Weird Place

I’m in a weird place.  This week, I received the court date to finalize my divorce.  It has been hanging over my head for a while now, so I know on some level I will feel relieved when it’s finalized.  But I’m bracing myself for what else I might feel.  That’s the hard part.  I don’t really know what to expect.  I spent half of my life with my future ex-husband.  We grew up together.  We have lived apart now for a year and a half, and I’m used to that, and I feel healthier.  But I also feel a little lost.

I was a wife for decades.  I was a pretty traditional wife, too.  I built my happiness around keeping him happy.  It’s my nature to be flexible and accommodating.  I often viewed it as a strength.  Now that I’m on my own, I’m not sure that it is.  I struggle with discerning what I really want, what feels good for me, mostly because I have been living out roles in service to others.  As a wife and a mother, I watch for cues and anticipate needs.  It’s actually a pretty reactive and defensive state from which to operate.  

I’m learning a lot about myself through this process, and it’s often scary and painful.  I am overwhelmed with the prospect of making choices based on my needs and desires.  I’m embarrassed to admit this, but it’s the truth.  I would love for someone to come into my life and guide me.  That is equally embarrassing to admit.  

Through this self-reflection I am understanding that discernment is a skill I need to develop.  I sometimes feel so afraid to make the wrong choice that I make no choice at all, or I let someone else decide.  It’s a disempowering way to live.  I am no longer a wife, and I will always be a mother.  Letting go of the wife role has opened a crevasse in my being.  It feels very unsettling and groundless.  I hope over time that I slowly fill this cavity with deliberate, thoughtful, conscious decisions.  I hope that as it fills, I feel more embodied and grounded in myself and less insecure.  Above everything else, I hope that from this experience I can internalize the understanding that I am not defined by any one of my roles in life.  There’s a much deeper part of me that I am plugged into and from which I want to live out the rest of my days.