I wasn’t sure when I would start blogging again. Would it be a few months or a year or would the time stretch on and on and on indefinitely? I know the answer now. You write when you can’t not write any longer. When the pieces of your heart have mended enough to hold the words.
 
My heart’s a little leaky but it’s got space and love and a whole lotta desire.
 
It’s time.
 
Divorce is a mofo. And it’s a redeemer. My divorce gets filed away somewhere between soap opera extraordinaire and everyday heartbreak. Because no matter the details, the shape of the betrayal, losing the person you loved is hard. Rebuilding your life is painstaking work.
 
I now understand how contrast works. It sits somewhere in my bones.
 
You can be the saddest you’ve ever been in your life and overwhelmingly grateful. You can ache with loss while the dormant parts of your body come back to life.
 
You can blame and take the responsibility. You can be angry and soft. You can love big and say: “Enough. Come no further.”
 
You can hate and you can desire. You can move on even when you’re not really there yet.
 
Contrast is freedom. 
 
If you can trust that there is always more good on the way (because there is), you can stand in the tornado and let it tear away what isn’t serving you. It’s scary to let go when you don’t yet know what will replace it. If I give up my partner, my home, my concept of who I am as this person, who will I be in the future?
 
Who am I now?
 
That’s the power of letting go. You get to see who you really are. When you’re no longer afraid of losing, you realize you can never really lose anything.
 
You take it all with you. It is you.
 
Last year, I told my story to a group of amazing people. I said that I felt like my heart stopped the day my marriage ended and that it was just starting to beat again.
 
Someone very wise turned to me and said, “Your heart never has to stop beating again.”
 
At the time, I couldn’t absorb it, was even a little angry. “Why can’t you just let me feel my pain?”
 
I get it now. Like ‘no turning back’ get it.
 
When you learn to love yourself, you become the keeper of your heart. And when you learn to trust, you give up needing to know how the story’s going to end. Life becomes your lover.
 
No one person holds power over you. No job. No group of friends. No role you play. No paycheck. No title.
 
You are the creator of your life.
 
And when you claim all of your power–all of it, every last drop–back from all of those scattered places. When you learn to say, “I give you my love but not my power, I give you my time but not my identity,” you break the spell.
 
You are free.
 
And free feels pretty damn magical. And a little scary.
 
Contrast.
 
As I hit publish, I embrace the contrast here. I am really, really ready and slightly hesitant. Whole and slightly raw. Channeling wisdom and constantly learning. Ending and beginning. But mostly I am grateful. For all of it. Every last contradiction.
 

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Hey there! (Photo by Sachin Khona)


And I’m glad to be here, with you.
 
Let’s begin (again), shall we?
 
<3

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