365 days later

Today marks one year of separation. 

1 year ago today…

…I cried 15 times.

…I could not sleep all night.

…It physically hurt to eat.

…My biggest fear of being rejected by my husband was realized.

…I felt trapped and out of control.

…My cell phone bill tripled.

Today….

…I focused all day on the "hard stuff" at my job. 

…I did not cry.

…I am 3 dress sizes smaller.

…I listened and helped a friend through his own grief. (I can start to give back to everyone who put their lives on hold in the last year to be there for me)

…I am better at French.

…I’ve made new best friends, including a “stand-in husband.”  (She’s awesome)

…I realized I like my bed all to myself.

…I don’t answer to anyone; I do what I want.

…My son gave a thumbs up to describe me. (I used to get sideways thumb)

…I’m really looking forward to tomorrow!

Is this normal?  When I fly across Canada, I love watching the map on Air Canada’s little tv screens the entire time I am on the plane.  I have no interest in watching movies or shows. I just want to watch the map that shows all these remote communities across our vast nation.  I like the feeling of progress, watching the distance we’ve travelled accumulating.  I like looking out the window and figuring out what community is this whose tiny lights I see.  I feel especially nostalgic when I fly over Rainy River, Ontario, where I spent every summer until I was in my early 20’s.  I say a silent hello to my grandma who is buried there, and think about the memories of travelling to see her on the Grey Goose bus from Winnipeg.  We’d pass through Steinbach and Piney Manitoba, such random places that Air Canada chooses now to highlight on the 4500 km journey home I’m making. I think about what the hell has happened to me since I lived this uncomplicated, simple life in Rainy River, catching tadpoles, climbing hay bales, and lying for hours on the black rocks at Lake of the Woods. 

Rainy River

 

So here I am, 9 days into 2016, watching the little map on Air Canada’s tv screen, watching Quebec move farther and farther away, seeing Rainy River, Ontario approaching.  2674 km to go and then I am home.  I think about how many times I have flown across Canada this year…I can’t believe the distance my own life has travelled in the past 11 months.  I think about what a roller coaster this life is and this year has been.  Being married seems like such a foreign concept now.  I start to think about whether I wish I was still married and if I had my old life back.  It’s a resounding “no.”  True, I miss being exclusively loved by another human being.  I miss snuggling.  I miss the ease of a second pair of hands to help with the kids.  I miss having someone to talk to every day about the mundane things—the basics of sharing a life together.  But I see now that life isn’t about being married.  Or being with someone.  Right now I think life done well is about loving reality. Loving the every day stuff and the every day people in it.  There are the escapes and wild rides to break things up, but I am not sure if this is what life is about all the time.  Wondering what might have been if I stayed married…but it doesn’t matter. It’s gone and not coming back. That is my reality.  I need to love that.  

There was one traumatic day last year when I realized just how over my marriage was. Before this day, it was as if there were little cuts in my heart and I was slowly bleeding, just slowly trying to figure out what was going on in my life and what I was going to do about the fact that separation was inevitable. But on this day it was as though a large bullet punctured my heart and I bled so much I physically could not move and my breathing was more like gasping. I have never felt so angry or devastated as I did that day. It’s like I fell into a deep hole and I could not climb out of it by myself. 

But I see now that being in this deep hole was exactly where I was supposed to be.  When it hurts this much and it’s this uncomfortable, you have to change right away.  I see now that I was not going to change unless life was so painful I had to move. So, let’s just say I made some moves. Within two months of falling into this “hole” I found myself feeling hope and happiness.  To come from such a place of brokenness, these feelings were so euphoric.  I was astounded at how quickly a person’s heart can stop bleeding and begin to heal.  It was the greatest self-validation I’d given myself in about 10 years.  “Look at me; I am strong; I have power. And I am beautiful.”   But the thing about any emotion, happy or sad, is that it’s fleeting.  Neither can be sustained, because we are always moving, our environment is always changing.  There never is this ability to put a checkmark in the “I’m happy now” box in life, and be done with it.  And, the same goes for the “I’m really sad” box.  So suddenly I was feeling happy, and at the same time I became very fearful of losing this fleeting feeling.  I was so scared that I would slip back into that dark place I had come from. I felt this need to chase the things that created all these happy feelings in me, and keep something alive as long as I could.  It has been over a 6 month losing battle.  I see that now; I have been trying to control the actions and feelings of other people, and I have been trying to control my environment.  I can only control my actions.  My choice to pursue those things I can’t control has probably stalled my progress in loving my life on my own…that every day life I so need to love.  

So on the last day of 2015, I chose to head to Quebec and Ontario on a week long trip to  spend some time with my family out east. It was the best way to start 2016.  I’m getting pretty good at vacationing on my own sans husband. That used to be such a fear…having no one to share happy vacation times with.  But I actually prefer the lone wolf traveller—who would have thought!  Those of you who know me know why I went to Quebec…I went to confirm that I am ready to start 2016 standing on my own two feet, out of the dark hole feelings I had earlier in the year. I went to confirm that I don’t need anyone or anything to help me be happy—I can choose people to be in my life or I can opt out and feel joy either way.  And it worked.  I can’t tell you how freeing it is to realize I’m going to be totally fine on my own because I’m never going back to the dark hole I was in earlier this year.  I had hours on the long plane ride home to process what has happened and what I’m going to do in this new year.  I realized that if people who came into my life when I most needed to be saved from the dark hole go away now, I am ok. I will not fall back into that place I so feared returning to. I can stop chasing and trying to control the situation.  I have done some hard work since the summer, rebuilding my life. I had a massive opportunity to grow, and I am capable of making things better. I have a long way to go before I can say I am totally healed but there is no pressure to hurry this up.

beautiful Quebec!

So what should I do now? I should stop thinking of myself as this washed-up single mom sitting on her laptop on the west coast.  Life is going to pass so quickly, and I don’t want to look back and wish it all went differently…or not know where it went.  I like Keanu Reeves’ quote I read the other day – “none of us are going to get out of here alive.” So we might as well make living about what we have and where we are right now. 

For the first time, I left Quebec and Ontario and I was not in tears.  I got off the plane, found my car at Victoria’s airport, sat in it alone, and did not feel despair of any kind.  It feels good to be home and I am ready to start 2016, on my own, and far away from that dark hole.

xo

Top 10 things I learned in 2015

I want to declare 2015 the worst year of my life.  But the more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t agree with that statement.  2015 was the best year of my life, actually.  I am standing here, in December, feeling strong. Strong doesn’t mean happy or full of answers about the future. To me it means having confidence to walk forward into 2016 and handle my business.  There were days this year when I was not ok, and truth be told, I thought it might be better to be dead.   I needed days like that to feel so much pain that I had to change and move.  And oh my God, how much I did move out of complacency this year.   God knows I have many socially acceptable reasons to play the sad victim of life card. I do not wish what happened to me upon anyone else.  That said, I am grateful for the life I got to live in 2015, and while it was nothing I could have ever imagined, I am better for it.   Here’s what I learned and can take into 2016 with me:

1. Be present—right now is all you’ve got. 


Slow it down and be mindful of what is happening in this very moment. I got blindsided at the beginning of 2015 with a marriage that blew up in a spectacular way. When I started asking, “Where have I been—how did I not see this coming?” the answer I found was always that I was a few steps ahead of the present.  Biggest lesson and I’m still learning it.   

2. Love, like everything we do and feel, is a choice.


It doesn’t happen to you or stop happening to you.  There’s no such thing as falling in love or out of love.  That’s a cop-out from choice. We are always in control.

3. Trust your intuition.

It’s a human survival mechanism, and we spend our lives trying to shut it down and look for rationalization or hard evidence. Even if you can’t prove what you are feeling is the right thing, you know a lot more than you think. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re crazy.

4. No risk, no reward.

Take your proverbial helmet off and let love, a new career, or whatever your fear of failure is take a shot at your head.  For me, the biggest risks I took in 2015 made me feel so scared and liberated and euphoric at the same time. It was all worth it, not because it was a wild ride, but because I learned that I am stronger than I think. I can take the failure that some of those risks brought, but also not everything failed dramatically.  There are sweet rewards too.  

5. Work so hard on your physical strength.

Be faster, be stronger, and do this every day. It’s a forever thing; if you view it this way you will do it this way. Life is intense; we need an avenue to burn off that intensity intensely!

6. Love your current conditions. 


Body shape, job, marriage, relationship…always there is someone else who wants what you’ve got really really bad. It surprises me to hear so many of my friends tell me, “you are living my dream life right now” or, “I am living vicariously through you”.  Really? You envy me?  I envy you!  I guess all I can do is learn to love what I’ve got.

7. You can’t love someone if you don’t love yourself. 

Like they say in the plane safety briefing before every flight—you’ve got to put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting others.  I have to take care of myself before I can be of any value in someone else’s life—and that’s not being selfish.   

8. No one and nothing should be your “everything”. 
YOU are your everything.  It’s totally up to you.  Someone else can’t be your bandaid or your drugs.  That’s not fair to them or to you. I have to love myself enough to say, “I am enough.”

9. Getting better takes discipline and hard work. 

Simply allowing time to pass and hoping your grief or your crazy life will get better is not the wisest coping mechanism. Time does make some things better—it numbs out the rawness of recent events.  But time in and of itself does not heal you.  I turned the major corners out of grief this year when I chose to reframe my attitude. It is hard work because sometimes it's easier to have a pity party and get your energy out of playing the victim.   

10. Where you are right now is perfect. 

You might not feel that way in the moment but it’s serving a purpose. Everything I have done and chosen has led me to right now.  So it’s perfectly aligned with what is about to come.  That brings me back to my lesson learned number 1 – be present. I don't want to get ahead of myself if I am already in the perfect place! 

I hope some of this resonates with you. I'd love to hear about it! Wishing you a healthy, fulfilling 2016. 

if today was my last day

This has been a hard month--again.  I feel physically ill when I hear holiday music playing and when I see Christmas decorations being put up.  This is normally my favorite time of year, but for the first time in my life I want to hibernate through it.  Why do I have to single mom it through this season?  It's not fair! I am starting to understand what it feels like to be grieving the loss of something--or someone--through Christmas--and let me assure you, it blows.  I am stressing about clearing mortgage payments over buying gifts, how I have no idea how to haul a tree back to my house or hang Christmas lights, and how I try to preserve the joy of this season for the sake of my kids despite how I am feeling.  I've felt like a total wreck. I give myself little motivational "you can do this" type talks each day (silently, in my head!) before I walk into the office or into my kids' schools or anywhere that it's not socially acceptable to be melting down. 
So...I was having another one of those moments last night and then I started to think about how this feeling really needs to stop. I kept thinking about how 2016 has to go much differently for me. I thought about how it can always be worse, and that my problems are largely of a first world nature.  What if I was dead--then absolutely nothing here matters.  And then I thought about what if this is my last day alive? Would I spend it in a total fog? What would I do differently? 


Here's what I would do if today was my last day:


1. I'd spend time with my children.
I'd busy myself drawing silly pictures, asking stupid requests of Siri on their iPad ("show me a picture of rhinoceros poop" is my oldest's favorite question for 'her'), reading fire truck books, and really listening to what they were saying. I've GOT to be more present when I'm with them; they are my treasure and a total joy. They are a sure thing in a world where nothing seems like a sure thing to me anymore.

2. I would tell a friend how I really feel about him.
Time to practice open communication and not make assumptions. Life is too short to wonder about things that could be answered with one straightforward conversation.

3. I would drink really good coffee.  I know, why didn't I think about good wine? I should clarify--I would probably do both!!

4. I'd go for a run.
I would have NEVER dreamed of saying this 5 years ago. I'd run my favorite 10K route and try to pound it out in 50 minutes.

5. I’d post something about the importance of how we need to spend our time loving, not hating or being indifferent... kind of like a quick and dirty leaving of a legacy. 

6. I’d wear something that made me feel skinny.
Yup, I'm that shallow! But I really don't want to waste energy on my last day not feeling beautiful. 

 

7. I’d say thank you to my friends and family (and pretty much the universe) for the most wonderful life, because to date it has been amazing to be alive.

And when I got to #7 last night, I realized my mood had actually changed.  What a great exercise to put my brain through! I woke up this morning and decided I would try to do as many of these 7 things as I could.  If you count this post as my way of accomplishing #5 and 7, I'd say 6 out of 7 ain't so bad.  I truly feel better tonight, like I got the important things in life done today.  I'd challenge any of you reading this to do the same--and please tell me how it goes for you!

good night, life is good xo

Getting better, I think?

Haven’t had the heart to write here for a long time.  As soon as I hit “publish” on my last post, I was overwhelmed with a huge wave of sadness. It’s like as soon as I publicly claimed I was doing really well, it cleared the feelings on top of the real feelings. I became acutely aware of how “not okay” I really was.  By the next day, I was a complete mess and the only phrase that was repeating itself in my head was, “I am not okay.  I’m not okay!!”

I decided not to blog for a while and just wear all of these feelings for a while on my own.  I bought an old school paper journal that’s just for me, and wrote about stuff I will just classify as really raw emotion.  It sucks to live in real time.  Why can’t I deal with a bad thought only once--why does it keep repeating itself? Why am I so restless--I can’t focus on anything? Why do I snap so fast with people—I have zero patience and get triggered so fast? It occurred to me tonight that I have not carved any pumpkins for Halloween with my kids this year.  It was such a big deal to me as a kid and for the last 5 years I have had my kids, but this year I honestly don’t have any energy to celebrate. Not Halloween pumpkin carving is such a first world problem, but I know behind this is something that has to do with grieving.

Don’t get me wrong, I do have some peaceful moments and days where my brain actually stops racing and the sinking feeling in my heart stops. I soak up these times and pay attention to what caused this. I can’t believe I used to always feel okay! I was doing pretty well and that was a great foundation to go to work from, to parent from, to do anything from.  Now, these moments are rarer, but perhaps the hidden blessing is that I really do cherish happiness because I know how crappy it is to feel sad day after day.  Crossing off so many things on my “Finding Joy in 2015” list I shared in my first blog post this year makes me pretty happy.  Peru was a life changing experience. Celebrating my dad's 70th birthday in Hawaii as the only "single parent" in the family reunion made me feel capable and strong. Coaching run clinic has been my reason for getting out of bed on Sundays this year.  Putting away all my wedding photos was surprisingly not difficult for me, but I totally lost it (in a good way) when I saw the new family photos of me and the kids for the first time and I probably stared at them for hours that day.  A couple weeks ago I travelled with a friend and tried to leave everything that is my reality behind—and it worked.  For one week I totally let go and shut my fretful brain down.  It felt amazing and I want that feeling again! It is scary to me that many of the things that make me happy these days are travel-based, and require me leaving my reality which is not sustainable.  I feel like I need to generate my own sense of peace in the middle of real life, but I’m not sure how to do that over and over—yet. 

There is progress, I know it! One thought that has slowly started to leave my brain is blame.  I don’t blame anyone or anything for how I feel. What happened, happened.  “It is what it is,” and there is no going back now. I know staying angry is just poisoning myself. I also know that I don’t need to be in a relationship with anyone right now.  That would be kind of like putting myself on drugs.  I definitely am scared of the prospect of not having anyone to share meaningful things in life with, but for now I am pretty clear on how much I can handle.  Yeah, it hasn’t been the best year.  But it could be worse; I am above ground, and for that I am grateful, and I need to keep marching ahead.  I have realized that this is all part of the process of grieving the loss of something major in a person’s life. Some days are brilliant, some days are dark, and hopefully the good days happen more frequently over time.  And to all of you who have been so encouraging and inspiring to me this year, thank you from the bottom of my heart for caring—it really does get me out of bed. 

ps. Gwen Stefani just became my hero--heard her new song this week and cried heaps:

 Used to Love You - Gwen Stefani

Oh my god I feel alive! 

That doesn’t mean everything is perfect—far from it, actually.  But I am learning that treating everything like an adventure gives me so much energy. It’s like I’m back from the dead, and it feels f-ing great. 

In the past three weeks I have had hundreds of moments where I shake my head happily and think, “Wow, this is my life!” It helps that for almost two of those weeks I was trekking through magical Peru.

Peru is now probably my favorite country that I have visited. It is up there with maybe one or two other vacation experiences I have had in my life. Hiking in the Andes was exactly what I needed to do right now and I was ready for it; it was physically challenging, it was remote and felt like I had departed from anything familiar in my life, the scenery was stunning, the culture was amazing, and the people I met along the way also felt really uplifting.  I initially thought I was setting out to cross seeing Machu Picchu off my bucket list.  But what was totally euphoric was reaching the summit of the Lares Trail at over 4800m and feeling like I let a lot of shit go once I reached the top.  It was like the perfectly cheesy metaphor for my life.  Climb a mountain, experience hardship, reach the top, don’t look behind you at the past, turn and face, and walk down towards a beautiful scene of the future.  But that is exactly how it felt to me.  It was very very hard to walk uphill in that altitude, and it felt amazing to get to the top and have a moment to relish to myself.  I actually said “goodbye” out loud to some things and some people in my life when I looked down at the trail where I came from.  Our guide told us that when we reach the summit, we offer thanks to God (or the Andean gods) and hold up three coca leaves, pointing them in each direction, and then make a wish.  I don’t think it’s bad luck to tell you what I wished for so I’ll share it with you!  I thought in my head, “I want to experience love—real love.”  And as soon as that thought came out of my head I disagreed with it.  “Actually,” I thought, “I want to be truly happy and joyful. Whatever that looks like, I will not define it or put a name on it now.”  And then I literally ran down the mountain for a while and into this crazy, beautiful valley, and I knew I was a little bit different than when I started out at the bottom of the other side of the mountain.

I think what was a little bit different was that I realized that I was ready to move on and it’s not with fear. I had been doing a bit of the “fake it til you make it” in telling people I was ok and that I was strong.  But I knew I had made it after being in Peru.  I realized that my heart is open now and it’s okay if I take the risk of getting hurt—I shouldn’t expect it, but instead just go with something that intuitively feels right and just be happy with what is.  I realized that everywhere I go, I will have friendships and connections with everyone if I am open.  It doesn’t have to make sense to me, it doesn’t need to be labelled, and where it’s headed doesn’t need to be contained or controlled.  On the long plane ride home I watched “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” movie that ended in this quote: “There’s no such thing as an ending. Just a place where you leave the story. And it’s your story now.  You have no idea now what you will become.  Don’t try to control it. Let go. That’s where the fun starts.  There’s no present like the time.”  I cried and watched this quote twice.  I realized that being on the journey is my goal…life happens along the way, not at the end of things.  It is the same when I run a half marathon—the training is the best part and race day is just one day.  Relationships are the same way—the process is all you’ve got.  There are a million end points that are options for us as we set about life.  Perhaps I’ve been a bit near-sighted in trying carve out the path to one end point only in so many things I do.  So. No more of that! 

 

 When I arrived home to reality, I made the choice that I could either be in vacation withdrawal and check out a little, or I could get busy making normal life an adventure.  In my last blog post, one of my plans for this year was to default to saying “‘yes’ to invitations to do stuff.” I used to politely decline most things—but this past week I have been richly rewarded for going with "yes"…I watched a scary-to-me movie in the theatre (and screamed out loud at what was probably not anything scary to anyone else—but for those of you who know me I hate thrillers and horror movies so much and avoid them like the plague), I got to meet and personally thank the woman who took care of my children during a family emergency earlier this year, I learned how to tie stand up paddle boards to my car and get them down to the ocean without killing myself or destroying them as they flew off my vehicle, I ran 14K last Saturday because I was invited to do it, I drank a lot of wine and bonded with some amazing women from my run clinic—and got really helpful advice, I drank a lot of beer with an old colleague and laughed until I cried, and I taught one of my best friends and a random jogger on the beach to paddle surf. Six months ago, I would have said no to all these things and would likely have been at home yelling at my kids or working overtime (or both).  Don't get me wrong...I still do these things and I have moments of overwhelming loneliness, but I'm ok with feeling those things too.  It is what it is, and it's all part of the adventure!

 

 

 

 

finding joy in 2015

Hello again, I have missed all of you!  I’m so excited to reopen this blog and invite you on the journey I find myself on—it’s unexpected but it is all going to be good, I just know it.  I’ve thought long and hard about when would be a good time to start writing again, and I feel that now is as good a time as any. 

The very short version of events that have transpired in the past year: I am now becoming a single mom of two little guys. I did not ask for this status, but after intense sadness, anger, confusion, and all of the things that come with a marriage that comes abruptly to an end, I feel like I’m coming out of the dark cave and I am filled with hope that the future will indeed be bright. I know it will be because it’s within my control to make it so. And, I want and need and deserve that more than anything.

My biggest goal moving forward is to find joy and experience it….a lot! Looking back over the past few years, there wasn’t a lot of joy going on in my life.  It’s like a little cloud followed me around wherever I went and I couldn’t shake it. Something was wrong and I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I thought it was maybe about needing a new job.  So I went and got myself a promotion, but life didn’t feel any more joyful.  I thought maybe it was time to buy a new house.  So we went and bought ourselves a new home.  But things got more stressful.  I thought maybe I needed to work out more and run more half marathons.  So last year I ran 4.  But there really was something vacant in my eyes as I looked at everything that was supposedly good happening in my life.  You know what it was?  My heart was asleep. I went through the motions of life without any passion.  Then I got the biggest wake up call of my life and now I know what I need to do: it’s time to get busy living and doing those things that bring joy to my life.

Working with my coach (check out evergrowthcoaching.com…Bay is awesome) I worked on a plan to figure out how to get some joy in my life, and here are  just a few things I’ve done and got planned for the rest of this year:

• Travel to Peru with my sister (coming up in 5 days!)
• Train for and run the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in San Francisco in October
• Say “yes” to invitations to do stuff (coffee, beer, running, concerts, etc.)
• Celebrate my dad’s 70^th birthday in Hawaii in August with my sons
• Own my own vehicle, and learn how to do basic maintenance on it
• Make my house (wherever/whatever that is) my home
• Take family photos of me and my 2 sons
• Visit a gulf island I’ve never seen before
• Get my group fitness instructor certification by the end of the year
• Take an art course
• Be accountable for my finances and spending
• Start my blog again
• Start coaching and training runners.  Pace someone in the Times Colonist 10K race to a new personal best time (this happened in April and was so rewarding!)

Call it my revised bucket list or just a list of everything I really have been meaning to do in my life but just didn’t do it…until now.

 So…please join me on this new journey. I’m going to work hard, work out hard, travel hard, love my sons hard, and basically live hard! And then blog about it.