Sitting In What You Asked For

a little perspective

I am deep in a place of survival right now. If you haven’t read my last newsletter, maybe start there first before you proceed. There is a lot of important backstory there that will paint a picture worth knowing as you move forward with reading this newsletter today.

My fight or flight is activated and it is a way to exist in my body that is quite foreign to me. I went from cycling 60-70 miles per week as of last week to only going on a couple of dog walks this week. I talked to a friend on the phone earlier today and could barely formulate coherent sentences that accurately portray my thoughts and feelings. I don’t have much of an appetite. My eyes are like faucets that leak. Often. My brain is in fix it mode constantly and it seems like things just keep coming at me. They always say when it rains, it pours. But this kind of feels more like a monsoon. I admire water, but usually when I can swim in it. Monsoons and gravity make it hard to tread.

It hit me today, though, in a moment of the clouds seeming to part: I am sitting in exactly what I asked for when I got divorced.

I didn’t want the house, the 401k, plates, decor, furniture, or pictures. I didn’t take as much money from selling our house as was rightfully/legally mine. I didn’t even want the ashes of the dead dog my ex husband and I shared together. Besides, I stole the paw print that the in-home hospice service made after they took her body to their facility to cremate her after she passed, so I at least got one thing that I wanted in the end of that relationship, even if it was through theft. I got the dog that was still alive, too, and I didn’t even have to steal her. Win win.

I burned my wedding dress in my parents’ fire pit in their backyard. I literally threw my wedding and engagement ring in the trash, only after I realized it wouldn’t burn in the fire. When we sold our house I rented a dumpster and threw away every single thing I could fit in there. BY MY SELF. Couches, side tables, a dining table and chairs, a whole ass bed. Everything. He wanted nothing to do with the process and I couldn’t wait to rage-throw-away in one fell swoop the contents of the life we had created together. I called it The Great Purge.

When I realized I wanted a divorce in 2017, that I couldn’t live my life the way it was going, it took me two years to pull the trigger. Years ensued of individual therapy and couples therapy and constantly rationalizing with my self about why I should stay because even though I was miserable, it was familiar and that made it easier to stay.

But I didn’t want easy. I always want ease, but I don’t want easy. Not if it means sacrificing important parts that make up my Self. Not if it means staying the same and never growing. Not if it means always acquiescing. Not if it means being something and someone I’m not. Or multiple things and someones I’m not. Not if it means quieting my voice. Not if it means not experiencing absolutely everything I possibly can this lifetime. I’m inherently a researcher whose test lab is the very thing we call life; I can’t help but want to data collect.

And just because familiar is easy doesn’t mean it’s right.

In one of the many times I talked to my then therapist about what I really wanted if it wasn’t being married, I did not hesitate. I recited a list off the top of my head as if I knew prior to our session that he was going to ask me, as if I wrote all of my wants down and was just waiting for someone to inquire.

I wanted to travel, and I did. I roadtripped around the southwestern US for three months until the pandemic hit. I wanted to experience other men as my then 32 year old self, or rather experience my self as a 32 year old in relation to other men, and I did. I wanted to fall in love, and I did. I weirdly wanted to experience heartbreak, and I did. I wanted to meet new people in magical and kismet ways, and I have. I wanted to be lush and never ending and explore my sexuality. I was, did, and am. I want to be stripped bare of anything that did not serve me, and I meant anything. To become so my self, and so solid in her, that I’d never abandon my self again. I think it’s safe to say the Universe continues to take that one very seriously.

The list doesn’t stop there, but I think you get the picture. I kind of wanted to be tossed around and chewed up and spit out and rough and tumbled to discover more of my self. To learn what I’m capable of, and see who I am capable of being. To grow and stretch my edges and be expansive and free. That doesn’t mean I believe everything has to be hard and that I have to be gobbled up and regurgitated in order to become more me, but I didn’t/don’t mind a challenge in doing so.

I actually stumbled upon my ex husband on Hinge the other day. Why I’m on a dating app while my life is literally a pile of rubble is beyond me but if I had to guess I’d say it’s a distraction. Sorry if we matched on there and you’re reading this, you’re probably a great guy. But seeing him was like standing in front of a mirror. I couldn’t even fathom how we were married. It felt like actual lifetimes have passed and it’s only been three and a half years since we split. Not to say that he sucks as a person, I genuinely have a soft spot in my heart for him and hope he’s doing well. It’s just weird to come face to face, even if virtually, to something that was once such an integral part to who you were. And to remember what I’m doing all of this for. To remember why I blew our lives up, and why mine continues to burn.

Sometimes everything is horrible. It really is. And it’s the worst time to tell someone that maybe they asked for it. Not in a “you deserve this” kind of way, but more so in a “you deserve better” kind of way. It’s the worst time to hear that maybe it’s all happening for a reason, with perfect timing, and perfect circumstances.

But I opened my Akashic Records yesterday and when I asked my guides what I should do in this moment of my life, this great undoing/unraveling/unbecoming, they told me to open my heart. They didn’t tell my why, or what I was to do once my heart was open, or what was going to happen. I guess I didn’t even realize my heart was closed. They simply told me to open it. So I did, and a couple hours after coming back to my self over and over and over again every time I forgot I was to be opening my heart, something happened.

I discovered gratitude there.

Gratitude for the opportunity to ask my self, in this season of life of being stripped bare, of being given a new start, “what do I really want?”

Gratitude for the opportunity to meet a version of my self I’ve never met before. A version of me that softens in the face of adversity rather than hardens.

Gratitude for my self. For my refusal to give up on my self. For the opportunity to see just how willing I am to choose my self. To see how worthy I see my self of my own presence. Awareness. Compassion. Love. Grit.

Gratitude for a past version of my self who was devastated for breaking the heart of a man who loved her but a version of my self who knew they’d both be ok, and better off.

Gratitude for being in the trenches right now because of all of the truth the trenches sometimes convey.

And gratitude for getting to experience and be witness to how vulnerability creates bridges between people. Forges connection. And in many instances, saves.

So yes, sometimes everything is horrible and everything sucks. But I think sometimes we just need those subtle shifts in perspective, those little nudges like seeing your ex husband on Hinge or listening to the intuitive message you receive to ask your guides for help and then actually do what they suggest, to find some solid ground. Sometimes we just need to be put on a path. And often it’s in ways we don’t expect.

Tallyho,
Jenny