A Decade After

10 years ago today, I earned a new title: Divorcee’.

10 years later, I’m remarried, with a family and a life beyond anything I expected I deserved. But there was a time that I never thought it would happen.

I don’t tell many people I’ve been divorced. Though it was my emancipation from a life of hell, it still feels like a black mark. Though I did nothing wrong, though I was the one betrayed, it still makes me feel like a failure. I don’t know if that will ever change.

Still, for all its weight, it’s been a blessing. It tempered my steel, it empowered me. And it’s taught me things that will remain with me forever:

* That what you think could never happen – indeed could.
* That I am stronger than I ever thought I could be.
* That the soul can starve, and takes much longer than the body does to renourish.
* That words can bruise more deeply than any blow.
* That someone will add insult to injury.
* That forgiveness is a difficult and far away destination.
* That anger is part of the healing process.
* That love is not enough.
* That one person cannot keep a marriage together.
* That one person can break a marriage apart.
* That the legal system is not always fair.
* That if someone doesn’t love you as you are, they won’t love you if you restructure for them either.
* That if you want control of your life, you must take it instead of waiting for it to be granted to you.
* How much you may not know about the person you trusted with your life.
* To trust your instincts. Always.
* There’s no substitute for time.
* That in time, life would be good again.