Space For Something More

It’s not always about the date that something happened on, but rather, when you feel the truth of that something in your body.

I’d always thought my divorce papers were stamped by the Court on the 40th wedding anniversary of my parents. May 11, 2002. And yet, when I check, I see the date is in that neighbourhood, but not ON that date or even exactly 40 years ago. Simply put, at that time I believed that 40 years = “a long time married.” And I felt that would never be me.

Hopelessness; despair. These were feelings I’d come to know well. The possibility of something different, seemed, well, impossible.

I remember relating this story, this feeling, to my therapist at the time… Heartbroken, sobbing, yes, I was a mess as I lamented that I would never have “40 years” with someone. Gently, and with such kindness, she looked at me over her glasses perched down her nose, and said something that caught my breath:

“You may never have 40 years married.

But you may have the rest of your life.

Only you know if that is enough.”

Her words have lived in my body, in my heart, for twenty years now.

“I may have the rest of my life with someone.

And only I know if that will be enough.”

After all this time, some truths have settled into my bones:

I am an unreliable witness to my past.

And, I was never as stuck, as cornered, as I thought I was.

This October marks 16 years in loving relationship with my partner. 10 years ago, we married. And I can say, from this place, that yes, it is more than enough. That all the days we’ve been together, the easy ones and the hard ones, have been gifts to me. And I am so incredibly grateful to have the rest of my life with this person.

We have a choice when despair comes to visit: to let it stay, or send it packing.

I let despair live in me long enough to learn that this feeling did not serve me well. I came to realise that I could not live with it in me, so I let it go. And, in its place, grew hope, possibility, and a space for something more.