This weekend marks the two year point since my divorce, and just over three years since we split the home in two. It was definitely the most difficult struggle I have had to deal with in my life. After 14 years of marriage my life was left crumbling in the wake of my failures. Yet, it was not the complete downfall, as I had felt at the time … after these many months I am back focused on tomorrow, back in control.
As with any life, there are always ups and downs but recently I have felt in a pretty good spot. Sure my car broke down and I had to get a replacement, work is … work, and Christmas shopping still hasn’t started, heck the Christmas decorations aren’t even out of the closet yet … but that is just life. These are the common struggles, the everyday. Gone are the days of fear, loss, and grieving that felt like they would never pass. Gone on the days of anger and resentment that kept me from engaging with the world.
That life has been left behind,
I now see a new one appearing just beyond the shadows.
It has not been an easy road, but life is not about the easy roads and the sunny days. You need a little rain to water the garden and a little cold weather to harden your resolve, finally allowing the moments to bask in the sunlight when it appears once again. These last 38 months since the separation have taught me some valuable lessons and while I did not enjoy them, I am grateful for them. Looking back I am able to see how I shaped those years. While at the time it felt like my life was on a roller coaster ride, as I look back I can see things broken far clearly into stages. At the beginning of 2017 I was able to identify where I was and where I wanted to go. That gave me focus, allowing me to once again gain control.
Recover – Rebuild – Restore
The largest struggle was getting through the fear and uncertainty of that first year. Slowly I found myself not happy staying where I was … living as I was … and determined to change it. So I painted, bought some new items, and slowly rebuild the home for both me and my kids. The rebuilding of my physical home also ended up repairing a lot of my mental state, restoring how I saw myself in this world. That has allowed me to finally return to a point where I dream about tomorrow, where my ambitions have returned, and where my ideas feel like they have life to them. It took effort, good friends, and a unrelenting focus on being there for my boys. It has allowed me to turn many of the biggest frustrations into things I can accept and kept me from falling prey to many of the demons of life.
From here I look forward to tomorrow … no longer constrained by my past.