I’m still trying to make sense of my divorce. It feels like something that is happening to me instead of something that I am causing to happen. By that I mean I feel emotional about it in the same way that is usually reserved for things over which I have no control. How can I feel so sad and disappointed when I know it is for the best – that it is the only way I'll be able to open myself up even to the possibility of finding true happiness?So I joined a women’s group. I’ve been to one meeting and it was so good right off the bat that I am casting caution to the wind and allowing myself to feel wildly optimistic about it.
There are five of us, and we have all found ourselves too healthy to be in therapy yet still needing some work. What is it about this that’s so compelling? I can’t yet say precisely, but I do know that getting feedback about your personal experience from fair, nonjudgmental women whom you barely know but are at least close to your own age has some power in it.
Meanwhile, here’s the poem I wrote during my retreat last month. I've been reluctant to post it. Great literature it is not, but it is to date my best attempt at putting the experience into words.
Comes AroundMy divorce is round
Like an icy pond
Or a mirror
A magnifying glass
Through which the fine print
Of my mistakes is enlarged
Brought into focus.
My divorce is round
Like a clock with no hands
Chiming the hours of my discontent
With no rhythm
At random
No rhyme.
My divorce is round
Like a deep well
I could throw myself into screaming
I could get lost in here
Never come out.
I am trying instead to toss
My sorrow into it
My disappointment and rage
Let them dissolve
Into potable water.
My divorce is round
Like an egg with a delicate shell
And I am racing, racing
As I hold it in a spoon
Trying not to drop it
Anticipating the cracking sound
And the soft, yellow ooze of it.
My divorce is round
And people, well-intentioned
Don’t understand its circular nature.
They want it to be a box
A boxing match
With hero and villain
Someone to root for
Someone to loathe.
It’s simpler, the box is,
Simpler than the circle
The endless and complex spiral
Where I exist
Divorcing.
3 comments:
I'm so glad you posted that poem. I still feel it is beautiful and beautifully expresses what you have been going through these past 6 or more months. I never thought of a box as being simple until you wrote this, but now that makes perfect sense. Circles are so complex aren't they? No walls to run into, to bring things to a dead stop so you can sit and ponder. Hang in there. There will come a day when this won't be the focus of your life.
Thank you for the wonderful comment on my xanga. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...
Sunday turned out to be a great day after all. You were right about 'being objective'. I needed your perspective so much! thank goodness you called.
Flying was anxious for a bit this evening, I'll tell you all about it later but remind me about the thunderstorm, the cheerleaders, and the astro-physicist that ate dinner with us! She (yeah, she!) and her friend are going on a barge trip through Texas!! Amazing women!! Kindred spirits.
See you Wednesday. I'll call you then. Take care.
I love you, Winnie
Deb ~ For me, your poem strikes a powerful and exquisite chord of change. Very moving - straight to the heart... and, I especially love how you transition the noun 'divorce' into the verb 'divorcing'. Thank you for overcoming your reluctance to post it.
Dear, dear Debra! posting this during the "week of love/relationship" was therapeutic for you and beneficial for me to read. During this week, it was so in my face how single I am, how "divorced" I am. The complexity of the circle reminds me about the myth of why American Indians (oh yeah, as per our Durango Colorado experience, we are supposed to say "Native Americans") that if their homes were "boxes" or squares, the spirits and ghosts would have a place to get caught in the corners. Yet a round home (Teepee or Umacha) lets the sprits be open and out. I think we should use this metaphor for our round divorces. Letting the spirits and ghosts stay open and out for us to see. Not hide in the corners of the boxes/squares. Embracing our ghosts (memories of my marriage and the good times with John) and using the circle as a tool to grow and learn and seek out the pleasure of life. Love you and thank you for your gift of words!
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