Breathing Room

There was a time when I hung on your every word. Yet there were so many times you left me hanging.

There is a void in me now that nothing seems to fill. No amount of shopping, no form of entertainment, no amount of writing or work negates the absence of our companionship. I wake up alone. I go to bed alone. I have no one to prattle to constantly who even pretends to care about what goes on in my head. Gone are the days of wine and whiskey: my friend and partner in crime is gone.

The accusations are also gone: “you're not the woman I married.” Now, I am the woman you divorced. Your joke of introducing me as your first wife when we were together hasn't aged well.

I am not aging well since we stopped occupying the same space. I didn't realize what a hollow feeling it was not to have another half. Not to be dependent on anyone. Not to ask permission or need to modify my thoughts, opinions, or actions according to your mood. I went from walking on eggshells to walking through shards of glass, and often times I feel like I'm bleeding about my broken edges.

Is the time without you a struggle? Yes and no. Financially it is nearly incomprehensible. I have had to navigate an unpredictable job market post-homemaking. My degree in the arts, barely useful as it was, means even less with a decade of child rearing behind it. There is simply seen an absence of meaningful work, though the toil involved raising our daughter mostly on my own was certainly not easy or unrewarding.

But there is also a profound sense of relief personally. Because it's not all about you anymore. The military spouse role prepared me for an ultimate separation: yet, it never prepared me to think or want anything for myself. To learn not only how to survive in a civilian world, but to thrive in it on my own. And I'm flailing.

I saw a counselor recently and he suggested breathing exercises for my ever-present anxiety. At first, I scoffed. Something so seemingly simple surely could not be effective. I have three anxiety disorders, and his simplification of my issues seemed, at first, the ultimate form of condescension.

After writing a particularly pointed blog entry about the session, I saw past my scorn and sarcasm. I started to breathe, and reflect, and found that taking just a few moments to relax to is essential for many reasons. I need air. I need focus, I need strength. I need my family and my medication. But above all, I need to stop fantasizing and start actualizing.

Up until now I've lived a life limited by fear. Fear of death, fear of failure, fear of the unknown. And I ask myself whether the result is keeping me alive or, in fact, hastening me toward a living death. I feel like a husk, a cocoon with no glorious butterfly waiting to break forth. It’s stifling, it's frightening, it's no way to live.

I’ve been so busy gasping for air, and trying to keep my head above water these last few years, that I've lost touch with my talents. My passions may not be profitable, but they are spiritually essential. This day to day business of living, post-divorce, is suffocating my soul.

So maybe I do need to breathe. But to breathe, I need breathing room. And I need not only breath, but purpose behind it. I need some air forced from my diaphragm and out of my vocal folds. I also need to make something out of that breath. Sing, speak, raise my voice somehow. This isn't a rehearsal, this is a performance that spans years. And I've been missing out on it.

In this vein, I need to do something every day that terrifies me. I need to do this not only for myself, but for my daughter. And the scared, scarred girl inside will someday thank me for it. Purgatory was my practice but never quite my style.

I also need to remember that there is truth in simplicity. Though at times I seem to be doing nothing but drawing air, that in and of itself is noteworthy. Without reflection, life is meaningless: without breath and its associated benefits, life is impossible. My aspirations require the respiration; my attitude needs the resultant alteration.

Inhale, exhale. Live in the moment, not in spite of it.