grief, again.

I had almost forgotten what it's like to have the wind knocked out of me.

Almost.

There's space for gratitude here, because there is something to be said for the ever-lengthening blocks of time in between my rough days. The stretches are, for the most part, getting longer and sweeter as time goes on. For that, I'm very grateful. But then grief sneaks up, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere, and gets the better of me.

I'm finding it difficult to move forward while still juggling varying degrees of grief and loss and anger and pain; especially when forward motion is all anyone else sees anymore. What I'm still working through and processing has become past tense to the people in my periphery, which makes sense. The truth is that I'm okay. Very okay. But that doesn't change the fact that the being okay and the moving on were not things I ever anticipated having to do. The reality is still that I never wanted any of this.

There are a lot of external expectations when you get divorced. There are additional expectations when you get divorced for the reasons that I did. It's as though I'm expected to have nothing short of a "f*ck him" attitude at all times. Once those papers are signed and sealed, it's supposed to be full speed ahead in any direction that is away from him. No looking back. Even a glance over my shoulder is enough to make the people who love me squirm.

Again: I didn't ask for this. I've got 9 years worth of letting go to do here.

It's not easy.

Sometimes I feel things that I don't even allow myself to assign words or give conscious attention to because it seems wrong to feel them. I feel things that don't make sense given my circumstances; I miss things I don't want to miss. It's hard and confusing, and you don't get it unless you get it.

Sometimes it's hard to just let true things be true; but I'm in the business of breaking all the way open. Today in therapy, I finally spoke aloud the things I've been most afraid to feel. There is so much power in simply saying what's true and in naming hard feelings and emotions. It felt like finally releasing the breath I'd been holding for months and opening my heart as wide as it can go. And where there is mostly pain and grief, there is also freedom in giving myself permission to feel it all and let it be what it is. Because I am vast and turbulent I refuse to limit myself by trying to be less so. I'm an ocean learning my tides.

Today, I filled the last page of the journal I took to hell and back. It feels like a milestone. This journal is probably about 60% curse words, and I've chucked it at the wall more times than I can count; but I discovered and rebuilt myself on these pages. Even on the rough days, I can see a fairy tale beneath the horror story.

Life is weird and hard. 

Even so, it's a beautiful day.

The Love I Believe In

I've always sort of loved Valentine's Day. Sure, it's corny and commercialized and various other things that people hate on it for, but giving/receiving gifts is far and away my top love language, and I love any excuse to celebrate things. Plus, I am of the opinion that love deserves it's own holiday. Historically (more specifically, in the context of my marriage), I was made to feel dumb for getting excited about it, which often resulted in a certain degree of shame. Currently, I'm in the business of reclaiming the parts of me that I allowed to shrink and that began to suffocate as a result. That said, I'd like to make it clear that I like corny/commercialized holidays, i.e. Valentine's Day and also that I'm not sorry about it.

That I'm reclaiming the part of me that loves Valentine's Day probably sounds relatively insignificant, but it represents something so much bigger. I made myself so small for so long. I'm rediscovering the parts of myself that shame taught me to hide and shrink and edit. I'm rediscovering them and learning to love them. Reclaiming these things like this feels being able to breathe deeply for the first time in a long time. It feels like coming back to life.

This time last year, I was in a very different place than I am today; separated, halfway through a months long communication hiatus, constantly in or on the verge of tears, still trying to piece myself back together enough to make a decision about the fate of my marriage. My sweet family rallied around me with distraction and preventative measures in the form of gifts and breakfast dates and expensive steak dinners and bottles of wine. This year, surprisingly, I'm somewhat unfazed. I'm not sad, exactly, and I don't have the urge to destroy the Valentine's displays when I go to Target.

This feels like a pretty big victory to me.

For the longest time, I felt caught between a rock and a hard place; stuck between believing that big love exists and also feeling so bitter that it was stolen from me. Discouraged to think that maybe I never even had it in the first place. I've seen love twisted and distorted until it's completely unrecognizable. I was deceived and betrayed and lied to, supposedly because of "love." I'm still dealing with bitterness and disappointment at the unfairness of it all.

Over the last year and a half, though, I have been shown love that is bigger and deeper and more real than I've ever experienced in my life. If I'm honest, my family and handful of close friends are the main reason I believe in love at all anymore.

But I do believe in love.

I believe in love as a force. I believe in love that serves and heals and believes for good things. Love that unites the masses.

I believe in a love that is blind.

I believe in love as a decision. Love that resolves to sacrifice and negotiate and compromise.

I believe in hard love. I believe in love that exists even and especially where feelings are fleeting. I believe in love that stays. Love that fights. Love that keeps promises no matter what. Love that stands in the gap.

Do I believe in fairy tale love? Sure. A version of it, anyway. But most of the time I only believe in that love for other people. (For now).

It occurred to me recently that I don't really think of myself in terms of a relationship status. Saying that I'm single feels weird, even though it's true. Saying I'm divorced feels worse, even though that's also true. I guess I don't feel the need to assign myself a category. I'm just here; which honestly, I'm so completely okay with. I'm not anti-men or anti-dating by any means, and I'm also not pining for love. For now, I'm content, and ready for whatever comes next. Honestly, I'm surprised by how true that is.

It feels like hallowed ground.

Not for Nothing

I used to spend a lot of time worrying that moving on and being okay would somehow invalidate everything I've been through or negate all the hard work I've had to put in to get to where I am. I had this fear that if I could get to being okay, it might mean that what happened to me wasn't that big of a deal after all. But the more time that passes, the more my heart heals, the more I'm understanding that the opposite is true. I'm not the same person I was. I'm stronger, braver, and more self-aware than I've ever been. I've wrestled with varying degrees of anxiety, panic, self-injury, suicidal ideation, betrayal, grief, and the deepest heartache; and I've walked away stronger. I've even been told that I look and sound different.

Objectively, my ex-husband's affair was a very big deal. It was a trauma; one that I genuinely thought was going to kill me. Just because divorce is common doesn't mean it's not a big deal. It leaves nothing untouched and comes with its own specific renditions of breaking and pain and grief. Regardless of the circumstances, it's devastating.

AND, (I'm learning to replace my "buts" with "ands" to hold space for more than one true thing at a time).

I'm still here. Standing taller than I ever have. Having more good days than bad ones. Confident. Loving myself. Feeling proud of who I am and how hard I fought to get here. Almost entirely anxiety-free (which I never thought I'd be able to say). Healing. Happy. Hopeful.

Very few people are going to really understand the extent of what I've been through, and I'm learning to be okay with that. The control freak in me really struggles with the reality that people are going to make assumptions and draw their own conclusions when they learn that I'm divorced. I feel this constant, frantic need to explain, fueled by the fear that being divorced reflects poorly on me. (Cue the inevitable downward spiral that is oversharing and never not awkward). But I'm learning to let go of what's not mine to hold and to hold loosely to what I can't control. I'm humbled again and again by how true it is that other people's opinions of me are none of my business. The people closest to me know, and that's all that matters.

For a long time, I had to keep telling myself over and over that "I can do this." Eventually, that became "I am doing this." Now I'm beginning to feel the shift toward "I did it."

I did the thing I thought was impossible. And it wasn't for nothing.

Thoughts on Forgiveness

Sometimes forgiveness is simple.
Sometimes it can be hard and fast and over before you even have to think about it.
But sometimes it's not simple.
Sometimes the thing you're trying to forgive feels too big to even acknowledge, let alone afford the conscious thought required to process it.
Sometimes forgiveness is complicated by too many moving parts.
How do you forgive what doesn't change?
How do you forgive the person who isn't sorry they hurt you?

I'm learning that it's okay to forgive in parts when forgiving all at once feels impossible. Healing occurs gradually and in stages. Forgiveness can, too.

I'm learning that sometimes forgiveness has to be fluid. You choose it and you keep choosing it because at the end of the day, you're only human. But maybe one day you choose it, and the next you feel so much that it seems impossible again. Two steps forward, one step back is 1,000% an an acceptable model, because emotions are hard and feelings are valid and "pain demands to be felt*."

I'm also learning that forgiveness is for me more than it is for anyone else. For so long, I resisted; in part because forgiving something this big felt like letting them off easy, or like I was doing them a favor. It felt like self-betrayal. But recently, I've begun to truly appreciate what it means when they say that to withhold forgiveness is like swallowing poison and and waiting for the other person to die. It's been costing me. Whereas to forgive, to let it all go, and to move forward without any of this holding me back or weighing me down feels like the best gift I could ever give myself.

And so slowly, clumsily, I'm learning how to dance this particular dance.
Always to the tune of grace (upon grace, upon grace, upon grace).
In the name of healing;
In the name of moving forward;
And in the name of freedom.


*John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

2018

Historically, I've never been all that into celebrating New Years, mostly because I've never had anything cool to do. But the last couple of years have me appreciating the symbolism now more than ever. I love the idea of celebrating the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another, of reflecting on the past and looking to the future. I love the newness and the possibility. The proverbial blank slate.

In my blog post from last New Years Eve, I wrote the following:

To me, 2017 is full of possibilities and trips and bucket list check marks because I desperately need it to be. I need to believe that 2017 can be better because I can't imagine how it can possibly be worse. Every day I'm fighting and clinging so tightly to hope that it hurts, and I need the newness, even if it's simply buying a new day planner and training my brain to write a 7 instead of a 6.

This year is about healing and taking good care of me. It's about challenging myself and putting myself out there and doing things I've always wanted to do, because why not? If not now, when? Right now, so much of this new year is a giant question mark. The only things I know for sure are the very few plans I've made, which is just the way of it, but it's still completely terrifying. I have no idea how a lot of things are going to shake out. So many things that I entered 2016 believing to be true have turned out otherwise. As necessary as the newness of 2017 feels, the uncertainty of it makes my head spin. (12.31.16)

2017 was the year I fought for. At some point I started referring to it as the Year of Kaila. It was a year of firsts and achieving goals and traveling the world. It was also a year of breaking and healing; a year of feeling, of exploring my deepest and messiest places and learning how to love them. It was a year marked by hope and self-care. A long and grueling journey through pain, heartache, grief, rage and a million other things; and learning how to begin to forgive the seemingly unforgivable.

It was a year of doing impossible things.

I am so grateful for the contrast between this New Years and last. Where 2017 began full of heartache and fear and uncertainty, 2018 has begun with feeling ready for whatever's next. Where last year was about healing, this year is about reclaiming: Truth. Identity. Self-worth. Confidence. JOY. Life to the fullest, and a future that's mine to create.

I'm making it mine. I'm making my own rules and I'm making them up as I go.

2018 is about freedom; recklessly pursuing, maintaining, and guarding it. It will be a year of adventures and #yolo and trying new things and carpe diem. Of traveling the world. Of setting goals and achieving them.

2018 is living my best life and becoming my best self.

So, cheers to contrast; and to what's new and what's next.

church-related heart vomit

I've been to church less than a handful of times in the last year.

In a lot of ways, it feels like that's where it started. We moved to Fort Collins to help with a church plant. We met her through that church plant because they led worship together.

Still cringing at that one.

I struggled a lot with church even before everything happened. When I think about it, going to church was hard for me for most of my marriage. I had a lot of anxiety about going, although I could never really pinpoint a discernible source. All of the fears I had about being inferior and inadequate felt magnified there. I was so bound by this crippling insecurity and self-consciousness that I couldn't even sit in a room full of (mostly) strangers without coming out of my skin the whole time. It certainly didn't help that in the same environment where I was constantly fighting to keep the panic at bay, my husband thrived. Being the introverted, anxiety-prone wife of an extroverted, outgoing worship leader was hard. Really hard. I constantly felt like a failure as a wife and as a Christian (a word I have come to seriously abhor; but more on that another time). I so desperately wanted to be supportive of him in this role, but it was so hard to be when I hated how I felt so much that I could barely make it through a service.

A lot of the time I left early. Then I stopped going altogether.

Then I found out about the affair. And still, almost a year and a half later, I can't seem to set foot in any church without falling apart. (My aversion isn't limited to a location, it seems).

Let me be clear: I don't blame the church. I never have. I don't blame anyone other than the two people involved. My church aversion started before the affair did, although I've never believed that's a coincidence. I'm also very aware that I'm no one's responsibility. I can speculate and do my best to be objective and give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to afterward. I'll be the first one to tell you that there is no good way to navigate or react to something like this. There is no right thing to say. Unfortunately, from where I'm standing, silence from the church felt like the wrong way and the wrong thing. To be blunt, I've struggled with taking offense and feeling bitter because of that silence; more things to add to my already exhaustive list of feelings to process.

I just have no desire to go to church, which I struggle with. Aren't you supposed to "hit rock bottom and have no where left to turn but Jesus?" That didn't happen for me. When I hit rock bottom, I didn't have the mental, emotional, or spiritual capacity to do anything but feel pain. It confused me for a long time, because somewhere along the line I started believing that if/when I reached that point, I would want to "run to Jesus." But I didn't. There wasn't space.

All along, I've felt this self-imposed pressure to hurry up and get there; to hurry up and want to go to church and have one of those Christian-esque relationships with God again. It got to the point where I was feeling seriously stressed out by it. This is a thing I do: I set these idealized expectations for myself, and then proceed to feel like a failure when the reality of where I'm at doesn't meet them. But I'm learning how to be honest with myself and about myself; so at the present time, church is off the table. Making that decision felt like a huge weight was lifted; I'm giving myself permission to just be where I'm at and let that be okay. It doesn't mean it's off the table forever; I'm just sparing myself the additional "Christian guilt" for the time being.

Something that has kind of amazed me through all of this is that I still believe all the same basic things I always have. I still have a relationship with God, although it looks much different now than it ever has. Looking back, even to the very beginning when I didn't have the space to be intentional about prayer, or even just acknowledging Him, Jesus has been this subtle undercurrent. This pulse. I feel more connected to Him than I ever have before. It's hard to assign words to; but then again, He doesn't need my words.

I keep coming back to a journal entry I made last year, about two weeks after finding out about the affair. I've referenced it before:

I am reminded this morning, as I stand in the ocean and feel its power and listen to its roar, that God is bigger than my pain. I am also reminded of the beautiful truth that He knows the depth and magnitude of my pain, and that He is feeling it with me. While knowing this does not lessen the sting, it helps put my aching, restless heart at peace.

I am reminded that He delights in me. That He knows every inch of my wild and desperate heart and He delights in me, in all the ways I've always longed to be delighted in. He knows me in all the ways I've always longed to be known. For Him, I am enough.

I am also reminded that He doesn't need my words. He sees and knows my every thought, every feeling, every fear, every wish, every hope. For now, perhaps, it is enough to simply be broken in His presence and to know that I am understood. (09.09.2016)

Something huge shifted when I wrote this. For the first time, things that I had been trying for years to convince myself of finally felt true. I wasn't just writing the words, I was believing them. It felt like permission to be in it and feel it, whatever that looks like; permission to have my own process. It felt like validation. It felt like grace.

Ever since then, I've felt like I'm on a totally different wavelength. It feels fresh and unhindered and is not at all what I expected. But it's good.

I am in no way saying that church is bad or unnecessary, and I'm not championing the concept of a church hiatus. This is just where I'm at. My heart needed to be let off the hook for a while. I spent most of my life under the delusion that there is a template, a formula, a checklist. Understanding that there isn't is allowing me to experience grace in ways and in places I never have before. I'm slowly beginning to understand exactly how much I need it; every second of every day, in all my messy, broken places.

And I'm so grateful.

Bomb #3

I can't say I'm surprised.

Maybe that's because I've continued to assume that's the case, without actually knowing for sure, as a way of protecting my heart from exactly this.

But it still knocked the wind out of me.

I cried, because it still hurts. Even a year and three months after hearing it for the first time. Even seven months after hearing it for the second. Even divorced and moving on.

It hurts, but not like it used to.

I didn't have a panic attack. (I haven't had one since bomb #2).

I didn't even have nightmares last night.

Maybe it's because I finally stopped hoping in his direction.

Maybe it's because I just care less.

I'm angry, but less on my own behalf. Mine wasn't and isn't the only heart assaulted by this.

The places where I'd started to feel compassion dissolved back into disgust. Historically, it's been hatred. Disgust is not new, but it holds a different space this time. Where hatred feels invested, disgust feels more removed. That's an improvement.

Strangely, the strongest feeling I have is disappointment; and not even really for myself. I'm so unbelievably disappointed in the absolute depravity of it all.

I'm pretty sure I've felt enough disappointment in the last year to last me ten lifetimes.

But it didn't knock me down this time.

I can feel it without it suffocating me.

I can feel it and still be okay.

That's progress.

That's victory.