It’s almost two months since my marriage fell apart.

It’s almost six weeks that my step-son has been in the hospital with a very sudden and life-threatening illness.

It’s been a lot.

My step-son has been getting more stable the last few weeks. When I saw him on Friday, for the first time since this started he talked about leaving the hospital and catching up with his life. After so many weeks of only talking about how painful and scary this all was, that was such a relief. The end is in sight. Not that there won’t be complications - this is going to change his life in big ways and there is still a long road ahead, but still - after all this time with all these unknowns, we can see the road ahead.

Which means I have some more emotional bandwidth to face the fact that my marriage fell apart.

Saturday morning I baked a pie pumpkin, and the seeds. Then I blended it up with oats, water, brown sugar syrup and pumpkin pie spice to make a creamy pumpkin spice blend to add to coffee or tea.

The house smelled amazing.

While the pumpkin baked I worked on a puzzle.

It was soooo quiet. 

And I’ve been thinking about how this marriage was a dream come true.

The relationship we had was healing and nurturing and playful and all the things I wanted. 

And I’ve been thinking about how dreams don’t always last forever. I mean they can’t all last forever. We can’t have everything, always!

And I’ve been thinking about how our dreams need us to TRUST THEM even when they look and feel nothing like what we thought we wanted. Even when they fall apart completely.

That following our dreams leads us in the right direction. And that the goal is not to never be unhappy or to always have a “perfect life” whatever that means.

The goal is aliveness. And wholeness.

Our dreams always want us to grow into who we really are.

And as much as my marriage did help me do that, for so long, now that it’s gone I can see that there is so much more potential for growth, here where I am, by myself.

I mean I am far from alone, but you know what I mean. After having such a close emotional bond with someone, to lose that relationship feels like loosing a limb, it’s a lot to adjust to.

I had therapy last week. My therapist noted that usually the things I turn to to help me process and heal are more creativity focused, and now they are more sensory focused.

I am really IN my body.

I have been making space in my body to process all of this. I am breathing deeper than I knew was possible. I mean, I have meditated for 30 years, I thought I knew deep breathing! 

I didn’t know deep breathing, not like this.

This weekend, there were times when I felt more peace than I’ve ever felt in my life. The kind of peace that comes from embodiment, not from having a peaceful life.

I think we try so hard to force our lives into the shapes that we think will make us happy and bring us peace but life is always life-ing.

And the world is a brutal place. I have not been ignoring the news, but I have been having big firm boundaries with it because I just can’t right now. But I know the world is far from peaceful.

And still. I feel this sensation of peace in a deeper way than I ever have before. Sometimes. I am also feeling lots of other things.

And beneath it all, a growing sense of trust that I am on the right path.

This is what our dreams are for - to lead us along our healing journey.

And as a part of that - dreams WILL fall apart. Dreams WILL make a huge mess in your life. Dreams WILL HURT sometimes.

It’s all a part of it.

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