When people began learning about my divorce, there had been a constant sentiment coming from people.  Friends kept telling me that they were proud of me.  What!? Me? Why?

What is there to be proud of?

Proud of choosing the wrong path?  The wrong guy?  For staying static for too many years?  Proud of putting my children through some intense scary shit? Of ignoring the red flags that have been waiving in front of me for years? Of settling? I certainly did not feel very proud at first.

I mean, I know what they meant, of course.  It takes a lot of strength to make a decision with such unpredictability.  I suppose you need chutzpah to start all over, especially with little ones.  A lot of us stay in unhappy relationships or situations simply because it is easier.  It is easy to settle into being content.  It’s cheaper and “might as well” right?  Because we all know going down the other road is going to be emotionally tough, financially straining, and down right scary.  Their pride in me, though, showed support and made me feel strong and able to take on anything.

So I took that confidence and pride, the anger I was feeling, and allowed my logical brain to take over for a while.  My heart has gotten me into enough trouble and it felt as though my head had my heart in a choke-hold…So no one saw me cry.  My children saw silliness, tasted delicious meals, and woke up smiling.  I would smile big and work hard at the office.  I took all my strength from the deepest parts of me to get through court hearings, attorney meetings, debt collectors, police visits, maintaining my cool, facing foreclosure, and to pray as hard as I could.  Honestly, I had been doing alright, considering all the factors, here.

Because sometimes shit feels so heavy in your soul, but somehow something else inside you tells you that this is right.  I know somehow that I am doing the right thing.  Don’t ask me how.  Even though it hurt SO much a lot of the time, I knew it was right.  I knew that I deserved the best.  That I will NOT go down like this.  I will not let myself sink into contentedness when instead, I can grow and live.  Live outside the box of Maybe and head into the space of Forward.

So the other day, my friend Malina says to me that what I was doing was “brave and impressive” (via text).  Right there, in my car, at a red light, I literally screamed out “I don’t WANT to be impressive!!” I probably sounded like my kid when she doesn’t want to take a bath or put on her shoes.  If I wasn’t driving, I probably would have stomped my foot while I said it.  I turned into a 5-year-old and the tears ran down my face all the way home. Truth is, we can only carry our own personal world on our shoulders for so long before you want to take that thing and throw it as far away from you as possible. You don’t even want to see it.  Because even though you know it is right, it just feels so unbelievably impossible.  It is beyond exhausting.  I’m tired of being strong and keeping cool.  That’s just as exhausting.  I kept my cool for a long-ass time and right there I let myself lose the cool…and let it all out.

So as I pack up the house, crying with each book or frame I pack, with melancholy nostalgia and hopeful excitement at the same time:

I don’t feel like making you proud.  I don’t want to be brave and I do not want to impress you.  I want to lay around in sweatpants with a bottle of whiskey and a joint and cry over a boy who broke my heart.