The Divorce Chronicles: Is it normal to still cry?

We’ve been through all of the milestones. The first year without him on my birthday. The first year without him on our anniversary. The first year after our divorce. The first time seeing each other since knowing we have other people in our lives we have been seeing. But what about the first time acting like strangers?

I’m struggling to write this. I guess you truly know you are over something when you don’t cry while experiencing the emotions, right? I know there isn’t a rule or timeframe for any of this but sometimes I feel like I failed for still crying. It isn’t the same crying as a year ago where it consumed me for days on end. Where my body collapsed under the weight of the agonising pain. Where my mind just wanted to switch off and not think or feel anymore. No, that has passed, thankfully. Although it isn’t as all-consuming, now, it seems to be at more random times than before. Unexpected, no triggers or warning signs, just an instant pull into the past. Within seconds I feel and I let go. Each tear drop over that last year has been me letting go, no matter how brutal, it was a release. It still is. I just feel like there is something wrong with me for still crying about something I wanted, I needed, I initiated and committed to. He fought for me, for us, for our marriage. I was the one who needed to get out.

I ask myself this question a lot; do I regret leaving? I think I have come to the point where I can say no, I don’t regret leaving that version of him. We both were at a toxic point in our journies and therefore were toxic to each other. Am I scared that someone else is getting the new and improved version of him that could have been perfect for me in our marrige? Absolutely. I think that is what is still keeping a part of me connected to him. That idea of the ‘potential’. Him doing the work, going to therapy, seeing a different side to himself, his family, his friends and his overall outlook on life. I can’t speak for him but having seen how light he looks since the divorce it is reassuring to see him happy. He glows differently now. Maybe we brought out the worst in each other. Maybe it was timing. Whatever it was, it wasn’t right, we weren’t right.

I recently watched Scenes from a Marriage and it destroyed me. Not in the ‘I can’t handle this’ way but more like the ‘how is this so incredibly accurate and exactly what we went through’ kind of way. That last scene where Jonathan and Mira are having an affair and Jonathan admits that he will probably never love anyone like he loved Mira ever again. That love is a once-in-a-lifetime and while there have been, are and will be other loves, that one love is just for that one time and one person. That also scares me. Starting to open myself up to someone new and starting to feel small feelings but still being pulled back to the 8 years of my life with him. I know time heals and time creates and time builds, but what if here in this instance time won’t be enough? What if time cannot erase some things because they surpass time? What if our love was just ours, for each other and no one else? I will forever be grateful to have experienced that love with him. Nothing can ever make me regret that. But what if I can’t get to that place with anyone ever again? What if that ‘place’ we were in for 8 years is gone for good?

I test myself when I am with my new person. I test my feelings, my fears, my vulnerabilities, my responsibilities, my emotions, my safe places. I test it all to see how far I can go back there. So far, not very far. Maybe I have to understand that it will never be ‘there’ I can go back to but somewhere completely new. Maybe I will always feel a sting and cry a small tear when I think of ‘there’ with him. Maybe it will always be a little tough to handle. Maybe that was our place and it should always remain our place. Maybe there is something out there keeping it safe for us until we meet again in another dimension on another timeline. Or maybe, it will forever remain a memory, one that has made me who I am today. One that I would live over again. One that has taught me what the meaning of life is to me. I guess I have to be okay with crying from time to time. The aftermath of this is deserving of what it was and what it meant to me. Maybe I need to stop feeling so guilty for still feeling and instead be grateful that I experienced what most people on this planet only can dream of experiencing. A man who loved me unconditionally, a home to come back to every day, a safe place to fall back on, a soul who found my soul.

It’s okay to still cry. It’s okay to still hurt. It’s okay to still mourn and miss. It is okay and it will be okay. Had it not meant what it did to me, moving on would have been easier but less meaningful. The journey would have been shorter but shallow. The lessons would have been lost in translation instead of felt every single day for the past year. So cry, dance, laugh, be grateful, angry, scared, sad, excited, uncertain, optimistic, colourful, confused, loving, open-hearted. Do it all, feel it all, experience it all. Cry. It will be fine. You will be fine. But cry, because who wants to be normal after experincing something so extraordinary.