Aug

12

All of the feels

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It’s a hell of a thing to separate lives that have been together for 25+ years. There’s the whole legal part of things, which we’ve been doing through mediation and we’re thankfully nearly done with now. I have no experience with lawyering up and tackling it that way but I’m not sure mediation is any less horrible — it seemed like it was going to be the most peaceful approach, but I guess there’s simply no escaping the fact that things are gonna get fucking hard when you’re talking about asset division. I will say our mediator was very skilled in managing difficult discussions and decisions, she was fair and kind and firm when she had to be, and I can’t say we both got everything we wanted but I personally believe we came to a fair settlement.

It’s me who is leaving the family home. This is … rough, of course. It made no sense for me to keep the house, though, with the large shop John built for his business. I considered a lot of possibilities and had decided to rent for a year or so to figure out what’s next, but then a house came on the market and it was in the right location at the right price. I went and looked at it and it was in the right kind of shape: an older ranch home with great bones. Lots of updates needed, but good flow and felt instantly welcoming. I put in an offer and things went from there, it took about a month before I finally closed but at the time I felt like I was in a fast-moving swirl of scary forward momentum. I told my mom it felt like I’d come out of the boat and was in the whitewaters, propelled along by forces greater than me, nothing to do but assume the safety position — feet forward, head up — and hope for the best.

After a great flurry of activity with getting a loan and inspections and quotes and haggling with the sellers and second-guessing pretty much all of my life’s choices, I then felt like things came to stillness while the days ticked down to closing. It was a liminal space, some sort of airless in-between an old life and a new one, and I hated that part most of all. Nothing felt real. I felt like a narrator could suddenly boom out, “AND IT WAS ALL A DREAM.” I wasn’t even sure if it felt like a bad dream or a good one or what. I really was convinced if I allowed myself to imagine any sort of future with the new house it was all going to fall through and so I just went la la la any time my thoughts turned to it and that went on for a few days/an absolute eternity and then suddenly the closing date came and I had the goddamned keys. I had the keys to a whole entire house that was just for me, holy shit.

What a jambalaya of feelings it all is. I have an adorable home that is ALL MINE! But it’s because I’m losing my long-term marriage and the house my children call home! I hate to make a Simpsons comparison, just kidding I love doing that and will do it at every single opportunity I am a treasure of dorkdom, but it reminds me of the episode where a fake Homer is tumbling down a waterfall and Carl is yelling out a series of Oh nos and Oh goods as he watches. “Oh, good. He can grab onto them pointy rocks. Oh, no. Them rocks broke his arms and legs! Oh good, those helpful beavers are swimming out to save him! Oh no! They’re biting him, and stealing his pants!” It’s an ever-changing mixed bag situation, is what I’m saying.

I’ll share more about the house soon, which is painted a sweet light yellow and I think of as the Little Yellow House. Either I legitimately love it to pieces already or I trauma-bonded with it, but either way I adore its good aspects and its quirks and I’m excited to show it off. But that brings me back to separating lives, and how weird it is to shop for, like, a spatula, because there are things I’m bringing with me because they are mine (the gorgeous stained glass window hanging that was made for my grandparents’ 50th anniversary), or we agree they feel like mine (the print I chose because it says LET’S GO but the font colors also make it so you can see LET GO at the same time), and there are things I don’t want to bring because they feel petty (good luck trying to make eggs without a spatula*, motherfucker!) or they don’t feel like mine (the whole byzantine TV/stereo situation, the heavy leather couches, the lovely tables he made, the king bed we have shared since before we were married).

*Pedantic note that ackshooally, eggs are amazing when you scramble them with a chopstick.

We in fact like most households have all sorts of duplicate mismatched kitchen tools and I would not be leaving him high and dry to raid the jumbled drawer that’s always hard to open because the tongs are like HA HA FUCK U I’M MANSPREADING IN HERE, but the fun/terrifying/gut-punch part of separating is getting new things for a new life. It’s fun because who doesn’t love shopping, it’s scary because yikes those costs add up fast, it’s a gut punch because it’s sad and surreal to be buying things because I’m leaving.

All the Oh good/Oh nos hit me yesterday when I was in the impulse-buy cattle chute line at TJ Maxx, inching forward past the bags of turmeric plantain chips and pickle flavored cotton candy and labradoodle candles. I can’t describe the feeling. It was fun but it wasn’t. It was like I was buying for a wedding and a funeral. I had a new cute spatula as part of a matchy-matchy set that I was imagining being very pleasing in my just-for-me kitchen and gosh, that felt so great, but also: oh my god, oh my god.

I’m starting something brand new. I’m going to be living all by myself, whee! I’m going to be living all by myself, yikes. It’s all so exciting, it’s all so intimidating.

There is a big oof to be the one leaving, but I love that I’m going into a fresh blank space. Every bit of it will be mine to fill and curate. Years of accumulated crap; this is my chance to streamline. To only take what serves. I cannot bear to think about divvying out Christmas ornaments and so we just won’t worry about that one yet, but most things can be sensibly separated and I will get new things and that will keep on being a delight AND a bummer at times. The beavers are saving me, the beavers are taking my pants, it’s all okay. I’m in it and I will end up somewhere new. I will be someone new. Feet forward, head up — I am riding this current and I really, really think I’m going to like where I land.

Aug

1

Life update: endings and beginnings

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Whisper to yourself, I am strong, Adriene from Yoga with Adriene says in the YouTube video and so I do: I am strong.

I am strong these days. I think I’m actually in the best shape of my life, here at 51. I got into fitness for all the wrong body-hating reasons but over time it morphed from a punishment to a beautifully rewarding friendship. As though I worked at some ugly grit over and over, oyster-like, until something smooth and lovely and rewarding emerged.

A few years ago I was thinking that I should focus my workouts into some sort of goal, so that instead of doing a hodgepodge of things with no particular aim in mind I would be, you know, training. I wonder what I should be training for, I thought, considering things like a 5K or maybe something more adventurous like one of those scary-sounding obstacle events, never mind that last time I did one of those I fell and broke my knee and had to be driven away in a golf cart (one of the most humbling moments of my life holy shit), before deciding that I was training for getting older and that was enough. But now I wonder if there wasn’t a part of me that knew a hard season was coming, and that I would need to be strong.

I’m writing to you from the messy middle of a divorce. Some of you know this already, because I shared about it online. I suppose it would be better to talk about this once I’m fully on the other side and I can be more reassuring, it feels enormously vulnerable to say “Hi, my marriage of 24 years is ending and things are terrible!” but: my marriage of 24 years is ending, and jesus, it’s pretty terrible.

Not every single thing is terrible, of course. For one thing, we made this decision together, and there’s no big hateful drama going on. We are both sad and fucked up and angry and worried and hopeful, I can’t speak for his experience but I know for me it comes in waves and cycles. Some days/hours are much better than others. I feel certain it will continue to be raw and fluctuating for a good long while and maybe forever in some ways but eventually everything will start to heal and even out and we will both be in much better places.

The boys are foremost on my mind and they have been amazing. They took the news well, months ago, and they have been so loving and they clearly want the best for us. It’s a day by day thing but I hope our family dynamic will take on new loving shapes, it will not be the same but there’s no reason it can’t be beautiful. It was never going to stay exactly the same anyway, that’s just not how life works.

I am closing on a new house. It’s an older home that’s near where we live now. It’s a little yellow-painted beacon of hope, a new life waiting for me with all sorts of new possibilities. It breaks my heart to be leaving this home we made, but I will be making a new home. It’ll be all mine. It’s particularly hard to leave my beloved studio behind, but I tell myself: your whole life will be a studio. Your whole life will be just how you want it to be, yours to build and decorate and cherish. And I can do it because I am strong.

Why is this happening, you might be wondering. Why did we make it 24 damn years but we couldn’t keep going to the finish line. There’s no one answer. We tried, we did a hard good job for a long time. Our family was always foremost. We had so many wonderful years. We did so much, we changed so much along the way. The boys are older and the needs are different and we both want good futures for ourselves and for each other. We had a hell of a good run and I’m not sorry for any of it. Look what we built together, look at all those amazing adventures and memories. It’s just time to walk our own paths now. It’s time to love ourselves and each other enough to let go and let in new light, new life.

I was at the beach this week with Dylan and we had such a good, good time together. I could feel how things will take on new shapes. Our family was a great little four-pack, and I loved those times, and I also see how I was … I don’t know how to put it exactly, like I was diffused, or like my own nature was contained in ways that helped me fit into that four-pack, like I made compromises, I’m sure we both did. And now we’re in the open air. And it’s scary as fuck but there’s so much room for growth. Now there’s room for everything I might want to do and feel and say and experience. It’s not less, it’s more.

Divorcing just plain sucks, it’s really hard to untangle after so many years and I’m in the weeds of it right now, but I’m also excited about what’s to come. I’m so sad to lose my person, I’m so eager for the new possibilities ahead. I’m worried about being alone and I’m looking forward to feeling less lonely.

It’s time to be strong, and it’s going to be okay. JB and Sundry are ending, JB and Sundry go on. Our stories keep going and I’m going to keep sharing mine because it means something to tell you. God, it really means something that you’re listening. Some of you have been a part of my life for so long, and I can’t wait to bring you with me on this new journey.

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