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.