“Hang tough Delaine - things are going to better.   You really are better without him…”

Many, many times I heard these words from girlfriends when I found out my ex was cheating.  I knew they were right, that at some point things HAD to get better.  But while in the throes of my grief, those words felt empty - nothing but sterile, void sylables.  For I felt like a shell of a woman…numb and shattered on all levels of my being.

I’d been betrayed before by men - in high school and university.  But the pain of marital infidelity was beyond compare.  We’d built a life together, had children, and I’d trusted him with ever ounce of my heart and soul.  How COULD he?  How COULD he jeopardize all we’d created together, stuff that was so meaningful and important, just to get his rocks off?

I couldn’t comprehend it.  It was a full-blown mind-body-heart attack that bludgeoned and shocked me to the core.  In my mind’s eye I could actually see my heart in two pieces.  My chest ached, the rest of my body felt entirely numb, as if all blood flow had been cut off.    I looked at the world around me through the eyes of a lost soul within flesh, cut off from my body’s sensations, imprisoned by my skin.   I couldn’t eat, weight poured off me, and I couldn’t sleep.   God…nighttime, how I hated it.  No matter how exhausted I was, my brain would ruminate incessantly, trying to problem-solve, so anxious to help me find my True North.  I just wanted to turn it all off; to curl up in my darkness of Rock Bottom and disappear.

But I kept going - I existed, and ‘did time.’  At the back of my mind a little voice kept saying, “Just - keep - going.”  I had no idea where I was headed and quite frankly, I didn’t even care - all I felt was numbness.  In my mind’s eye, I could see myself trudging, chin down, through a dark, hostile Wilderness, arms dangling, with the burden of my sorrow on my back.  But strangely, sometimes, from above the treetops, I’d catch a glimpse of my Higher Self;  She was still with me, I hadn’t been abandoned, and it was She who was pushing me forward.  And I wondered: had some part of me CHOSEN to arrive in this  hellish Wilderness?    There HAD to be a bigger reason for it all, didn’t there?

I still don’t know the exact  nature of that reason.  In fact, I’m still not even sure where I’m going.  But I know that time continues to be a saving grace and reveal things to me when I’m ready.  And looking over my shoulder, I have a new yardstick as to far I’ve come and how strong a woman I really am.  And I wouldn’t have learned these things had my world not completely shattered and forced me to reconstruct from scratch.

So with my body as my guide, and a smile that I can now feel, I continue onwards.  Through the ups and downs.  Over the hurdles and unexpected obstacles. This year of my life has been like a school of hard knocks, one of tough self-love.  And the one thing I know for sure is that I’ll never settle for a life of mediocrity again.

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Out of the blue, my aunt emailed me this photo tonight.  I’m not posting it because I want you say I look cute.  I’m showing it because it made me burst out crying. 

Look at how innocent I was.  My God, the face of an angel with hair so white.  “What was I like back then?”  I ask myself.  I don’t remember.  I think I’m about four.  I think I was a good kid, always easy to get along with, always wanting to please everyone.  Yeah, mom always said I was a really good, easy child.

Look at my dress.  I don’t remember it either.  My mom used to make a lot of my clothes back then.  In that era there was a lot of wacky, tacky prints and frills.  But my mom dressed with me love and in my heart I knew I had a loving family, a safe unbroken home; that I was wanted and protected and taken care of.  Through the window in the background I think I see my mom, her younger self.  God, she must be younger than I am now.  What was she busy doing?  What never-ending line-up of motherly chores was she tending to?  She had a family of four kids.

In my mind’s eye, I age me and I see me at 8, 10, doing cartwheels around this 4-year-old me, so happy, so playful, so free to live each day unencumbered.  But I bring myself back to this 4-year-old me and ask myself again, “What were you like?  You were newly here from the Other Side, a soul of pure light, your conscious mind untainted yet by life.  What was your soul like?”

Still, I don’t remember.  I sit and I wait for the feeling of her in my skin.  And I can’t feel her.  All I feel is a pain in my chest and tears in my eyes.  How did I go from there…. her…

…to here?

My daughter is now four.  And I’m going to show her this photo.  She sometimes asks me if I was ever a baby or a little girl.  She comments on the lines on my face and asks me why they’re there.  “Because I’ve been here 38 years,”  I tell her.  “Everyone gets older.”  I know she doesn’t understand time and how much living was required for me to get here.  A part of me doesn’t want her to know, I want her to savor her ‘in-the-moment’ carefree happiness.  And yet another part of me wants to tell her about this earth school of hard-knocks, to prepare her for this journey of tough self-love.

So I’ve stared and wept at this photo for awhile tonight.  I feel the cargo I’ve added to my back over my lifetime, the heaviness that I am yet to amputate.  Yet this photo brings me pause.  It brings me back to the beginning, to my essence.  It takes my breath away.  And it makes me cry.  Cause I don’t remember.

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I’m not sure why the memories came at me tonight. Perhaps it was the fresh fallen snow and smell in the air that triggered them; Xmas is coming after all. Perhaps it was because my ex moved last weekend to a small town outside Calgary; I know he will now spend even less time with the kids. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because I was tired from yet another weekend alone with my kids.

My ex worked out of town for all our marriage. He was absent about 70 - 80% of the year. Because of this, I gave up my just-taking-off career to be a stay-at-home mom to our three kids. And that is still my fulltime job, though I ALSO work fulltime as a writer.

Tonight on my porch, I looked around at my kids’ toboggans and boot prints covering my front lawn; and I smiled. My front lawn has looked like this for many winters. I drifted away in the memories - pulling all three of them in one toboggan, the times they peed in their snowsuits, their pink, rosy cheeks, the triumph each child exuded when he/she made it down the hill standing up on a board.

BUT…

I couldn’t remember ONE memory of my ex out there with us.

C’mon, I told myself, there MUST be a memory in there somewhere - dig deeper. But no - those were in the spring and fall. And no, those times he was putting them in the car (and he was scowling). Try as I did, my mind only remembered visions of me and kids.

I gave up trying and returned to the now. My brain was too tired to excavate. And in the big picture, I knew my efforts were pointless; what’s past is past. And now we’re divorced.

This will be my second winter as a divorced woman. And I’m still kind of scared and still kind of overwhelmed by the changes that have swept through my life. But I know one thing will remain the same this year as it always has: the feeling of being a single parent.

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