The Strongly Opposable Seasons Don’t Last Forever
We see dimly, a blurred image in a mirror. It’s not great.
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I was reading through some much older excerpts I’ve written, hoping to find some growth between now and then. We love to measure our growing kids, mark how tall they get each year with fanfare and sharpies, and then we just…stop once they stop physically growing. As if we are only bodies. As if our spirit and mind and soul—the way we connect thoughts and build lessons into ladders—aren’t worth all the sharpies in the world.
I found one excerpt written in the last decade that made me pause. I like to look at myself then. Even more than in the photos, I can see myself clearly in my words. I remember being the brand new divorced girl. I remember feeling profoundly low, opening my mouth to breathe and gulping down shame instead. I remember forgetting how to envision anything better because my current reality was a fire raging all around and who talks about the shape of the clouds, the sunset, the projected weather next week in the midst of an uncontrollable inferno.
Surviving doesn’t leave a lot of room for much else.
I remember trying to live a little, going out to a diner with friends, and halfway through the meal, panicking inside. I needed to go. Out of the booth, out of my skin, out of this life. The only way I did this was by writing, so I left as soon as I could, went home and opened up my computer. Twyla Tharp said, “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home,” and I did that over and over again, all the while continuing to wake up the next morning still in my parents’ basement.
I would retreat to find the words and something inside of me calmed a little. Relentlessly searching for them was something I could do—I, who had no say over whether or not her husband stayed; I, who had no say over whether or not she was divorced—and the agency and focus this lent me for the hours I wrote was a balm. Writing was the proof of life that I needed. And not just life as in not dead. No, I mean life as in all its glory and growth and guts and changing expansions and arc and story and thread and tapestry. I saw, in real time, how the story, my story, was progressing, so how could I not hope (even just a little) that the story would continue to progress until one day it would no longer look so shameful to me?
Anyway, allow me to share something I wrote at the end of my first marriage:
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My friend went with me to the Courthouse. You know, to file. We walked in and I didn’t know where to go. I also felt pretty stupid holding the best and the worst in my hand—my marriage certificate and the petition for divorce papers—with not even a folder to make it seem more presentable. Or, I don’t know, hide-able.
I was clutching onto the papers the way a kindergartner holds her homework, all sticky fingers gripping tightly around loose leaves. There were even a few little grease spots on the papers from when I was choking down the grilled cheese sandwich my mom had made me while sorting through the documents I needed to purchase a divorce I never wanted. I remember going to the courthouse to get our marriage license. We laughed about the questions ruling out our being related. We were happy and together and forever was a given. We were so stupid, right? Or were we smart and we are stupid now?
Since my friend and I were walking into a courthouse, it was serious business. I was greeted by a security checkpoint and anything that wasn’t on my body, I had to place on a conveyor belt that led to an X-ray machine. I hesitantly plopped all the papers down. I really wished I had a folder as I watched them all separate. The divorce papers slid out of view easily, but the marriage certificate, that was a fighter. It just wasn’t giving up. It kept getting stuck on the strip of fabric and not quite making it to be X-ray.
Watching its dogged stance reminded me of an acquaintance of mine—someone who had been at my wedding. When he read on my blog that I was getting a divorce, he wrote a nice big brave comment. “I strongly oppose this,” he stated, as if I hadn’t thought about just opposing this whole thing myself and happily watching it disappear as a consequence. “As I was witness to your union, I count it my own sacred duty to disagree with anything other than staying married,” he continued. How cute, I thought. He has no idea that the marriage was over before I was privy to the knowledge myself, before I had even a chance of opposing anything. I wish life was as simple as applying some strong opposition to anything we wish weren’t so. In fact, I’m gonna go ahead and strongly oppose this comment and see what happens.
I felt like the world was in stop-time and I was destined to look upon my marriage certificate in limbo on that stupid conveyor belt forever. I was also embarrassed. I guess because no marriage certificate should ever be treated that way. It’s a sacred thing, and here it looked like a bag of frozen peas not quite making it to the grocery store checkout clerk. But, whatever, my marriage is no longer sacred and at least peas have real value because they stop a person from being hungry.
I finally got the papers back and we walked up to a man who must have heard the phrase, Where do I go to file for divorce? about a million times, but it was the first time I had to ask the question and the words felt awful. I started the sentence okay, but when I got to the word file I dropped my volume and by the time I had to say divorce I was barely whispering. The man told me where to go and we headed that way.
By the time we got up to the lady behind the desk, we had been standing in line for a bit, talking—smiling, even. And so I thought it was actually pretty funny when she asked my friend with me if he was the person I was divorcing. If I didn’t laugh then, I certainly laughed later, because how strange to think about talking and jovially laughing while standing in line with the person you’re divorcing.
And then maybe the weirdest and most horrible part of today was when she casually handed me a price list on a xerox copy. It was listed. Like lunch items in your elementary school cafeteria. Like:
MILK……………..$1.00
Only, instead of milk it was:
DIVORCE……….$160.00
I was standing there, holding that flimsy itemized list of things nobody wants to have to purchase, staring at it. I’ve thought, How is this my life? more times in the last few months than I have ever in the years before. It’s this surreal realization over and over again how hard it is to exist. And isn’t it ridiculous how manners demand we are polite in the throes of doing the unthinkable? Like, let me smile as I order up a divorce and then pay you money. But also, shouldn’t a heart broken in half cost more than $160 measly dollars?
I wanted to cry at the tragedy and laugh at the pure theater we humans enact every day of our lives—but especially the days we purchase a divorce. I wanted to, in the words of my wildly misplaced pseudo supportive acquaintance, strongly oppose paying anybody actual money for this shame that I bear. Instead, I handed over my bank card. I smiled as I grabbed my receipt and stuck it with all the other papers that are just as absurd, just as official.
But I didn’t say anything because, though I would hopefully find the words later, I couldn’t at the time.
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Dear friends, keep going. The seasons tell us a story. Depending upon whether or not you are a leaf and it’s early October, I suppose the story might look good or it might look bad. But I don’t think you’re a leaf, and even if you were, well, you’d become part of the ground, and you’d find new growth and you’d help feed the world and it would be okay. And if you were a tree, you might wonder what happened in the middle of January, but then spring is coming is coming is coming and this is no less true in the dead of winter than it is when May comes and stares you in the face and dares you to hope with her. I am not saying don’t be sad because spring is coming, I am saying don’t believe that what you are seeing and feeling right now is the only part of your story that matters. It is a part, and every part matters, but it is not everything.
There is a Bible verse we all like to quote and we like to crochet it on crochet-able objects like pillows and wall hangings and very unlucky cats:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
And this is well and should be quoted and should be held onto the way we would hold onto anything that keeps us alive, absolutely. But there is another verse that I’ve never seen crocheted on anything at all, and I wonder if it should be:
“Now we see a blurred image in a mirror.”
That’s it, that’s the verse. Perhaps we should tape this to our bathroom mirrors and refrigerators, or whatever places you happen to regularly be. Because we need to remember that we don’t see so clearly. For the most part, we emote very well. Astoundingly well. I took the girls out of our home for twelve entire hours yesterday, took them all the way to the beach and hauled all our beach stuff and it was wonderful and it was hard and, let me tell you, I sure did expect the kitchen to be sparkling clean when I got home. After all, my husband TJ had been there by himself for twelve entire hours, why wouldn’t it be? But then I walked into the kitchen and saw there were *entire pots and pans in the sink—dirty still, from his lunch—and believe me when I tell you that I had some strong and unconfused emotions about the whole thing. Like, I said, we have strong feelings.
But the same cannot be said about our ability to perceive the world around us, our place in it, or what shall be the result of whatever is happening right now. We are weak there. We see dimly, a blurred image in a mirror. It’s not great. We need each other to help fill in the blanks. Maybe all that dark expanse in front of you—the hours and days and years that stretch before you like a life sentence of just more of whatever is causing you to suffer right now? Maybe that is actually gonna be a lot better than you imagine, we tell each other. Maybe God is telling a story that will make you really grateful you kept going, that you made it to here, because here is worth all of that, even the courthouse and the strong oppositions from friends who don’t know any better and that dirty little word divorce that actually rolls off the tongue like it’s nothing these days.
*TJ, after reading this whole piece, said this and this alone: Do you want to expand on the bit about pots and pans? Do you want to let people know I spent the whole day cleaning but you hadn’t gone downstairs yet to notice it and there were actually only two pots and pans and one small cup in the sink that I had forgotten to clean? (I told him I would let people know.)
The podcast I co-host with TJ just got a makeover! It’s now called “The TJ [& Jess] Show” and it’s available on most podcasting platforms. To hear details about why we changed the name, listen to episode 104: “Changing Show Name”
I had the honor of joining recording artist Rita Springer on her podcast last month. We talk about grief, faith, and creativity. Listen here: