For today, though, I pour myself into a separate post that feels hard and heavy and - honestly - excruciating.
The part of divorce that makes me feel like I am being ripped in half.
The hardest part.
The part where I am away from my kids, the part where I watch my beating hearts walk away for awhile, the part where I say a temporary goodbye to the three most important souls in my life.
...
Getting divorced was shattering. I will not sugarcoat it. Every single second, every single decision, every single step and signature and agreement and court document rocked me all the way deep down into my bones.
There was (and continues to be) a long journey to heal from being divorced, especially when being divorced from a person who you wholeheartedly thought you'd (without a doubt) spend the rest of your life with.
For me, there are so many weeks and months and hours of counsel that led to the divorce process, a process that finally became inevitable because of... well... so many things.
Because of everything.
A decision that had been a long time in the making, no matter how much time and energy and effort and faith and prayer and love I put into doing anything and everything I could to change the course of our lives and the course of our future, together.
I knew that, in time, support and love and therapy and God and strength and courage would allow me to grieve and heal and forgive and take steps toward the sunshine, away from the heartbreak of the divorce.
But I also knew that it would always, always hurt me beyond words to spend time away from my kids.
An inevitability post-divorce.
In complete transparency, because of all my heart had been through, I got to the point where (with plenty of faithful counsel and medical advice and therapy/family/friends) I knew I could only live a physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy life alone and away and divorced from the source of my constant betrayal and pain.
I also knew that meant I would no longer be a part of my kids' lives 100% of everyday.
But being a part of their lives 80% of the time as a healthy and happy and whole version of myself, alone, became better than being a part of their lives 100% of the time as a broken and battered and bruised version of me.
In time, I have healed from the dissolution of the marriage, and I have forgiven and I have found my courage and my strength and my footing.
In time, I have never truly learned to feel whole and okay when those three tiny beating hearts are not within my arms' reach.
...
It is no secret that I am a full-time-working, third-grade-teaching, single mama of a 7-, 4-, and 2-year-old. Also, I have exactly ZERO family members within a four hour radius. So I am not going to lie and pretend like every other weekend when my kids go to their dad's I don't soak up the chance to breathe, to self-care, to get my life together for 48ish hours, to make my house look less upside-down. In fact, those every other weekends of being me and not being "always-on-mama" allow me to be a better mama when they are back in my arms.
But.
A week in the summer away from them is honestly pure torture.
And later on today, I will be away from them for ten.straight.nights.
A week that was supposed to be seven nights, transformed into ten (completely against my will and out of my control), and I have been sick to my stomach for weeks anticipating the last hugs and kisses and tight squeezes.
I will fill the nooks and crannies of the next ten nights with counseling, Christian service opportunities, long runs, sleep, time I desperately need alone and time I desperately need to be surrounded by those who love and support me unconditionally.
And in those nooks and crannies, honestly... I will worry and I will cry and I will feel angry and resentful and so, so scared.
But also, I will try so hard to remember that those three precious, tiny humans are not my ex-husband's. And they are not mine.
They are His.
They are God's children, and we are only lucky enough to be their guiding lights while here on this earth.
It is so much easier said than done, but I want so badly to trust Him with their steps, and as my dear sister reminded me just this week, I want so badly to use the next ten nights to "be where my feet are."
...
Each night this week my trio and I have prayed that He will prepare our hearts to be away from each other. We have prayed that He will keep them safe and healthy and happy, that He will bring me peace and faithfulness and fill my own heart with trust...
"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." Psalm 139:13-16
I am hurting, but I am praying. And over the next ten days, with each beat of my heart, each breath in and out, each step forward, I will focus on the fact that I am closer and closer and closer to having them back in my arms... <3
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