Monday, October 09, 2017

Ready To Move



Time is just flying. I have just about two weeks left at my job. After this, I will be making my way to South Carolina. That will be home for at least the next year. I am extremely excited to start a new chapter in my life. Though I move forward with trepidation I am also very aware of how blessed I am that I have such a wide circle of close friends and family who help me to move ahead with nothing but my best foot forward. It's amazing how much has happened in the last year. I am grateful that I am not the girl I was just a year ago. When I was going through the break-up, I was very sad for several weeks. Sometimes the sadness creeps up now and I cry my eyes out until I feel some relief. I pick myself up and keep moving forward. One day I will be able to talk about this without all the pain. For right now, I will just have to cry through it.

When the ex and I split last year, he moved out first. Eventually, I moved out so that we could prepare the home to be sold. I downsized considerably. We sold almost everything. He took one bed and I sold the other. He took the big TV and I sold the other one. We sold all the other furniture. I downsized my library of books considerably. I don't like to think of how many books I donated to Goodwill because each book was so precious to me. I had to detach from my relationship with the words on those pages and yet I still have tons of books that I kept.

Throughout the past two weeks, I have been combing through my stuff again. This time, I am downsizing for my move to South Carolina. It is unbelievable the amount of paperwork that I was able to throw out. I have had to decide what to keep, what to shred, what to send back to my ex, etc. etc. I came across our marriage certificate. We got married in Illinois right outside of St. Louis. I remember that it was a very cold and wet November day. I also came across our divorce decree. My own hand wrote out every single detail on that decree. How did I have the strength to separate the material things of our lives in that application for divorce. It is not even what I wanted and yet my handwriting is all over it. Normally, if you go through an attorney they draw up the paperwork and draft a formal decree separating the details of a couple's life. We did it on our own, without a lawyer. It's cheaper (for him) and I am not an idiot where I can't figure out the paperwork. I tear up just remembering that day. My stomach was in knots all morning long as I sat there in our living room filling out paperwork before the courthouse opened. I distinctly remember the clerk at the court looking at us as so strange because we weren't crying or fighting at her window. That doesn't mean that I didn't want to cry, it just means that I maintained a calm decorum so as not to embarrass myself or him.

Yesterday, as I was going through a bin of stuff, I came across a birthday card from my ex. It brought tears to my eyes and almost thwarted my efforts to pack my belongings. I am not surprised at the emotion that it stirred in me. I will always be a sentimental fool. It is probably one of my trademarks. I have held on to pieces of clothing, material, letters, pictures, broken jewelry all in the name of sentimental value. In fact, I just parted with a gold hoop earring that I received from my ex. He brought the pair as a gift for me while he was deployed to Iraq. I was so bummed when I lost one side of the pair on a trip to Europe.

I don't remember what year he wrote the card to me but it had to have been during one of our happy years because of what he wrote.
"To the best wife a man could have. I love you."
I remember when he used to feel like that about me. Like I was the best thing that ever happened to him. Like I complimented his life. Like there could never be another that he would ever love. Like his world started and stopped with me. And I don't regret anything that has happened - not our meeting and falling madly, deeply in love or our private nuptials all by ourselves in Illinois (we eloped), or our wedding dinner at Olive Garden - just the two of us. I don't even regret our break up. Of course if I could choose, I would have selected to stay together and work on our relationship. I did not know I had driven him to the point where he just did not want to be with me any more.

None of it matters and yet all of it matters. All of it contributes to the ever evolving me. It makes me who I am - this deeply feeling woman. The falling in love and the broken heart adds facets to my life that eventually will glow and shimmer in the light just like a diamond. The more facets, the more light I reflect. I love that my heart is so weathered and has so much mileage on it. Truly, one day I will sparkle even brighter than I do now. And though I do not wish this pain on anyone, I am so extremely proud of my ability to rise above the hurt.

I am ready for this move to South Carolina. I am more sure about this than anything I have ever done before. I am so ready to do what makes me happy and so ready to live out my wildest dreams. It is so exciting to move in a direction that frees me, liberates me, and pushes me to be the best version of myself.

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