On being whole

There is no delicate way to say it - ours is a broken home. To label our family as broken certainly implies that we are "no longer whole" - and it is this very definition that is turning my thoughts and stirring my soul today .

This is a weekend when I am neither with my children or at work. While rare and often productive - this kind of solitary weekend forces me to examine my family life as I knew it as I know it and as it is evolving.

It's been nearly two years since our children have had two homes. Though emotionally painful in every way - we were abundantly blessed to be able to keep as much the same in their lives as before. Same school, same home, same friends. Despite this, their growth and struggle through the process  was difficult to watch and challenged every part of myself, as I know it did them.

Even as an adult, those early months alone on days without them, hurt,  like an injury - like a gaping wound,  from which I was certain I would never recover.

I drank wine (no more than the average mother) cried a lot of tears, went for walks, spent time with friends while my children were in school - other mothers, mentors, angels, peers - those both further ahead and a little behind me in their journeys. I skied my butt off, went to counselling, acted brave and did a lot of yoga .

With grace and time, and to my surprise, those gaping wounds healed. I still had scars -believe me - but the acute pain of a new injury faded.

Old injuries can be funny and at times scar tissue can cause a phantom type of pain.
This phantom pain rises up in me when I am wandering through stores alone on the weekend (it doesn't happen very often) - knowing that my children aren't just at home for me to hug when I return - but that they are somewhere else living the other half of their life until returned to me, to our home, one of their homes.

It makes me think and rethink and turn over what it is to be divorced. From a child's perspective it is painful and anyone who tells you it isn't,  is simply not speaking the truth.

From a grown woman's perspective - it is painful. And anyone who tells you differently - also isn't speaking the truth. Even if we chose this.

Here is where my thoughts on "brokenness" diverge. Ours is a broken home,  but what I know now, is that I am more whole than I have ever been. As a Mother, daughter, friend, woman and human.

Do I think it is sad that a divorce is the mechanism by which I gained this wholeness? Absolutely.  In a way it is tragic. It is so far from what we plan for, hope for and as humans seek comfort in. I certainly wish there was a gentler process by which a soul could evolve - something less destructive, less emotionally violent for each of us.

Yet I know without a doubt that my daughters are wiser, more compassionate, all seeing truth speakers - than they ever could have been - than I ever was - until our family changed shape.

Pain can be an amazing teacher. When everything else crumbles, the greatest danger lies not in brokenness - but in allowing our hearts to be hardened by the effects of disappointment, fear, anger, blame, guilt, and imperfection.

Allowing our hearts to grow through pain is the antidote to brokenness and the pathway to being whole once again.