Out of the Ashes

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/burning-tree-270815/

I have heard the saying that, when God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window. That was what I hoped would happen when I decided to divorce. A door would close on the life I had been living as well as on the one I had hoped to be living, and something new would open up in front of me. I would fly out the new opening like a swallow set free of its cage, flying at dizzying speeds, gloriously happy in the freedom I had longed for.

Choosing to leave my marriage did not work like that.

Instead, it was like the great big front door of the world I was done living in being closed and locked in front of me, the windows sealed above me, and the house slowly being burned down around me.

I felt trapped and frightened. I felt like I was being slowly destroyed. I knew my house was rotten. The majority of my married life was a lie, an act, a performance put on to protect myself and my children and to manage my husband's abusive behavior. There was very little of it that I would want to save. I knew it needed to burn down around me, but I had not guessed how painful the process would be.

I hadn't realized that I had to burn, too. There was no way to escape out an upper story window and fly to freedom. I had personally been changed by the marriage. I had become something I couldn't continue to live with. I was scared and weak, unable to hold on to my truth and act with authenticity.

I felt at the end of the marriage that that was a true description of myself, but I don't feel anymore that it is accurate. It took huge amounts of mental effort to live with an intelligent abuser. I constantly monitored my husband's behavior and chose the appropriate responses. I watched every moment and worked to balance his emotional state with the rest of the family. I made quick judgments of the best course of action. I kept my behavior in a place where it wouldn't upset him and worked desperately to manage the children's behavior as well. It was mentally and emotionally exhausting and I carried it out under a constant barrage of gaslighting and mind games that took the things I believed and twisted them until I could only guess at my own reality.

No, I would not say I was weak. But I was controlled, by myself as well as by him. I lived in a carefully constructed shell where I tried to let no one actually see me. I tried only to show him what would keep him satisfied. I knew if I slipped it would later come back to hurt me. I showed what I hoped would keep us in the deliciously golden spaces that happened when he was happy and we all enjoyed laughter and joking and having fun together. I devoted myself to trying to keep him there for years, until I realized it wasn't something I could do. And then I had to learn that when he left that golden place, it wasn't because of some way I had failed him, even if he always had the heartbreakingly gentle words to explain why it was.

Maya Angelou said that you should "do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

I finally reached a point where I knew better and I didn't want to live the way I had. That shell I had built around myself and hid carefully inside needed to burn. The world I had built around me needed to burn. But being burned is painful.

I imagined something beautiful coming from the process. I imagined that, when the cages, the shells, and the person I had become all finally burned away, I would rise from the ashes. I would be like the phoenix, beautiful, strong, majestic. I would rise into the bright blue sky on wings the color of the flames that had devoured the darkness from my previous world. I would create new life from the ashes around me, one where I was strong and didn't hide behind shells and walls.

The glorious rebirth I imagined doesn't happen in reality in the same way it happens in my head. Change in life is slow and moments of strength are often followed by periods of frustrating weakness. Times of overflowing confidence exist alongside stretches of self-doubt and insecurity. Powerful actions for good are followed by unwise and sometimes unkind behaviors. The voice of doubt tells me I have failed in the times when I can't find my wings, that my burning was for nothing. That voice has been with me for a long time. I will not allow it to have the final say.

Time has moved on with its gentle constancy, allowing the flames to demolish my cages and shells and leaving me unbound to continue on a path of my choosing. There are times that I feel like I have wings, my joy overflows and I believe that I can fly up and touch the sun without my wings melting away, for I am born of fire, too. But most of the time, I feel something much more common. I see that I have changed. I came through my personal fire and emerged as a human, stronger and braver at times and wounded and broken at others. I am working to keep from building new shells to hide the parts of me that are still broken and instead to hold them up to the light to continue to heal. I can take all the time I need.