I got divorced.
I never saw myself doing this. I remember a walk I had had, one Autumn day when I was 15. Back before I knew anything about the world or what my life would be or who I would grow to become. I just knew that I was hurting. The family I had known my whole life was falling apart. The fragile walls of my life, fragments and pieces of adulthood that I was only starting to assemble, were cracking in place as I experienced my own existential crisis created by the brokenness that I was only a bystander to. There was a lot of fighting. I used to take a walk every day, because it kept me from slipping too deep into the depression I had begun to develop an intimate relationship with, even at that young age. I breathed the humid air, birds calling, spanish moss waving lazily in the tree limbs above my head. The black hammock. My home, a lifetime ago, tucked away deep in Florida. I think of the roads and I can't even remember where they all go now. I used to know them by heart. Dotted with citrus groves that gave the most heavenly smell come springtime. Ditches dug deep on the sides of the road, the creek running through, runoff for the rain come hurricane season. Dusty dirt roads scattered behind unobtrusive road signs.
I knew then that when I grew up, I wanted a family of my own, one that could never be taken from me, and I never wanted to get divorced. I wanted a life free from the brokenness I experienced then and there, the brokenness that, while certainly no party's fault for causing, I carried with me into my own adult life. I swore to that young girl that I would create this life for myself. I longed for this reality, so deeply that I could feel my heart ache for it, before I had even learned a thing about love. I never wanted to grow up to feel as broken as I did then.
The day that I became a bride, I recalled this memory. My heart was full of joy deeper than I had ever known. I was creating my own togetherness. Together, we would vanquish the brokenness I had spent my life fearing. My deepest fear was being alone, after all. I was young, but my heart was earnest as I set out on this journey. "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same," I quoted from Wuthering Heights, as I spoke my vows. My soul had found its home, I had felt. I did not know that it would be temporary as I stood there, my heart racing, cheeks flushed in my ivory gown, my mind full of dreams. How could I have?
And yet, here I am, 11 years after that walk amongst the orange groves, facing the same brokenness again. Brokenness of my own now. I am no bystander, anymore.
May saw the darkest and most difficult day of my life, from my now ex-husband leaving, to him texting me not to contact him with the exception of divorce proceedings, without prior discussion of going through with a divorce since he left. I want to provide full disclosure lest someone state that I am playing the victim: I asked him to leave, initially. There are triggers we had built up that I found more difficult than I could have ever imagined overcoming. And then, after, I backtracked. I felt deeply that I had made a mistake, and I wanted to right it. Even if it took separation, even if it took time. I determined to reconcile, and determined that I did not want this. My point for saying that is, I am not an innocent bystander in this, regardless of my intentions in the end.
But I did seek to reconcile and correct my actions. With every fervent action my heart could muster. Counseling. Marriage books, I read and ones I mailed to him. Fervent letters and apologies. Heartfelt prayers and tears to God. A small book I wrote, even. I wanted so desperately to manifest this reality, to face our heart and to truly heal. My heart was ready now. I don't think it had been before. I had had so far to go. But you should have done it 4 years ago, you told me. After you saw how much I hurt. That’s great that you’ve made progress. But you should have done it four years ago. It was never my job to fix you, and I never could have. There’s always been a darkness in your heart. That’s what you told me. I’d helped you through your darkness, too. But in the end you painted me as the broken girl. You chalked your issues up to growing pains. To me. Even though they happened before I ever knew about them. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. And I believed you. That I was the broken one. Unworthy of a chance after I’d finally had the push I needed to heal. I wish I had done it sooner too, I do. I guess I can’t help that I wasn’t ready. I needed the pain of the way I lost you to fully be willing to look in the mirror. I was hoping you would have seen how earnestly I changed after I lost you, and that you would be willing to have a true heart to heart, one that healed us. I believe we could have done it. If nothing else...that you could merely look me in the eyes and tell me divorce was what you wanted. But you could not even do that.
I made so many strides in my life during that long summer, dog days that stretched on lazily, the world seeming to spin so slow in this mid-COVID phase. I spent as much time in the sunshine and outdoors as I could. I talked only to a select few close friends, deciding that I needed time for my heart to heal, needed time to teach myself that I didn't need someone else to make me happy, like my codependency had always told me that I did. I learned to care for myself: really care. Not just work, and eat, and sleep. Pursue my passions again. Cherish my heart. I read books. Dozens of them. I tended my garden. I explored new recipes. I poured out my heart in counseling. I wrote endless letters: to dad, to mom, to exes, to him. Facing hurt, confronting hurt, owning the hurt I had dealt, making connections between the relationships I had had, their trauma, and how it carried over into the relationships I had now. It was hard work. But it was rewarding work. As time passed, I opened up, bit by bit. My heart became ready. I widened my circle. I pursued new outlets: yoga. Developing new friendships. Learning to set boundaries with work and commitments. I am a work in progress. But like a school child, I taught myself things, slowly, and I learned. I changed. It was rewarding.
I was excited. I wanted to share the work that I had done with him, truly. I had hoped that this would heal us: two people willing to come to the table and truly own it all. In the end, it did not matter. The apology letter intended to own my hurt was met with a letter that never arrived, somehow getting lost in the mail. Perhaps that was fate. The books went unread. I, of course, cannot judge anyone for their decisions. We all make the ones we deem feel best for us.
So in spite of this, I did not get the conversation I was hoping for. Not as though these actions earned me that. We cannot necessarily earn the feelings of others. I received an email with divorce papers attached. I got them while I was treating a patient, one day, months later. I was not expecting them. I looked at the email, took a big gulp, and I kept a straight face as I finished the treatment session with my patient. You have done all that you can. Now, this is what you must do, I told myself.
And then I took an hour long lunch and I cried. Needs to be signed by this week, he said. As soon as tomorrow. I was sent reeling again: it feels different when it is final. When it is real. But I had done enough healing the past several months to know that I had to carry on. Even though it broke me. I knew that I had to know, had to tell myself, that I had the strength to do so. So I did. I met and I signed the papers a week later. I knew then that it was finally time to extinguish the hope, extinguish the effort, extinguish the fighting for what we had built. So much of me did not want to. I did not know how to finally stop trying. But I did. This was, finally, the end of our story. A hot August day, mid-pandemic. The world had felt as though it had stopped spinning this year, and so too, had my heart for a while, so too, had we stopped spinning. I recalled our first dance. La Vie en Rose.
I signed, not even looking at the scribble I placed on each page, stone faced. I said nothing. I walked back to my car. I looked at him. "This is what you wanted, in the end. Not me. Don't forget that. Goodbye."
As I was forced still to reckon with the now all-too familiar innumerable pain and the process of healing, I asked myself:
How do you cope with it? How do you move on? How do you reconcile with yourself after promising forever to someone? How do you heal from the brokenness? I was tired. My whole life had felt like brokenness, to be honest. Broken family. Broken dad. Broken body. A life spent craving emotional support that I never could seem to get. Even the ones that say they'd never leave, even him, the one that vowed never to - well, he did, too. I did. We did. We both failed each other. My mom, of course, did her best with our family growing up. It wasn't her fault I chose to carry the pain of my childhood and adolescent years in the way I did. But I also couldn’t help it. After it all happened, when he left, my heart was left with so many questions, and I was reeling.
It was hard to not feel bitter. At COVID - I didn't even get to see his full face one last time, half covered by a mask. I did not get the satisfaction of an in person court date, even, but a Zoom call instead. 5 minutes. COVID was the fuel on the fire that set these events into motion, as I watched COVID strip away every coping mechanism, every distraction, that I possessed. How then could I have dealt with the triggers? We each had our addictions, after all. Mine was loving another: codependency. I needed to better love myself. Stop relying on someone to validate me. His was hard to overcome, too. So very hard. I watched him struggle for years. My heart hurt so badly, I guess because I hadn’t know about it before we married. And as a student, later as a young adult, I suppose I wasn’t fully equipped to handle it, didn’t know the best way to help, didn’t know how to not be so angry. Perhaps I should have done it differently. Perhaps I should have been better. Perhaps I could have done more. Perhaps, perhaps. Would life had been different, perhaps? Perhaps?
We can't think that way, once it has all settled. Learning to cope, to heal, and to rebuild is hard after divorce. Doing it in the midst of a global pandemic when the world has already stopped...as a codependent human being... is harder than you could imagine. And learning to as a person of faith is especially hard. You are hardwired to try, to try, to keep trying. To seek true, Godlike healing. Even if you made a mistake. If you heart desires true repentance and change, how do you not pursue it any longer? How do you accept that sometimes that's not enough, and that the lessons you learned that now guide the things you do... still fall short? It is hard, when you feel compelled to do all that you can. This makes stopping feel like the hardest thing. You feel angry and betrayed, almost. God, why did you want it this way? Is it because something is wrong with me after all? Did I not follow your guidance enough? Is it a punishment? I know that I deserve it. So many questions run through your mind, aimed at God. Confusion is one of them at the forefront.
It was all hard. When I truly started to heal, to get over things, I think I realized that the hardest thing for me was letting go of my immense guilt, to start with. I can guarantee you that nobody that gets married pictures themselves getting divorced. I truly believe that we enter into marriage with the very best of intentions. It was hard not to beat myself up over every single memory, every moment, every argument, every word once said. What could I have done differently? Could I have been more supportive? What if I hadn't said that one thing? If I had changed just a little bit, could it have still worked? I think it's important to realize that we cannot put all of that burden on ourselves. The point of my apology letter had been to fully own what I had done and accept the hurt I had dealt when I mailed it to him. Not gripe about what had been done wrong to me. That wasn’t the point. Because accepting what you have done is so important. And it's hard to get to the point where you are ready to do that. I get that. Especially if you feel like you've made apology after apology before things truly went bad. It's hard to come back to the table and be willing to once again take a hard and comprehensive look, and really dig deep and accept that you did the things you did to hurt the one you love. I acknowledge too that addiction is a hard thing. There is hurt and there are mistakes made on both sides.
I coped with it bit by bit, him leaving. I denied it at first. The only thing that kept me going was the small hope that we could start over and fix things. And then after that hope was extinguished, I still hoped. I hoped every day. I didn't sleep on the right side of the bed, because it was once yours. The steps I took to healing were for you. The books I read. My counseling sessions. I knew we would not go through with it. We would have the conversation that would heal us. But by the time I realized, and you made it clear, that we wouldn't, I had started to realize and prepare for the likelihood that we wouldn't. By then I had learned to relish in the life I was living. To awaken with joy. To let the sun warm my soul. To hike by myself. I let the breeze wash my tears away. I let my strength fortify my heart. I let my prayers soften it.
This experience was also hard for me because of a complicated relationship with my father. As many of you know, I haven't spoken with my father since... the day before I got married. Which was inexplicably a painful experience, however, it was lessened by the concept of creating a life with a man I loved and trusted and had chosen. A transition, of sorts. From who I was and left behind to who I wanted to be. My complicated relationship with my father and my side of that family is also what led me now to the decision to keep my last name as Mason. I do not have any ties to Lacy Ball anymore - that girl no longer exists, and never will. I made that decision the day I stopped talking to my dad. I do not regret that decision. But it is hard, because I carry a great deal of hurt, a great deal of confusion in this world about where I belong and where it is safe to place my roots. You feel a bit of a floater sometimes, when you don't have that figure to always run to when things go wrong. I have felt this way for a long while, because of my relationship with my father. Much of the hurt comes from how unworthy it makes you feel: that the one person on this earth that should truly love you unconditionally, does not. You go through life knowing this isn't true, but still carrying in your heart the feeling that you aren't and will never be quite good enough, that you were born with something wrong with you, something unlovable in you. No matter what people say to the contrary, you hold this feeling still, even just a tiny bit, and it lurks there in your heart and in the back of your mind. This is a pain I have had to spend a great deal of time reckoning with, and it has tapped into my old familiar fear of being alone. Am I alone? The answer is, of course not. This year has shown me what a wonderful support system I have. I can't tell you how much love, how much goodness and kindness people have shown to me whether they knew what I was going through or not. But there is always a part of your child heart that will tell you otherwise when you have experienced hurt from a parent, I will tell you that. And a part of you that resigns when it is affirmed: here we go again. Everything I thought was right. I really am too broken to be wanted. This is just the hand that life has dealt me.
The pain was so bad that I wanted to die. Truly. I thought back on all of the things that brought you and I here. Was it the day of the eclipse? I couldn't go to swing dancing for months afterwards, and face the people there. It was my fault: I didn't give up enough. Didn't show my support enough. Put you in unfair situations. But then, every time we went somewhere... that was what it became about. It was about how much more fun you'd have, if only. That killed me: feeling I should have done more, you affirming I should have done more. I poured my heart and soul into trying to carry myself through it all, and to carry you too. I know I oftentimes failed. I could have done so much differently. It wasn't just your burden to bear, you see.
It was mine too.
I think of the fond memories. The first concert with Jared&Amber. You looked at me as they sang the words. I want to die, from loving you too much.
The first time you played David Bazan in the car. His breakup album to Christianity. Prolific. We went hiking for your belated birthday. I was determined to give you a good birthday, since you hadn't celebrated earlier that year.
The day we got engaged we went back to my home and we jumped into the pool with both our clothes on, laughing, and then ran upstairs to my room and collapsed, laughing, onto the bed, as we called your mom and gushed about how happy we were. Two weeks was all it had taken, to decide we had wanted to be with each other always. Our first kiss, after the secret show at 1 am at Smith's Old Bar I'd told you about. I'd had two dragon milk stouts and my head was spinny, but you took care of me.
Our anniversary trip to New Orleans. There was a jazz band in the street, and I begged you to dance with me, and we twirled across the cobblestone, my purse flying, sweating in the humid area.
The night in Chicago we got lost and found that old Jazz bar. We were one of the only ones dancing, and the crowd clapped.
Now you treat me worse than a stranger.
I wanted to die from loving you too much. That was always my intent, my heart's desire. But I cannot. I cannot anymore, and you asked me not to, anyways. That makes sense.
I must go on. Now, I go on without you. Is it for the best? I think so. There is a life that calls to me, a life I still have yet to live. You are so young, after all, they tell me. You'll find someone else. Ten years later. I can't help but think that... maybe all of this... worked the way it was supposed to. Even if I don't understand why God wanted it this way. Maybe he didn't, and we just did that, because we're human and we're sinners and we're flawed and bad at listening to him.
I wasn't ready, not totally, for it to end. But bit by bit, in the quiet spaces, through the subtle shifts, I became as ready as I could be.
Why am I sharing this? A simple reason, really. It is because of my desire and commitment to myself to face my vulnerability head on. My vulnerability is something I have reckoned with every since my diagnosis of Type 1, after all. Why? Because there's something poignant about facing your reality. A freedom you give to yourself. You take control of your narrative. You own your truth. And I relish in it, as hard as vulnerability can be. I often find that it lends courage to those who are on their own path to reconciling with their own vulnerability. And if I can be a source of strength to any, I consider this openness worth it.
The news at the end of it all, is this:
I did find the healing I was searching for. I found the healing and the hope that I needed. I think that a lot of people think that this means that you no longer get sad, or morose, or depressed, or angry, or melancholy. This isn't true. I feel all of these things, from time to time. Hurt and heartbreak is a funny thing. It becomes part of us, sinking into our patchwork quilt hearts, growing us and teaching us its painful and indelible lessons. It stays with us, oftentimes a silent figure in the background of our lives, that shapes us as we live onwards. It does not fade. We simply grow with it. And that is what makes us stronger, and makes hurt beautiful, in the odd way of looking at it like a prism. I am stronger now, far stronger than I ever knew that I could be. My heart is still full of love for the man I no longer call my husband, but my heart knows that this love cannot remain the same as it was. I stride forward now, facing this world with hope and a heart open and full of love. As it turns out, I did create togetherness.
I just had to go through a great deal of pain to realize that I didn't need another human to do that. I needed to breathe. I needed to trust in the process. I needed to learn how to wake up in the morning with a heart full of joy, and smile at my blessings. I needed to relish in the love and support of the relationships I have built around me my whole life. Trust God a great deal more. Forgive myself. I needed to let my hurt shape my heart into a stronger woman, so that it could finally take the back seat.
To realize the indelible truth that is paramount to living the life God has intended for me:
Yes, I have been broken more times than I can count.
And yet still I am whole.
Lacy, as a colleague of sorts who watched your growth and coping skills and basically a whole outsider from even before you had a husband I thought you were an amazing human! Waaay back i mean... Reading your impressive writing from coping for years with your diabetes reading your personal pain it makes you realize that we may be different but we all go through pain in life and I see you as an incredible person who helps the sick, brings joy to families as an entertainer, fighter who is on the good side of equality, breaking generational curses. You have immense strength and although wounded you are a warrior. From where I stand... I know you got this. Blessings to you ��
ReplyDeleteThis was amazing to read ��Brought tears to my eyes. You know that you and I are similar in so many ways, and I feel like our journey this year has been similar when it comes to learning how to he whole even through all of the brokenness and codependency.
ReplyDeleteKeep moving forward, keep loving yourself the way you deserve. I see nothing but good things ahead for both of us. - Sarah J
Beautiful Lacy. I would not wish this sort of pain on anyone. I absolutely know the truth though. Any life worth living consists of these sorts of things. The ability to feel so deeply you think you may die. Joy as high as the heavens can soar and grief as low as our soul can tolerate. Thank you for sharing your beautiful and raw account. You are an amazing woman! Keep doing your work and counseling. This will continue to help you see things more clearly. Stay strong my friend! My mother always used to say it is darkest just before the Dawn. One day this will not have the sting it does now. We never know the paths our lives may take. Know that you did all you can. There is an amazing life ahead for you. ❤️❤️❤️
ReplyDeleteYou got this.