Starting Over in my Thirties.
Why the fuck does this feel like walking a tight rope to my death...
I used to laugh when people said, “you can start over again as many times as you want” because it seemed so extreme and unbelievable and yet, here I am at 33 years old in my childhood bedroom doing exactly that - starting over - well I’ve been starting over for awhile but I’m finally at a point where I feel comfortable enough to unpack it.
I feel like I am a cautionary tale to all young girls out there who have stars in their eyes thinking that the man you meet in your 20s will be the man you end up spending the rest of your life with. It may work out for some but not for all. And I say this without the shame I have finally let go of, I am part of that glaring 50% statistic no one wants to be a part of — we’re entering and making ourselves comfortable in the land of DIVORCE.
I met him at 20, married him at 21, and watched our ending unfold by 30, even if we held on for a little bit longer after that. While I spent years holding onto the resentment and bitterness of the life I had dreamed of ending, I have finally realized my dream wasn’t really ending, it was making way for a new one that was coming. In the words of Hannah Stella she wrote about her divorce and she summed it up so perfectly,
“Divorce is a terrible thing to survive. It is grieving the loss of old dreams and finding hope in new ones. It’s loneliness, a fear of ever needing another person and a desperate longing for support. Divorce is losing the person who once knew you best and divorce is wondering if they ever knew you at all. Priority shifts and swift changes. It’s bad hair decisions. And it is countless hours considering whether any of these new parts of you are actually new or whether they were always there, pushed down inside you as a survival mechanism. But the terrible storm ends, as all storms do.” - Hannah Stella
There are a few things I am unlearning and relearning during this season of acceptance and healing and its this, divorce humbles you and brings out a different side of you - a side you did not know existed (and it isn’t always kind to yourself or others). There are moments where you will be angry as hell and bitter at how easy his life got without you and how fucking hard your life got without him. You will spend countless therapy sessions going over and over the signs that had presented itself from the beginning and you will beat yourself up about ignoring them. There will even be moments where you are crying to your therapist asking why you aren’t lovable and worthy of someone wanting to stay and she will tell you, '“you are lovable. just not by him”. One day it will all click into place. You will stop beating yourself up over the signs you missed. You will accept the role you played and the ending you received. You will cry less but change will still haunt you because baby, change is hard. You may one day, not today but one day, thank that man for breaking your heart because that heartbreak catapulted you onto the path towards the life you were meant to live EVEN if its scary and far from the life you had envisioned…those are growing pains. And finally, you will meet a new version of yourself, a version that is a little more self assured, a little more ready to love and be loved, a little more raw and needy BUT this version of Breana, is the truest version you’ve ever had and that will always be enough.