Blank Pages
Several months back, I gave in to the nagging urge to once again find community through writing. I shared my intention to open up and let the words pour out on blank pages. Yet, quickly into my self-assigned 90 days of capturing daily mind/body/spirit status, the words piled up on the blank page and I got stuck…like, running headfirst into a wall over and over and over again stuck…like, sticky gooey tar holding my feet in the same place stuck…like, the hose won’t turn off, and I’m over my head in words stuck.
I have two sons and they are incredible. Clever. Resilient. Observant. Perceptive. Charming. They are strong as steel and they smell like sunshine, but both in their young lives have experienced heartache and loss and weariness. As a mother, you do everything you can to shield your babies, and let’s be real—sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes, it’s not even necessary to shield them. I think part of being a good parent is knowing when to allow your kids to face hardship and when to wrap your arms around them. I also tend to wonder about the story my sons will tell about growing up, being a young boy.
Inevitably, my boys will recall their youth through the lens of a global pandemic, their memories of adolescence tinged with virtual classrooms, routine nose stabbing, and forced social isolation. They are also at high risk of remembering with chilling accuracy the story of their parents, two loving and imperfect humans who stumbled through the long, dark night of divorce and, despite their valiant effort, could not shield their children from a bitter and awful unraveling.
What if my boys read these words, I’ve agonized. What if these words wound them? What if this story that is filling this blank page is still too raw, too angry, too sad? What if they get stuck in this story?
For seven years, I’ve been trying to write my way out of this season. In journals that have piled up over the years, I’ve been scribbling my personal account of the blazing emotional inferno of a dying marriage (and more recently a deep dive into the abyss of 2020 and 2021 ). I have long been in the deep, committed to the process of wading my way through an anguish so private and so personal that, dare I say, it’s become second skin. These journals I speak of are chock full, front to back, with the words of a woman who is scared, exhausted, confused, disappointed, and paralyzed with indecision on how, exactly, to just fix everything. These journals speak the words that I may not ever say aloud.
During the first cold winter after splitting one home into two, I would watch TEDx videos from my iPhone in the middle of the night, curled up under the covers like a creature stuck in hibernation, believing that some stroke of YouTube insight would calm my nerves to a point that would allow sleep. Unable to rest in the jarring new space of alone, those passionate strangers kept me company. They gave me something to think about other than the thoughts that kept me awake. On one particularly sleepless night, I watched a presentation by a man who claimed that the act of journaling can actually be bad for you. He argued that the act of retelling (and, therefore, reliving) all the rough stuff of life is actually a guaranteed recipe for staying stuck in that narrative. While I mostly agree to disagree with his less than positive take on journaling, the notion of being stuck has stuck with me all this time. Have I been holding on to the dark, stuck and sticky like glue?
When I felt the gumption to kickstart this 90-day enterprise, I went all in. I really did. It felt exciting, like discovering a powerful waterfall. I marveled at how easy it was to express things that had been pushed down and hidden. I felt empowered to say everything, yet suddenly I had nothing to say. I continued to write but, much like my handwritten journals, each post sat (and still sits) unpublished—the story (my story, their story, our story) safely tucked into a private place. The waterfall of words pushed me right back into the deep end where that sad old story wrapped around my ankles like weighted chains. I wanted to write and so I did and the experience of loss and grief came like a tidal wave and I let it knock me over, back into a darkness that felt familiar…safe.
It has not been an easy or quick process to get on the other side of divorce. Quite frankly, I’m not sure I’ll ever fully arrive. This has been an ugly and traumatic season. I hate what divorce does to family. But here is a spark of something wonderful—the bond with my sons has never felt richer. There is a truth held between us, an honest and perfect love that loves all the more because it knows the depth of loss.
What has happened to my family is deeply private and precious, and I know I’m not yet in possession of true perspective. Time is good for that sort of thing. Right now my emotions are still raw, though, the anxiety still acute. And you can be sure there will be plenty of jagged edges in my writing as I learn to unstick from this story and move on.
Amanda Gorman, the fabulous young poet we all met at the 2021 inauguration, recently reflected on why she almost didn’t accept the invitation to share her words with the world that day:
“…fear can be love trying its best in the dark…”
And another poet, Jack Gilbert, told us, “We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”
I have been through the ruthless furnace, burned by it. And when I sat down to start writing again, I was just barely making my way out of that dark heat. It was so sticky. And I was so stuck. But I was doing my best, guided by love, fearfully making my way through the dark.
What if my boys read this, I’ve wondered.
I want my sons read my story. I’d like them to learn of their mother a woman who is forever learning, who is fortified by their perfect love, whose many scars are symbols of strength, and who stubbornly marvels at her gladness.
Only blank pages before me.
I’m ready to write a new story.
Unabashedly. Unstuck. Wholeheartedly. Humanly.
Thanks for being here.
