You never asked.
In your not asking, I have my answer.
When it’s all about you with never a queery about me, I have my answer.
This isn’t assumption; it’s an observation.
I waited for you to ask and you didn’t. Not once.
You spoke a thousand words to give me the answer I already knew.
➵ It’s probably the most honesty I have ever taken away from one of our conversations.
Take good care.
You can’t cry your way to happiness.
You can’t eat your way to weight loss.
You can’t sleep yourself into energy.
You can’t spend your way to wealth.
You can’t hold a grudge and have forgiveness.
You can’t find a partner by hiding inside.
You can’t get there from here.
If you want a change in your life, you have to change something.
Start small. Starting with small steps eventually creates a path to get you to where you want to be; repeated small steps along the same route construct a clearing for us to continue towards our destination.
I started on my trail to happiness by ‘unlovinging’ my previous partner 1% a day. That’s all I did; every night before I went to sleep, I told myself when I woke up, I would love him 1% less. (I wasn’t sure how it worked or what that really meant, but that wasn’t the point.)
It wasn’t long before I stopped crying everyday and I started to notice I wasn’t missing him as much anymore. And just like that, one day I didn’t love him anymore. It wasn’t a dramatic flash when I first realized I didn’t love him anymore; it was more like a ‘did I leave the iron on?’ moment.
If someone would have said, “Just stop loving him”, that wouldn’t have worked; I couldn’t get there from where I was living. You can’t just stop loving someone you love.
Like attracts like. Small steps will attract additional small steps, permitting you to take the bigger steps towards where you want to be.
If you have an unhappy aspect in your life, start with small changes, even as small as 1% and watch them add up to 100%, without much additional effort on your part. But the caveat is you must act, you must have the action, no one can do it for you.
Because you can get to there from here, eventually.
Here comes Christmas. The third Christmas with my family blown apart.
It never gets easier; you just learn to cope with it healthier.
I’ll be alone on Christmas Day, but I’ll be in Paris, so I’m good.
I received an early Christmas gift this year. One I wasn’t expecting nor asked for. I didn’t even know I needed this gift.
Sidebar – Never surprise people; you don’t know where they are at and the surprise could turn to distress. [And believe people when they say they don’t like surprises.]
The boundaries of what I thought were my contentment were tested and shaken. Sobbing and reverting to old patterns, I failed miserably. Or did I?
After one night of a solid pity party, the next day I shook it off.
The day after the day after, it slowly it came to me that I shook it off quite easily and quickly. I got right back on that path of being appreciative and joyful but without a lot of thinking or effort. It felt like the most natural thing in the world; to carry on without feeling distressed.
What a fabulous gift to receive, a gift of testing your strength, without having to lose anything. Learning that you can, and will bend, but you won’t break.
Just knowing that my strength is still there, no matter what life throws at it, makes me feel even sturdier. And happier.
Thank you for the best Christmas present you ever gave me.
Divorce hardens you.
I don’t think divorce changes the core of your personality, the process of divorce only emphasizes personality traits that are already there.
If you value money above all else, your actions of fighting for the last penny or crock pot will speak louder than your words.
If you are a control freak, this will show up in co-parenting situations.
If you are a nutbar level 7, this will show up in stalking and other crazy behaviours.
And so on. Those behaviours are not new to you, you didn’t change, you now have the opportunity to express them without excuses. Release the hounds, if you will.
But no matter how you choose to deal with your divorce, divorce hardens you.
According to many psychological tests, on a scale of 1-100, 100 being the most stress you can ever experience, divorce or death of spouse is a 100 stressor.
I disagree. Divorce is more stressful than death.
As tragic as a death is, the widow(er) doesn’t have to ‘fight’ for half their life accumulations. They get it all, without question.
They get the house. Moving is a choice, not a necessity.
They get all the money, no need to wonder how to survive in retirement on half of what you saved or half of your pension.
They never have to wonder if this is the month the support payment is late or doesn’t show up at all.
They also never have to see their former spouse kiss another partner. Or hear they are remarrying, noting the new wife has a bigger diamond than you were ever given.
They don’t have to share the children at Christmas, Easter, Birthdays, or vacation.
They don’t have to fend off rumours, lies and gossip.
They never have to defend their actions and choices.
They don’t bring a shitload of baggage (trust issues, lying issues, money issues, ex issues) to the next relationship.
They don’t have to compartmentalized their friends and family into 1) Here for me, 2) Wasn’t here for me, 3) Never have to deal with again and 4) GFY.
They get meals brought to them and invited to people’s homes for Sunday dinner, out of sympathy.
They don’t have to hear of your family inviting the ex for Sunday dinner because ‘we’d like to stay friends’ as you quietly note you haven’t been invited over.
They don’t have to deal with dividing lines in any way, shape or form.
They cry just the same.
They miss them just the same.
They find it difficult to move on, just the same.
If you have children, the ripple effects of divorce last your whole lifetime, until one of you dies. After raising the children, you will be sharing the weddings and the grandchildren. It never goes away. Divorce moves sideways in your life, laterally along, forever.
Losing a spouse to death, using time as the great healer, one day the sun will shine a little brighter, the songs will start to get happier and food tastes better once again. Yes, you miss them with all your being but the death is the rock bottom, you can only move up from losing a spouse to death.
But they don’t get hardened. If anything, they eventually soften, learning how precious life is and to embrace love, life and happiness every day and in every which way because they know it can all be taken away by death.
They don’t get hardened. They don’t learn to hate their partner and wish them dead.
Divorce hardens you, in ways you never see coming. In ways you never imagined. In ways you would hope it wouldn’t. It colours everything you do. But it doesn’t change you.
My Slog a.k.a. Jacked Up On Wine 