I love television. It’s my escape into different worlds. But every now and then I see something so profound that it pulls me out of the make believe and back to reality. Today, I am deep into the last season of Orange is the New Black. Piper, a recently released felon, speaks to the impact one small piece of life can have on you. 18 months in prison was only 4% of her life, but it was enough to change absolutely everything. Divorce. Divorce is fucking hard. And my divorce was amicable, timely, and, overall, pretty damn easy. The process of separating, moving apart, and finalizing our divorce took a total of 11 months. At the time my divorce was finalized that was less than 4% of my life. But while that seems like an attainable number to move past- the culmination of my relationship, marriage, and recovery is well over 40% of my life. Why break it down like that? Because this is me. This is my story. And my experiences have affected every single interaction I’ve had since I got divorced- good and bad alike. Over the last three and a half years I have learned to, enthusiastically, embrace my story. It’s almost always one of the first things I share about myself. So let me show you, and myself, how I’ve grown. February 2016 - I didn’t eat; I hated my body; I lost almost 20 pounds in the TWO WEEKS after my husband came out. My relationship with my body had little to do with my crumbling relationship- but it enabled me to fall into old, repetitive patterns of self-hate.
July 2019 - My relationship with my body is much like a marriage. There will always be work to be done. But I love my body. I have gained weight, of course. And because of that, I sometimes let that voice of hate creep into my mind. But what I have learned is - my body is strong. It has carried me through divorce, starvation, chronic illness, and more - and I can still paddle board with my best friend, using my muscles to propel me. I can still kayak with my family in the ocean - racing my niece to see who can paddle fastest. I can rack up 20,000+ steps on event days while crushing career goals and leaning on those around me. I am strong - in so many ways. ------ March 2016 - I loved my job, but everything else in life was one big fat question mark. Do I risk leaving a job I love... to explore my self-worth outside of my marriage, my job, and everything else that defined me? I found myself leaving that job and jumping into a position back home without ever even meeting my soon to be team. I was starting a new job - how exciting! But I was a mess everywhere else. July 2019 - Here I am, at that same organization, but two promotions later. I am working my ass off with a team I am beyond proud to be a part of. I never could’ve imagined that the shot-in-the-dark administrative job I got while living over 800 miles away would blossom into the amazingly fulfilling career I have now. ------ July 2016 - I wrote a gut-wrenching letter to my ex-husband explaining that we couldn’t be a part of each other’s lives for a while. I needed to heal... and social media, casual conversations, and mutual friends was making that impossible. I will never forget- in therapy together before I moved home- my husband looked at me and said “I can’t imagine my life without you- I feel like someday your kids will call me uncle.” I’m not even sure if he remembers that. But the decision to stop communication wasn’t easy, but necessary. We needed to learn to be apart after almost nine years together. And our friends and families needed to learn of us apart too. There's something they don't tell you - childless divorce affects more than just the two people involved. July 2019 - While I completely smile ear to ear at the prospect of my kids calling him uncle...let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Ha! I’ve learned to take things one step at a time. My relationship with my ex-husband has grown leaps and bounds since then- we’ve gotten drinks, we’ve played board games, we’ve had phone calls. All important steps to a fulfilling friendship. Don’t get me wrong- there’s been many bumps along the way: drunk phone calls, right-now pup photos, money conversations, divorce legalities and more. But moving forward, we embrace the bumps and we work together to define our weird-ass story. Because at the end of the day, the two of us are the only ones who truly understand the journey we’ve been on - and I’ve learned that’s actually a really beautiful thing. ------ There are so many more examples of growth. There are examples of regression. There are examples of tears, laughter, anger, mistakes, and madness. But this is my story. And while I hear often that you should not let your past define you- here is what I say to that- why the hell not? I CHOOSE to take the good parts. I CHOOSE to learn from my mistakes. I CHOOSE to be willing to fuck up again. And I CHOOSE to let my past define me in the ways only I can decide. 4% of your life. It can change almost everything. But it’s up to us to decide what to do with the change. Do we embrace it? Do we fight it? Do we learn from it? Why can’t we do it all? Much love.
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December 2017
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