Divine Patience

There are beloved men in my life who are torn on the jagged edges of their marriages. I see myself in them, as they grasp for fraying identities of husband, lover, father, family anchor. It is a place so many of us have trudged incomprehensibly through. And you who have fought it will know it hides pools of toxic quicksand. The more you blame, resist and deny, the deeper you sink.

I am on the upside, rekindled and alive like never before, but I am 6 years on. My experience of divorce is desperate denial, heartache, disbelief, stalker's shame. It is all about me, perceiving myself as a victim of betrayal, perceiving her as a victim of my neglect, regret for not seeing, not being seen, and again, me, me, me. My ego taking a last unheroic stand.

That veneer of how I knew myself and how I wanted to be known simply melted. Pick your metaphor. A dark abyss, a long, dark night, the valley of the shadow.. whatever speaks to you. A death is in order. But so is a rebirth.

“The long dark night eventually chisels away the clinging,” she said as if throwing away an orange peel in a speeding car. (Will add credit to the comments when I remember.)

Chisels away the clinging. That is so beautiful. I can see it. Like a Rodin statue divining its essence from a glob of marble. And all we need while saturated in our longing and grief, while still grasping at our dissolving identities is … divine patience.

"Divine patience." Another of her throwaways that stuck with me like nail polish.

So this ego bows low, the clinging to who we were and who we were with gets chiseled away. And with Divine Patience, we get to view our drama from the space station, while the earth keeps turning into the unknowable and inevitable, new day.