be-musings

I realize the last post ended on a different turn than I was originally thinking. As I said, sometimes the thoughts ruminate but aren't ready to come out. Plus, it can be difficult to write about personal things that are about emotional journeys.
When I first read the Bill Cosby quote in amongst his quips, it really hit me. Then I also thought about how we screw our kids up.
It has been said that divorce is most difficult on the children. That probably is mostly true, and in part it is because they are put in the middle of two warring factions, who siphon their messages to the other parent through the children. They often tell their side of the story as to the cause of the divorce, and use the children as "spies" to gain information about what's happening in the other home, beyond what they need to know about the care and safety of the child. Many times they offhandedly make snide comments about the other parent's love interest, if there is one. The children feel they need to protect each parent's feelings by not speaking too nicely about the other one in their presence. Not always, but I suspect more often than not.
The uncertainty of the family unit would be very difficult for a child, especially a young one. My parents separated when I was 16, and I didn't fall into this category. In fact, my aloof father stepped up to the plate more after that, and made sure to begin to tell me he loved me. My mom became a more confident woman, really shining her true self. Of course there was a lot of grieving to be done, probably on both parents' sides, and that process may have taken years.
This is an area I know about. Grieving. When I was first separated, a friend of mine said it was going to be a very hard road. Not being divorced as she had been, I didn't fully understand. I do now. The physical and immediate process is devastating, no matter which partner you are. It is different for each person, and each person processes differently depending on their temperament as well as who was finally the "initiator". I use the word finally, because sometimes divorce has been a topic in a home, even of mutual consent at times, but the reality of it is much different than the theory.
I am a thinker, who takes time to work through life's emotional processes. I'm also a second-guesser, and someone who feels responsibility for any part of any action that I might be involved in. And for me, responsibility weighs on me for years, along with the memories of things I could have or should have done differently. This kind of temperament makes divorce difficult.
My divorce date was not a date of celebration. When the documents came in the mail I didn't shout, I breathed a shallow, short breath as I held the papers, tears in my eyes. I have no criticism for anyone with a more exuberant experience, but this is my story. When I saw a friend later that day I was quietly congratulated. I responded that it wasn't a thing to be congratulated on, but a thing to be grieved. The goal and dream I had since a teen, of being with one person until death was totally gone. Yes, it was a release of one sort, but still it bore sorrows. It was also a death of pride, because I enjoyed the shocked responses when I told people I had been married 22 years. Now that claim can't be made, and I have joined the divorce statistics. That's tough on the ego. But maybe it's good to work through that too. Pride isn't necessarily a good thing. I can learn and grow through this.
If you're not divorced, you know what it's like to break up with a friend. Even if you were the one to initialize the final stages of break up which usually contains dissention, disagreement, refusing to be with them any more, there is a void. First there is anger and the sense of betrayal, but there are still wonderful experiences you have shared. In some moments you might wish things were different, but not be able to change them. You might feel it's best for you not to be close any more, but that doesn't mean you don't work through that loss. It's a tricky balance, when you have loved someone so greatly, to escape a relationship breakdown without bitterness and anger.
It's a feat that I dare say, very few humans have been able to achieve. That emotion kills part of the soul, in a way we can't even see at the time. I personally have had a difficult time housing it with no direction for it to go except to my dreams. I can't let it go to my child or other people, besides an intimate circle. The poison of this emotion can be too strong for we humans, and I don't want others polluted with it. I have realized that it's too big for me and I need to continually give it to Someone who is stronger than I am.