Tuesday, November 14, 2017

So Many Nothings...




I have a thing for Meg Ryan.

Tom Hanks and Nora Ephron, too. But Meg, I have decided, is the magic glue that holds it all together. Because I adore Nora's writing (Heartburn is a must read for a person going through a divorce with infidelity involved), and I do love old school Tom Hanks, back when he didn't only make important movies and strange Saturday Night Live cartoons.

But Meg. Meg is the charm, the joy, the delight-both Sally Albright and Kathleen Kelly are kindred spirits to this girl that I am.

I have written a blog post about Sally before, so I won't go over that whole thing again but I will reiterate that as a girl going through her first break up in her mid-thirties, nothing soothed my soul like watching Sally fumble and falter her way through a dating world-it gives me hope. Of course, I am missing a Harry. What I wouldn't give for a Harry.

This weekend I watched both The Shop Around The Corner and You've Got Mail, as I am wont to do at Christmas time. I adore both movies, and can never quite land on which is my favorite between them. This year You've Got Mail stole my heart all over again.

Normally, I love so much that the script is full of love for children's literature (surely, someday, I will find an outlet for my love for children's books that is on some par with Kathleen Kelly), I love that the movie reminds me of why I love New York City so much (but only to visit because we all know that I can't even live in a city the size of Zanesville, much less New York), and it's just the kind of romantic comedy that they don't make anymore. This movie, that I saw with Michelle and in a theater, dreaming of the life that I was sure to have someday-it was, to my mind, a glimpse into my future.


Anyway, as I watched Meg and Tom fall in love over loud arguments and all the books this past weekend, my heart ached with a new realization.

"People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened. The truth is... I'm heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right."

Something you don't want to happen at all has happened.

You have no idea how many times that has resounded through my head in the past two years.

And I knew that it was from You've Got Mail. I knew the context. It's a line that has become a part of my soul.

And yet. This time it was different. This time, I watched as Kathleen Kelly accepted that change with a grace that I can only dream of.

I want so badly to be worthy of this change. I want to move forward, out of this year of letting go, and feel like I'm in this place of love and acceptance and peace. Mostly, I feel that. Mostly, I'm so contented and happy to be this Joy that I have become, a Joy of adult decisions both welcome and not. I know, I have dwelled on that long enough.

I want to be my beloved Meg at the end of that movie. She has blossomed, she has come to view the change to her life as magical-she has become who she was meant to be. She has done the brave thing and lived to tell about it. She has become the heroine of her own story-a story that she is living and not just reading about.

I don't know that I am ever going to be that brave. But we will hope. And pray. And read all of the books.

"The odd thing about this form of communication is you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many... somethings."

Any of you, who read these words that I write, who walk along at my snail's pace-you have no idea how much you mean to me. All of this nothing that I write-all of this sadness and happiness and everything in between-I can never quite express how much it means that anyone reads my words and is at all encouraged in their own journey. If I could, I would send all of you bouquets of sharpened pencils. Thank you.

Friday, November 3, 2017

Defying Gravity...




I'm happy.

It's not a word that I love. Happy always sounds insincere to my ears. Oh, you're happy? Well, guess what? You are going to be sad again soon. And mad. And frustrated. That is how emotions work, they flow through our veins and we treat them like they are the mirror to our souls.

But the thing is, I'm happy. Glad. Felicitous. (That's my favorite.)

This is not, of course, to suggest that I wasn't happy for the majority of my marriage. I certainly was, and people who know me well have pointed this out to me many times-"Joy, you didn't just love Nick, you adored him." When one of my friends said that to me over the summer, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Because I knew that, but I didn't quite know that other people could see it inside of me.

The final two years of my marriage, however, were not really what you would call happy. The final two years of my marriage were enveloped in a great deal of tension. I can't (and don't) presume to write Nick's feelings down. But, for me, the final two years twisted all of the years that preceded it, years that were full of love and gratitude and yes, happiness. I try (as is mightily apparent, I'm sure) never to discount all of those years that we had a healthy relationship.

But the fact is, the final two years were not healthy. They were full of an anger that I couldn't comprehend, a discontent that I couldn't make sense of-I didn't understand what had changed, what had happened to make living with me suddenly such a burden.

None of that is important now, except as context to understand this:

I'm happy because living through this divorce has been the healthiest thing that has ever happened to me. It pains me to write that-I believe to the depths of my soul that marriage is a commitment to a lifetime of understanding of another person. I think that a lot of my continued feeling of guilt over the idea that I am divorced comes from this belief that somehow I failed in this core mission of marriage.

But by the end of those two years, I was broken. Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true. I was so unhappy, so tired and so frustrated by my own attempts to make things better. I didn't want to give up on my marriage.

The weight that was lifted when Nick finally left, when the decision was made, etched into my skin and my head and last of all into my heart-it has been freeing. Liberating.

I'm writing this down mostly just for myself, for that girl who was so torn to pieces over the life that she was living. I have grieved my marriage hard. I have missed the person Nick used to be, and I have lived through the shifting of my entire life through moments so dark and damaged it scared me to my core. At times living through such pain has seemed unbearable.

BUT.

It was for the best. It was necessary. There is a lightness to my soul, an understanding of who I am, and a genuine feeling of gratitude for this most painful, shameful event to ever occur in my little life.

Oh, I know. So many blog posts to get to such obvious answers. But my (belabored) point is I am who I was meant to be. Much as I loved that girl who was so delighted to be married to Nick-who adored him so much that it showed in her face. How lucky was I to have had a love like that?

As lucky as I am to be this girl I am now. Blessed. Grateful. Happy.