FAITH

Miracles come in moments. Be ready and willing.

Wayne Dyer

It's been almost a year now. It was last year on Memorial Day weekend...it was Saturday...that I told my husband I wanted a divorce. I was getting in the Suburban, heading off to Target when he called me to come back in the house. What was wrong with me, he wanted to know. This wasn't how it was supposed to go down. My friends were all out of town and my go-to-guy was at work. But I had to tell him, this was the moment. No more talking about it. No more second chances. We are done here. It was excruciatingly painful to say those words to him. Just typing this and thinking about it brings tears to my eyes and puts a lump in my throat. It was the end, the day our lives changed forever. The weeks that followed, as we continued to share our home, were emotionally draining. In those moments, it feels like the pain is never going to end, like your life is never going to be light and happy again. It was that weekend that I allowed myself to enter "the tunnel." 

I wallowed. For a long time, I wallowed. I would take turns being sad and being really, really angry. Sometimes I would cry so hard I would actually hyperventilate. I had to nap a lot because I wasn't sleeping at night and emotionally, I was a wreck and it took all my energy. Even still, on my darkest days, I had faith that there was light at the end of my tunnel. I always knew I would make it to happier days and that somehow I would find a way to forgive and move forward with my life. 

That's the faith. Knowing, even when it feels like your world is crashing in around you, that you will make it, that you will be okay. They say that it is through our trials and our mistakes that we experience growth and I have grown more in this past year than I have grown in an entire decade. Growth is not without pain, however. Love lost, friends lost, lives changed dramatically...forever. I now believe that when an old dream dies it makes room for a new dream to thrive and grow and change us in new ways and make us better people. Each time we close one door, another door, a door that is better suited to us, opens. I look back through my life and I can't say that I have ever closed a door that I wished I hadn't. While it may be sad to look back at a relationship, a job, an opportunity, or an event that I've closed the door on, each time it made room for a new door to open that has led me down the path I needed to travel. Life is too short to live with regret. 

One year later, I have a sense of freedom that I haven't had probably ever in my life. I'm happy that I've been able to let go of so many hurtful things of the past. It's brought me to a place where I can appreciate the marriage that was...sometimes now I even miss it. I can hold the good things and the good times close to my heart and while it is bittersweet, it is a much nicer place to be than holding onto the anger. 

And I will continue to hold onto the faith that each moment, each day I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be...going the direction I am supposed to go...