A long time gone

A year. It has been a year.

It has been a year since my last post. The worst year of my life. Maybe the best too. Time will tell I suppose.

My marriage ended. That's the short of it. The long of it is too much to bear, and to much to bare. I have spent months wanting to write, but not being able to bring myself to remove the word "wife" from my profile-- because I don't feel single. Single feels like 20, no kids, no mortgage, no worries, and here I am pushing 30, two beautiful babies stuck in this hell that is divorce, a mortgage I can't even dream of paying and more worries than I even knew existed when I was 20. Or 27. But life changes fast.

I am endlessly blessed. I won't pretend I'm any less, it would be unfair to my family, friends, children, my God. I have been supported, lifted up, cheered up, and blessed beyond measure.

And yet.

It's a new chapter. I am nobody's wife. That still seems strange, even though I haven't really had a husband for quite sometime. The concept still stuns me and makes me a little sad, a little disoriented, but it also means I get to figure out who I am again. And at 29, it is...different.

I am a mother. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a friend, although I have not done those things the justice in the last year that they deserve. Who I am, in relationship to the people I love, gives me a focal point, a point of reference, an effulgent constellation of guiding stars, giving me the rest of the sky in which to stage my next act.

We'll call it "The Phoenix."