The Leaving.

I've been asked a few times recently to "describe your blog" or "Write a little bit about what inspired you to start blogging" for various reasons. I obliged, wrote up a few paragraphs, and went on my way. No big deal. Did it a few more times. And I got it down to a science. The standard answer goes something like this:

"I’ve always been a writer and blogger, but I started really blogging when I was going through one of the most painful times of my life – my divorce. I was engaged at the age of 23, had my “dream wedding” at 24, and found myself divorced at 26."

Welp, that's a nice, neat little way to summarize the past few hellish years of my life. It all sounds so.... tidy. Engaged, Married, Divorced. Boom. Boom. Boom. When you put it that way, it doesn't even sound half bad. I guess that's why it's a summary though. You can't spell out the tedium or the fear or the uncertainly of the past few years. And even if you could, you don't need to. It's all buried in this blog anyway, somewhere along the way from there to here. This. This is the "after" that I have been dreaming about for so long. I'm licensed now. I have an amazing, hilarious, and handsome roommate who cooks, cleans, sings in the shower and only snores occasionally. I have the best friends anyone could ever hope for and so many fun and exciting opportunities coming my way. I'm headed to Hawaii for 12 days in less than a week, and will be spending Christmas with my family and my Grandma in the small town where I used to spend my summers.

Life is sweet.

Like, literally sweet. I eat a lot of donuts.  But also metaphorically sweet. And simultaneously calm and INSANELY BUSY at the same time.

Also, I've been thinking lately. People fall in and out of love all the time. They get married, they get divorced. They cheat, they leave, they run away. Whatever. That all happens. I can wrap my mind around those things and I can accept the version of events that happened in my life.

What I cannot understand is how you treat someone you've known half of your life and claimed to love for 6+ years with so little regard. Like, it's okay that you wanted out. I wanted out too, eventually. It's even okay that you found someone else, although I would have preferred that maybe that came a little later. But I can accept that those things happen. You cheated and you left. Got it. But did you have to scream at me and threaten me and try to force me into signing "agreements" without even letting me consult with a lawyer? Did you have to scare me so much that I changed the locks on the first place we ever called our home? Did you have to open your own bank account without my knowing, or show up one day on my door step and announce that I will now be solely responsible for paying any and all utility bills simply because you decided it should be so? And then drive me around Los Angeles to these various utility places that very day, all the while I am sobbing and trying not to throw up?

I think the banker at Chase thought he had a gun to my leg under the table or something, I was crying and shaking so much when we signed that paperwork to transfer accounts.

The leaving I can forgive and even move past. I'm glad the leaving happened. I'm happy he left.

How he handled the leaving still breaks my heart.

I have so much more to say and I've written entire paragraphs here and deleted them, so I think I'll just leave it at that for now.

I'll walk through the fire
With my head lifted high
And my spirit revived in Your story
And I'll look to the cross
As my failure is lost
In the light of Your glorious grace.