Saying Good-Bye Hurts

But fate ordains that dearest friends must part.  ~Edward Young

Saying good-bye is hard. Do you really know what it means? It comes from “God be with you” from the 14^th century. I am not referring to the sweet, “until we meet again”, kind of good-bye. This is the kind of good-bye that is the death of something you love.

Meeting with my soon-to-be “ex-husband” this past week has stirred the pain of my wound. And in exploring this wound, discovered that it isn’t saying good-bye to him that is the hardest part, it was the drive home, when I was daydreaming about all the lost dreams.

So many dreams are dying with this divorce. We had always talked about going to Europe together. I had always dreamed about having children with this man. I had envisioned what they would look like, what it would be like to have them in his arms.  The home that we created together is being surgically dissected, one cardboard box at a time. These are the things that I mourn, along with the man that I vowed to spend the rest of my life with… It was to be his old eyes I was to look into…

But none of those things will come to pass, and the agony of that reality is killing me. I can’t seem to stop thinking about all those things that will never be. I am stuck in this perpetual state of wanting to change something that cannot be changed. You can’t cheat death.

I suppose, I am simply supposed to sit in it. Allow myself to mourn, whatever that means?! How will I know I am done with it? Will it always torment me?

I am not ready to say good-bye but I am getting closer to being ready to let God be with him.

I Went to Church Today

Today I went to church.  I think the last time I stepped foot inside a church was about 7 months ago… just as I was starting to seek answers for my broken marriage.  Alas, I was met by people who seemed more concerned about my weight and appearance (a topic for another entry, I’m sure) than they did about my need for spiritual healing.  Needless to say, I felt as though I had hit a roadblock.  This church was my home church, where my husband and I had become members. But, like many things we shared together, this was going to have to be another thing to let go of.

I went to a new church today and I listened to Dr. Marcus Borg deliver the sermon. His birthday is today, and he turned 70. His message was that the Christian faith is simply one of many that brings people closer to God, and that for him, Christianity is home. It was that phrase, “Christianity is home”, that echoed in my heart. And, being the season of Lent, he spoke about the mortal man, and how we rarely remember to see our death, not as scary, but as wisdom. Wisdom to know that each moment is a gift. He finally ended with the message that Jesus trumps the Bible, and sometimes the Bible is wrong, and in that instance, Jesus trumps the bible verse that is sometimes used to divide us.

The main point of this entry is my realization that my Christianity is home to me.  It is always where I end up when I feel broken, betrayed, & hurt. I find myself lamenting to God through the tears that run down my face. It is there, that I find the most comfort, even if, sometimes, I don’t think anyone is out there, and I am just a crazy woman talking to myself.

Maybe just embracing myself as the crazy woman would make this journey a lot easier. Sigh. Dearest Reader, I leave you with the Lenten question of, what happens when this waking life is finished? For I am scared to fucking death, so to speak.