You Are Broken After A Divorce, Just Like We All Are Before

Over the past week, as I went public about my divorce via my blog, I received an outpouring of love and support.  I also received scores of private messages from friends, old acquaintances, and total strangers who are going down a similar path.  That is what caught me off guard.  Now lest you fear, I do not want this to become a divorce-support blog.  This is supposed to be a happy blog. Let’s not bicker and argue about who divorced who.  But I don’t think I can turn away from the topic just yet.  As it is a deeply personal topic, I still have more to say and may for a while.

Though my divorce was finalized only weeks ago, I spent more than a year separated and alone.  As I was going through the deep emotions, hurt, shame, anger, frustration, and every other emotion man is capable of producing in his head, my notice of others around me sharpened.  Partly because I thought they were looking at me and partly because I wanted to understand what they were doing right.   Since I had no one by my side, I often took myself on walks (albeit with no handholding and usually with Roller Blades) around my neighborhood. I recall passing houses with couples sitting on the front porch talking or overtaking slower sauntering couples out for a stroll as well. I looked in myself and cursed myself wishing their life was mine, their wholeness was mine, and their happiness was mine.  During the times the children were with their mother, I would pass by well-lit houses teeming with children and life, then sicken at the thought of my empty house. I saw perfection all around me, just not in me or my life.

As the months evolved, so too did I.  I began to see more; I became more aware.  In speaking with a dear friend and fellow divorcee the other day, I equated this awareness to one of the mythical beasts in the Harry Potter books – The kestrel.  In these books, the first day of the school year the characters are transported to the castle in horseless carriages that appear to be pulled by magic. In the fifth-year, Harry Potter was shocked to discover that there were, in fact, creatures pulling the carriages – the kestrels.  IT is a rather horrifying looking beast with an equally horrifying back story.  This beast is only visible by someone who has actually witnessed death first hand.  Until you have seen death, however, this creature is invisible to you.

Having gone through divorce, I feel as though I too can see a kestrel.  I’ve been through a death of sorts, the death of a marriage, the death of my nuclear family.  But through the ash, there is an increased clarity. In those houses where I once saw perfection that seemed to only mock my life, in some cases I see foreshadowing. Where I once saw unity in the couples walking down the street, I can see their distance despite their physical closeness.  No, it’s not a superpower or predictive in any way. But the clarity I have from seeing my own “kestrel.”   With this perspective, and supported in no small part by the many “me too” messages from people that I have received in the past few weeks, I have reached the conclusion that we are all broken.

We all struggle.  We all have issues.  We all have gaps in ourselves and our relationships.  There are imperfections in all of our marriages and all of our relationships.  The true lie in life is to think that the person next to you is perfect. That your neighbor has found something special you don’t have and can never get.  The truth is there is no secret.  There is no silver bullet.  There is no perfection next door or a day away – a least not on this planet.  We are all too variable as human beings to think that is even possible.  And in many cases the false appearance of perfection is far more dangerous than the reality that we are all mere mortals, born with a myriad of foibles and idiosyncrasies.  Because who weeds a flawless garden?  Who touches up the Mona Lisa?  Who remixes Beethoven’s Fifth? (Shouldn’t have gone there 70’s, shouldn’t have gone there.)

It is only by recognizing that none of us is perfect do we have the perspective to make our imperfect realities better.  It is by refusing to engage in relativistic suicide that we find the drive to better ourselves.  By comparing ourselves to a cross section of a caricature of our neighbors, we undercut our own courage that will carry us on.  There are far more imperfect people out there sharing your same struggles than you could ever imagine.  And the perfect families and couples that you see all around you are merely people you obviously don’t know too well.   So rather than buckling under the weight of our own imperfections, know that we are all as good as the next man or woman, perhaps even better.  Because only through an awareness of our imperfections can we find the drive to refine them away.