Christmas in Blue

Two more days until Christmas, the time when we should be focused on the birth of Christ and celebrating life, love and family......but in the land of the real, it's just not working for me.

I'm going through the motions, doing the things that I know I'm supposed to do, cleaning the house in preparation for decorations. Putting together holiday food menus, but really all I want to do is crawl up in a ball and hibernate until it's over.....is that even possible. Not really

All I can hope for is that next year things will be easier, I know that New Years it going to feel just about as bad if not worse. The funny is that people can all kinds of amazing things to try and make you feel better...but really they're just going to pass right through your ears, and through your heart leaving nothing more than a very temporary band-aid. The bottom line is, I feel sick inside.

What will keep me going on is that the holidays are not just about me. I have my children that are depending on me to make things as "normal" as I can. Don't misunderstand, my children have been amazing through this process. I know that all of them are going through their own struggles as well.

The bottom line is, God willing my life will go on, I can only hope that it get's better, easier. *sigh* We shall see.

.......and this too shall pass.

Will the Holidays Ever Be The Same.....23 Days and Counting

 While all the world around me is counting down the number of shopping days until Christmas, I'm counting down the number of days until the start of a new personal trial, surviving the holidays alone.

I've always known that the holidays are extremely difficult for people who have suffered loss, separation, or divorce. There are some people who haven't experienced any of these things and yet still the holidays prove to be a battle between them and looming depression.....but now I think I'm starting to understand why.

The holidays are the time of year that reinforce the principles and ideals of family and togetherness, so it would stand to reason that the holidays with almost 100 percent certainty will awaken feelings that we have struggled all year to lull into a coma. (Or in my case 7 months as of December 11)

You would think that with taking care of four kids, working and going to school full time, plus all of the things I do with church that wouldn't have enough time to think about these kinds of things.....but I have come to appreciate just how long a split second can be, it can seen like an eternity.

"“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ― Khalil Gibran"

 It's in the string of seconds that I can feel the beast that lives inside my heart stirring, anxious to find the veil of my emotions, thin and worn, so it can escape. And so the struggle ensues.

In the mean time I will go about as normal, wearing the mask of daily living. I know that this war will not last for ever, after all nothing really does. So if you come across this, say a prayer, or just think of me and send love, light and strength my way, in the hopes that this too shall pass ~

My Life In A Series Of Fridays

This week was REALLY great.....until Friday that is. That was the day that the "soon to be ex"  came over to try and help me with my air conditioner. People, I looked at him and he looked really good! It looked as if he had lost at least 10 lbs.

It was at that moment that I began to feel as if the entire universe was conspiring against me. Not only does this man leave me after almost 20 years, but he has the nerve to have been working out, losing weight and looking amazing! I felt as if I had to do something anything to make the field of competition level. After all, this is a competition isn't it?

From the moment that he left, I've had on my mind the fact that I needed to make my self look good, not solely for the purpose of rubbing his face in the fact that he left a good  woman, but just for me and my self confidence. I thought I was doing fairly well...that is until this past Friday.

So what did I decide to do.....I decided to be like a race horse with blinders on. I'm not going to worry about what he's doing, I'm just going to run my race.

At the beginning of the summer I decided that I was going to take a vacation day every other Friday, partly so that I could do summer fun things with the kids, but also so I could focus on how I can make our lives better. Things have been coming along slowly but surely. But after this past Friday I decided to change one thing that I had been putting off, my bedroom. If you've been following along, you know how important this room was to us, this was the one place that we as a couple were able to come together after a day of madness and just let the whole world melt away, and just be the two of us. But the two of us are no more. So I needed to put a new spin a more personal, singular spin on my room. So that's what I did. I was afraid to move his things, but I did. just to get them out of eyesight. my room now feels like it's free.

I don't know what all of my Friday's are going to bring, but for now I'm just going to run my race, making changes in my life in a series of Fridays.

~And this to shall pass

In the Waiting

I have to tell you this is one of my favorite songs by Vickie Yohe. I'm not sure how many of you that will stumble across this blog are fans of Christian music, but if you are, I'm SURE you already know Vickie, but if you aren't you probably don't know her. Even if you're not a fan a Christian music or Vickie, you won't be able to help but love these lyrics.....

It' talks about the pain that nobody wants, but that when it's over has made you stronger.....I think at least for now, this just about sums up where I am with this entire journey. "Wait on the Lord and be of good courage and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 27:14

I guess this is one of the great lessons that I'm going to have to learn as this process move itself along...to wait. As hard as it may be.

I've Stopped Counting The Days.....

First let me apologize for being away for so long. My intention when I started this blog was to chronicle my journey through separation and if it should come to pass, the divorce process. The theory behind my thinking was that the writing process would act somewhat like a catharsis.....the funny thing is, it's hard to write when you're trying so hard not to think about what's going on.

I spend most of my personal energy keeping my deepest thoughts and feelings about what's going on shoved into some sort of security prison lock box. I figure that if I tell myself the lie I that I'm doing fine and that before you know it I won't care about the "soon to be ex", that some how I'll believe it. I actually think that the lies work, that is until the night time comes.

He was not just the true love of my life, the other half of my soul'd self. He was my safety, my security, and my covering.....he ripped all of that away from me when he left. I feel a fear that I've never felt in my entire married life. It's hard to sleep when you think that you're going to open your eyes in the middle of the night and find a stranger standing there ready to take your life and that of your children.

Something must be working because I do manage to get some sleep, and somehow I manage to make it through most of my days without thinking about him. All that I can tell you is that I've stopped counting the days. I can tell you that it's been about a month and a half. I guess now I'll start thinking of the time in weeks and not days. That's progress......right.

Days 19-22...Roller Coaster Of Love...Say What!

So it's been a few days since my last entry...what can I tell you. Let's see what's happened since we last hung out. Our wedding anniversary was on the 28th, that was a Saturday. Yes he came over to drop off the car, but he didn't way a word about the passing of our anniversary....oh well, I guess that's to be expected.

It was the first of many unspoken anniversaries to come. The funny thing is, even if you don't say anything about it ever again, you'll always know that on that date something beautiful was born....and now it's all but vanished.

If I didn't know any better I would think that I had a twin...my moods change so fast I think on the way from, "I'm good, I'm ok", to "damn I really miss him" I think I've run into myself. I had no clue how fast that emotions can change. I really don't like to feel this way. I want to feel normal for what ever that's worth. I want to be happy for more than one day...and I want to be at peace with myself and this entire situation.

Can somebody just tell me please when this roller coaster ride is going to end?

"And this too shall pass"

Days 17 and 18 - One Small Victory At A Time

I'm learning to take pleasure in the small achievements that I make along this journey. Usually I have a bit of anxiety on the weekends...that's when I see him, every Saturday....but you know what, this time I felt just a bit stronger than I did the week before.

I think I felt a little stronger because I've been doing some soul searching, and I I realize that I have to find myself. I need to find out who I am, what I like, who I want to be, but most of all what God wants me to be. I've lived my entire life trying to some how morph into the perfect person that someone else want me to be. But how can you live trying to please another person? We as people are all flawed, fallible...If a person can't love you for who you are then they don't love you. But more than that if you don't know who you are yourself, how can they know the real you....and that is my error.

So I'm on the road to finding out who I am, to becoming the best me that I can be, so that I can be at my best not matter if I'm with someone else, or just with me, myself and I.

Free to be me!

Days 15 and 16 - Check List

These last two days have gone by fairly easily...not much drama. Since the "soon to be" ex left, there really hasn't been much drama. There have been a few moments, but nothing that I'll bother you with here.

I take the train to work every morning now. I used to get a ride from the "soon to be" ex...but not anymore. We only had one car and he took that with him. I don't really like the arrangement, but, it's too far for him to travel from job to job to take public transportation. Any way, as I was riding on the train all the things that I don't know how to do as well as the things that I need started running through my mind.

It's tough having children and no car living in this city. There are things that we want to do, places that we want to go that we just can't get to. Who wants to spend hours on the bus to get to a mall that you used to drive to in 30 minutes. What can I say, some families never have a car, but we did, so that's what we're used to. Right now I get the car for a few hours on Saturday. So the second thing on my list is to get a car. But you know what's funny...I've had several cars in my life, but I've never bought one on my own. My father gave me my first car, and by the time I got a second I was married.

What's the first thing I need to do you ask? Get my credit together. I've been trying to work on my credit for the longest. But now that I'm facing being a single mom and the primary caregiver for four children, I have no time to waste.

Then, I thought about the little things I need to learn, how to change the windows in the house, how to work the electrical box in the basement. How do handle the water that comes into the basement when it rains really hard. We've never really had to have repair men come to the house. The "soon to be" ex was a very handy man and did most of the minor repairs that we needed around the house. Do you know I don't even know how to cut the grass! I know I can figure out how to use the mower, it's the fact that I've never done it.

I told the kids that I wanted us to sit as a family and make a list of all the things that we needed to learn and do around the house, and we'll work on them together, as a family, the way that it always should have been. I think it will especially be good for my daughter to learn how to do some of the things that I never learned how to do. I want her to be as independent as she can be.

So I'm off to start the check list.....I wish everything else was so easy.

But, this too shall pass.

Days 13 and 14 - Time Distortion

Time Distortion, "When we talk about time distortion, it's easy to think that we're talking about changing time. What we are really talking about is changing our perception of how fast time passes."


I had to actually count on my fingers the number days that have passes since the "break-up". Was today day 13 or 14? I even checked the calendar. 


For the longest time I felt that the older I became the faster time went by, but over these last two weeks I actually think that somewhere in the distance I could hear the faint screech of time slowing down as "Father Time" pulled on the emergency break!


Time is crawling by and for the first time in a really long time I don't like it....but I know that when it's all said and done I will have learned endurance, patience......but holy smokes, all I can do is sit and how do they say on the net *smh*


I thank God for my children, they are pure blessings from God. I know they're going through their own challenges with all of this, but they take turns being a shoulder for me to lean on.


Oh well....another day down....all and all it wasn't too bad....


Psalm 27:14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

Day 12 - Searching For Serenity

Today, was a VERY interesting day...I guess it was sort of like the weather we've been having changing from gray to sunny and then rain literally in a matter of minutes.

The one thing that I did realize today is that right now, trying to talk to my "soon to be ex" about anything other than when are you going to drop off the car and the grocery money is a pure waste of my breath.

Right now every thing that I try to talk to him about lead to a path down the "what I(me) did wrong" lane.....and I'm sick of it. It physically and emotionally wears me out, and I don't want to do it anymore....so I'm not.

People going through recovery have a saying, "Surrendering to a higher power." I surrender, but not to an unnamed "Higher Power", but to Almighty God. I realize that I am powerless in this situation. 


Right now I'm going to focus on my family, which now consists of my children and myself....everything else I'm going to leave in God's hands.

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen."

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will direct your paths.

Proverbs 3, 5-6

Days 10 and 11 - Your Baggage, My Baggage

If I've heard the phrase, "We all come into relationships with our own baggage." once, I've heard it a thousand times...but you know what? I'm just starting to realize what it really means.

These last two days since the separation have been the best so far. Not because of anything that I may deem earth shaking, but because I had this epiphany yesterday...it's not all my fault. Mind you I didn't say that it was any one persons fault. The demise of our marriage is a combination of the actions and the lack of action of both my soon to be ex and myself.

Relationships are like those really long vacations that people take. When people go on long vacations, they pack all kinds of things, most of the time they over pack, dragging stuff from home that they don't even need, stuff that they won't even use. But they bring it any way....Why? Because they think that they can't live with out it. So you go on your vacation and each day you only take out what you need,  nobody takes all of their things out and actually put it away in those really nice drawers that the hotel provides. But it's inevitable, by the time you get to the end of the vacation, everything you own is scattered all over the hotel in some sort of tragic disarray waiting to be picked up and thrown into the same bag that you brought it in.

Both my soon to be ex and myself came into this marriage with our own set of baggage and the good and the not so good of our lives that was neatly packed away. As our marriage went along we slowly drug out the contents of our baggage....and if we had been paying attention, we probably would have noticed that we didn't bring the right things for our tip.

As for me...I think I need to get rid of some of the crap in my bag....and just take the best of what I have...on my next trip.

Siempre Libre

Day 9 - Today Just Sucked

I don't know what it was about today....maybe it was the fact that we've had rain and gray skies for three days in a row....but today was the first day that the reality set in...somebody pinched me and I knew this all hadn't been the bad dream that I thought it was.

This is real....I'm a single mother with four children and my marriage has joined the statistics of the failed efforts....and I did cry.

What do I have to hold on to? The knowledge that in my entire life God has never failed me and I know that He won't fail me know....not now....

I just have to keep that thought in front of me...this is going to be a short entry, because I'm super tired.....it's that weird to the bone funky tired that I get after I've cried. I think God allows me to get that super tired feeling after the tears so that I'll lay my body down and let Him whisper to my spirit.

Today was about truly letting go......

Day 8 - I Don't Like Surprises

 I didn't go to work today...I was just too tired, I didn't sleep well last night. I got up this morning after sleeping in, went to make breakfast for the kids. I was actually feeling pretty good.

For those of you who don't know me, you have no idea how much I love a really good cup of freshly brewed coffee. I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of personality enhancer (coffee) in my hand, and suddenly I hear my son say, "Hey Dad." (My children home school) I was in total shock.

I stayed home to get some rest....and I have to look you in the face. He spoke to me when he came in. I think he was a shocked to see me as I was to see him. I think what pushed my buttons the most, was the way he spoke to me. He was smiling from ear to ear like he was the happiest man on the planet! I'm just hanging on day to day and you have the nerve to be happy! How dare he right!

In reality I don't wish him any harm or ill will....but please don't rub your happiness in my face. I had to let him know...I had to let him know that he just can't come over without calling first, even if you do still have a key. Let me answer your question because I go any further. He still has a key because 90% of his things are still here, plus he's still helping to pay the pills until we get the financial things decided.

I was proud of myself today, I called him and told him that I really needed him to please call first. It's just better for me right now that I see him as little as possible. What I didn't tell him it that it's so hard to see him because I still love him.

I used to lie surprises....not anymore

Day 7 - One Week Down....A Life Time To Go

Inside I felt like time has been standing still, but according to the calendar, it's been seven days since my husband told the kids and myself that he was divorcing me and moving out.

It serves to remind me as my mother used to always say to me, "Time waits for no man." Before I know it, two weeks will have passed, then three then 20...

I really did miss him today...I found myself wondering if he was missing me at all. I don't wish him any hurt, but i guess I say to myself if he ever loved me at all, shouldn't he miss me? But I'll never ask him that. I'm not looking for closure, I'm just biding my time until God allows my hurt to fade away.

I want to remember the good and be able to forget the rest, after all this man is the father of my children, and because of that, he will always be a part of my life in some way.

Yesterday, I was at lunch and I saw an older woman sitting alone waiting for her food to arrive, and for some reason she struck me as lonely. It wasn't because she was sitting alone, it was the look on her face. I looked at her wedding ring finger and I didn't see a ring. I looked at my wedding ring finger, at the deep grove and the lighter skin that's a dead giveaway that rings once occupied that space. I thought to myself, I don't want to be like her, I don't want to grow old and be alone....

The sun rises and the sun sets, and this too shall pass

Days 1- 3...... Surreal

Originally I had started this blog on day one of my separation from my husband, or should I say day one of when he separated himself from me.....(blame it on blogger, they had technical issues and my first blog entry was deleted) So here I am starting this blog over....and today is day 3.

Do I think that my husband is making a HUGE mistake, of course I do....I think. I'm thinking that maybe God allowed him to make this choice to leave, so that I didn't have to.

I've thought about it a few times over the years...but honestly I was too afraid to do it. A single black woman with four small children.....not such a good thing.

But now the children are older...two in college and two at home....not so hard any more. I'm not going to try and convince someone to be with me that doesn't. Oh I think he's convinced himself that he has good cause to divorce me. Now both of us are Christians, and we both know God's views on divorce......but that thought is for another time.

I decided that I would write this blog like a journal, a chronicle of my journey through the murky waters of divorce and my emergence on the other side.....who knows, maybe someone else will stumble upon this blog and find some sort of solace in knowing that they are not alone in the world. That there is someone else that is going through the very same thing that they are. May be we can help one another.....but if nothing else this will be a catharsis for me, a self healing.

I didn't actually see my husband leave...he left during the day while I was at work. I had asked him to wait until I got home. Not so I could try and convince him to stay, we're way past all that drama, but because I wanted I needed to see him leave....and to see his face one more time. I guess it would be easier if I could say that I hated him, but I don't, I do love him....I just don't think we're good for one another anymore, not because we couldn't be but because I think we chose not to be.

The hardest part so far was adjusting to sleeping alone for the first time in 20 years...damn, 20 years....Our anniversary was this month May 28...and just a few weeks prior, he decides to leave....I think it was for the dramatic affect to the timing. Or maybe it was so he wouldn't have to suffer through buying me another present...ah, he probably would have bought me one any way.

But that's all water under the bridge. So how did I sleep that first night? Like a baby! My body, mind, and spirit were exhausted.....I didn't realize how drained I really was until that first night. The bags under my eyes look like tattoos.

It just all seems so surreal right now, like some sort of twisted dream that I'm going to wake up from....but I know is my heart that it isn't.

How does the song go...Who knows what tomorrow brings in a world where to hearts survive.....