It’s official. I have signed up for a couple of dating apps, even though I keep utterly swearing that I am NOT READY to be dating again. I seem to be less ready to be alone.
Nora and I taking Dirt for a W-A-L-K on Monday.
My friends are doing a brilliant job of showing up to hang out with me, in person, over FaceTime, on the numerous daily phone calls I am used to making to B, and the guys are at the shop, checking in on me and pushing me to be better.
Who am I kidding though? Post-divorce Finn is a whirlwind, who if she had money, would be taking all the strange workout/dance classes she could until her excess nervy energy burned out into a distilled and hopefully fit, version of herself.
I have all of the support I need. I have my house, a car, an apprenticeship which I gotta quit calling a job, because then I expect it to pay my bills and that is foolish. Plus, this curates inappropriate expectations for the experience I am having.
(Just like believing I would be totally fine/absolutely miserable post leaving B in New Orleans.)
How I actually feel is incredibly different from a polarized expression of extremes, such as need or relief, though both of those sensations are there.
The top strongest sensations are:
A need to do things. All the things. Useful things, active things, overwhelming things, regularly whelmed things, cleaning things, cooking things and dog things.
An inability to do my actual list, such as: clean up and find the title to my van, Moonflower, who is sitting with a broken transmission at my poor mechanics. John at Absolute Auto is amazing and I recommend him to everyone. He doesn’t need my busted van sitting on his lot. I can’t seem to let go of her yet, so I can’t find the title in any places I have looked. I need to release my fear of letting her go and just let things be as they are.
Or, take B’s pile of stuff to Goodwill, remove the pictures from the wall of us together, put the house back together in a Finn and Roommate way, and go to the coffee store to pick up coffee and mail it to B.
I am utterly exhausted. I feel narcaleptically exhausted. When my emotions are rising to the surface, my eyes are drooping as if it were 3am, post a long online conversation, and I just need to pass the fuck out. Specifically when I am having high emotions.
I feel like I am sick. Emotionally sick. I want to crawl into bed, curl up and turn on a bunch of Netflix and just paint my little heart away. I want to get tattooed, walk my dog, have an income and curl up and just let my feelings be exactly what they are: complex, intense grief and frustration and a death of my belief system.
I was going to be good at this part.
I researched divorce. I researched divorce blogs. I researched what to do post a decade long LTR. I made notes of what would be the most healthy, and still, I am struggling to make space for myself, right here, three years after this whole process began, and one full week after getting home.
Finn, I love you girl, but reread what you just said.
It has been three years of struggling to do all of the things that you needed to do to keep your relationship afloat. Sure, you now get to set that boat down, but right now, you are actually IN THE OCEAN you were protecting yourself from.
Feel your feelings. Give yourself full spans of time, give yourself permission to blog on your website about your divorce.
You will be changed, utterly, by this experience. However, time has proven, over and over again, that you will also survive it.
There is no need to be good at getting divorced. I have been kind, real, vulnerable and gone above and beyond the whole last three years. Now, it is the time to learn how to let go. Take the next three months and dedicate that time to letting go. Let go of control, let go of old outdated ideas, let go of needs that aren’t and weren’t fulfilled, let go of the future that didn’t come true.
Your girls are safe. They are protected. They might still need you, but it isn’t up to you, to be there for them, at all moments, anymore.
Right now, it’s up to you, to be there for you. K? K. Breathe deep and learn to let go.