So besides the grief of all of it, the endless grief....... the other most challenging part is the surreal nature of what has happened.....some days I can put it in its place, "sort of" make some some sense out of all of it, and other days I have no prayer of being capable of doing such a thing......to have your marriage of nearly 20 years, end on a random Thursday night without seeing it coming, it sort of leaves you reeling......spinning through that space......just spinning, and as hard as you may try to grab something to ground you the spinning remains........he may as well have died in a car accident, or by some other sudden unpredictable accident.....or some other horrid way........it feels the same...... this situation feels a lot like when me sister passed suddenly in a car accident all those years ago......no warning, no preparation, no closure just a harsh and violent end.......like hitting concrete at top speed........no way to soften the blow, or change the narrative, or make it softer somehow.......just harsh reality staring you down.........and in the reality of my new life, a life created in an instant, a life created on a Thursday night after dinner........I am left many days still shaking my head in disbelief.......looking at all the pieces that are visible to me, trying to put them together......trying to find some sense of the accident scene.....trying to put it all together......piece it all and find some peace in the wreckage, peace from the pieces................and inevitably I end up missing pieces.......finding no peace.........just empty gaps, places that make no sense.....places not filled with any sort of substantial sense or understanding.....just questions.......endless questions.....not too many answers, and the answers that are emerging are not ones anybody would want to be a part of their story.......so I am left to spin......to be hit out of nowhere with the gripping reality that my entire life is upside down, that EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT MY LIFE IS DIFFERENT.........every single thing....work, the world, my relationships with all the people I know, my family, my own world, my little family.......every single bit of it......and in that realization comes that surreal wave again, and again, and again.....hitting me in different places, triggered by different things...... just coming to find me over and over and over again......however as the wave recedes, as the tide goes out it is followed by a level of freedom I have never felt in my entire life......an exhilaration I have only dreamed of.......prior to this happening, my life revolved around a very specific set of principles....all of them I deeply loved, all of them I held dear, all of them feeling very sacred to me....... but a very basic set, a normal life, a happy life.......an unspoken knowledge of where my limits in this life would be.....being a good wife, mom, teacher, person, all of it......and loving it all.......and now without that wife piece there, it frees up a piece of my soul that yearns to check out some roads less traveled, do some different things, chart a different path.......blaze some different trails......and in that freedom I find a place in my heart and soul that I never knew was there......in that part of me I am brave in ways I never knew I could be, I am free for the first time in my adult life, I am confident in where I am headed and the path I am creating for myself and my children, I am trusting myself and my abilities in ways I never did before, and I know with a quiet certainty in my heart, that I am headed to somewhere more beautiful than I have ever allowed myself to dream of......ever......I am awake now......fully awake........and while leaving my old life behind is still too excruciating for words......painful in ways that break my heart daily......it is also the most liberating thing I have ever done in my entire life.........truly......
jperuso
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