Baby Steps Forward

I have tried several times to start a post and then can't get it out the way I want to.  A lot has happened, and I'm emotionally tired.

I told the kids last week about their Dad and I getting divorced.
It went... ok.
How good can that moment go?  I prayed a lot before, during, and after. I'm painfully aware that this will be a moment that is forever seared into their memories and I wanted to control it as much as possible.  I wanted to do it in a beautiful outdoor sanctuary.  But.. it's been so cold. The kids were starting to ask hard questions, and I couldn't keep avoiding it... so I drove to the place, but we had to stay in the car. It was.. anticlimactic.  It was hard. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But we lived.
As I have moved through my grief, the hardest part of this process has been watching my children hurt. It's been doubly hard because I haven't shared many details with them. I talk about it as much as I can, but I am very careful to protect them from many of the details because I want to preserve their relationships with their Dad.  The hard part is that there isn't a lot for them to cling to in way of understanding because the details are too ugly for me to share.  I struggle to find the words to satiate their curiosity and hurt while still preserving their innocence. It's an awful place to be and I pray often that God would give them peace in those broken and confused places that I can't soothe.
I do talk with the kids about our circumstances fairly often.  I have learned from listening to friends of mine that many families who go through divorce do it without talking to one another.  While I'm not offering many details for my children, I am being available to answer questions, to listen, and to let them know that it's ok to hurt and to be angry. I am doing the best I can to make space for their pain and allow it to be in the open now. I'm praying that that effort will prove to be healing for them as the years go by and that it will lay a foundation of trust for them that will allow them to share with me in years to come when they are hurting as older kids or teens and processing through the pain of this divorce.

I am learning so much through this process. About myself, my children, and the utter lack of control I have over other people.  At the end of the day, we all are responsible for our own actions and behavior, and nothing I can do can change his behavior and his actions.  I've never wanted to change someone so badly in my life.... I want to 'fix' him, and 'heal' him and make it all better for my kids sake, his sake, my sake.... and yet I am powerless to do so.  To watch someone you care about make choices that harm themselves and ultimately the people they love is the most awful and powerless feeling in the world, and I am learning the ultimate lesson in letting go.

This life is so drastically different than the one I had mapped out in my head.  I sometimes feel as though I've fallen asleep and woken up in another person's life... surely this can't be my reality!  But it truly is, and as I navigate these new waters of single parenthood, and single adulthood, I am learning to fall in love with myself and also fall in love with God.  I am living in a place of complete faith and also independence at a level I've never been required to before.  I'm learning to trust myself and make hard choices that not everyone understands or likes, but are choices that need to be made for the care of my children and myself.  I'm learning that I am enjoyable, dependable, human, strong, resourceful, and motivated. I'm learning that I can do hard things.  Harder than I ever dreamed.  And I'm learning to live this life as Heather. Not as someones wife, or mother, or friend, or employee.... but as myself. And I'm learning that I really do love that girl.