When Life Goes Awry

This isn’t the post I had scheduled for this weekend. I generally plan my posts several weeks in advance and schedule them out. This one started in my head this morning and continued to grow, so here it is. Raw and uncensored.

Today marks the day that would have been my 22nd wedding anniversary. When I married Brian, I expected to live and grow with him until a very old age. I got married for all the right reasons; I was 32 and had been dating him for 4 years – not too young, didn’t rush into it. I wasn’t pregnant, broke or desperate. I had plenty of married friends, but plenty of single ones too, so I didn’t feel any pressure to get married.

If I had been able to look into a crystal ball and see my life today, my response would have been, “Wow, WTF happened?” I certainly didn’t expect to get divorced. I didn’t expect Brian to die. I didn’t expect to raise our daughter by myself. In Wisconsin (of all places!).

I’m seeing friends who’ve been married for 20 years watch their kids graduate and go off to college, and prepare for empty-nesting and their next phase of life together. And I realize that I’ll never have that. Even if I were to meet my soulmate tomorrow (I use the term “soulmate” loosely; I have many soulmates, both male and female and am grateful for all of them!), I will not have the experience of growing from young to old with someone, or to raise children with someone. I missed that boat. Sometimes that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how my life didn’t go the way I had expected it to; the way I thought it should have. Sometimes it bums me out. A lot.

And then I look around me and see how few people are living the life they thought they would when they were young. I have plenty of divorced friends. I have friends who are in shitty marriages – worse that being divorced, IMO. I have friends who have lost partners, who have lost children, who are struggling with addictions, who’ve been abused, raped, wrongly accused of crimes. Nobody expects any of that.

We can look for the good. Not the good in what happened, but the good that can come out of it.  I have never been a believer in “everything happens for a reason,” but I am a believer that out of any bad, can come good. That we can learn and grow from all the ways we screw up our lives. If I hadn’t been through the experience I’ve been through, I wouldn’t be who I am today. We can all become stronger and more resilient, and possibly even happier, from our tragedies.

I can honestly say that I am happier today than when I was married to Brian. I tend to put him on a pedestal because he died. But the fact is, I divorced him for very good reasons. Today, I live a pretty contented life. I’m proud of the job I’m doing with my daughter. She’s growing into a kind, thoughtful, independent young woman. We have an incredibly close relationship that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I love my little house on the corner by the park. I love the fact that I don’t have to check with anyone on big decisions. I am the boss of me! When it comes time for me to empty-nest, I can do whatever I want. And I plan on living life to the fullest. Yes, I sometimes miss having a partner, but honestly, there’s no shortage of men in my life. I’ve dated a lot and it’s mostly entertaining. Most of the men I’ve met, though none have been serious romances, remain great friends who’s company I continue to enjoy. We all tend to grow up with the thought that the ultimate goal in life is to be one-half of a couple. I realized a few years back, that that may not be my dharma. I was that for a long time. While I am not opposed to the idea, should the right man come along, he would have to blow me away. Honestly, why would I settle for anything less?

I am happy with my life that I never expected or planned. I live near my family, I am have a ton of love in my life. I’ve done a pretty freaking good job at parenting by myself. So why lament that it wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be?

Of course I wish that Brian hadn’t died. I wish my daughter had a father. I am often sad that her story will always be, “my dad died when I was 13.” But, that is only part of her story. She has so much more and will continue to have so much more. She will grow up to be who she is because of and in spite of her experiences.

I could get caught up in “what if’s” and “if only’s”. We all could. Is your life what you expected? If not, are you embracing the life you have, or wishing for the life that might have been? We can’t change the past, but we can embrace the present. We can’t know what the future will hold, but we can do our best to create the life we want. If we can keep loving and laughing, keep continually striving to be our best selves, enjoy life and treat others well, we can love our lives, even when they’ve turned out very differently than expected.

A wise yoga teacher once said, “It is better to do your dharma poorly, than to do somebody else’s well.” I’m living my dharma. Sometimes gracefully, other times like a train-wreck. But, it is mine.