The woods suck

I don't know when I'll be done grieving my marriage - I don't know if grief ever truly ends.

Grief turns your happiest days into the darkest times, for a while. I know that someday it's not going to feel that way anymore, but I'm glad I have a fun weekend planned to distract me.

I know that I've spoken a lot about the negatives and not many of the positives of my relationship with my ex-husband and it's not fair and it doesn't show the full picture, but I'm not strong enough yet to talk about the good times.

Allowing myself to review the mistakes we made and identifying the symptoms of an unhealthy relationship are steps in the right direction, but it means I spend a lot of time asking myself how I could be so naive, so careless, so ungrateful...the list goes on. The reality is that there were two people involved - we both made mistakes, but we both did wonderful things for each other as well.

I haven't changed my name back, and I don't think I will, because I'm not ashamed. Marrying my ex-husband was not a mistake; it's not something I ever want to erase or pretend it didn't happen. Even though it has caused us both enormous pain I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I would also make the same choice to end it all over again.

Remembering the happy times still hurts too much and it feels like a betrayal to the life I've made for myself in the present which I love with my whole heart. It feels like looking back and smiling will somehow take away something from the joys I have now. Intellectually I know that's not true at all, but it feels that way right now.

Today would have been our fourth wedding anniversary, and I actually forgot until last night when an email from my mother reminded me. And I laughed because I had forgotten it and it was oddly the most perfect way to honor it. And then I cried because it's hard to remember it. It's a bit of an inside joke that I won't share because it still means so much to me, but forgetting our anniversary is actually the most appropriate way for me to commemorate the occasion. Not because it hurts, but because it reminds me of how we were together and what really mattered to us. That one day, as happy as it was, wasn't what mattered. What mattered were all the days leading up to it and all the days stretching into the future we thought we'd have.

Because I had completely forgotten about what day it was going to be, I had something else planned for the week but there will be time for that later. What feels right today is to share the raw cut of what grief feels like for me today. We all feel it in different ways, but whatever way you feel grief is the correct way for you. You can't fight something like this - you'll drown. You have to let go and let it overwhelm you sometimes and come back up for air when you can.

There is no wrong way to grieve except not to grieve.

If you're reading this and you're struggling with anything, I want you to know that however big or small it is, you're doing the best you can and that is great. Keep going, as impossible as it feels, because every difficult moment does lead you closer to the next wonderful one.

There's this show I'm obsessed with right now called Sorry For Your Loss. It's on Facebook Watch for some reason, but it's the most honest depiction of grief without being tragedy porn or doing the story a disservice. It's raw, it's beautiful, it's frequently messy and also poetic and one moment from the most recent episode stuck out to me yesterday. Two adult sisters are lying on a bed with their mother who asks them if they remember that she would read them fairy tales before bed. They would always ask her: "Why do they go into the woods? There are witches and monsters in the woods. Why do they go into the woods?" The sisters remember and ask again: why? And the mother replies, "Because it's the scariest place. You have to go to the scariest place to find out who you are and who you're going to be...there's no way around it. The only way through it is through it."

The woods in my life are a place not full of witches and monsters, but of grief. Inky black grief clinging to shadows of roots and the wind whistling through the branches. To read this, one might think I'm tormented by this daily, and that's not truly the case. Most of my days are spent joyfully building my life the way I want it to look. But when it comes on strong like it has today, it's hard to see through the trees, and that's okay.

If you're grieving anything, no matter how small, you are far from alone. I'm in the woods with you, but the only way through it is through it.