I was having a very real conversation the other day with a dear friend about the word can’t.  I’m not talking about the can't where you can’t live your life to the fullest or you can’t be successful at your job if you work hard or you can’t have true happiness.  I am talking about the can’t that you can’t control. The can’t that exists because of the circumstances in your life, the lives of those around you, or your own body.  The can’t that comes from having two jobs just to survive and still not having enough money to go spend on those cute pair of shoes you’ve been eyeing. The can’t that comes from not being able to get pregnant after years and years of trying. The can’t that comes from having to take care of someone close to you who can’t take care of themselves. The can’t that comes from physically being incapable to do certain things that you want/need to do. Those kinds of cants.

For me, my can’t is pain. 

It’s hard to explain three and a half years of pain to someone who hasn’t ever experienced chronic pain. Three and a half years of nonstop, every. single. day.  in some form or another, ranging in degree, want to put a gun to your head, nerve pain, bone pain, muscle pain, spine pain, whole body pain. Pain that goes unexplained at every doctor visit, every MRI, every blood test, and nerve test. Pain that gets worse with every protocol that is supposed to help.  Pain that makes it hard to bend over, do laundry, grocery shop, not only sit on a bench to watch my kid play basketball but walk to the gym where my kid plays to be able to watch him play basketball.  

My physical can’t is that I can’t bend over to pick something up, be the mom I so desperately want to be, go dancing with my friends, take trips with my boys, go hiking; hell, go to the mall to buy a new pair of jeans. It is physically impossible for me to accomplish those tasks when I am hurting so badly or when my back decides that today would be a good day to lock up and stop working. 

MOTHER FUCKING PAIN. (Pretty much how I feel about it by now….if I am being honest).

I have accepted it….for now.  I don’t wake up every morning anymore expecting it to be better or different. I know it will be there and I know I will have to work my day around it. I accept, that in this moment, I am dealing with chronic pain, but at the same time I maintain hope and a belief that it will get better. 

ACCEPTANCE. 

Somehow having this mentality makes it easier on the days when it is hard to do much of anything.  Some days I can accomplish things like laundry and grocery shopping and taking my kids to the trampoline park, the rec center, or going to dinner with my friends. Those days I go to bed feeling rather accomplished and good about all I was able to do.  And other days, all I can manage is picking up my boys from school and the bare minimum. THE BARE FUCKING MINIMUM. That’s no way to be a mom. Or live your life. 

The bare minimum has a way of messing with your head. You start to feel like you are incapable, insignificant, and worthless when all you can do in a day is a couple loads of laundry or empty the dishwasher. You fight thoughts that say that your boys would be better off without you, that your family would be better off not worrying about you, that your friends would be better off not getting the ‘I can’t do this/how am I supposed to do this???’ texts. It’s pretty defeating and leads to feelings of inadequacy. Most of the time I feel utterly useless….if I am being honest. 

I am a believer in mind over matter. That if your mind can think it and your heart can want it, you can have it.  I also know that in order to make your dreams happen you must take action. You can’t just sit around waiting for them to come to you. Which is what I’ve done for a good part of the last three years, due to the fact that I have felt immobilized, paralyzed at times even.  That has to be one of the most frustrating things for me. Knowing that my life can be everything I want it to be, but not being able to physically do the things I so desperately want to do to make it so.  

For now, I can’t change my circumstances. I can’t magically make my back heal and my pain go away. Although, Dear God I pray for that everyday. For relief. For an answer. For a solution.  All I can do is accept that this is where I’m at right now. I don’t have to like it and I can’t control it. It is what it is. 

What I can do is get up every day, get ready, and live my life to the best of my ability. I can take responsibility for my own happiness and even though I can’t experience life to the degree that I wish I could, I can make the most of every situation I am given, with my kids, with my friends, with my health, with my circumstances.  I can be grateful for the things I can do even on the days when getting out of bed feels like the biggest feat on earth, physically and emotionally. I can let go of the way I think my life SHOULD be and learn to love it for what it is and I can continue to take steps towards finding solutions to my pain AND towards building a career that I can do from my couch. I can show my boys that instead of giving up I show up and I make it through yet another day, even if it means asking for help. 

I deserve help. And I’m learning how to use my voice to ask for it. But that’s a whole 'nother post.

I have two options in this scenario called Life. I can give in to the negative, depressing, ‘woe is me’ thoughts and be miserable on top of being in pain (and I do that…don’t think that I don’t). OR I can choose to do my best e'ryday.  Despite the pain, despite my circumstances, despite the can’ts (I do that too).  I can choose to be okay with the fact that my best today may be hugely different and maybe not as productive as my best was yesterday. Choosing the latter is not only standing up for myself but it's taking responsibility for my own happiness and not allowing my CANT'S to dictate my CAN'S.  It's also the only way to get out of this crazy thing we call Life...........alive. 

I’m dubbing 2015 the worst year of my ever loving life. It’s been dubbed, knighted, crowned, awarded, acknowledged and left the motherfrick behind. It’s also the year that I experienced the most personal growth.....ever. Funny how that happens. 

After a year of separation, my divorce was made final in March of 2015. Like any levelheaded, newly divorced single lady, I jumped into the dating scene with both feet. Partly because I felt "ready" to get out there and see what I’d been missing for the past 11 years and mostly because I needed a distraction so I didn’t have to actually feel the heartache that comes from losing everything you are and everything you ever believed you were or would be, in what feels like an instant. Even though the breakdown of my marriage happened over the course of many years, it felt like it was gone in an instant. And before I even knew it (or better yet, was willing to acknowledge it) it was too late. Too late to try. Too late to change. Too late to make it better. It took a long time for it to be gone....in an instant.  Almost a year later I still ask myself if I will ever recover fully from the loss; from the failure to acknowledge the demise along the way, the failure to make it work.  But I digress. 

I can thank Tinder for the amazing, hysterical, somewhat traumatic, eye opening introduction to Dating101 in 2015. And let me tell you, these ain’t your Grandma’s dating stories. In fact, I’m not sure my grandma’s sweet little heart could handle the Tinder happenings in the world today.  And while my dating experience deserves a whole post dedicated to just that, for the sake of time and discretion, let's just say I learned A LOT. Yeah, Tinder was a circus.   

After a couple of short lived relationships, I decided that maybe I had jumped into dating a little prematurely. I wasn’t ready. At all. I still hadn't dealt with anything from my actual divorce. I could have won awards for how neatly I packed away the emotions that I didn’t want to feel regarding the end of my life as a wife to the guy I was supposed to be married to for time and all eternity. I hadn’t allowed myself to face and feel the despair that comes from the unraveling of the little family I had dedicated my adult life to growing and loving.  I conveniently skipped over that part of The Big D.  

It didn’t take long for everything to come crashing down in my little pretend, ‘I’m really okay so I’m going to date’ world.  You can only run away from trauma and emotions for so long before it all starts to catch up to you. And even the most amicable of divorces equals trauma. Eventually the trauma starts to gnaw, pull, poke, prod, until  it’s almost impossible to ignore it anymore.  At that point, one has two choices.  One can continue on their crooked little path of “I’m okay” and waste energy finding distractions to resist the gnawings, OR one can bear down and face them. 

Welp….I decided to face them. Head on, in all my ‘fear of emotions/how the hell am I going to get through this’ glory. I finally allowed myself to give in and just feel. I gave myself permission to sit, in the darkness, with the heartache and let it flow through my being and penetrate my soul without trying to stop it or distract myself from it. I gave myself the time that I deserved to come to terms with everything that I had lost when I signed my name to that insipid piece of paper that canceled out the last 11 years of my life and broke apart my little family. To say it was painful is an understatement.   

At the time I was also dealing with physical pain. Up to that point, my physical pain had far outweighed my emotional hurt. But once I opened those flood gates and my emotions started flowing, it was the most painful thing I had ever endured. It’s difficult to express in words the feelings of loss, failure, shame, unworthiness, despair, heartbreak, regret, and so on and so forth that come with divorce. It was dark, it was ugly, and it sucked. It felt as if my entire world had fallen apart. And I had no idea how to put it back together again. 

Fast forward ten months and I still find myself healing and navigating the unchartered waters of putting my life back together again. Where does one even start? There were some days where I felt like I was going insane by trying to make sense of what it means to be single at this stage of my life; and how to be alone. Ugh, alone. 

As my emotional healing progressed, I found that once I was able to process one trauma, one emotion, one thought pattern that took me in circles, another one popped up in it's place and I had to begin again the process of letting go. Letting go is an art. It's an art that I have learned takes practice, perseverance, complete awareness, and endurance on one's part. When we fail to let go of the way we think things were supposed to go and keep allowing ourselves to meander down a path of negativity, shame, guilt, hurt, anger, etc... it puts us in victim mode, and nothing productive comes from being a victim.  I got damn good at being the victim.   

Eventually, I got sick of feeling so unhappy. I started to find things I could do that made me feel uplifted and content. I got out of my house, even when it felt like my spine was going to explode from pain.  I went to movies and restaurants by myself.  I embraced solitude in all it's splendid glory and learned to love having time to do what I wanted to do. By myself. Alone. I also surrounded myself with amazing, inspiring, women who had been down the same road I was traveling. I gained such an appreciation for learning from other's stories, from listening to people who have been where I've been and know what it's like. Many parts of me have healed through telling my own story, being vulnerable, and relying on others to help when I need help.   

The thing of it is, is that no matter how much healing happens, how much progress I make, there will always be something else to heal, to change, to make better. When I choose to recognize and acknowledge my faults/weaknesses/thoughts/ emotions/patterns, that aren't serving me, it's impossible NOT to MOVE FORWARD, even when it feels like I am being held back. There is something very powerful that happens when we accept those parts of us that aren't perfect and we show ourselves patience, love, and compassion and  give ourselves the time to work it all out. And it is through that healing process that we come to know who we are at our core and gain the strength needed to live as that Being. 

So while 2015 was awarded "Worst Year Ever" I don't regret a single thing that happened. I am who I am because of what I have been through. And as I travel along this healing journey I will continue to be who I am, until I become who I am meant to be.