Tag Archives: life

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda – Have to!

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I don’t know about you, but I sometimes feel my life is full of ‘shoulds’.  I should lose some weight.  I should go to the gym.  I should clean up the house.  I should wash my windows instead of reading a book.  I should eat an apple instead of an Easter egg.  I should get my taxes off to my accountant. 

As girls we’re taught we should be good, quiet, help people and shouldn’t complain or get angry if we always have to do what other people want.  Boys, I’m sure have their own ‘shoulds’ – or should nots.  Boys should be strong and shouldn’t cry, for example.

I mentioned one of my recent ‘shoulds’ to my friend, Jane, recently.  She’s been seeing a counsellor who told her to substitute the word should with either I want to do something, or I don’t want to do something.  That way it gives her control so she no longer reacts to the dictates of the past.  So, either I want to clean my house today, or I don’t want to.

Sometimes practising what you preach isn’t that easy. Jane just told me that her husband’s ex mother-in-law recently died.  Although Jane herself had never met the woman – she and her husband have been married 35 years, so it’s been a long time – she felt she should go to the funeral to support her step-children at their grandmother’s funeral.

The problem, is, she didn’t want to go.  Jane has some serious health issues.  It would be a long drive and she’s not comfortable sitting for long periods of time.  There would be a lot of people there that she didn’t know and she was feeling really stressed even just thinking about it.

And then the next morning, as she got dressed, her shoulder screamed at her.  A visit to the doctor and a cortisone shot followed.  Aftercare informed her that she was supposed to do nothing for 24-48 hours that might stress the shoulder.  Taking off and putting on a coat, sitting in a car for three hours etc. would be too much for her.

Her reaction?  Relief.  Relief that she had a way out of it all and didn’t have to do something she felt she should.

But – and these are her own words –  It’s crazy that at 76 years of age I need someone or something to “tell” me it is okay to do, or not do, something. That “should” I was taught as a girl still pops up taking away my power to make a decision based on who I am now.

I don’t want to doesn’t always get us off Scot free.  I don’t want to submit my taxes – it’s a pain in the neck.  But… I do want to get them done and off so I don’t have the income tax people breathing down my neck.  So switching the focus of something  you don’t want to something you do can help. Besides, there are sometimes you get no choice in the matter. Want to or not, I HAVE to submit my taxes. And sometimes in life, there are things we have to do whether we like it or not.

But most other things come down to choice. And occasionally, when we really feel that obligation to do something we don’t want to, our bodies will intervene.  Unfortunately it’s often in a painful way, but it grabs our attention and forces us to face something old patterns of behaviour that are perhaps no longer relevant..  

I want to…

I don’t want to…

I have to…

What are your choices today?

We are Stronger than We Think

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The Lotus Flower by jennyzhh2008 from Pixabay

(Strength, Resilience, and Beauty in the face of Adversity)

Thinking back on those first years of surviving the reality of dissolving the marriage contract and building a new life on my own, I sometimes wonder how I got through it all.

My ex and I had been together for 40 years – 38 years married – when he decided he wanted to be single again. I had been a stay-at-home mother, wife, and business partner and had very little work experience let alone money. But there I was, reeling from betrayal and emotional pain, fighting for a fair settlement, fighting for a place to live, fighting for my life. I was 60 years old.

It wasn’t pretty. At first I didn’t bravely straighten my back and get on with it. I cried a lot, slept very little, tried to hide my fear from everyone, especially my adult children. My ex wanted all the savings, investments, property and half the house. His argument was that HE had earned it while I enjoyed all those years of free room and board.

It doesn’t sound right, does it? Aren’t there laws about such things? Yes, there are, but nevertheless, it took four years and major legal bills before my lawyer managed to get a separation agreement that wouldn’t leave me close to destitute. I learned early on that the law is not necessarily “fair’, that you need a lawyer who will fight for you. Without the support of my friends, my children, even my in-laws…without them I honestly don’t know that I would have survived. Literally.

But I did. I only mention all this because I know, whatever your situation, you are going through your own version of hell and I want to say to you: find the strength that is within you. Don’t become a victim. Fight back. Don’t give in because of fear.

I realize now that my mother – imperfect parent that she was – made me strong. She used to say, “Anything a man can do, a woman can do better.” It took me a lifetime to realize that her voice was the backbone of my survival. All I had done as a “mere” stay-at-home mom – raising children, being a caring, loving partner, home maintenance, landscaping, social planning, business partner – all these roles had made me strong. Like in Helen Reddy’s song “I am Woman,” I could do anything. I just didn’t realize it until push came to shove in the lawyer’s office.

How does any woman get through the absolute devastation of divorce, let alone at a late stage in life? I now see it is because we are women. Seriously. Women are strong – just as my mother said. If we believe in ourselves, we will survive.

Not only will we survive, we will thrive. My life today is full and content and downright good. I made it through to the other side, and it’s well worth the journey.

Fight for yourself. Don’t let anyone ever say you aren’t worth it. Because it’s just not true. You’ll be okay. You’ll be better than okay.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Alice Walker

Golden

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A friend and I were talking about crying a few days ago.  She admitted she hasn’t shed a single tear in over a decade.  And it got me thinking… since those first couple of years after my husband left me, I have been fortunate enough that nothing bad has happened in my life to make me weep.

Except… when there’s music involved.

I’m taking my daughter to see Les Miserables in a few weeks’ time and I’ve given her fair warning that I will start bubbling as soon as the first few notes ring out.  I don’t know what it is about music, particularly live music, but it reaches down into my soul.

Sometimes it’s classical.  Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ and Vaughan Williams’ ‘Lark Arising’ get the tears flowing, but so can the Star Wars theme.  I was at a Spice Girls tribute concert with my daughter in January, and the tears started dripping down my cheeks to ‘Wannabe’.

In some cases, I think it’s situational.  When it comes to the Spice Girls, I remember my daughter and her friend as ten-year-olds, dancing and singing down the street, and the memories that conjures up are warm and lovely.  Star Wars reminds me of a special time in my life.

But why, with other pieces of music that are not situational, do I cry at some but not others.

The latest piece of music that has really got to me is ‘Golden’ from K Pop Demon Hunters.  (I’m late to the game as my seven-year-old granddaughter rolled her eyes when I talked to her about it.  Apparently ‘Golden’ is ‘So 2025’!!!)

I rarely – never – listen to a song’s lyrics.  For me it’s all about the melody and from the first time I heard ‘Golden’ it brought tears to my eyes.  Why?

There’s a line in Alan Bennett’s play ‘The History Boys’ that I love.  “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”

He’s talking about words, but I think the same emotion can hold true for all kinds of art… including music.

So what is it about Golden – without listening to the lyrics –  that resonated so strongly with me?  Was it the wistful opening? The different voices?  The build to ecstatic joy?  Lots of songs do that.  Why is this one special?

I decided to research one of the writers, Ejae.  She’s still very young – only 34 – but started training to be a K Pop singer when she was eleven, until she was dropped just over ten years later.  She talks about being heartbroken by this in interviews, and at this point she slowly moved into song writing.

I finally read the lyrics to ‘Golden’, and things started to fall into place for me. Although she and her co-writer were given a brief by the producers of the film as to what they wanted the song to be about, it was the music that came first to her.  (She talks about noting down the melodies on her way to the dentist.) The characters’ emotional journeys – despite the fact they’re demon hunters – reflects her own. Resilience and rebuilding

So, what did I learn from this?  Two things.

  1. Perhaps the biggest lesson I have learned from my divorce is the gift of resilience and second chances/rebuilding.  In my marriage ‘I lived both lives, tried to play both sides’, but now I’m finally growing into ‘Who I’m born to be’. 
  • As in the Alan Bennett quote above, I have come to believe that when one allows oneself to be really honest and truthful in your creation – whether it’s in writing, or music or art, or any kind of design or creative activity like cooking a meal or baking a cake – that’s when you are going to touch the soul of others, allowing us to realise we’re not alone on this journey of life.

So… bring on the tears!

It’s My Life Now!

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I am 74 years old and have been divorced for more than 10 years now. Why does writing this feel like a confession at some sort of Divorcees Anonymous meeting? Maybe because deep down inside, I am ashamed that my husband of almost 40 years dumped me. There’s no sugar-coating it, that’s what happened, and beyond my dear friend, fellow-blogger, Vhairi, I’ve not talked about this honestly with anyone. I’ve protected my adult children from not only the sordid details of the why of it, but also from how damaged I was and really, still am.

I have built a new life on top of the old, but I struggle with making important decisions, and money worries keep me awake nights. And then there’s the age thing. I keep reminding myself that I am OLD! That yes, that is me in the mirror, not my mother.

Divorce took out my self-confidence; it was years before I began to recognize that the negative self-talk that echoed in my head every day was my ex-husband’s voice. It took more years to forgive myself for staying in an emotionally abusive relationship for so long, long after my children were grown and gone.

But here’s the thing: Through reading, writing on this blog, talking with friends, and just getting on with life, I came to realize that I have always been a survivor, that all women are survivors. We do what we have to do and sometimes that means staying with someone who hurts us. Sometimes it means staying because we’ve been too damaged and weakened to leave.

I’d like to recommend a book that really helped me not only forgive myself but also to embrace the future. “It’s My Life Now: Starting Over after an Abusive Relationship” by Meg Kennedy Dugan and Roger. R. Hock. The word “abusive” is harsh, and maybe you don’t feel it applies to you, but I believe this book is worth reading to see how women in many different situations have found the inner strength to move forward in life after the terrible emotional carnage of divorce.

Today, I am truly thankful that my ex dumped me; otherwise, I fear, I’d still be living as a shadow of my self. I never thought I would say that, but it’s true. It hasn’t been easy. It isn’t easy now, but I am a survivor. No…more than that… Remember the song “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy in the 70s? The lyrics mean more to me now than they did back in the early days of Women’s Lib:

Whoa, yes, I am wise 
But it’s wisdom born of pain 
Yes, I’ve paid the price 
But look how much I gained

If I have to I can do anything 
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman…

Getting to Where You’re Going

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It’s been 13 years since my ex announced (by email) that he didn’t love me anymore and wanted a divorce. I was 60 years old at the time and I was completely floored.
A few years later, with my dear friend Vhairi, we decided to write about our experiences struggling through the pain and betrayal of divorce, totally unprepared for the aftermath, and wanting to share what we were learning along the way.
My last post was seven years ago. Life got busy as I began to emerge out of the darkness. I started my own freelance writing business, new grandchild, new dog, a couple of trips across Canada, and then Covid changed the world…but the real reason why I stopped posting is because I thought I had said all there was to say about getting through those early years. I had nothing left to offer.
Wrong.
Maybe the outwardly big things were settled. I had my own name back, had my routine, cleared the house of furniture, reminders of him, and made it MY home. It was MY life, and yet here I am again, back on the page, realizing that the struggles actually never stopped, that I am still feeling my way through life on my own. I have three adult children, six grandchildren (how fortunate am I!) and we are still juggling our relationships around the past, the now, and the future with the ex as the big ink blot in the middle. So many decisions to be made by myself, friendships that came and others that dissolved. It was naïve of me to think I was free and clear of it all. Or ever will be.
I’ve learned a lot and unlearned more, and I hope to write about some of this here on this blog. If anything helps any of you out there, even just knowing you are not alone, that will be good.
But true confession: it’s to help myself as well. I need to understand who I am and how I want to play out the years I have left. The stain of divorce will never be erased. I want to find a way to turn that stain into a joyful work of art, part of my story.
Please always feel free to comment, ask questions. We are on this journey together, and together we are strong.
Isobel