The Rebirth of a Marriage

 

Journeyers, I think we’re going to be okay, Warren and me.

It’s been a tough ride, hasn’t it?

And if I haven’t successfully conveyed to you how much I appreciate you here, whoever you are, wherever you are following and watching from, please know that you and this space has been invaluable to me.

I’ve always written through and digested my conflicts on paper, though not in such a public way.

I hope that through me and my practice of helping myself and my marriage, you might have discovered a little something about yourself too, things that you find useful, even if it might have been, Note to self: What NOT to do.

That’s okay, that’s often a place where I begin, knowing what I don’t want and meandering my way to the discovery of what I do want.

I think the turning point for me had to be the day Warren and I were sitting on our stoop, hashing stuff out and I chose to point out in my loud way, what I DID like about him.

“You just keep showing up, Warren.”

And he does, Journeyers, he just keeps showing up and trying to learn and grow and heal himself and help me and our children and our friends and total strangers.

Honoring all those good things in him caused a shift in me.

For starters, it made me feel good about us and our wedding vows and our future.

And it made me feel good about myself, because I let go of those toxins that had been polluting so much of my environment, my thinking and feeling and action.

I’ve also realized that my extreme emotions of Mad and Sad a few months back had as much to do with my surgery as it did with me reaching a turning point on this path of grief I’ve been on since Warren’s last affair.

Maybe the hormonal chaos pushed me over the brink, which in turn forced me to invest all of my energy into healing, or I’d simply arrived at my breaking point.

Either way, after the many weeks of screaming and yelling and angst-filled days, something in me began to soften.

Something in Warren began to move, as well.

Trish’s continued insistence that we talk from a place of feeling and love, rather than that place of attachment injury, has proven invaluable.

Our willingness , Warren’s and mine, to embrace self-reflection, and our pasts, to see beyond those things and into a different type of existence, our motivation to contemplate varying viewpoints and styles and to consider different mindsets have been immeasurable assets.

You can teach old dogs new tricks, I thought yesterday as we left our therapy session with Trish.

I was telling Warren how much I appreciated those traits in him, when I had another epiphany about us.

You see, we’ve always commented about how different we are.

He prefers country music and hunting and fishing and roughhousing and teasing and is non-emotional and as easy going as they come.

I prefer 80s rock and alternative music and photographing nature and non-slimy things and writing and warm embraces and sensitivity and am emotionally charged and high strung.

Those are the details that comprise our days, but what are at the root of our cores are compassion and empathy and suppleness and forgiveness and love.

My heart must have recognized those commonalities all those years ago, when we first began dating, and then became serious, decided to marry, and to create little lives that first belonged to us, children whom we’d have to teach and heal and guide and then set free, together.

Somewhere, in the midst of Life, we lost sight of the harmony that had created the Us.

We let Death and Adultery and People and Circumstance tell us that our common ground had become a canyon, a divide where there were two sides, but only one of them mattered.

There was His Side and Her Side.

Does that make sense, Journeyers?

But here’s the thing, they need each other, don’t they?

The hills and the valleys and the trees and the sun and the shade and everything that makes up the ecosystem?

When Destruction wipes out parts of our land, she generates something new, using all that remains.

That’s what we’re doing, Journeyers, Warren and me, rebirthing our marriage…

Individually, yet together, we are giving birth to a new life, together…

* * *

Oh, and Journeyers, if I could be just a tad indulgent for a minute and share some other exciting news with you. I received a notice, yesterday, from BlogHer, that Crazy-Big Women Writers Online Platform—yes, that one!—that they were featuring one of my most favorite pieces, When Life Gives You Lemons in their family section. I was so delirious with excitement that I actually said I might dance naked in the front yard.

Will you help me, all you magical friends, by clicking on that link and reading the essay and sharing it with all of your friends so they can share in the magic-making, too?

 

It’s an important message that everyone should hear, that when Death or Destruction or Despair touch our lives, the first step in healing is to honor our grief. I promise not to run bare-assed on my lawn or yours, if it really takes off. Scouts' honor. Thanks for thinking about it, and for the magic you bring everyday, Journeyers!

 

With Love and Hugs!!

Soon…

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