"Nothing's real, until you let go completely... At this end of this road I might catch a glimpse of me." I was listening to the song, "Sober", by Kelly Clarkson, and as she sang these words, I really thought about them. I thought about moving on and what that means. I thought about how holding on so tightly to the past means holding on to an illusion; something that no longer exists, something that's no longer real. So maybe it takes letting go for us to become grounded, maybe it takes letting go for us to find ourselves.
I think, around the holidays, about what it means to be alone now, to be a single mom, to have gone through a divorce. And what I realize now is that having gone through all of that, having been through the pain and having been so heartbroken, wound up being gift in the end. Because when I was unhappily married, when I was struggling to figure out if staying married was worth staying lost, when I wondered if I would ever get through it all, if I would ever find myself again, what I understand now that I could not then, was that letting go of all of that pain meant I would find myself in the end.
It's funny to try to get your mind around the concept that being lost in a marriage is possible; that trying so hard to make something work means molding yourself into someone unrecognizable. Trying to keep the marriage afloat we sometimes allow ourselves to drown. So it's in the letting go of that marriage that we are finally set free. When we no longer cling to the lifeboat of trying to make a failing marriage work, we find ourselves in the vastness of the ocean. Because suddenly, all that we lost in hanging on no longer weighs us down. We are free to appreciate and rely on ourselves and our strength, we are free to remember who we are and who we were and to get back to that which we loved and appreciated and to set free all that does not belong to us. The pain that we took on for the marriage and the sadness and the hopelessness that occurs when a marriage is over leaves us when we finally let go, when we mentally and physically and spiritually divorce ourselves from a situation that does not serve us; when we take a breath on our own for ourselves and for our own lives and for our own futures.
So understanding that all the pain might just lead us to where we want to be takes the sting out just a little. Understanding that maybe our future path is leading us directly to ourselves makes us more likely to get there, to muddle through, to finish and to be strong. It may seem dark now but the light will shine. When we let go of the past and we take hold of the future and we run and embrace who we lost and who we can become, we understand that the journey was worth it in the end.
After all, this is the life.
-a
I think, around the holidays, about what it means to be alone now, to be a single mom, to have gone through a divorce. And what I realize now is that having gone through all of that, having been through the pain and having been so heartbroken, wound up being gift in the end. Because when I was unhappily married, when I was struggling to figure out if staying married was worth staying lost, when I wondered if I would ever get through it all, if I would ever find myself again, what I understand now that I could not then, was that letting go of all of that pain meant I would find myself in the end.
It's funny to try to get your mind around the concept that being lost in a marriage is possible; that trying so hard to make something work means molding yourself into someone unrecognizable. Trying to keep the marriage afloat we sometimes allow ourselves to drown. So it's in the letting go of that marriage that we are finally set free. When we no longer cling to the lifeboat of trying to make a failing marriage work, we find ourselves in the vastness of the ocean. Because suddenly, all that we lost in hanging on no longer weighs us down. We are free to appreciate and rely on ourselves and our strength, we are free to remember who we are and who we were and to get back to that which we loved and appreciated and to set free all that does not belong to us. The pain that we took on for the marriage and the sadness and the hopelessness that occurs when a marriage is over leaves us when we finally let go, when we mentally and physically and spiritually divorce ourselves from a situation that does not serve us; when we take a breath on our own for ourselves and for our own lives and for our own futures.
So understanding that all the pain might just lead us to where we want to be takes the sting out just a little. Understanding that maybe our future path is leading us directly to ourselves makes us more likely to get there, to muddle through, to finish and to be strong. It may seem dark now but the light will shine. When we let go of the past and we take hold of the future and we run and embrace who we lost and who we can become, we understand that the journey was worth it in the end.
After all, this is the life.
-a
These are words of wisdom. When I went through divorce many years ago, my ex asked if there was someone else. I said yes, ME. In my thirties, I only knew how alone I felt and I knew what I didn't want. In my forties I discovered what I did want and settling for less wasn't part of it. It gets lonely going it alone, but it is a time for personal growth. The goals are no longer collective; you no longer have to bend to please or keep the peace. Good post!
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