It’s been a long time since I have written a blog post. I decided it was time, with no particular topic, but rather an update; a Christmas letter in October, perhaps. A Halloween Letter – which is actually more appropriate to my life lately.
I’m growing tired of gurus and coaches and people who tell you they are there for you, but turns out: they’ve worked their words into a carefully formed funnel to make money. I’m more than OK with making money on what you can offer the world, but, lately, things and people who inspired me, have started to disappoint me. I want authenticity. I want real.
If you are here, please know that I am here because it gives me purpose. Of course I would love to be able to turn this into a business which could give me the time to pour more energy into it, but the things I give away for free are not an attempt to lure you in and steal your money. I have to say this, because I roll my eyes continually as I scroll through Instagram these days and see the promoted posts.
This past year – in staying true with my commitment to being honest with you – I have become disenchanted: with love – with writing – with all the things which kept a spark lit in me. You haven’t seen much, because I haven’t had much to give. At least, that’s what I talked myself into.
I’ve considered stopping the podcast. Stopping writing. Stopping all of it and dismissing it as just a silly dream I had once – but then I get emails – from real people – who listened to something or read something which kept them going, so now – I don’t write or post or record to live out some dream of my own. I do it in the hopes that one person gets the encouragement they need. As long as I know that – I’ll keep going. That’s my promise.
If you’re new and this is the first post you’re reading, welcome to the jungle. I started River and Quill near the end of healing from a bladder disease: Interstitial Cystitis. I still have symptoms from time to time, but I manage the illness (not “my” illness, because I do not claim it is me) very very well these days.
When I got sick I sought support on forums. I googled and I chatted myself into a depression that would last over a year. I hid it well. I smiled. I played with my kids. I made dinner. I cleaned the house. But if you shook me, I think you would have been able to hear the shattered pieces clinking up against my bones. I was a shell and I had no hope, because I was told my condition was chronic, and the forums were full of people who assured me I would not get better, and my body affirmed this
When I did start to heal, I wanted to share how. I wanted to be the antithesis to chronically ill – thus: the chronically well podcast.
And then, in all my healing, I realized there was a very large part of me that was still very ill. There was a hurt which could not mend, no matter how much I focused on my own wholeness and spiritual and emotional growth. I had done a fine job of pretending it wasn’t there, but I came to a place of such emotional exhaustion and heartbreak, that I could not continue with any sort of growth until I dealt with it.
Pretending only fools everyone else for a while, until they find the truth. It fools your own soul all along, until you lose your truth, if you ever even really had it.
As I discovered truth, the lies I had told myself: they uprooted.
I realized that I could not be true to the message I wanted to share if I wasn’t being true to myself. So – I told my husband I was unhappy and for five months, I tried. I tried to stay in a marriage which was, quite honestly, destroying me. (longer than this, actually – but this was what I like to call “marriage post mortem”)
I always get to this point in discussing my divorce and then stop writing. I’m fearful of what I may say to hurt others – I’m fearful of what may be misinterpreted, but for the sake of authenticity, I think, this time, I have to say a little bit more. The best writing mentors say, “tell your story – if you try to tell someone else’s without their permission, it can become a problem – but this is your story to tell – so tell it”
Anything I say here is my story. Obviously others in it have their own perspective – perspectives though that have been hurtfully twisted into untruths, but I will not defend myself here. I will only tell what is mine to tell.
I was in a marriage where everything was absolutely wonderful, until it wasn’t. And when it wasn’t, it was terrible. It was worse than terrible. It was toxic and I could not take the fumes of it anymore.
The arguments would leave me frozen for days. Some flee. Some fight. I froze.
He would start to say things, and I would feel my throat clench, my chest tighten, my heart quicken, and, when it was over, I would sit, heavy, laden, stuck to the couch, or wherever I had been sitting. Often, I wouldn’t even be able to cry. I would just think, “Does he really think that? Is this true of me? Why am I so unlovable?”
This is what my marriage was for me: fun with my best friend, sharing music and sharing a life – so many beautiful moments. And then, the poison. The hurtful words. The anger and rage.
For the sake of keeping this a blog post and not a book, I’ll get right to it: there was a day when I knew something had to change; when I looked at the results of a hormone test I had done and my cortisol levels were literally off the charts. I saw myself stuck in a state of panic and fear and as I told my ex in our last counseling session together: a body can only be wounded so many times, before it’s dead – Our marriage: it’s dead. It cannot sustain any more wounds.
It was one wound too many and no matter how much I wanted to come back from it, I just couldn’t. My heart still breaks for my children, but my son no longer throws up at night for no reason – or peels the paint on the walls while he listens to the yelling.
Others will judge you for making the decision to end a marriage when you have children, but none of that ever matters, because, if you love them, you’ll judge yourself harder. You’ll beat yourself up every time you see a family together, or you hear them say, “I’m always missing someone”. You’ll wonder if you could have endured just to give them the whole family they deserve.
But then, you’ll remind yourself, they never had a whole family. They never saw real love. Real love, I imagine, does not involve silent treatments and hateful words. It involves the security in knowing the person you are with will hear your heart, and not use your vulnerabilities as weapons. I hope I can show them real love with someone someday. I hope I can show them gentleness, kindness, and respect for the person you love the most.
Until that happens, I will show them real love myself. I’ll show them the gentleness I always wanted to be shown in my marriage. I’ll show them stability. I’ll show them that true love is steady and slow and insidious.
It isn’t easy though – this single mom thing. I won’t pretend it’s simple. It’s also why you’ve heard less from me. I often fall asleep when they do. When they aren’t here, I clean and I work out and pay bills and I mow the lawn and I go to the store and I just haven’t been able to allow myself to find the time to write.
Maybe I’m just coming up with excuses, though. Because, I think the truth is, I’ve been afraid. I’ve been afraid to be truly vulnerable with you. And I’ve been sad. I’ve had hopes for new love which have left me feeling as if I should just lock my heart up on a top shelf somewhere and let it out only for my kids. For a while, this is what I’ll do, but I can’t keep myself from writing anymore. It’s what healed me from my illness, and I believe it is what will pull me through this abysmal year of divorce and pandemic.
So, there you have it. A synopsis on my life. Happy Halloween!!
Thanks for being here. Thanks for the emails and the kind words. I know you’re fighting your own battles. You’re searching for love. You’re searching for hope. I do know that in all the pain I have endured in my divorce, I have finally fought for my own soul. If there is something in your life which feels untrue – if you aren’t being loved the way you deserve – if all you do to grow is poisoned by something – don’t continue to live pretending.
I’m not telling you to get a divorce. I’m just telling you to love yourself enough to be true to yourself. [Tweet this]
Speak it. Find it. Fight hard for it. Because, friend, we only have this one life. And whatever it is that you were created to do, you cannot do it to the extent you were intended, and you cannot love to the extent your heart can stretch, if your heart is held in restraints. [Tweet this]
This life – Your life – My own – It was meant to be lived abundantly. Fervently. With abandon.
Pretending? It eventually fools no-one, and your heart? It knew all along.
The Happiest of Halloween’s to You,
Callie