June 6, 1944 marked world history with the Allied invasion of Normandy. June 6. 2022 marked my history with divorce. For several years my ex and I would sit on our anniversary and together draft a list of rules for staying married that matched the number of years we’d made it work. I still believe that the lists hold true, but only if there are two people in the marriage who want it to work.

With this D-Day marking four years of my next chapter, I’ve reflected on what I’ve learned. It’s been ALOT, y’all. If you’re contemplating divorce with thoughts that it will be easy, you are highly mistaken! Healing from trauma is HARD! Grief is HARD! Finding your footing is HARD! Building “your” life after decades of “our life” is HARD! I’ve gotten things wrong along the way, but I’ve tried to not repeat my mistakes. And since one of the first affirmations I taught Sofija was, “I can do hard things.” – I’ve taken my own advice and reminded myself often of that fact. I can do hard things.

I present to you the four most significant things I’ve learned in four years of being divorced…

Heal. I’ve seen plenty of people rush into new relationships immediately after divorce. Some work out. Some don’t. Personally, I’m really glad I took the time to work on myself and healing trauma before I even considered trying to love someone new. There are triggers you don’t even realize are there until they’re tested, and. Besides, it’s unkind (and probably both sadistic and masochistic) to bring all the baggage that ended a marriage into a life you try to build with someone who didn’t pack those bags. And when you do find the courage to love again, love BIG! I firmly believe that anything and anyone worthy of my attention, effort, and affection, is worthy of me being all-in. Being all-in means taking the risk of failing and/or having my heart broken. It’s worth the risk. For the record, it took a couple years of living like a hermit while healing to get there.
Empathize. One of my biggest challenges in the beginning was reminding myself that my people were also grieving and traumatized. As the plane was crashing, it took every rational thought and survival instinct just to find my own oxygen mask and put it on. There was little left in me to notice or tend to the pain of my kids, or extended family and because my amygdala had kept me in fight, flight, or freeze for so long – that’s what everyone got from me. I was defensive. I ran away. I shut down. If I had it to do over, I would have insisted on separating when the oxygen first left the room. But I didn’t. And by the time I did, the people I loved most had mountains of their own trauma to deal with. When you reach the point where you can breathe again, it’s time to really pay attention to your people. Speak truth, but measure your words. Listen attentively. Love them deeply. Heal with them. Encourage them. Reassure them. Own your shit and apologize for it. Show empathy.
Stop fighting! We spent ten hours in mediation and several years fighting over everything that there was to fight over. By the time the judge signed our final judgment, I had very little fight left in me. But guess what? It took my brain over a year to accept that I was safe and no longer needed to fight. One morning I woke up frustrated over two things he continued to violate in our final judgment and it hit me – this fight is already settled. So I drafted a quick affidavit, notarized it online, and stopped at the courthouse on my way to work. A few weeks later we had a hearing and the judge enforced what we had agreed to. Shortly after that, our daughter called me stating that she had walked out the front door and she was running away. I asked where her dad was and she said he was in the pool. I called our son and put him in the middle of what immediately became a fight. Then I remembered – This fight is already settled. Our son is hurting too. A few months later I got a call from cops who’d found our daughter naked on a highway near her dad’s house at 7am. That time, I remembered quickly. I cannot tell you the peace, healing, and freedom that has come from letting go of the fight. I divorced to STOP fighting. I paid for a mediator and spent months hashing out a marital settlement and co-parenting agreement so that there would be nothing left to fight over. I pay taxes, and I choose peace. Let the courts and bureaucracy handle the fight.
Move forward. The biggest fears I’ve ever battled were during the season of rebuilding my life. I found myself at 50 years old trying to figure out who I was outside of being a wife and mom. There were many moments when I was acutely aware that I didn’t recognize a single detail of my life. In the first couple years of rebuilding, there were times where I was in a free fall, and times when I was climbing a mountain. All of it took my breath away with fear and uncertainty of what came next. Fourteen months after D-Day, my little rental house that had been my healing sanctuary, was destroyed by Hurricane Idalia. What little I had been left with was lost. Once again, I was grieving and rebuilding. Eight months ago, the startup I jumped into as our marriage was falling apart, crashed and burned. Once again… starting over. I’ve also loved again, and lost him. I won’t lie. There have been moments when I’ve wondered just how much loss a heart can take. But I keep getting up, putting one foot in front of the other, and finding every little beautiful detail in every day to be thankful for. The only measure of my life is in what I choose to focus on. The sun continues to rise and set. As long as it does, I will too.

Throughout the month of May, I found one truth coming up repeatedly in conversations – Nothing is wasted. Nothing. I don’t think any of us get to live half a century without loss, pain, and starting over (at least) a few times. How boring would that be? How do you truly appreciate what you have, if you’ve never experienced loss? Or savor what feels good, without knowing the taste of pain? How do we celebrate victory without knowing defeat, or relish our wins without experiencing failure? – ALL of it! Every pain, every loss, every pleasure, every victory, every failure, and every win – have created the woman I am today. Nothing wasted.

Happy D-Day! May we always remember, learn from our mistakes, and (as the judge said at the end of our Zoom divorce hearing) “live our best lives.” Over 10,000 young men died on the beaches of France on D-Day. We owe it to them to live well.

emancipate [ ih-man-suh-peyt ]

verb (used with object),e·man·ci·pat·ed,e·man·ci·pat·ing.

to free from restraint, influence, or the like.
to free (a person) from bondage or slavery.

A dear friend has referred to the last few years as “The Emancipation of Kaci”. He was there when I sold my vehicle because I was ordered to do so in the divorce decree. I went two months with no vehicle. Not because I couldn’t afford one, but because I had no clue what I wanted. The last vehicle I’d purchased without a husband’s input was a Nissan Sentra when I was twenty. Purchasing a car on my own scared the hell out of me!

Thirty years ago today, that train-wreck twenty-two year old girl walked down an aisle and said, “I do” to a twenty-two year old boy who was just as broken and who could relate to most of the childhood trauma she drug down the aisle behind her.

For many years I was the woman who offered to babysit so that others could attend weddings. My justification in skipping weddings was that it made me sad that most people put more effort into planning a day and a ceremony than they do into the relationship that they are supposed to make last a lifetime. In all the years of skipping weddings, I arrogantly thought that we were the exception. We had a simple ceremony and we were both committed to growing old together. This morning a picture we “aged” with an app several years ago popped up in my memories.

While I refuse to believe that I’ll EVER look like the old lady in the picture, the memory popping up brought with it a wave of grief. Later in the day I dropped Sofija at his house. Another wave of grief… On our 25th anniversary trip we began planning a 30th anniversary trip. A trip that wasn’t in our cards. Word of wisdom – if you’re miserable at home, planning your next anniversary trip doesn’t fix anything.

When I’m invited to weddings these days, I don’t offer to babysit. I do ask questions about what brought them together and how much of their crap has been dealt with. A fact of life that is inescapable; we all arrive at adulthood with wounds and baggage. We’re all at least a little broken. How much effort is put into a wedding ceremony is really irrelevant. What matters is… How whole are the two people pledging their lives to one another?

Ecclesiastes 4:12 NLT A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

Notice that verse doesn’t say, “a triple-braid with a steel strand and two bare threads”.

Our bare threads broke. My emancipation began. The thing about getting married at the ripe old age of twenty-two is that you have no fricking clue who you are. For nearly twenty-eight years I was defined by marriage, motherhood, military life, and all the things attached to those roles. And so, I found myself two years ago without a vehicle. My emancipation hasn’t been a bed of roses, but it’s been fun and surprising. I have a car I love and my next one picked out. I have a home that I love and I’ve furnished it with things I really like. I’ve embraced and enjoyed who I am professionally. I’ve learned that there’s still at least one great fish in the sea. I know who my people are and they are PRICELESS! I know who I am today and my hope is that every day I continue to become a better version of her.

The grief that visited today was for the old couple in that picture. I once dreamed of a future that will never be. Broken dreams are things to be grieved. When I felt the grief welling up in my eyes this morning I took some time to feel it, and then I gave thanks. I’m grateful for our marriage. The good, the bad, and the (sometimes really) ugly all served a purpose. Our marriage produced four pretty decent humans. I’ve had three decades of learning what love is and what it isn’t, what marriage can be and shouldn’t be, what I will tolerate and what I will not, how gracious I can be and how vicious I can be, what I desire in a partner and what I have to offer, and lots of time to grow and heal from the junk I brought into my marriage and the trauma inflicted by it. I can only hope that these last thirty years have been as meaningful for Chad.

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that we have been set free…

Living free, with only a few regrets…

Cheers to the kids who said, “I do.” thirty years ago