Here I am 5 years into this grieving process and there are still some days that suck the breath out of me. There are literally days that I feel like my lungs will collapse from trying so hard to breathe. It’sA childhood friend of mine recently lost her infant daughter and she posted this picture.
I was talking to another friend about the differences and similarities of divorce and death. Personally I think there are just a couple main differences: 1. With divorce you can, if you choose to, apologize to your ex for any regrets you have. You still have time to right some wrongs, even if you don’t get back together. With death, there are no more chances to have any conversation. You are left with only the memories you have. 2. With Divorce you typically become a little bitter because you hold onto the hurt they caused you. With death, you tend to let go of the wrong they did and focus on the good. I used to say that with Divorce you have a choice to walk away and with Death you didn’t get a choice. BUT, I have learned some things that make me rethink that statement. You don’t always have a choice when it comes to divorce. It involves two people and both people have to decide to stick it out. If they decide to leave, it doesn’t matter how much you decide to stay, it’s over.
Whether it’s divorce, death, or a breakup, it’s all pain. The challenge is to let the pain grow you. Let it teach you more about you and God and your place in life. I will tell you that looking back I learned so much more about who God is and who I am in the last 5 years than I learned in the previous 36 years combined. Even after I got through the first 2 years of feeling completely broken and I tried to pick up an move on, I continued to learn. This last year has been full of challenges in my personal life. I know I have promised to be completely transparent in this blog, but there are some things that just aren’t my story alone. Other people are involved and I try to not give a one-sided story. That is part of the reason I have not written much, because I don’t really know how to tell my story without revealing parts of their story too.
Everyone knows that after Steve died it took me a long long time to even consider being in another relationship and to be completely honest I never believed that I would connect with someone else the way I connected with Steve. I think it is totally possible to love more than one person, but finding a connection like that more than once in a lifetime, seems impossible. Especially because of how broken I have felt. I have not been able to see me allowing myself to love like that again or risk feeling that loss again. Fast forward to my relationship with Joey which I can’t really go into but it didn’t work and ended earlier this year. I got myself and my kids back to a good place and I was completely happy being single, but out of the blue I met someone. I’ll call him M. It was almost instant that he just felt like home. There was never a moment when it wasn’t like we hadn’t known each other our whole lives. We became best friends and before I even realized it had happened I loved him. I even made it a point to take this super slow, but like I said the connection we had was so familiar. We were together about 7 months when I found out he was leading a double life. I was crushed. I couldn’t believe I had been manipulated and yet I loved him. So many emotions came flooding back and I couldn’t understand what was happening to me emotionally. Why would this circumstance cause me to go reeling backwards 5 years into the depths of that grief. Then one day it hit me, this is that moment where I didn’t have a choice with Steve, I didn’t get to choose, he was just gone. That deep connection I had to one other human being on this earth vanished in a instant and neither of us had a choice. Now, I had to choose to walk away from the one person on the planet I felt the closest to. We talked all day every day, he was the first person I told all my news to. He became my sounding board. I thanked God for him all the time. I cannot begin to explain to you after having had the choice ripped away from me with Steve how hard it was to make the choice to voluntarily walk away from M and know that he is still here.
So, here I was 5 years later trying to figure out why me? I know that God uses all things, even the bad, for good, but how in the world could He possibly use this situation? Why didn’t I see through the lies and what could I possibly learn from this other than I shouldn’t trust men. I didn’t want this to make me bitter, I just wanted to understand.
What I learned was I AM NOT AS BROKEN AS I THOUGHT I WAS.
I did allow myself to feel that deeply again; it is possible for me to allow someone in and this time I knew how strong was I was. I have survived much worse, even though it felt like it would break me to have to voluntarily walk away from that connection, I knew it wouldn’t. I know who I am and what I want out of life and relationships. Every setback only serves to make me stronger. So back to the picture, it is true that when you suffer a loss you don’t have a choice but to survive, however you have choices on how to survive. Many choose to numb the pain with drugs and alcohol, but the reward for letting the pain propel your growth is so much more rewarding. Death, divorce, breakup whatever the relationship issue is the challenge is to not let the pain contaminate you, but let it change you and allow you to learn and become a better version of yourself.
