In the Middle of a Miracle

Almost Forty

“Hawaii 4 - O!” That’s where we were supposed to celebrate our 40th birthdays- Hawaii. A cruise in Hawaii. That was before the prophetic Maui fires in 2023.

I walk into my previous home and see the balloons - mylar balloons, half-drooping with the words “Happy 40th Birthday” and “Aged to Perfection.” I felt a pang of sadness at the sight. Another party I missed, another memory we’ll never share.

“What did you do for your birthday?” I ask half-heartedly as I try to hide my grief with non-chalance.

“Oh. We just had cake.” He says with similar ease, though I’m sure his ease is more real than mine.

We don’t make eye contact, though we look in each other’s direction a few times. I can’t bare to look into his eyes anymore. It’s too hard for me.

“Here are your glasses, dear” I hand my son his favorite glasses he left at my new place a while back. I got out of bed to bring them to him because he just had to have them for school the next day. They are the cool, viper kind. A necessity in his eyes, for sure.

I always try to keep my visits short so I don’t accidentally melt to tears while I’m there. It has happened a few times and I leave in pain and grief holds me the rest of the day. I never wanted to move here, to this big country house from the suburbs. I did it for him. It’s outside of my comfort zone - a Blue girl, in a sea of Red trend.

When I go to the house now I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone. You know, those alternate realities that are so similar to the one you are from but one or two rules are different. It is surreal. It’s like I never existed. Life just goes on, as it must, and yet I’m jolted into this surreal space when I enter my old home. A home I never really wanted and yet mourn in its presence.

The garbage has trash remnants of food I never purchased; of memories I never made. My son has his school papers strewn about and his school photo is on the wall. It doesn’t bring me joy though, just sadness. I wasn’t there for any of these memories. It hits me so suddenly and sharply that I can only describe it as all 5 stages of grief dancing simultaneously on the tip of a needle, in the middle of a haystack.

I never wanted a divorce, but it never mattered what I wanted. It takes two, as they say, and you can only be one of the two.

“If one person wants it, shouldn’t that be enough”? He tells me months ago as we sit across from each other trying to be grownups about this divorce.

“This is a bad idea” I plead. “It doesn’t make sense. Our son is young. We had a couple of hard years and now we are just going to give up?” The thought of it makes me sick and I am angry and I am scared.

We discuss high-level ideas about custody and finances. Then I realize, I won’t change his mind. I realize he is already gone. I realize he was gone years ago.

“I’m going to get an attorney” I say transparently over a phone call during a lunch break a few weeks later.

“No. Attorneys are a waste. We don’t need them” he speaks to me as if I can trust him and I do for a minute and realize that he is scared and angry.

I back down. I move out. I know I will need an attorney and I know he won’t like that and I don’t like that he won’t like that. I am still sad. We are no longer on the same team.

My therapist often reminds me “you have to choose yourself. You have to do what is best for you.” I am not used to that, yet. I have abandoned myself for the approval of others long before I met my husband. I’ve done a lot of difficult things for other people, believing that my survival depended on their approval. This pain has thought brought home that song by … you can’t make someone love you. I’m seeing now that approval is not love, it’s just delayed discomfort for others and immediate discomfort for me.

I bargain and manipulate and rage-cry, all to find a way to beat this. Yet I know there is no winning. I sit in gratitude on my life raft and wait for the Titanic to sink.

I am dizzy with surrealness and he appears to be coasting. I imagine him sitting in a pool of relief to have rid himself of me. And yet, even that is confusing. How is it that after 13 years of mariage, my husband doesn’t want to be with me? Not want to work it out? I can’t make sense of it.

I’m learning to trust the universe. I know that I can look at this as the best thing or worst thing that has ever happened to me or even as just a thing that happens to everyone. I can decide how to incorporate this experience into my life and how to use it to move me forward. I am learning that and yet that doesn’t make it easier.

I leak grief from my eyes and I let it come out as it wants to. Even though I’ve committed to gratitude and faith in the universe, my body needs to grieve. It is of this world and this world processes transitions with grief. I don’t want to prolong it though, so I don’t deny my ego its process. I let it grieve.

I wonder how many tears I have left until my 40th birthday, only 9 months after his. I wonder if I will be divorced or still in the limbo that is our current separation. I usually love to celebrate things, especially birthdays. I’ve fantasized about going to Hawaii, anyway. To still have a Hawaii 4-O. But, I don’t really want that. I don’t feel like celebrating in my heartbroken state, and I accept that. I know this is temporary, and that my ability to feel joy and celebration will only increase after being in the depths of despair. I am not there yet. I am still below the midline. I will no longer force myself into jubilation, nor will I let myself stay here in these depths forever.

As I drive back to my new place, along the long country road, I put both hands on the steering wheel and take a deep breath. I pass the woods by the bridge, slowly with my brights on, I remember that deer live here too. Many thoughts beg for my attention. I hear them and then I let them go. “I need miracle.” I pray desperately to the universe and it responds. “You are in the middle of a miracle. It is already done.”