Tag: life lessons

RECOVERY

A Non-Political Look at Life

Allison Divine

And how precious it is.

family enjoying sunset at the beach

                                                                Photo by Jung Ho Park on Unsplash

The thing about life (and this isn’t a political argument) is that it’s precious—all of it.

Understanding that every single person is not precious to someone, and that’s one of the greatest tragedies of our existence, I still stand by my statement. All life IS precious, and it’s because of love, and it’s a deep, shameful mark on our society when we don’t have enough of the emotion to REALIZE how extraordinarily special life is.

I’ve often wondered, and surely I’m not alone in this, why some people live to be in their nineties and beyond and others die before any promise of life here on earth can be fulfilled. I wonder also why some people seemingly beat death just to find it lurking around a different corner. Nothing seems fair on this earth, because nothing really is.

Maybe, that’s why it’s so easy for some humans to refuse to recognize the absolute joy and beauty of just being alive, and the privilege of being able to share that life with someone else. Somehow something hard and cold slipped into our hearts and did more apparent destruction to those who cannot seem to bring themselves to give in to love than those who can.

What I have learned–and it’s no secret, we all get there sooner or later–is that it’s a risk to love others.

Heartbreak and pain are the price you pay for love; death is the price you pay for life. Some people have just drawn the conclusion that it isn’t worth it to strive for either—love or life.

But those people are wrong.

Love and life are all we have that’s worth anything.

I think about the mothers and fathers who’ve waited for what seems like a lifetime of bad choices and endless sorrow for a chance at normalcy, a chance to bring an infant into the world—a little person to love unconditionally and who will love them back the same way, at least until they reach puberty and learn mom and dad are actually the cause of all the evil in the world.

Especially those who seem hard on the outside because life in its unfairness has knocked them off their feet over and over! Those are the ones who make my heart hurt the most. I know them like I know myself. After all, we share an agenda and a façade.

Anyway, I think about them, and what it’s like to finally allow yourself to hope and believe a dream could come true just to have it destroyed when she miscarries.

Life was precious, and now it’s gone.

Sorrow this deep can’t be explained and there’s no way to make it better. Plans were made that can’t be fulfilled. Clothes were bought which won’t be worn. The child will not learn to play catch or fish or ever go to school, because that life is no more.

Love means there is a huge and devastating price to pay, and payment will be taken out in grief and sorrow.

Losing an infant is hard. Losing a parent is also unbearable, yet most of us eventually do it.

We can’t cheat death and we can’t beat it. It’s easy to shake our fists at God and rail against the unfairness of it all, but even as we do that, we know our time is coming. We all die. It’s the price we pay to live.

And people say stupid things to you too, when you experience a loss. Things that don’t help at all.

“God did not need another angel, and by the way, He didn’t get one either.”

That’s what I wanted to tell people when Mikey died.

The last thing my sixteen-year-old could be accused of is being an angel. On the other hand, that’s exactly the last thing he WAS accused of, and it was as far from the truth as anything I believe I’ve ever heard.

But  his story is a story for a different day. He’d be the first one to roll his eyes and prove them wrong anyway, like he did a thousand times on earth.

No, God didn’t need Mikey. Death isn’t something that happens when God “needs” a person to be with Him. God doesn’t need any of us. Death is a flaw in the great plan. It was an unintended consequence of the beautiful design.

I could go into all the reasons, including free will and how perfect love doesn’t exist without it, but I don’t have a million days to convince anyone of the magnitude of God’s love, nor do I understand it all anyway. Here’s what I do know, and see if you can get what I mean to say. I know it in my heart, but I’m not sure I can convey it, even though I really want everyone to understand this.

When I walk outside on a rainy day, I usually don’t like it.

Rain is depressing, cold, and gray.

I like the sunshine, blue skies, green trees, and blooming flowers. I know the rain is necessary for those flowers to grow, and for everything to be boldly green and blue and beautiful.

But a funny thing happens when it rains—it helps me remember why I love the sunshine and appreciate its goodness and warmth.

If it weren’t for the rain, I wouldn’t appreciate the sunshine.

It’s a simple analogy—maybe a little too simple—but I will go a step further.

My first baby died inside of me. Just stopped moving, and there were a million reasons for it, but to me there was only one thing. Hope was gone and I didn’t know how to bring it back. Truth be told, I couldn’t. I don’t dictate life and death and have no control over them. Later, and I mean a LONG TIME later, that helped me with acceptance.

When I got pregnant again, not one movement was ever unnoticed or discounted. When Nic kicked, my heart lifted in joy and relief. And when he was born, even though he was very sick at the time, I found my hope again. It wasn’t hope in Nic. It was hope that there was still goodness in the world, that God was in control, and that love and life were still precious.

Because of my first baby, I made sure to watch every breath my other kids breathed. I sat down with them and played when there were dishes in the sink. We laughed together, learned together, played together, and cried together.

I tried to teach them the things I know about life and how to love people, because they were precious to me. Because of my loss, my life with them was so much bigger than it could’ve been.

If it weren’t for death, I wouldn’t know how precious life is.

I realize everyone is different, and we don’t all see things the same way. But I believe every life is precious, and valuable. Every person has just as much worth as the next person, whether they are rich or homeless, drunk or sober, young or old, sick or healthy.

I said in the beginning this wasn’t political, and it isn’t. I’m not talking about race or political lean, but I will say that one of the hardest things for me to comprehend is how people call out the color of a person’s skin as a determining factor in their value. No matter which part of the color wheel you land on, this isn’t the way God intended it to be. If He valued one over another, He would’ve made us different inside too.

Whatever your heartbreak is, I wish life could be different, but it just isn’t. We’re all going to have to go through hell to get to Heaven. We will all have to know sorrow to experience joy. And we have to hate death to really love life.

Don’t let your sorrow cheat you out of giving all you have to give and loving other people with everything in you.

The only thing that makes this life worth living is the love we give to others and it’s a gift that will remain long after we have breathed our final breath on this earth.

ENCOURAGEMENT

Relationship Advice From A Relationship Loser

Allison Divine

The bad news is that I’ve failed at multiple relationships, so you might not think I have any relationship advice worth taking. But that’s just it! Who would be better at knowing what NOT TO DO than I would? Also, I have a few tips on what TO DO.

I get that you probably don’t want relationship advice from a multi-time-loser, but…..

Studying narcissistic behavior when I got my heart destroyed by someone, I found out he wasn’t as much of a narcissist as he was a jerk. I also discovered that I had been in relationships with narcissists all my life, and I didn’t realize it. Definitely will be sharing what I’ve learned about narcissism further down the road.

Here it is, my best list of relationship advice, at least for the moment.

And here’s a bonus:

RECOVERY

Flies and Fishhooks

Allison Divine

Focus Matters

Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash

For some reason, the flies are unbearable this year, and I think it’s because the pipe running into the sewer has a leak, and human waste is trickling onto the ground in the backyard. I feel like a little kid from a third world country, swatting at flies that are too lazy or full to even be intimidated enough to fly away.

An overwhelming dampness hangs in the air and settles on my skin. Typical for the South. When they go on about the South rising again, they don’t bring up the stench of human sweat and the clinging humidity-drenched clothes weighing us down, keeping our energy levels too low for us to do more than talk the talk.

We can’t rise up. We can just sit here and pound the letters of our keyboards into oblivion as we set the world straight with a few well-chosen words.

Another day in the pre-summer self-isolationism that’s been forced upon us, against our wills and for our own good.

It’s a strange newness, with approximately half of everyone you run across wearing a mask while the other half looks on with disdain, and vice versa.

We’re such judgmental folks. Of course, each of us has an opinion on what’s best, and the likelihood that all of us are wrong is very high.

When things are tragic, terrifying, or ugly, we can’t stop looking at them. It’s just human nature.

I knew this kid when I was in elementary school.

Billy was fishing with his brother—he couldn’t have been very old—maybe six or seven and maybe even younger. Somehow one of their fishhooks got embedded in Billy’s eye. It didn’t end up pretty. The eye, I mean.

Photo by Mael BALLAND on Unsplash

Growing up, any time I saw Billy, my gaze was immediately drawn to that bad eye. I didn’t mean to look. I just couldn’t help it. I could barely take in what he was saying for staring at his eye.

I missed being a real friend to him because my focus was on the wrong thing.

I got lost in how he looked and not who he was.

I’ll never know how amazing things might’ve turned out if I’d have looked past the surface.

It’s odd how you remember things like that.

I’m thinking the world we’re existing in right now has a lot in common with that story. Terrible things have happened. It’s hard to draw our gaze away.

We can’t help but stare at all the bad because it’s right here in our faces. It’s human nature to dwell on the tragedy, rather than search for the triumph.

Not only that, but it’s easy to get lost in looking for someone to blame for things being the way they are. And someone does need to be held accountable. Justice needs to prevail in a lot of situations. No argument with that truth.

I’m just saying that it’s real easy to get overwhelmed if you keep staring at all the things that are wrong. If you do that, you won’t ever have what you really need in life, especially when it comes to relationships. The things that are on the outside can look really bad, and if we focus on them, we’re going to miss the opportunity to have the kind of world we need to live in.

If we’d take our focus off the way things look, and put it instead on who God is, we might find out how amazing things can really be.

ENCOURAGEMENT, MOTIVATIONAL

How to Stop Feeling Mediocre When Nothing You Try Seems to be Working

Allison Divine

A conversation about feeling like crap and what to do about it.

Photo by Siavash Ghanbari on Unsplash

Feeling like crap can come on suddenly and leave just as suddenly, or it can be a nagging feeling that hangs around for years on end, reminding you that you’re just not living up to your own expectations. Believing you’re destined for a life of mediocrity and all the negativity that comes with it is a hell of a way to live. My recommendation is: don’t do it.

Of course, just saying, “Don’t feel like crap,” is not the way to keep you from feeling like crap. If you’re like me, you’ve had a lot of big dreams in your life, and there aren’t too many of them you’ve ever seen come true. Maybe the reason they don’t come true is your fault and maybe not. Life has a funny way of kicking us around and knocking us as far away from our goals as it’s possible to get. Contrary to what you’re probably thinking though, that’s not always a bad thing.

First let’s explore some reasons your dreams might not have come true in the first place.

One of the things I tend to do is change my mind (and my dreams) A LOT! I start off in one direction but don’t get too far before I veer off the path to head somewhere else.

It’s hard to reach your destination if the finish line keeps moving. Changing your mind often indicates that you don’t really know what it is that you want.

Not knowing what you want means that you can’t aim at anything. Without a clear direction in mind, we tend to just wander aimlessly, hoping that one of our random dreams will become reality and not knowing if we really want it to or not. That’s no way to live.

That’s not the only way to miss the boat.

Another way we mess our dreams up is to aim at things that aren’t meant for us. If you decide you want to be a famous singer, but you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, it’s not going to work out very well. The goals we set in life need to be within our reach and fall in line with the gifts and talents that are unique to us.

Sometimes hardships and tragedies prevent us from reaching the goals we set in life. When that happens, it can seem like your life has no purpose or that you aren’t ever going to become what you thought you were meant to be. Believe me, I know what that feels like. I’ve had many setbacks for reasons like this. Life can be a real struggle sometimes and can leave you drowning in a sea of mediocrity.

Don’t let mediocrity overwhelm you to the point where you feel like it’s choking you out. I’m going to give you a few tools to get you out of that deep hole, but first I want to tell you why reaching the goals you set for yourself isn’t always a bad thing.

It’s the journey.

Photo by John Baker on Unsplash

What I’ve found on my trek through life is that it isn’t the result that’s most important, but everything you experience on the way to it. There’s so much beauty in the journey. I think about all I would’ve missed if everything would’ve gone right from day one, and I can’t help but realize how blessed I am that my life has been completely jacked up.

Having a jacked-up life doesn’t seem like a good thing if you take it out of context.

It doesn’t hurt to look at things from a different angle.

An old daily devotional called “Streams in the Desert” by Mrs. Chas E Cowman, makes the point (January 8 devotion) that the possibility exists that there wouldn’t be any appreciation of the sunshine if there was never any rain.

So much clarity can be found in the sunshine and rain analogy.

Ask yourself these questions:

Would I appreciate the good things in my life if I didn’t have hardships?

Would I be able to experience joy if I couldn’t experience pain?

I don’t know all the answers, but my suspicion is that we could never appreciate our successes if we didn’t know what it was like to fail.

We do fail, though, and failing (or failing to achieve) can leave us feeling “less than” or mediocre. It feels like the whole world knows something we don’t and like we just don’t measure up. I’ve been there. I know how it feels, and I’ve thought of a few ways to get back on track.

Here are some things you can do to get out of the pits of mediocrity and back on the pathway to success!

  1. Get your priorities straight. Reevaluate where you’re headed. Make sure it’s where you want to go. It’s easy to get drawn into doing things because other people are doing them or because a particular lifestyle looks attractive but be sure what you choose matches both your values and your gifts and abilities. Choose to put your energy into things meant for you, not someone else.
  2. Take stock. Look back at what you’ve accomplished. Not reaching a certain goal doesn’t mean you haven’t done something wonderful and worthy. Did you raise a family? That’s worth more than any other goal you could ever possible achieve! Have you kept the same job for over 10 years? That’s one heck of an accomplishment! Do you paint, build, volunteer, grow food, lead, clean, or serve well? All these things, plus tons of others, are amazing accomplishments and keep our world turning.
  3. Step away for a while. Everybody needs to take a break. Maybe if you step back a bit you will have a new perspective when you go at it again!
  4. Set achievable goals. It’s possible that the reason you’re stuck is because you’re aiming too high! If your goal is a little closer to you,  more likely you are more likely to achieve it. You can set another goal once you meet the first one.
  5. Never quit trying. Don’t give up no matter what. You’re not a quitter. No matter how discouraged you get, don’t settle for less of a life than you deserve. You don’t want to get to the end of it and wish you’d have tried one more time!
  6. Believe in your dream. You might be the only one who can see the possibilities. You know what? That’s okay. That’s why it’s YOUR dream! It was given to YOU to accomplish, and you’re really the only one who has to believe in it. You’ve got this!
  7. Acknowledge your mountain. Recognize the fact that you’ve got things to get over, through, and around. Ignoring the mountain doesn’t mean it’s not there. Tackle the hardest thing first so you have it out of the way. Then you can move on to everything else.
  8. Ask for help. You don’t have to do everything by yourself. We aren’t meant to trudge through this world on our own. Other people may know things that you don’t know. Go ahead and find out. Ask for advice. Ask for prayer. Ask for help.
  9. Pray and seek Spiritual guidance. This should come first, before any other step you take. Getting in touch with God is a whole lot more important than getting in touch with yourself. He has all the answers anyway, and let’s be for real. Nothing you’ve ever done without Him has worked anyway.
  10. Rest. Don’t get so caught up in the pursuit of success that you forget to rest daily. Exhaustion will take over and you’ll never make it if you do.
  11. Go do something fun! All work and no play is boring. You can’t be mediocre playing paintball or wrestling with the kids.
  12. Pivot. Change directions if you need to. I don’t mean be wishy-washy. I mean when you decide that you’re headed the wrong way, don’t waste your time by continuing to go the same way. Find you a new way to go and take off.
  13. Don’t compare yourself to others. This is the most limiting thing you can do. You don’t have to be as good as they are. You can be a whole lot better!
  14. Be different. If you do things like everyone else does, you’ll never get the results intended for you. Do things like YOU do them. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. You are good enough. If the rest of the world doesn’t see how cool you are, it’s their loss.
  15. Go back to square one. Sometimes retracing your steps can let you know where you got off track and where you can get back on.
  16. Check out how other people make it. Successful people all have strategies in place, and most of them don’t mind sharing them with you. Just don’t get trapped in a pattern of information overload and continuously soak in knowledge just to never do anything with it. Act on the wisdom they share. Don’t do it to be like them, just benefit from their superior knowledge.
  17. Change your attitude. Is negativity what’s keeping you down? Switch your attitude for one of gratitude and watch your world turn around!!
  18. Get up earlier. It’s been said that successful people start their days much earlier than those who aren’t successful. It matters how much you want something.
  19. On that note, decide if you really do want it or not. After all you’ve learned, you may just need to redefine success. It’s very possible you’ve already achieved it in your life. Look at what’s most important to you and what position that thing (or person) holds in your life.
  20. Believe you can. You can do anything you set your mind to do. No matter how many times you’ve tried and failed before, don’t quit. You can still make it! You don’t know how close to success you are—it might be just around the corner. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either!

Show the world and show yourself you have what it takes to swim right out of mediocrity into the life you’ve always dreamed of having!

When you’ve done everything on this list, start back at the top and do them again if you need to. Repeat as often as needed. This is how to stop feeling mediocre in a jacked-up life where nothing seems to be working. If you keep trying hard enough, you’ll wake up one day and be so far past your goal that you’ll have to walk backwards to get to it!

grief, RECOVERY

Side Effects of Tremendous Loss

Allison Divine

Grief sucks.

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

I’m going to go over a little bit of what happens when you have to say goodbye forever to someone you love. First, a bit of context.

Shock.

I lost my kid.

Well, I didn’t exactly lose him.

Horror.

I know where he is. I hardly ever go there. There’s something disturbing about standing on a bit of cold ground while your flesh and blood decomposes beneath your feet.

Unrelenting Pain.

Even more devastating is the crushing sensation in my chest when I drive up to the cemetery. It doesn’t just happen in that moment though. It comes unbidden in unsuspecting scenarios for the rest of your life.

I mean, you know the holidays will be hard. That’s expected. And birthdays. Dates of departure are devastating, but you know those days are coming and can kind of half-ass prepare for them.

It’s those other days, days when things are good. You’re happy and laughing and….

Guilt.

How the hell could you possibly laugh when your child is dead? What kind of monster are you, anyway? Thoughts like these come to your mind and even though you know they’re irrational, you think them anyway and you can’t help it.

And it hurts so bad. Worse, you know it always will. The lump that you keep choking back in your throat is always going to be there. You’re never not going to cry when you hear the song that YOU chose for the funeral because it was a favorite.

Hopelessness.

You can’t fix this. The very idea of that is overwhelming. You feel helpless because you ARE helpless. Looking down the road at life you wonder if you even want to go on at all. Several times you decide that you don’t.

Sometimes you can count on one hand the reasons to stay. I’ve been there.

A few years ago, a young man in the town next to mine committed suicide. It wasn’t long after that his mom laid across his grave and did the same.

Heartache.

I spent an entire day grieving for her, even though I didn’t know her. Or maybe I was grieving for me. I knew what drove her to it. I live it every day.

Isolation.

When it’s your kid who dies, you separate yourself from other mothers. The ones who have never lost a child. They don’t know. You don’t want them to ever know.

You can pick out your worst enemy on earth, and you won’t wish this on them.

This grief is something you hold close.

But you DO want to talk about your loss. You want to talk about WHO you lost.

It doesn’t take you long to realize that people are tired of hearing it. They’re also AFRAID to hear it.

It’s as if the whole world thinks that talking about death means it will come to call.

Maybe it does.

Cold Loneliness.

I always hear the gravel fly from under my truck tires on that final stretch to the stone. I remember walking that road a hundred times. I also remember always ending at the cemetery and not being able to walk back. Someone always had to come get me.

Numbness.

How can everything be so intense when I’m so numb?

It’s like standing under a tree hearing a leaf fall without being able to move to try to catch it.

Photo by Keenan Constance on Unsplash

Reality can’t be real when you bury your baby.

Insanity.

Looking back, I realize I’m lucky. I walked through the woods so many times with a gun in my hand. Utterly crazy. Hunters would come down from their stands and lead me out. They didn’t seem to mind that I interrupted their hunting. I don’t know for sure. We never talked. I only talked to Mikey.

One day I stumbled upon a skunk. I was carrying a .22 rifle that day. No matter how crazy a person gets, you always know you don’t want to smell like a skunk.

I realized it was either him or me. He fell over like a cartoon character. I walked around him, probably giving him more space than he needed.

It felt good to kill something.

Then I found the couch. It wasn’t hidden very well. I would have done a better job of it myself. Something like that, you don’t leave to chance.

We called those woods the “forty.” It was forty acres of good hunting land. Full of deer, squirrels, and mosquitoes. Apparently, it had the occasional skunk as well.

The first thing I saw when I came through the pine sapling thicket into the clearing was that couch.

 It had been in my living room just a month before when I found my son on it, face down and stiff. Already starting the rigor process.

Anger.

I unloaded my gun on the couch. Killed it dead, the way it killed my son. My thought process wasn’t lining up with reality. After I shot it, I laid on it and cried myself to sleep. That’s how they found me later.

The couch was burned and buried after that. I never saw it again. It’s a good thing. I would have killed it again.

Disbelief.

You should never have to find your child’s body. It should never be cold and stiff. Your child should not die. It’s a travesty. It’s an injustice. It’s the worst thing that can ever happen to a Mama.

I feel all of this again as I pull up to the cemetery.


Tinnitus.

My ears have been ringing since the day the keening started. The doctors call it tinnitus. I know it’s the echo of my own voice screaming for the life of my child.

Another side effect of a morphine overdose I didn’t take.

Flashbacks.

Call it PTSD or call it whatever. I have flashbacks. Who wouldn’t? Not as many as before, but they still come. Usually when I’m driving, which is inconvenient at best and life-altering at worst. I don’t drive to the cemetery much.

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

It triggers me.

Anxiety.

I doubt it will ever go away. Terror has a strong grip on me. I wake up at night with my heart pounding and all I can do is call out to Jesus. No one else can help.

I’m afraid when my kids are out of my sight and I’m afraid when they’re with me.

He died on my watch.

My watch is scarier now. I will never not check to see if my kids and grandkids are breathing. I always think about it.

All night long.

Insecurity.

As a Mom, you think there’s an instinctive way that you’ll know when your kids are in danger. It’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that instincts can fail you. I didn’t know. You don’t always know. I question my ability to be a parent and keep my children safe. I question my grandchildren’s safety when they’re with me.

Children can die. The headstone in front of me is proof of that.

Side Effects.

I’ve only gone over a few of them. I wish that life and death were an easier process, or maybe I don’t. What makes it so hard is also what makes it worth it.

Love comes with a potentially high price tag.

We don’t know how things are going to turn out. It would be less risky to never take a chance—refuse to love—but life wouldn’t be worth living.

It would be a simple choice to never have children or truly love another human being because of the chance you may have to bury them one day. To make that choice is to choose to live without the greatest gift of your life.

Even knowing what can happen, I will always choose to love. It’s hard to say it, and hard to know it, but it’s infinitely worth the pain.

RECOVERY

How do you handle life when everything goes wrong?

Allison Divine

Sometimes I wonder if it’s even worth getting out of bed.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Two flat tires.

That’s how my day started. I was driving to work on these fantastic Louisiana roads, and the best I can tell, I went in a pothole.

I’m not sure why it took out two of my tires on the sidewalls, but there were a couple of huge holes looking back at me. This is certainly not how I meant for my morning to go. I had higher hopes than that when I crawled out of bed.

It seems like bad luck comes in waves. First, I caught the hubs cheating. Okay, that’s awful—maybe not even comparable to a flat tire or two. In the end, that one will cost me a whole lot more.

This tire thing was just like icing on the cake.

For a few minutes, I thought about hurling myself into traffic and taking my chances with one of the eighteen wheelers barreling down the road. Luckily, I gathered my wits together and called a tire store instead. $421 dollars later, I was fixed up. They even gave me a ride to the office while they worked on my vehicle!

So, what DO you do when life gets crazy and overwhelming?

One answer (and not a very good one) is to isolate.

Isolating means to withdraw from other people and try to get through everything on your own.
It can also mean to withdraw from other people and AVOID dealing with anything.

Often when we isolate, we use distractions or substances to keep us from acknowledging our mountains and doing the work it takes to overcome. This causes more problems to pile up until our lives become completely unmanageable. That’s 12-step talk, for anyone who hasn’t been through it. Recovery is an amazing thing.

Isolation is NOT the preferred solution but it’s something I’ve tried and made bigger messes with before.

Another choice that you could make (and I’m guilty of this one as well) is VENT.

Everyone knows what venting is, but here’s an explanation anyway.

Venting is when you seek validation, approval, or sympathy by telling your side of a story (often with dramatic emphasis) on social media or to another person or group of people. This is my own definition, just like the definition for isolating, but it’s basically what venting boils down to.

Here are some ways that venting can be damaging:

  • Feelings often change, but once the spoken or written word is out there, it’s out there. You can apologize, but you can’t unsay it. Someone can forgive you, but they’re unlikely to forget.
  • You can hurt someone’s feelings. Maybe you mean to rage about someone and at the time, it doesn’t make you feel bad (even though it should). Collateral damage happens. That person may have children, parents, grandkids, or other individuals in their life that you just victimized unintentionally with your words. It hurts to hear bad things about people you love, whether it’s true or not. It isn’t fair to throw shade on everyone even if a certain person is shady and you want it known. Please think twice before venting!
  • Venting often damages the venter more than the ventee. I don’t think that’s proper terminology, but you get my meaning. It makes you look bad. JUST DON’T DO IT.

It’s okay to cry.

It may be hard to go through a bad time without crying. So, don’t. There’s a lot to be said for the cleansing and healing effects of a good, blubbering, crying session!

Get it out of your system.

Just don’t make it a long-term event. Cry, then stand up, wash your face, and move on with life!

Community.

Photo by Phil Coffman on Unsplash

I find it useful to plug into a community of like-minded people when going through the rough times of life. Ideally, you already have a group like that. If you don’t, seek one out. Look for people that you know or know about who believe like you do, worship like you do, and who will hold you accountable for getting your life back on track.

The truth is it’s YOUR LIFE!

How you live and whether you end well is ultimately up to you. You can hang your head in defeat and quit trying, or you can shake it off and get back behind the wheel.

For me, the most important thing I can do is lean on God.

He’s my constant whether things are going good or not so great. He’s my shelter in a storm and the rock I’m standing on. No wind will blow me away, and no waters will drown my soul if I cling tightly to His hand.

My faith isn’t what gets me through; it’s the One I’m faithful to.

This is why two flat tires and an impending divorce didn’t defeat me today.

There will always be potholes. And there will always be God.

RECOVERY

A Closet to Myself

Allison Divine

I want to thank you for cheating on me.

Photo by Adam Nieścioruk on Unsplash

All that glorious room!

I especially want to thank you for doing it in such a crappy way. Now there’s absolutely no chance that we could ever get past it.

At least as a couple…

I’m planning how I’m going to reorganize my clothes.

Oh, and the fact that you did it so openly, in such a humiliating and public way, means that although I can and do forgive you, I will NEVER take you back.

Thank you for including all YOUR friends in your lies. It makes me feel great to know who can be trusted. I feel awesome when I think that everyone knew but me.

Shoes on that shelf, boots on the other.

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

Knowing how many of the ones I called my friends were lied to behind my back and fell in with the “let’s fix that poor girl” plan infuriates me. I may be broken, but not the way you said.

My brokenness comes from the sorrow of losing a child, not the pettiness of a twisted relationship.

But I kept my head held high and pretended I didn’t know about the lies you told and how my own friends believed and validated your truth.

You did me a favor.

I can hang my caps on the right, scarves on the left.

I never realized how much time I spent tending to your life instead of my own, until I didn’t have to do it anymore.

I made sure your clothes were picked up off the floor, washed and folded them, put them away. I gave you the top bar because you’re taller than me. I always used to joke and ask if you knew you were way too tall for me.

I already moved all my shirts to the top. Color coordinated.

I made sure all your bills got paid on time, fielded phone calls, and reminded you to pick your phone and debit card off the restaurant table.

The credit rating that you now enjoy was a gift from yours truly. You’re welcome.

I also set up all your accounts, including your online accounts, and kept track of all your passwords because you kept forgetting them and refused to write them down. That’s what you had me for, you said.

My jeans will hang nicely on the bottom bar.

I can only surmise that you took the plane down in flames on purpose, realizing that I have access to EVERY SINGLE ACCOUNT, including all the social media accounts you own, SINCE I SET THEM UP!

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

I like to color coordinate.

Sometimes I had to tell you when you didn’t quite match, but I always tried to do that in a respectful way. I knew you were colorblind. It wasn’t really your fault.

I also made excuses for your behavior to my friends and family.

“He was abused when he was a kid,” or “He didn’t really mean it,” and “His bark is way worse than his bite.”

When you started getting physically aggressive, I found ways to blame myself for that, just like you did.

After all, I’m not the perfect wife.

I could probably cook more or clean better. I’ll always lose the comparison game you play, because you never explained the rules.

My clothes aren’t always the latest style, but they’re always my style.

I don’t know how many times it’s been pointed out that I’m “not from here,” so I’ll “never really fit in.”

Photo by Camila Cordeiro on Unsplash

It’s true. It’s not just my clothes that are different.

I don’t place value on status, possessions, or money, and I couldn’t understand your obsession with all three.

So, when you tried to control me with money, it wasn’t ever going to work.

I could see it for what it was—a last ditch effort to gain the upper hand in a relationship that should’ve been a loving and giving partnership, not the competition you always tried to make it.

I hate shopping, but my clothes will fill this space nicely.

I’ll never forget the day you waved your hand across our living room and said, “I love what you’ve done in here. It looks like something from a magazine.”

I was stunned.

Before I could stammer my thanks, you pointed to my desk in the corner and my art on the wall and said, “We just need to get rid of everything like that.”

Everything of me.

You wanted a perfect, storybook cookie-cutter kind of wife, and you ended up with me.

It seemed like it became your main goal in life to squash everything about me that you loved at first—my openness, my artistic nature, my free spirit. To kill all my dreams so I wouldn’t try to outshine you.

Or maybe that’s not why you didn’t want me to shine.

If the light was on me, it couldn’t help but also fall on you.

You didn’t want to be seen.

Maybe you’re content in the dark, with someone else fighting your battles and matching your socks for the rest of your life.

Perhaps you want to crowd out anyone who might make it seem as if you aren’t living up to all YOU can be.

I don’t know.

I just know I have all this space now.

I’m sure that your old (and now new) girlfriend has zero expectations of you. You can just go through life half-ass forever, never striving to do better, be better, learn better, or reach beyond what you can see.

That’s okay with me.

I’m glad you cheated. I didn’t even have a decent space in the closet.

Now I have the whole thing.