Someday These Will Be The Good Old Days...

Six months ago, I wrote a blog post that I titled “Defying Gravity” in which I said that I was feeling happy-and that I didn’t quite know what to do about that. I loved that I was feeling happy-there had been such a long stretch of time where I could feel content but just not quite happy.

Writing that blog post scared me. I was terrified that the minute I claimed that profound joy as my own, it would all dissipate. Such had been my experience before, when I would imagine myself beginning to see the end only to be overcome by a wave of grief more intense than the last.

Instead, six months later, I am delighted and a tiny bit scared to say that I am still quite blissfully happy. There are days, of course, that aren’t quite as wonderful as others, but most of my days anymore are completely sated with a degree of joy that I just didn’t think was possible for me anymore. I thought that I was too jaded, too skeptical, too full of doubt and questions about where life was going compared to where life had been.



I have lived with my twin issues of depression and anxiety, with a nice bit of co-dependency thrown in, for nearly all my life. My depression first settled into my soul at 14 and I have cycled through ups and downs with it ever since. I can’t recall a time when I didn’t live with anxiety, though there surely must have been a young age where I wasn’t consumed by worry. I honestly cannot imagine life without them.

My divorce, though, going through my divorce was like living with depression and anxiety on steroids. Looking back, I wish that I had had the sense to be more patient with myself. I knew where I wanted to be-I wanted to be in a place where all that mattered was that I had my girls, my family, my friends-I knew to my bones that I was blessed beyond measure but I just couldn’t feel that anymore. I felt numb to the world, I felt such sadness that I had never experienced to that level before-and I just couldn’t see an end to it.

But now, today, nearly 3 whole years since that third big terrible that ripped life apart, I wake up every morning so incredibly grateful that I had this experience, this time of such complete sorrow and loss. It's a strange thing to be grateful for, but I feel like such a stronger person, a happier person, a person capable in spite of such obvious deficits.

So, so many blog posts to get to what of course has been true all along. This was always my story, this was always my fractured fairytale.




So, dear old world, I am so lucky to be alive in you, to paraphrase my favorite literary heroine. I never would have dreamed that I would look back on these past three years with anything but sadness. But such is life. Joy slips in even when you aren't expecting it. Even in the midst of crazy, sad, out of your mind grief. The joy is there.