A woman found??
Divorce is a strange life event.
Some people express sorrow and give their deepest condolences as though all of the love in my world were somehow extinguished. Then others spew “you go girl!” and offer a tragedy for the modern day cougar. And then there is the find-yourself crowd. This crowd embarks on a soul healing journey of self-discovery. There may or may not be an ashram involved. There is definitely a new career, new friends, and contemplation.
The language used by the find-yourself crowd always strikes me as a bit funny and also sad. It stirs up images of Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun having her finding-herself-journey in the midst of her crumbling house, and she is JUST SO SAD for most of that movie.
If a woman has lost herself, and finds herself, what is she then?
A woman re-found?
A woman unboxed?
A woman unearthed?
A woman not lost?
Getting divorced didn’t help me find myself. It allowed me to crawl into the attic and unearth the real me that had been rotting and collecting cobwebs in the dark corner behind steamer trunks of forgotten pasts.
I didn’t need to find her. I knew exactly where she was.
I was not one of the women who lost herself in being a wife and mother. I didn’t lose my identity. I knew exactly who I was. I was me: writer, dreamer, painter, reader, gardener, researcher, and the manager of all the things. The woman who lit incense and read an entire book in an afternoon. The woman who could cook anything from scratch. The woman who could stretch a buck beyond its limits and still find time for art, walks, music, and peace. The woman who could work overtime and finish grad school while juggling five kids. The woman who could try anything and fail most things. The woman who get over her failures and find new ones to try. A woman who knew her value.
The problems came from who I was expected to be in order to be a GOOD wife and mother. I am not sure which part of society taught my husband that he and his time were more valuable. But it was an idea that was reinforced every time I engaged in a project, hobby, or business venture for myself. He was not alone in his assumption, so I could hardly be angry. If I managed to plan out my own venture and take the first steps to make it happen, inquiring minds would tilt their heads and always ask the same question: but what about your husband and children?
My ex-husband was never asked this question. He spent approximately one hour a week, at best, of quality time with us, but this somehow did not cause him to be banished to the sordid realm of bad husbands and fathers. He just got to be whoever and whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. No one questioned that. So, I guess I am saying it was not necessarily his fault he stuffed me into a role where I was forced to be a one dimensional paper doll.
Our peers were complicit.
Society was complicit.
I was complicit.
Until I wasn’t.
I didn’t need to rent a villa in Bali, or go on a month long girls trip, or dance in the rain.
I can’t afford the first two anyway and I never need an excuse to be out in the rain.
All I needed was the space to do the things I had been trying to do all along. After 20 years of my plans being thwarted, I only needed peace and room to be who I always was and will be.
I am fully my authentic self.
Which makes me profoundly boring. I was supposed to be on some amazing journey after my divorce. After 20 years of being a wife and mother, I was supposed to be swinging from the rafters, shouting from a mountain summit, taking up yoga, and reinventing myself.
That sounds exhausting. I’m quite content working in my garden, painting a landscape, being a librarian, and enjoying quiet. Well, as much quiet as I can get, being the primary parent of five children.
I never needed to find myself. I just needed to be able to hear her through all the noise. Now I can.
I wonder if I missed out on some important right of passage. So I must ask this pressing question of my fellow divorcees: Did you have a “find-yourself-journey” after divorce?