It’s been quite a couple of weeks – some ups where I’ve felt on top of things, with control over some situations, good relationships around me – to lows that felt like they would last forever and sucked all life out of my soul.

I need to stop and write more – I’ve misplaced my journal, so this electronic journal will have to suffice. It’ll be more edited than the written one, but at least it will be a space in which to capture thoughts and be able to remember where I was…and hopefully see how I’ve grown and transformed!

Today is the start of a weekend with the kid. I was nervous that it would be filled with “I miss Daddy”s and “I just want Daddy to be here”…I can embrace those feelings, get alongside them and acknowledge them for the first few times…maybe even the first 10 times, but when it turns into 20 and 30 times with no end in sight…that’s hard and I’ve been finding myself with no answers and very few resources. The words start to feel like arrows into my heart, filtered until all I hear is “your not enough” and “I don’t want you, I want someone else”.

But this evening has been full of fun, friends, laughter (both with our friends and just together) – it’s been good. I’m not naive enough to think that this is a harbinger of how the weekend will be…but I am wise enough (at least in this moment!) to take this moment, be grateful for it and treasure it. Life is built of many, many moments and I want to make sure that these good ones are deeply recorded for the onset of the storm.

I was sitting at my counsellor’s office, waiting for my appointment and randomly picked up a book that was on the coffee table. It caught my eye with it’s celtic patterns and drew me in when I saw it was by John O’Donohue, an Irish writer and poet who had often attended a Festival I loved back in the UK. I flipped open to the index and saw that there was a blessing entitled “For the Breakup of a Relationship”. The words touched my heart as I sat there, coming back to mind over the next few days so much that I bought the book so I’d have them to hand. I shared them with friends who are on a similar journey and share them here, with some of the pictures that came to mind with these timely words.

 

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,

Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

The lack of writing is indicative of where I am – I don’t feel like I have anything worth saying…and that slips into feeling I am not worth anything (isn’t it amazing how easy it is to slide down that path…).

I feel hopeless – I’m consumed by grief. I know the right things to say, but actually believing them and living them are proving difficult.

The only things I have control over relate to me – I can choose where I spend my time, I can build the relationships that matter to me, I can invest in things that bring me joy and life. I can throw myself into these things and onto the mercy of God, who’s grace I’m relying on to see me through. These would be some good choices. And no one can make them for me, they’re up to me.

And yet, as much as I know it doesn’t help me, it’s too easy to look at my ex: the ease with which he has moved on…the support he has around when he’s the full time parent for the weekend…the difference between our circumstances. Not such a good choice – it brings sadness, fear, feelings of not being enough and a dollop of despair.

I know the choice I should make and yet too often slip to patterns that don’t help myself. I’m hopeful that acknowledging this is the first step to making the change. I can be beautifully transformed.