Tick Tock

4 months – the amount of time to fall in love. 1 year – the amount of time to plan a wedding and get married. 9 months – the amount of time to create a human being. 20 years – the amount of time to build a life. 4 years – the amount of time for a marriage to crumble and fall apart. Time is extremely subjective. Except of course the time it takes to create a human body… 

I had never really thought about time except that I never felt like I had enough. Busy with kids, with work, getting kids to extracurricular activities. Always running. It was a random concept to me until February 2021 when a 3-month trial separation became a very concrete measure of time. Before that, 3 months just was 3 months. However, when we decided to separate, 3 months became an eternity. In my mind, at the end of the trial, when we worked everything out, it would almost be another season. Sammy would almost be out of school for the summer. I would no longer be wearing sweaters and jeans; I would be wearing sundresses and sandals. And for 1 1/2 of those months, I would not be living with my family. 

At the beginning of the separation, I would drive to Arizona to be with my mom and close friends. By the 4th week out of the house, I was exhausted; and a friend let me rent her casita for the weeks I wasn’t in my house. The weeks I spent in Arizona went fairly quickly. I was able to distract myself enough with family and friends. However, the first Sunday I stayed in California, it happened to be Easter. I remember my mom had been in town and she left before the changing of the guards. I left the house a few minutes before noon that day, but I didn’t want to go straight to my friend’s, so I went out to lunch. By myself. I ate at the restaurant and got in my car and cried because I could not believe this is how I was spending Easter. Every Easter before that day had involved Easter egg hunts, church, a big meal. Family.  

Time truly felt like the enemy. My life up until this point had been so full and so busy and all of a sudden, I felt the minutes dragged on and on and on…. 

Shift in perspective

Eventually I got tired of doing absolutely nothing but being sad so I started reading books again – something I had always loved but never felt like I had the time to do. Then I started journaling my thoughts and feelings. Let me tell you how good it was to get all the stuff out of my head and onto paper. I started going out with friends every now and then, to happy hour, to lunch or hiking. I polished my nails, did face masks, worked out… Instead of thinking about time as a bad thing, I started to treat it as a gift. I chose to use the time I had to reconnect with myself. IF I looked at social media, I chose only positive accounts, Power of Positivity, Law of Attraction, any and all cute animal videos. 

I decided to treat time as a gift and not the enemy. 

Now, to be completely honest, and in the nature of complete transparency, I’ve had a setback this week. A blast from the past showed up and it brought back memories of who I was and how far I am from my picture of what my life was going to look like. I’m thinking about time again, and how sometimes it feels like my friend and sometimes I don’t like it at all. I know I have to sit in these feelings because this is not my first rodeo but this time, I won’t have to sit as long. In talking with a friend, who is on the same journey, but a few years ahead of me, she mentioned that triggers still come up out of nowhere. Like a jump scare in a horror movie. I’ve gotten to a point that it’s ok to not be ok sometimes, because I know that tomorrow is a new day, and I am so grateful to be surrounded by an army of angels who love and support me unconditionally.

Time truly is a gift. There is no measurement of how long it takes to grieve the death of a marriage. Or the time it takes to feel “normal” again. To be able to see people in public without having an emotional meltdown. Throughout this process I’ve learned to take the time I need to be happy, to be sad, to wallow, to think, to meditate, to be… I’ve learned that in order to take care of myself, I need to take TIME.