In the eye of the storm.

I don't know exactly how to approach the topic of my current life changes, I don't know where to begin. So much has happened to our family these last few months. So much has been uprooted and transplanted and even in part destroyed by this raging storm that has subsided a little now, but is still too fresh to fully understand let alone write about. I feel as though I am standing amidst the wreckage that once was home.  That I am taking a mental survey of the damage and the destruction and trying to make sense of how to move forward, how to rebuild and what it is I am rebuilding. However, I do feel the need to address this topic and to open the dialogue for my wonderfully faithful reader-friends. So I'll just start with the basics of updates.

The storm in my metaphor refers to the all-too legal, all too cold and calculated process of divorce. And as with most storms its not just the wind of the legal process that makes a storm a storm, that's really just the kicker. Its the loss of a way of life, of a companion you thought you knew, of the person you thought you were that really pours down on you like flooding rains. Yes, after months of agonizingly hard work, compromise, and soul searching on both parts, my husband and I decided to file the divorce papers and go our separate ways.

That decision took place a couple months ago. The weeks that followed were the 'period of adjustment' as they call it in the divorcing parents course, but what I prefer to call 'hell week' because it more appropriately defines the emotions involved. It was during this time that we all had to settle into our new routines, and our new homes. It was during this time that questions were answered tears shed, reassurances issued out daily, like vitamins. It was during this time that grandparents and aunts and uncles were called in as reinforcements. The kids and I adopted a dog just to add a spark of happiness back into our lives. And I sigh a big sigh of relief that he's turned out to be a good thing. The time we've had the past few weeks is the time we needed to accept what must be. To accept that some storms, like some mistakes are devastating to the very core of a structure.

The divorce is what was needed. The pain is just an aftermath. The fear of the unknown; inevitable. And here is where I stand, uprooted.

I don't usually read magazine articles, but lately I've been doing a lot of things I don't usually do so I figured, why the hell not? What I discovered is an article that touched a deep cord within me. It was written by the fabulously poetic writer, Margaret Roach and it was all about finding peace in your life. In one part of it she said, "uprooting and even breaking apart are sometimes not so bad after all, and just what's called for."

Four weeks ago I wouldn't have agreed with that statement, I would have thrown the magazine and muttered aloud that this writer obviously doesn't know how painful 'uprooting' and 'breaking' is but as with most of life's lessons, this little verse came at just the right time in my life to re-establish the hope of a better life, to bring me a little peace, and to remind me that happiness is a god-given right to us all. This little quote gives me the strength I need to move on, to change and to re-build myself one brick at a time.

Life, Love and other risks we take.

I've been thinking a lot lately about risks. I've never been much of a risk taker in most aspects. I tried repelling once but found myself frozen at the top of the cliff and unable to just let go, trusting the cable would really hold and not allow my body to plummet to the rocky ground below. I've never enjoyed the weightlessness and uncertainty of water sports and forget sky diving! Its never going to happen for me. But the fact is life is nothing but a series of risks of one kind of another. As much as I want to believe I'm running from uncertainties, I'm not. No one is.

Someone once said that the only guarantee you get in life is that there are no guarantees. How true that rings for me, especially at this point of my life. If you had asked me fifteen years ago where I'd be now, I would have told you that I'd be an independent and successful business woman living in Manhattan. Five years down the road I found myself wanting nothing more than to be a mother and wife. If anyone would have told me then that I would find myself unfulfilled and moving on from my marriage in eight short years, I would have told them they were nuts. We were the exception, we would make it work. Maybe there are no guarantees, but this was that one thing that broke all the rules. This was a guarantee.

I was wrong. Just like everything else in life, this marriage too had no guarantee stamp.

No one can really anticipate all that could go wrong with a relationship when they are first entering into it. Allowing ourselves to love is a risk we take. Perhaps its the biggest risk we take in life because its a risk we take blindly. Its difficult to pinpoint exactly when and how the whole thing fell apart. A marriage is like a rock, strong and binding. What no one tells you is that all the stresses of life are constantly chiseling away at your rock. Little by little, it pecks off pieces so small you don't even notice its happening at first, then before you know it you find that your rock has a huge gap right down the middle of it. This is the crucial point of that relationship when you must decide to either build a bridge or let the whole thing crumble.

Regrets? Of course I have regrets. Many of them. More than I want to think about or post on this blog. But I don't regret taking the risk. I don't regret allowing love in. I don't regret it because I learned so many valuable lessons from it that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. But what I do regret is standing on that cliff twelve years ago and not just taking that risk, that leap of faith, letting go and letting myself jump into that unknown. Because if I knew then what I know now I would have realized that no life is worth living if its a life with no risks.