Asteroid Hit

What is divorce actually like?  I wasn't quite sure how to answer the young woman asking me but I borrowed a few lines from a cancer patient I'd heard on TV.  And true, divorce doesn't mean death as cancer might, but it is dealing with an ongoing and stressful dilemma with results unknown for quite a while.

Divorce is like getting hit by a bus.  Then after rising, getting hit by a train.  And after rising one more time and walking away, the asteroid hits.

Sounds final but the finality is actually a relief for the divorce.  Its different stages of acceptance, grief, and resolution seem to repeat themselves over and over until one day, the hit is so hard and so catastrophic that the only option is to then just get up and be happy for that being enough.

Where else is there to go after the final asteroid hit?  Maybe it's seeing the ex get remarried, go through a life trauma, or even pass away...but a point does come that the hits will no longer hurt and the falls no longer happen because of divorce but just because life makes us fall down and rise again.

Glancing over my shoulder, I'm shocked by the pot-holed road behind me.  It didn't seem quite that treacherous but it's there and I know I traveled it.  I honestly don't know how I navigated all of my falls but here I am intact.  Hearing a good friend of mine consider taking the same path gives me pause.  I know that it's survivable, painful, and I am CERTAIN that I would not choose another path...but it is difficult and not for the faint of spirit.  I spent an entire year just getting ready for the journey itself....

My path has turned to the open plains now.  It's vast and intimidating without many areas for cover.  I know how many pioneers have come before me and I know the path will be littered with their mistakes, but there is no going back.  And going forth alone is particularly scary.  What I remind myself is that it's NOT as scary as  the life I was in...being an invisible person in a marriage made for two but occupied by only one.

All this deep seeded philosophical thinking just leads me to the next step...I have to keep opening myself up to new experiences and those shall involve new men.  Is there a more naked feeling?  I will gladly pose half naked for a photographer but baring the soft underbelly of my vulnerabilities...my own spirit...now that is the kind of naked that still makes me shy!