Life By Kristen

My New Year Begins

I don’t know the exact date that my exhusband and I decided to separate, but a year ago I know was when we began to go public with our decision to end our marriage. The details of this decision are private and it would be unfair to him and to our relationship/marriage to discuss them in this way, as well as the fact that I created this blog as a space for my new life and self-discovery, leaving that aspect of my life as one of the many experiences that shapes me into the Kristen I am today.

Just as I was frustrated and annoyed with my lack of motivation and frustration, I read some things that helped change my perspective, stop being in denial, and think about the things that were annoying me. At that same point too, the last of my ex husband’s items left my house and he surrendered his keys. I guess the literal stuff was bogging me down more than I let myself believe.

It’s been a year- a year of tears, anger, excitement, new discoveries, disappointments and connections. For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I finally have a handle on things, which is the thing I have been in search of for too long. There will always be new challenges and obstacles- and I still face a few more before I can officially close the Divorce Book- but the next items are more the annoying aspects of paperwork and name change and less emotional upheaval.

It’s also a time to express sincere and heartfelt gratitude to the world- family near and far, friends, coworkers, online people I have never met in person but helped me through the worst year and a half of my life. Even when I was physically alone in my house, I knew a “listening” ear was only a click away.

August and September of last year were the months of tears and unsettling feelings like I had never known. A year later, they are the months of finality and clarity. I own the house by myself. The divorce is finalized. I will change my name. It seems fitting then that to not only celebrate that, but also to push myself to action- sort of a New Year’s Resolutions in the Fall- to remind myself of why I stood up for myself and for my life, and to not lose sight of who I am– and want to be–again.