being.

you know how you read those corny motivational sayings and you think "man, what a bunch of crap" and then one day a situation comes across your life and you think "danm, that cat hanging upside down on the branch was freaking right!" Yeah, i had one of those recently. i was thinking about when people say 'well, the heart is a resilient muscle, and you cant quit working it . ." and i mean, really what a dumb thing to say. but when you consider loss and pain and how it really does, feel as though your heart is physically being ripped from your body, when you are grieving you think "how will i EVER recover from this". Yeah, thats still pretty fresh for me. a lot of people dont actually know, that chris and i have split. I didnt make a grand pronouncement. i was dealt the blow. i spent 30 days inside a bottle, 30 days almost completely prone on my couch anytime the kids werent there and emotionally hemorrhaged. 5 years of life, 5 years of raising kids together. 5 years of road trips and more projects than you can imagine, 5 years of late nights, good beer, endless conversations and 2 people who lived 1000 mph all day, every day. ended on the note of "i dont know how to break up with someone i am still in love with, who i respect and admire and love and adore, but i am". And ignoring the hours and hours of trying to understand why, thats what it came down to. It wasnt working.

And i still feel so much grief. For my kids. for my life. for us because you've never met two people so stunningly well suited to each other. i miss the two boys i spent 5 years helping raise.  . . . but, this is life as we know it. and life is filled with loss.  people come into your life, and people leave and all you can really do with that is to get the lessons. And i do get the lessons. i know what i got from that 5 years. i also know what i'm taking with me, what i'm shedding, and what i hope i can bring to the table in my next relationship, that will allow me to be an even better partner in life.

chris taught me about being kind. about how a smile to a stranger can change a day. he taught me it was ok to be soft. that approaching a situation with kindness is almost always better than approaching it from any other direction. he mellowed me and softened me. and taught me how to properly run a chain saw. 

i know what lessons I didnt get. and what I still have to work on. and the whole time i spent laying on my couch, trying to breathe, i knew, that i would be ok. i've suffered loss. its just a matter of allowing time to do its thing, making it better day by day.  and it gets better.

and the heart IS an amazing muscle, because if you let it, it can still feel and beat and hold the capacity to care for others regardless of how many times its been bruised. i left that relationship with my eyes and heart open. instead of closed and jaded as i have so many times before. maybe it was knowing chris was sending me off on my own, with love and respect, as opposed to humiliation and anger as so many of my friends get left to deal with the rest of their lives. and while i have no plans to look for something or someone to fill the void and place of chris and that life i was leading, i'm keeping my heart open to meeting new people who bring something to the table. in whatever capacity that may be. and its interesting how the universe says "here. check this. this is something you need to look at and learn from." and I think i almost always do.

i'm not sure exactly where i wanted to go with this post. but i'm kind of amazed that 3 months and 11 days after what felt like the worst day of my life, i feel this positive about the rest of it. yes, i miss my family. yes, i miss my best friend. every day. but im also very much enjoying my life right now and all the fun and sad and hard and delightful things that go with it. and all the people i'm meeting along the way.