Alone

I've been recording and watching Oprah's Super Soul Sunday programming, which features interviews with spiritual leaders and others with whom Ms. Winfrey has had a spiritual connection throughout her years as a television host.  Immediately after the show she features 'The Best of the Oprah Show' with related content of a spiritual nature.  One of her more frequent guests who offers guidance and instruction on growing into your full, whole self is Gary Zukav.  His most famous book, The Seat of the Soul was one of two books that I found very helpful in  weathering some turmoil during late summer/early fall 2012.  

The recording I watched last night talked about fear.  Every action we take is either founded in love, or  founded in fear.  I think my whole marriage was based in fear.  The most basic fear was of being alone, but partnered with that was my fear of divorce.  My 'god' turned out to be keeping the structure and trappings of family and marriage so I could feel safe, protected, whole, like I did when my parents remarried.  

So what did my life give me?  I knew how to live on my own, for sure, because I had made it on my own through college, graduation and moving to my first full time job.  But the underlying fear was always there; I just wanted to be married, to have a family, to feel safe, to feel protected, to breathe easy, to coast.

Turns out I felt very alone in marriage, but the mere presence of a husband gave me an inkling of hope, or in most cases the ongoing vision of my planned fantasy of how our lives were going to be some day.  When he didn't behave according to my fantasy, which was most of the time, I was filled with disappointment, frustration and resignation.  For years.  But even if things weren't the way I planned, imagined and fantasized for them to be, at least they could be, they might be, one day, if I could just figure out how to make that happen.

I could envision everything except for what reality was.  Reality is that we really are alone with each other.  Nobody can be in our head with us.  We can bridge those gaps through listening to the other, really listening, putting ourselves in the other's shoes, as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird says, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."  Harville Hendrix gives excellent examples of the process in his books, Getting the Love You Want and Keeping the Love You Have.

I learned how to fear being alone as a child, where we all learn our habits.  Not that I had bad parents or anything.  We're all at least a little dysfunctional, and I believe we're all just trying our best with the life skills we have.  Life just keeps pushing us to become our best version of ourselves.  

Was it my sadness over having to share my mommy when I wasn't even two, and again before I was four?  Was it the times I was sent to my room in tears for punishment?  Was it Mother's distance as she struggled to find herself in emotional isolation?  Was it feeling my safe world crumble and feeling abandoned by both as my parents divorced when I was fifteen?  It doesn't really matter now.  One of the many things I have learned from counseling is that only a child can be abandoned.  Only a child can be abandoned.  A child, not an adult, so I might as well just chase those feelings away, they don't count any more.  

No matter how much I felt abandoned, rejected and completely alone that day in October when my husband moved out of our family home, I wasn't.  It took me a good five years to intellectualize that fact, and another several months to really believe it.  How did you get there?

The general rule is a year of recovery for every five years of marriage.  So that meant four years.  When my counselor told me that I was speechless, terrified.  How could I even survive four years of this hell on earth?  Every month presented another crisis to face on my own.  Some days, well, many days, I just wanted it to end.  I cried for my old life back, ached for it, longed for it.  Anything was better than this.  Why?  Why is this happening to me?  Answer:  This is happening FOR you.

The first year of separation was filled with very dramatic lows, and some highs as I crossed those bridges my attorney told me about.  I couldn't even say 'divorce' until several months after having the signed document in hand, more than three years after the separation.  For months I could barely fathom driving my kids to the house where he lived.  I was in total denial because it didn't fit the vision I had for our lives together.  That vision was very deep.

If only I had been more accepting.  If only I had been less critical.  If only I hadn't been so manipulative.  If only I hadn't tried to always run the show.  Ahh, but that's not the whole story.  It takes two to tango.  Plus for a while I got to be the victim.  I was surrounded by compassion, by emotional support, by empathy, by sympathy.  Part of me clung to all of that almost like a sweet victory, and it filled that big 'alone' hole.  The other part of me felt ashamed, knowing that while he wasn't technically alone, he wasn't getting the support that I was, and I felt bad about that.  I also felt very undeserving; it really does take two to tango.

The second year of separation was less about the terror, though there was that constant fear about 'making it.'  Losing child support when my firstborn graduated, getting him off to college with unanswered questions about who would pay for what.  Foolishly co-signing a student loan without the financial backing in case the worst happened and it wasn't being paid.  Finishing my master's, getting my first job in nearly eighteen years.  Using Mother's inheritance money to buy my own car because I couldn't afford to make the payments on the new van, which I gave back to my husband. 

I also knew I could never afford to be in that big house.  It felt cavernous, I felt alone in that house, because something was missing, according to my fantasy.  I held on for so long believing if I just did everything according to the book, he would realize his mistake and come back and we would do the work and we would be ok.  Deep down I knew though, that even if he did, I couldn't wait in that big house 'just in case.'  I had to do things for my well being.  The first flashes of self-care and autonomy.

Moving day was surreal.  So many miracles led me to that day.  An unexpected flood in the basement forced me to get rid of even more junk than I had originally planned.  A close neighbor brought over her shop vac and we got as much water up as we could.  A dear couple came by and helped me for hours to fill the dumpster I had rented.  So much tenderness.  A pastor who counseled me in those early months told me, 'God touches us through human hands.'  So maybe I wasn't so alone?

My new home was where my daughter's best friend was born and raised, a cape cod that was just perfect; a house that had been filled with a loving second marriage.  Almost every element was original, including the pristine, avocado green, double oven and cook top.  It felt like my childhood home, cozy and comfortable.  I was driven to get things in order quickly, so the kids would feel normal, as normal as they could having their home completely changed.

Going into the third year, I finally got full time employment, a new career.  Working part time at the bank as a teller had been the perfect transition.  By the time of the interviews I had grown to the point of recognizing that God had a plan for me, and that if I could still myself enough, my gut would whisper my directions.  I began to absorb the meaning of Psalm 119:105 that my pastor counselor had shared with me, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."  "Picture a boy scout flashlight taped to your ankle," she said, "How far ahead can you see?  Just far enough not to fall into a hole or step on a snake."  Wow.

So I had prayed for those jobs, not just, "Please God let me get this job,"  but, "God please help me let you guide me in the direction you wish for me to go."  I was learning!  Again I felt God's loving presence in my life.  I wasn't altogether alone.  I received two job offers on the same day, including the one I wanted the most.  So many miracles just for me.

Full time employment combined with full time mothering is not a good mix.  How do you decide what actions to give up?  Gone were the slow mornings after getting the kids off to school.  Those chores I had always done myself because I was 'at home;' it was clear that something had to give.  Teen aged kids don't take well to extra chores.  The soccer games didn't stop (two teams), two schools' worth of chorus and band concerts, teaching church school, replacing the water and air filters, yard work in the summer, three dogs and a cat.  Alone.

The whole household sensed my overwhelm and reacted accordingly.  My new life, for the foreseeable future, was NOTHING like the life I had planned.  Depression set in.  It's said that depression (not clinical depression) can be viewed as a good thing, it's grieving of the old to make way for the new.  It was as if my body, mind and spirit had finally given in to three years of mixed terror, anxiety and plain physical exhaustion.  I went on medication to bridge the gap and aid in my recovery.

The pets' reaction was to pee on the oriental rug, pull dishes off of the counter, rip the screen on the back porch.  I came home one morning to what looked like a murder scene.  One of the dogs had broken a dish and cut his tongue on the shards and there was blood everywhere.  The cat had decided the litter box was definitely NOT where she was going to drop her tootsie rolls and the dogs considered it candy, even when their tummies did not.  

How many nights was I awakened by a vomiting dog, I do not know.  Every week I had another story about the 'damn dogs.'  They would get in the garage and rip up the garbage.  I didn't have the electric fence installed right away and they would do the same to the neighbor's trash.  Neighbors threatened to call the police because they would bark in the early morning, or after 10 p.m. when I would let them out.  As much as I thought I needed to for my own sanity, I didn't have the heart to separate from any of them; it was too much like losing more family.

I consider this period the time that things moved from acute to chronic.  The medication did help.  My oldest daughter faced troubles of her own and I still occasionally grieve that I was unable to be there the way I think would have had I not been distracted by just trying to survive.  She needed me and I was only able to give just a little, not enough.  We both muddled through though, I believe the better for it. 

I finally learned not to answer a nasty gram with a nasty gram.  I was ready for closure.  I negotiated the settlement with a firm stance on how I needed things laid out.  I actually did the final step myself to complete the divorce paperwork.  I hired someone to cut the grass.  I began to feel settled in my new career.  

There were days of very deep sadness, and so many tears.  Grief over the fact that I would never have one of those 35 year marriages.  Grief over the humiliation of always attending the concerts and school events alone.  Grief over not being able to share big events in our children's lives with their father the way we did when we were together.  Grief over the fact that I wanted to be in a healthy relationship that was not materializing.  Grief over the realization that those plans I had created, that fantasy, was just that.  No more hope.

When I reached the end of that magical fourth year I expected sunlight and birdsong.  I was always a smart kid, quick to achieve, so I expected this would be the same.  I was wrong, very wrong.  I had to accept that this process of healing was happening in its own time.  

Just as I approached the five year mark, I started to have fewer days of envisioning suicide.  I knew full well that I would never do such a heinous act and cause my children suffering, but at the time, just envisioning it seemed like a little escape from what seemed like a life in prison. I would be jolted by the title of the Peggy Lee song that my Supernatural In Literature professor once quoted, 'Is that all there is?'

And so I experienced first hand that life gives us the same life scenario again and again, until we are able to do the work and learn the lesson.  I didn't get it right the first time, and this past summer I got a very uncanny re-do.  It didn't have anything to do with a romantic relationship, but I finally learned that going the extra mile, driving myself to exhaustion, pushing myself beyond my comfort zone to get what I want (in this case approval) is no guarantee of anything other than sore feet, tiredness and discomfort, so why not just stop and listen?

Being able to recognize this repeated lesson as a do-over cut the terror phase to just a few short weeks.  

Having experienced several incidences of a traumatic event turning out ok in the end, softened the anxiety of the limbo phase and opened my mind to resources that I could use to calm my anxious heart. 

Recognizing that it was my undisciplined thoughts and feelings that allowed me to feel humiliated and degraded led me to a place beyond my ego to the peaceful understanding that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  

Experiencing the tension in my shoulders, the anxiety in my heart and the heaviness in my bones as I allowed my negative, fearful thoughts to run the show showed me the option to decide not to let those thoughts and feelings be in charge.  With hard work, I was able to replace them with the other truth, the truth based in love:  It really WILL be alright.  If I still myself, I open to the reality that God WILL show me the way, one step at a time.

And finally, believing the truth that these things happen FOR me, brought me here, to a new summit, where I can look back over those bridges, deep valleys and rolling hills and see that each step was intrinsically linked to the one before and the one to come.

In the words of poet Maya Angelou, 'When you know better, you do better.'  That fear of being alone forever still comes by to visit from time to time, but my deep self replaces it with peace in knowing that this too shall pass.  

I find myself in a place of discovery, like childhood where every new experience is one of wonder and excitement.  What is my purpose?  Right now it's to write this down and open the door to shared experiences with you.

What was your deepest fear?  How did your life present you with opportunities to overcome that fear and replace it with love?