6 posts tagged “faith”

Papers signed. Records filed. Name changed at Social Security office and with DPS. Check, check, check and check!

Wanna hear something funny? I overslept...by hours! That's what I get for staying up late and working 'til 3 a.m. I woke up in instant panic realizing there was no way I had woken up on my own at a quarter-to-seven. It was 9:30! I'd slept through three alarms! In the end I made it to court just before 10 am--and still looking fabulous, by the way. Turns out I didn't miss anything because my attorney was 'dealing' with his attorney in the interim. I made a brief concession to some language I'd wanted to add, but it was ultimately just a matter of sign here, here, and here.

We had just a little bit of casual interaction at his attorney's office afterwards to sign some additional paperwork dealing with the house, and then again a few minutes after at the County Records Office where we had to file them. I finished first, and stuck around to say good-bye. Ready for a handshake, he instead pulled me in for a hug--stiff on my part, I mean, I'm sorry, but it wasn't really a huggable moment for me, you know?--kissed the top of my head, and I said simply "I wish you the best in everything." He turned away without another word, choking up a bit.

I ask you, what sort of silly man divorces a woman he still seems to love?

The answer? My ex-husband.

I am strangely cheery...unexpectedly and blessedly cheery. And relieved and joyful and peaceful at heart. It's a beautiful sunny day outside--the sun came through the clouds just after I left the Social Security office. It matches my hopes and my dreams and I am so terribly proud and thankful to have made it through this last year that I just don't know what to do with myself...oh yeah...I have a conference call to jump on right now. Guess that's what I'll do. ;-)

You see...life goes on.

Yesterday a friend came over to fix my mower and help me tackle the yard for the first time this spring. Normally I can handle it on my own, but rain and warm weather led to a bit of a back yard jungle. So we worked for about 4 hours: pulling weeds, trimming, edging, and cleaning up in general...he even hacked apart the Christmas tree I'd left to shrivel up in the back yard back in January. (I know, I know...at least I took my lights down early, ok?) And when we were done, voila, a beautifully manicured, lush, (mostly) green oasis emerged.

So today after going to mass, I took myself outside to have some cereal and do some computer work in the sun, glare and all. The heat climbed a bit and I decided to slap on my bikini and lay out for a little while. I had a wonderful long chat with my grandma on the phone that ended abruptly when my dangling feet collided with a bee. After a moment to grab an ice cube I ran to my neighbors' for some bendadryl...about 20 minutes later, back out in the yard and reading my romance novel, I fell asleep. Dead asleep. So asleep that when I woke up I found that one of the dogs, Goldie, had grabbed my cell phone from right under my nose and taken it out into the grass by the trees. I'd been asleep for over an hour! The cell phone is fine, but my whole backside is burnt to a vivid lobster red. So much for dodging that skin cancer bullet. (However, I do wear a 30 SPF minimum on my face and I don't even have a hint of a tan there from my little nap.)

I used the rest of the day's light to head to the Kyle HEB for some colorful plants and flowers. They have an excellent selection of drought hardy varieties and I eventually--after roaming the "Texas Backyard" section for an hour--picked a few, including an orange honeysuckle plant, for the planter area near the 'robots' in the front yard.(The robots are the utility boxes of various shapes and sizes that, for some reason, are planted smack in the middle of everyone's front yards in my neighborhood. The builders said the city made them do it, but I don't see that anywhere else in Kyle. All of the residents, myself included, make valiant but futile efforts at hiding them with islands of shrubs and blooms.) Made it home with just enough light to plant my lovelies in the ground and hang out with Evita at dusk.

All in all, it was a lovely Sunday, and just what I needed to prepare my mind and spirit for the morning...I'm heading to court at 9 a.m. My understanding is that by this time tomorrow I will have been several hours divorced. We're both going to be there, but it should all just be a formality because our decree has basically been finalized. I'm glad to be so near what everyone tells me will bring some closure to all of this, and yet...

I guess I just want to get through the day. I'm glad I'll have to head to work as soon as it's done...and I'm glad for a lovely home to come back to and animals to greet me when I walk in the door, with good friends just a stone's throw away, and a whole lifetime of possibilities still ahead for a much more hopeful, joyful me. Sigh. My grandmother told me that she prays every day for my cousin Michelle and me, for us to be happy and to heal, and for our "marriages that were blessed by God but destroyed by man." I think it's a good sign that the writer in me thrilled to the poetry in that language as much as the romantic in me was touched by the sorrow in its tone. Let's accentuate the positive, shall we?

I was telling my best friend last night how I still truly believe that he could walk back in the door at any moment...how I do believe we could move past this and count this time apart as a great trial, but that divorce is not what was meant for us.

He left one year ago today. The pace of work had led me to overlook the timeline briefly, but he brought it back to my mind this morning.

Something compelled him in the last several days to reach out with a couple of brief email notes, the last one near midnight. He seems to want to commiserate on this as some sort of shared anniversary, a milestone if you will, and I'm not certain why. Perhaps it's just the nature of my still healing self right now, but I read his words and chafe again at his casual remarks..."hard to believe it's been a year...tomorrow will be a year, I remember where we were and how tomorrow would inevitably play out." I replied that inevitable is not the word I would have chosen, and I left it at that.

I'm not sorry I've believed...I'm not sorry I've been straddling past, present, and future with this faith...and I don't feel that believing, even as I do now, is wrong. Truly anything is possible, and what is a little misplaced faith in the long run. I still have my moments of anger, but they are almost always expressions of pride bucking against humility, followed by tears when I release the tension and just accept the grace that lets me say that I forgive him and I love him even as I disagree with his decisions.

I've lived as fully in this moment as I can, and I owed it to myself to do it, but soon it will be time to count the moment passed...and to live fully in the next.

"long ago, and far away.." she sings on, my late a.m. gold songstress. bittersweet to hear her voice, but the sun is shining and i'm looking out the windshield at a cloudless sky, so i smile and sing along.

moments later she fades out and the next song comes up. my mouth gapes and i give the radio a reproachful look, but i love the song and i go with it. "maybe i think too much, but something's wrong...maybe i shouldn't think of you as mine..."

the perfect oldies mix rolls on and on, past rudy's barbecue and the turnoff to gruene, down highway 46 - one of many memory lanes - a long and winding road. i could be sobbing, but i'm not...i'm dreaming and i'm hopeful. i have to trust that love and god will find a way.

i drive on in the bright white of midafternoon blazing down on the hill country, goat farms and pet resorts slip by and the radio signal dips for a moment, and then...

"i'm going where the sun keeps shinin', through the pourin' rain..."

and the sun keeps shining...

have you ever wished and hoped for something, something so crazy and impossible, but wished for it for so long that even if you didn't really expect it to ever come true, it became second nature to include it in your daydream list of wishes? and then suddenly, one day, while you're still wishing for it, you look up and realize that it HAS come true?

when i was little, around 10 years old i think, i first read and fell in love with anne of green gables. i wanted to be her, not just read about her. what i didn't realize at the time was that i liked her so much because i already saw myself in her, but not thinking quite that introspectively at 10, i just knew that she was what i wanted to be when i grew up. and weirdly, i extended that wish not just to her personality and being, but to her looks as well. anne was fair with pale "alabaster" skin and red hair, first like the color of carrots, then a rich auburn. her eyes were light and changeable, moving from gleaming grey to shining green depending on her mood. in my imagination she is still the most beautiful woman i have ever, um, not seen.. and i wanted to look just like her.

so much so, in fact, that i actually started to pray about it. in my prayers at night after asking god to bless every relative and friend i knew, i would ask that i could someday look like anne.

now you have to understand that at the time i was a scrawny, short, brown eyed little girl with scraped knees and the dorkiest glasses on the planet. more than that though, i was a pretty dark kiddo. my summer tan would last and last and my skin was definitely brown. so talk about the bluest eye, i was praying to god to change me in to a fair haired, fair eyed picture of beauty, bargaining with how good i would be if i only looked like anne. (an interesting aside: in the books, anne was always praying for brown hair and a blushing complexion!)

i prayed my way right through up to 8th grade, just about one year before i would lose my Faith all together, when my skin actually changed. impossible you say? i wish. though i can still tan in the summer, and do, i am naturally very pale now. my mother is perpetually telling me, "ness, you need some blush" and molesting me with a blush brush and too pink powder from her purse.

i don't exactly regret having seen this change come through. it was an interesting lesson for me, both in the "be careful what you wish for" way and in the "mind/prayer is a powerful thing" bit of spiritual spookiness.

i've been thinking about this because my faith is, very simply, back. frankly it has been creeping back for the last year, but i had been afraid to fully explore it for fear of being a total hypocrite. i say creeping because even though i wasn't going to church and wasn't really praying, i was thinking more and more about it and "wishing" that i could "find it" again. you may laugh, but it's the sunday late night broadcasts of joel osteen's that helped me the most. it was my covert way of indulging in a little god time. my husband was really irked by my watching it, although i don't think he was irked in the way i was irked by it. you see, i was worried that i was finding inspiration through a snake oil salesman. he, my husband, however seemed to dislike it the way he disliked my other guilty pleasure TV, like Roseanne and The Nanny. i wonder if i should have asked him to really sit down and watch i with me, instead of turning it on, low volume, while he slept at night. i think that whatever evil there may be in him, Osteen's messages aren't half bad. they helped me quite a bit in finding faith in myself...though not necessarily, at the time, in god.

so after months of making an effort to watch the program, but not really feeling comfortable with taking any other steps, i went on my trip to europe and saw church after church after church. i wondered why the St. Peter's was beautiful and grand, but didn't make me feel...something more. i loved the Duomo in Florence, but more for its juxtapostion of Church dogma and Renaissance messages than its effect on my heart. there were probably another 20 churches on the trip, if not more, all beautiful in their way, with their own story and significance, but all museum like and far away from me.

and then, the last church we visited, rife with violent, bizarre and beautiful history, was Notre Dame. still a Church in use with areas roped off for worshippers and weekly mass, the Cathedral still not necessarily more beautiful than another, but it moved inside me somehow. my sister and i sat in the chapel of our lady, lit some candles, and prayed for our gramma, our grampa, and our little cousin daniel, and for whatever else we needed. i prayed for everyone, oddly, and including the caviat that i would pray for myself, for my husband, but that might just be "too hypocritical for you to take." and there it was. a conversation with god, the first in years, and one that has made me smile inside ever since.

don't get me wrong, folks, i'm no wannabe or holy roller, professing to be something i'm not. this journey is of my making and i'm seeking guidance as i need it, going to church as i want, praying on things in ways that are as much medatative and therapeutic as anything else. i am also as aware as ever of the evils of religion and dogma, the crutch for free thinking they can become, but i stopped arguing against faith a long time ago. faith is faith. if you truly believe in something, it might as well be real. to the believer, whatever the cause, faith and reality are one and the same.

he may not know it yet, and he doesn't have to know, but i'm not giving up without a fight. a quiet, patient, strategically slow and penitent fight. i may have to medicate myself to the hilt to keep from going insane, but i am going to keep our house, finish my degree, pray for him with all my heart and mind and body, and wait. wait for him to heal. to seek help for his pain and depression. to look life in the eye and see it honestly.

i love him.

i am going to steel myself against the pain he might still inflict on me, against the anger i know i will feel, the anger that is sure to come when my patience begins to wear thin, and i am going to pray for us every night, every day, in every breath and thought.

i love him.

when i am not terrified and in shock, screaming in panic on the inside, i am emboldened with hope and certainty that i am not alone, and the prayer that he is not alone, that the footsteps he sees are not his own.

i love him, fiercely and with every part of me. i am waiting.