandemic (where he had
to start working from home) then she wouldn't have known him at all. And even
then, he didn't make eye contact with us and played on his phone constantly.
I
can't explain fully how small and invisible you feel when the person who is
supposed to love you ignores your presence to that extent.
It still surprises me
sometimes when friends here actually look at me. When people respond to me in
mentally healthy ways (like being emotionally independent and not take
everything I say in a negative way)-- I have an old journal entry from several
years ago where I wrote that my deepest desire/dream was to be able to be myself. To feel
however I happened to feel in a moment and not have my emotions effect him.
There is a
movie called "The prize winner of defiance Ohio" (great movie!) anyway, one
line in it resonated with me-- She was happy and doing her own thing and her
husband was upset about something, anyway, it causes a catastrophe and later she
says "I don't need you to make me happy, I just need you to leave me alone when
I am." I sometimes felt like that-- that I wasn't allowed to be happy. Maybe it
was too loud, I don't know, but I got into the habit of not singing as much and
just being quieter. The girls felt this oppression as well. When we were driving
up here together there was a point where we were all singing at the top of our
lungs to Pentatonix Christmas music (in August!) and they commented about how
they felt like it was okay to be loud now!
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Back to Christmas 2022 and the cat I took to my moms. Even though I had worked
so much that year, I didn't have savings for a plane trip. I used my credit card
to make the trip happen and paid it off after I got back. But that trip-- I
can't describe how it felt to look at people who WANTED to be with us. Who
wanted to see us! The girls slept better than they had in years! Everyone's anxiety levels went down. It was such a contrast.
And then we went back.
He
greeted us with the usual fake smile and then in the car the tension was so
thick, everyone felt it. I felt myself shrinking smaller as I tried to ask
questions "the right way" only to get short irritable responses back. (He had
talked to his mom on the phone so I was asking the usual questions of what did
she say and how is she doing etc.) But apparently I couldn't ask in a way that
he approved of because he just seemed mad that I would even ask anything. It
wasn't that he didn't communicate well (he had told me in previous years) it was
that I didn't ask questions right. I didn't see how I asked questions any
different than anyone else, but he seemed to think so because that is what he told me.
We got back to the junky
apartment and one child had a full panic attack just about the idea of
showering. Others were crying about missing family and Mitzi. One was sad about
how he had moved her pets out of the way. I was going around cleaning because
everything was so disgustingly dirty. Our fluffy cat was throwing up a bunch!
The girls later said he hadn't given her the medicine she needed correctly. Her
health never fully recovered and we had to put her down before moving here. I
was trying to comfort my girls as we all sat on the couch watching "The Chosen"
because none of them could sleep... except their dad who was in the other room
sleeping. As all three were hugging me and sobbing they begged me to move them
to be near family.
But I knew.
I knew that if I told him that I had to move the
girls, (and I truly saw in that moment how desperately they needed me to)- I told them
that I was afraid that if I told their dad that I had decided to move them to be
near family, I told them that I was afraid that he would divorce me rather than
come.
The middle thought he would choose divorce (because of what he had said to her a
few months before) but the oldest and youngest thought he would decide to come!
The next night after work I talked to him, that I had to move the girls and
did he want to come too or did he want a divorce? He said it was better to be
truthful than keep telling "kind lies" (For the record, lies are never "kind"-
and I would have been saved a lot of trauma and pain if I had known the truth
sooner) Anyway, that is when he said he didn't want to be married and being a
husband and father was an obligation he never wanted. I saw hints of this for
years, but chose to focus on the positive. The last few years for me has been
trying to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of all the lies and his words that
didn't match his behavior and just a hundred other tiny confusing moments
gathered in two decades of time.
I am no longer the "Incurable optimist" that I
once was, but I am wiser now. I am at least glad that I know for sure there was
nothing more that I could do. If you love someone, you can't love them "enough"
to make them want or accept that love. Just like how we can't expect someone to
want and like a type of food that they don't want-- You can't give them more of
what they don't want and expect them to eventually want it. Likely, they will
just dislike whatever food it is even more.
We agreed to divorce because that is
what he wanted. And I didn't want to be married to someone who didn't want to be
married to me. Pretty simple really.
In that first week though after he said
that, I ugly cried every drive home from work. Anyone driving past me probably
thought I was crazy. But all the grief came fully forward. Any hope I had before
was gone. This was the end of the end.
And then, somewhere near the end of that
week, I felt the holy spirit say to me "You don't have to be hurt anymore" and
even through my tears, I had this feeling of surprise and amazement. What would
that even feel like to not be on the yo-yo of rejection and being pulled back
again? I could see the patterns by that point and getting off the merry go round
of his emotions sounded like such a relief!
I didn't have to be hurt anymore. I could let go.
But I still had to learn to let go
and stop loving him.
Some nights when the girls and I were listening to our song
list of praises and worship music, I would feel so desperate and lost. How in
the WORLD was I going to be able to save enough and move us by myself back home?
It was terrifying. The Lauren Dagel songs like "Rescue" and "He gives me
everything I need" and others were the promises that I clung to with my finger
nails. I had hope that even if he didn't want to be married to me and needed to
stay in Dallas, that he would at least be consistent with the girls and be able
to reassure them that they are loved. I couldn't be the middle man anymore
though, their relationship with him had to come from him. I can't describe how
truly disappointing it was to see him continuing to be inconsistent and
uncommunicative even with the tiny amount of expectation at that point.. a
weekly tv show with our oldest-- forgotten, a promise to another-- ignored..
then he moved out to a hotel-- more rejection. Not to me at this point, but to
the girls. I saw him reject them just like he had with me and I knew how much it would hurt. I kept reminding them that he was making his own choices, that it wasn't anything they had done.
Then he
randomly showed up to get something at the apartment and they went from being
peaceful with him gone to having panic attacks when he came back. I would get a text to come home early from work and hug a child until her heart rate went back to normal and she could move and function again.
Months before
this when the girls were meeting with a counselor, the counselor asked me if I could at
all move them away sooner. I wasn't sure how I could! I was saving and paying
off my car and just really needed that time to prepare for such a big move, but
it was so extremely hard on them!
His rejection felt final when he canceled their
good bye dinner and just said good bye to each of them through text. I wish he could have
reassured them. Maybe that they are loved and valuable and he was protecting
them by staying there? That he needed to focus on his own mental health and
healing and didn't want them to be hurt? He didn't say any of that. He didn't give them the reassurances they needed. He blamed
them instead of taking responsibility for his own choices. When he and I were at
that same counselor together discussing the decision to divorce. She asked him
how he felt about us moving away and he said "In my deepest depression I knew
they didn't want to be with me."-- that was never true. I said. The therapist
repeated that as well. It truly wasn't! The girls and I always wanted him
around. We were sad that he seemed to choose other people (friends for game
night, working late, volunteering when someone asked)-- why was it that he could
say no to us but never ever say no to anyone else?
What's more, I knew he was
stressed and encouraged him in doing fun things. I still wished that he wanted to
be with me back then though. The girls talk about that now as well. How they
used to wish he would play with them or pay attention to them. It was such a
rare thing. Neglect is such a squirrelly thing to try and understand-- because the problem isn't in what someone does but in what they do not do. It is harder to point to as a problem. Sometimes you don't even know yourself how to explain what isn't there if you don't fully know what should be there. I had hoped he would choose to call them regularly, or
set up times to play online games. He did that once in an entire year, but that
is all. We all wondered if he would plan a visit. But any time any of us text that question he stops texting back. Just ghosts completely. So the girls don't ask anymore if he is going to visit or if he has plans to.
The pattern of before, the lowest possible bar minimum continues. Though
they have actually said that he is a better father now. I truly cannot tell you how sad
this all has been to watch. But people make their own choices. They choose what
they value and their words do not always align with their actions. You can
"want" to run a marathon and yet not want it enough to do any amount of training
or building habits in order to do so. Maybe that was how he had "wanted" to be
married to me while also feeling "forced"-- he said he wanted to marry me, but
when it came down to it-- time to run the marathon, he didn't want to anymore.
Our own thoughts also affect our emotions and our actions and then our own
outcome. He told me that he kept thinking "I won't make it to twenty years"-- I
mean, yeah, not when you tell yourself that you won't. Imagine telling yourself
that your family doesn't want to be around you. It could create the emotion of
sadness (for instance) and then your behaviors will be rejecting because you believe your own narrative, whether it is true or not--
I have to remind myself that the life and family that
I created, even though it turned out to not be a lifestyle that he wanted, it
wasn't a bad life or a failure. Someone else would have loved the life I had
built-- they wouldn't have yelled at their wife for trying to kiss them goodbye
or been mad at her for being happy, or tried to avoid family dinners. So many
confusing moments.. one stands out especially. After he had come out of the
hospital and gone back to work, I was trying to figure out how to hang his
shirts so that they would be easier for him to reach. Our youngest (about 8 at
the time) would sleep on the floor and hold my hand so she blocked the closet
door in the mornings and getting shirts out was then a struggle. I was kicking
around my ideas, should I get a free standing coat rack or something that
attaches to the wall? He confidently says I should hang his shirts in the coat
closet downstairs by the front door. What? really? Yes he assures me how that
would be the perfect spot. I am unsure, but okay, so I move them there. A few
days later he sounds dejected and says that with his shirts by the door it feels
like I am trying to get rid of him. So I moved them all back upstairs and later
he thanks me for moving them all back. The problem of how to hang them in a more
convenient place though wasn't solved. But, the confusion and swing from
assuring me to hang them downstairs to being sad that I hung them downstairs..
just, I don't know.. it might take a team of psychiatrists to make sense of just
all the moments that I remember and experienced with him. I don't actually know if he
remembers any of these things. Because so very often he would tell me something
and later when I would have thought about it and tried to make sense of it (or
even just wanted to discuss something) he would tell me he never said that or he
didn't remember. I wouldn't argue, because really, how do you convince someone
of what reality is? Not remembering because he truly didn't remember OR
pretending not to remember are both concerning. I just added those times to the
other confusing bits of data. I worried that being depressed really had effected
his memory, but he poo pooed those worries and said his memory was fine. so.. 🤷
I am glad I journaled and can see my own moments of clarity even among the
confusion.
Now, he tells people that he is "cured" of his depression. And maybe he is? I wouldn't know. He acted so differently around other
people than around just us, that I really would have no way to know from the
outside. But you all don't want all this back story, right? You want to know
where we are now.
2023, finally in late August we got the uHaul with the help of
a couple friends and loaded it with the help of a little local church. Nothing
catastrophic or stressful happened. I had worked out the plan and followed the
plan and saw the plan succeed! Never in my marriage had I seen that, so it was
kind of stunning to see my plan actually work. No one threw a panicked wrench
into it. And I realized that simply following Jesus was enough. Trying to follow
my husband all those years just led to bad decisions and frustration. A triplex
that he said he wanted then didn't? To saying he wanted his shirts in the coat
closet and then didn't.. Just, all the things.
God also blessed us girls with a
new kitten who happened to be born on the day that he said he wanted a divorce.
Our Billie kitty was such a comfort to my youngest! She had lost so many
hamsters over the years and also struggled with anxiety so much, she needed
the comfort of her own sweet kitty. Then in Jan of 2024 I let my oldest get a
cat as well because she had lost her Fluffy cat (her comfort cat) that she had
for so many years! And guess what? This new cat, Sonia, was born on the day that
I took the paperwork into downtown Dallas to give the court our new address (as
per the law) which was the day before we filled the uhaul.
God didn't have to
bless us with two sweet comfort kitties that were born exactly on those
significant book end days, but he did. God doesn't force us to be good or to be
anything. He invites and he loves and pursues, but we choose to accept or not.
Coercion is abusive and God is not an abuser.
When my former husband chose his
path, I was not going to try and change his mind. I did ask a few times if he
was sure. Would he regret this choice? He hadn't ever seemed this sure before.
So that was the end. Now it makes me a little sad to realize that I still would
likely be with him if it weren't for the girls needing better. Not because I
regret, but because I didn't realize how unloved and unwanted I truly was. My
own love was the rose colored glasses I wore and it is only recently that I can
look back and see how depressed I truly was. I remember having a dream, a deep desire of my heart (to write and illustrate childrens books) and that dream had
been percolating for a long time, but I remember it being so strong one year and
choosing not to talk to him about it. I knew that if I did then my precious
dream would be trampled. I didn't want him to ruin it, so I said nothing.
Marriage isn't supposed to be like that. You should feel safe with your spouse,
emotionally as well as physically. And as God told me - I don't have to be hurt anymore.
In September 2023 we were finally here. The
ladies had a basket of flowers and a welcome home sign. I posted pictures on
instagram of our journey. It was mostly uneventful and easy. I got better at
unloading the car for each hotel stop and dealing with the animals we brought
with us (two cats and a rabbit) -- we added an extra day and pivoted when we
needed to on the drive up. No flat tires or issues.
Getting out of tx
that first day of driving was exactly what we needed! The girls had been waiting
for so many months that everyone just really needed to be out and on our way! I
discovered that I kind of liked the road tripping! I liked being somewhat
planned and somewhat spontaneous -- also singing christmas carols together as
loud as we could! My middle daughter kept commenting on how beautiful the sky
and clouds were each day. Each days sky was different but so beautiful. She said
it was like God was giving us a blessing with how beautiful the clouds and sky
were. She especially had had a difficult many a year and was quite depressed. Looking back at
pictures of her I can see her eyes just look kind of dull and blank, even if she
is smiling in the picture, but now, she has sparkly eyes and says how peaceful it
is here!
2024 felt very full, even though much of it sort of felt like we were
catching up for lost years. The older two took a driving class. It was good to
do, but also quite stressful for them. They still need to practice more and will
get licenses in a few years. Lily turned 18 in 2024 and started her Senior year.
We probably could do another year after this but she will technically be
graduating in May 2025. We plan to have her take a GED test and also get her drivers
license this year. That is the plan anyway! I am saving up for a modest car for
her as well. She sold things at the farmers market most weekends in 2024 and
plans to do the same again with my little bro in 2025. There is a lot of
catching up to do-- all the school books and plans that we were going to do
before got pushed to the way side for a while, but in the next few months we
will finish up her homeschool and shift to the next phase of adulting for her.
We have all been through a lot of stress so that balance of moving forward but
not so fast that it is too full of anxiety is important.
She was old enough
during everything that she can remember and see how I had been building our home
and homeschool and how the time with her dad in the hospital was the turning point
where (she describes it like) he dismantled all the things I was building.
Renna (middle daughter) turned 16 in 2024 and started her Sophomore year, though she too is pretty behind in math and such. I am pleased to see all three
catching back up and remembering things pretty well! Her skills with drawing
though are pretty amazing! and she got a drawing pad/computer for her birthday
and has some pretty mad skills with using the digital art program! She made
digital art this year and turned them into stickers to sell at the farmers
markets. She didn't sell a lot, but just doing a little adulting like this is
important.
Natalie Grace turned 13 in 2024-- I had quite the run around all
summer trying to get her an appointment at Shriners hospital so they could see
her back. She has pretty bad scoliosis and her lungs and ribs hurt when she has
been walking around for a while. However she (and the others) had a great time dressing up and going to a Renaissance fair! She has been decorating her room like a jungle
garden of herbalist magic-- hanging vines and pretend potion filled bottles. It
is beautifully mossy in her bedroom. She has loved going thrifting since we
moved here and especially getting all the sweaters she could ever wear!
I (43) have
been doing seamstress work for friends and others here and there.
Then in
July 2024 got a job at a little clothing shop (working on the floor, but also
doing sewing repairs for them)-- It felt like a lot, just new things to get used
to doing, but also, I reminded myself how scared I would have been before, but
what I went through and then working in Dallas before driving us up here.. like
really, not much can be scarier than what I have already done! And in this
season of remembering and of Emanuel -- I can look back at recent years and even
decades before that, God was with me. I can keep following Jesus no matter what
anyone else chooses to do.
I am so thankful for being able to stay in this
cabin. I love it! Cozy and beautiful and we have found our comfy spots and
routines. 2024 felt like a lot of recovery, of healing and rebuilding. 2025 is
more of the same, but some steadiness has been built now so continuing and being
consistent is the plan.
Doing the last bit of "real" homeschool with my oldest is a little
bitter sweet, but I want to lean into it! The joy of this season and making up
for the time lost to depression and the pandemic and so on. One element of
forgiveness that is often under valued, is letting go. Forgiveness isn't looking
to change the other person or reconcile or punish or really do anything except
to let go. It isn't looking for pay back or to make things right. I couldn't do
any of that even if I wanted to. Forgiveness isn't about forgetting though. If I
forgot then I wouldn't have the wisdom and empathy and growth that I have
gained. I don't want to forget (not really possible anyway!) But learning to let
go-- People will be who they choose to be and that isn't up to me. They might
disappoint us or surprise us, but either is still entirely their decisions and
choice for their own life.
There is so much freedom in this letting go!
Sometimes I still worry about what the future will hold. But even if I am in
this exact same place, trying to love and raise my girls and depending on others
for the roof over our head, I know we will be okay. We are safe and loved here.
I am seeing slow but valuable progress. It is getting harder to remember just
how dysregulated my nervous system felt all those times in Dallas. How panicky
and unable to sleep and terrified I was when he first told me about his
depression. When I tried to talk about it even to myself feeling my throat clench up and lungs constrict-- hardly able to speak the truth.
The terror and abandonment feeling when I wasn't sure how I would
save enough to move us up here. The anxiety and loneliness when I drove myself
downtown to a courthouse with paperwork. The empowered feeling when the uhaul
was filled in record time and all the plans were working out! The tears of
relief and gratefulness when I first came into the cabin and saw the welcome
home sign and flowers. The comfort and joy of the wild black eyed susans and
sunflowers growing along the highways all the way from tx to here. The worry to
relief of buying my snow tires last year, the caution to joy of looking for a
cat for my oldest and then seeing her turn back into herself again with her new
comfort kitty.
Now, mostly I feel peace.
One daughter said she felt cozy. This
has felt like such a cozy and quiet christmas. I am to the point in my letting
go journey that I tore out the unused pages from my christmas ornament book that
I got on my honey moon and had been filling with an ornament picture a year and yearly
letter. I put it with the other scrapbooks. I didn't mind not putting up the
yearly Christmas picture at all. I mostly decorated in ball ornaments of all
colors and sizes rather than the memory type ornaments!
This christmas has been
joyful! Delighting in all the tiny things! I am remembering who I am and
recapturing who I was before all the stress and trauma. I still have some food
anxiety even from that first year of marriage! Maybe my former husband thought I
was less effected by the poverty and stress and food insecurity because I did so
much to try NOT to be stressed, but I went through all those things just as he
did. My focus was on the girls and caring for them. I didn't want what I
couldn't control be a source of anxiety for me to pass to them. There are so
many ways to save money if you try-- One thing I am showing my youngest is how
to make those kinds of choices. With grocery shopping for instance. Eggs might
be expensive, but they are still a less expensive meal than pizza!
Two years
ago, I painted a picture of a man and woman walking away in the rain, down a
lamp lit path. I felt at the time that the painting represented a change. Was it
a fresh start with my husband? A recommitment? Or a walking away from him to
someone else? Over the months I came to realize that the painting represented me
walking with Jesus. I can't see very far down the path, but I am committed to
walking in the light as he is in the light. It is so easy to become overwhelmed
or worried about small things, but God clothes the grass of the field with Lily
flowers. And he takes care of us too. Lily was named with this thought in mind--
That God will take care of us, that he sees us and will provide. That we do not
need to worry.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, from the
father of lights with whom there is no shadow of turning. That passage is from
James after the part about a double minded man being unstable in all his ways.
Renna Yovayla's name means "beautiful song from heaven"-- I am still learning to
sing again and to let my voice be heard.
Natalie Grace means the undeserved
gift. Or Christmas! Or maybe the gift that God wanted to give ❤️ In many ways I
feel like things have been hardest on her, especially since the pandemic but even
before that. She finally started to connect with her dad right before he chose
to leave. She has always had such a loving tender heart and so often was afraid
at night. She had such a fear of being left. She didn't get to say good bye to her best friend because this friends mom blamed me for the divorce and told me I was terrible for "taking the kids" from him and then blocked me. She didn't know about their depression and I guess didn't accept that this was his choice either.
This past year has been the first consistent time in her entire life
where I have been able to fall asleep alone and she has been able to fall asleep
in her own bed without help from me. I think maybe only two or three times all
year she woke up afraid with a nightmare and came to snuggle. If you haven't had a child with
severe anxiety, you just aren't going to understand this struggle, but it is
exhausting to be the only one reassuring and comforting for years and years and
years. It is important though! Our own nervous system regulation is how children
learn to sooth themselves. And this is how healthy adult relationships work as
well, nervous system soothing and comforting each other. But it is also so good
to see progress. My favorite times are when I hear my girls playing together or
singing with each other! The oldest and youngest have been playing a game
together a lot recently and will sing and joke for hours.
Right now I can hear
the rain falling, the powder puff kitty is sleeping at my feet. It is so quiet
that my ears are making their own noise, but my heart is moving at a steady
normal pace. My jaw is relaxed and I am thinking about the organizing that I
need to do in my room. I am putting off the cleaning that I know I should do. I
should probably give the younger two some more elderberry syrup to help them
fight off the colds that were coming.
I can hear our Billie cat meowing so that
she will get more pats (that is her new thing, she "yells" at us until we pat
her back as she twinkles around for more.)
The Christmas tree lights are sparkling in the living room and I can read the "Joy" ornament next to my giant
sparkly pink bobble. Part of one of the light strands died, but it still looks
pretty. Lily wants to keep the tree up past her birthday.
Dental appointments
are planned for next week and I have to return some seamstress work to the shop.
I am finishing things and starting new ones at this turning of years. I feel
very much older this year than I have, like all the years of stress finally
caught up to me and the past 6 years of trauma especially.
Maybe I should drink
more water and take more vitamins? I know that helps. And likely also just accept
my age and more wrinkles coming and dress for fun instead of to try to be pretty. Not
like that's ever mattered or done me any good anyway, so why not wear the
colorful sweater and bobble earrings for fun?
See I am getting wiser all the time.
