The Yellow Door Life

Five years ago, at this exact time, I was in the midst of my honeymoon. 

I was planning a life with a person I no longer speak to, or even know. 

I’ve honestly never given it much thought. Year after year has passed and the honeymoon has always just been part of the marriage that ended.

But this year is different.

For the last week, I have been miserable.

My body has ached. My soul has ached.

I haven’t felt myself and I couldn’t quite place the source. 

Yesterday morning, I began a drive to Chattanooga for a quick, one-day trip. 

Chattanooga and Steamboat Springs are largely nothing alike, but as I made my way toward Chattanooga, I began to have flashbacks. 

I saw a Welcome sign on the side of the road that triggered a memory of that Colorado mountain town where we took our honeymoon. 

I looked off to the side of the road and I noticed a stretch of the mountain that reminded me of a ski lift.

Then, my stomach sunk into the floor of my car. I had the realization, we were on our honeymoon in Steamboat, exactly five years ago. 

I never thought about it last year, or the year before.  

There were mountains during my fall break, and leaves, and all the fall things, but no memory of that.

Why now? 

I started sobbing. 

Nobody ever sets out to have a failure. We acknowledge that failure is inevitable; we will all experience it at some point in our lives. Oftentimes, the things we prepare the most for, are in fact the things that end up failing, whereas the things that we approach on a whim, with little preparation, we excel at for no good reason. But either way, the failure itself is not planned. 

In not wanting to fail, in not wanting to ever get divorced, I ended up doing just that. I genuinely wanted things to work out, for many many years, and I believed marriage would assure that. 

My body knew otherwise though. From the second I said yes, I felt trapped. I felt like I was going against my very nature. In not wanting to hurt everyone around me by saying I had made a mistake, I stayed silent. 

Failures are necessary. They propel a story forward. They are just part of life. 

Even though my marriage was a failure, it was a necessary failure and trauma. That trauma freed me from a life that would have fully suffocated me. But regardless, it’s a trauma I still carry within my being. 

In trying to feel like myself again, over the last few years, and even recent months, I finally made this discovery as I drove into Chattanooga:

My body remembers being a wife. 

I can still feel that joy and hopefulness from that honeymoon trip. The idea that we were just starting our lives together. 

I know now those sentiments were in vain, but I can still feel the initial happiness they gave me. It’s like muscle memory. 

Five years ago I became a wife. I was planning my future. I was about to try to become a mother. 

My body has been living in tension this whole time and I didn’t understand why. Until now. 

Memories I didn’t even know I had till I was looking at the changing colors of fall leaves and mountains (albeit tiny ones) and pumpkins. 

I may have been driving to Chattanooga, but my body was screaming that I was somewhere else. Somewhere that no longer exists, except in a memory. 

It doesn’t even exist in photos. I never saw any of the photos we took on that trip because they were on his camera and we never even looked at them.

I don’t think I ever grieved it. 

Not fully. 

The loss of being a wife. The loss of that joy. 

I protected myself to survive the diagnosis, divorce, and relocation, but my body held onto it. 

This is why healing is so hard. 

I have forgiven him.

I have forgiven myself.

I am genuinely so sorry that I let it get as far as it did. 

But it’s still part of me. 

I have moved on in so many ways, but what my body holds onto is what’s left of the truth.

I want to be a wife. I want to fulfill that vocation. I want to be a mom, in whatever capacity I am physically able to. I want to plan a life with my person. 

I wanted everything mentioned above so badly, that I skipped the part of being sure about the person I was marrying. And I’m still learning that lesson (here we go again).

I don’t quite know how to heal this part of me. 

I can’t make a kale smoothie and repair the fear of making this mistake again, or never finding the right one. 

It’s honestly one of those uncomfortable things where I think I’m going to have to sit with these feelings. Acknowledge them. Name them. And slowly send them on their way. 

I was a wife. 

I still believe I can become one again, with the right person. 

I have always wanted to be a {foster} mom. 

I know I will find a way to do this regardless. 

I rushed the most important decision in my life, because I was scared.

I’m still scared, but I believe I am worthy of real love and capable of staying patient until I find him (or he finds me). 

It’s a strange feeling, to want to be something so deeply, and to have had a glimpse of it. 

To feel it. To remember it. But not being able to do it. 

It’s a new kind of pain, but also a revelation. 

A revelation that I hope will help me better understand my feelings and allow them to grow me.

Our bodies are remarkable, holding onto every experience we have, which is why it is so very important for us to guard our hearts. 

Our hearts are muscles afterall and they hold onto memories far beyond anything we realize.

❤