I’m realizing how broken hearted my daughter is. I am hurt, sad and a myriad of other feelings, but I’m not sure that I’m broken hearted – my relationship with my ex has been hard for the past 6 months and even before that it wasn’t easy…getting to the relationship I dreamed for us was going to take work for both of us. But my daughters relationship with her father hasn’t been strained in that same way – they still connect just like they always have…except now he leaves and is gone for stretches. And there’s nothing she can do about it.

Now that is something that tears at my heart. She’s 4 years old and experiencing this grief and a situation she can’t understand, control or fix. Last night she came back from her weekend early – so rather than her Dad dropping her off at school and me picking her up, she came back home, tired after a fun weekend with her Dad and grandparents. She clung to him and wept, begging him not to leave. Thankfully I was rested enough to sit with the tears. As he drove away and she let out deep sobs, I held her and found myself saying “it’s ok, it’ll be alright”. And then I stopped. With tears in my eyes I told her “it’s not ok – you’re sad and it hurts – and that’s alright. I wish I could fix it, but I can’t. The only thing that I can promise is I’m going to keep on loving you. Your Dad will keep on loving you. And there will be good things ahead.”

It’s my first four days without my daughter – well, that’s not completely true…I’ve been away for work before…but this time it’s different. She’s with her Dad and away from our home. That’s new. I’m not needed in any way – or at least not in the way that consumes my days when my daughter is with me. There are some upsides: I can go to the bathroom on my own! I’ll only have to get one person dressed and out of the house in the morning (we’ll see if that means I get to work earlier or not!!) – there’s no questions or talking or requests to join in some game. But, it’s quiet and a little lonely. I’m thankful for the dog who is still here to greet me with her unconditional love and enthusiasm to see me.
The time apart seems to stretch out for ages in front of me – yet I know I’ll look back on it only too soon. I want to use this time to feed my soul – to take care of myself so that when my daughter is back, I can take care of her well too. I want to keep building the best life for both of us.

But I’m feeling pretty scared – fearful of this time that is up to just me to direct and fill, and how well I’ll do at making the most of it – and fearful of how my daughter will return…the potential sadness she might have of returning from being with him and her grandparents, the feeling that I might be not enough for her or her choice. That last one brings tears – I’m no longer my husbands choice for a life partner and that has rocked my world…what if my daughter wouldn’t chose me now either? What if…
Indeed – what if. However, I’m not going to let what ifs fill my days – there is joy to be had, people to hang out with, things to do that give me life, there are some positive what ifs and I’m going to focus on a couple and turn them into action these few days!

I had no idea what this last year would hold.

I might have bailed if I’d known – or maybe done things differently in the run up to the bombshell. But perhaps it was already too late, and really, there’s no way I could have jumped ship early…for me, that’s just not an option.

There were some good intentions last year of documenting my journey – the goal was to become someone happy in my own skin. I filled my life with a lot of activity – much of it good – but took little time to contemplate and invest in relationships…and certainly left little time for writing.

It was a tough year at work and possibly the toughest year on my marriage, which is set to become an ex in the first part of this year. In hoping that I’d find what I needed to dig into inner happiness I was faced with the statement that my husband felt he could no longer be happy with me and wanted out – the bombshell. I couldn’t breathe when he first said that, and even now that phrase “I don’t think I can be happy with you” is like a knife in my heart.

So this next year is going to be the end of what I thought would be the rest of my life. That’s a hard thing to accept – there’s a lot of grief there and plenty of opportunities to look back and wonder “what if”. I know I need to grieve and that it will take time to walk through this. I’m hopeful that there’s a more beautiful story waiting to be written – more adventures that have not yet been imagined – and that I can keep the “if only I’d”s to a minimum.

I start this new year with a great deal of fear and trepidation as to these next months – I want to be able to jump ahead, skip the work of transformation and the pain that invariably goes with change. But there’s also a grain of faith – and if all it takes is a mustard seed of faith to move a mountain, then maybe I’ve got a chance to become beautifully transformed.