I would have been married seven years today. I am not currently married. No, the woman in that 2013 marriage did not perish. Ideally, she’s somewhere thriving. Thing is, we got divorced. If you’re the type of person who watches Moldovian truck crash videos on YouTube, here’s the full story of that divorce. You might notice today is March 16th, meaning that would be my anniversary. Cool. Well, if you clicked the second link, you would also know that we broke up in March 2017 — and were still living together on March 16, 2017. So our fourth wedding anniversary, we shared the same room but were broken up. If you think anything in your life is hard, try doing that. It’s not war, no. It’s not genocide. But in the context of day-to-day awful shit, it’s up there.
Now, I just want to establish a few things here quickly. (1) is that I am not pining for the past. I moved on, and I believe she did as well. Not to sound trite and cliche while sounding trite and cliche, but … life changes and you are really not guaranteed or promised very much, despite all the virtue-signaling we do all the time about everything. You really just have the present moment and an effort to be the best person you can be. That’s it. Again, sounds trite, but sometimes life advice is just that.
(2) is that by the time you get divorced, your relationship is pretty messed up. Except in maybe a case of immediately-discovered infidelity, very few people get divorced based on one incident. (And in the case of infidelity, clearly something had been wrong for a minute, right?) Honestly, by the time you get divorced, the harder part is that your friend circle blows up. Some of the best people I ever knew/met were friends through my ex that I have basically nothing to do with anymore. It’s not easy. But again, we get through it.
(3) is that I want to take you back to the general period of 3/16/17. If you recall from above, we were living together but broken up. She had a regular 9 to 5 at the time; I was freelance and work from home. 2017 was a generally shitty fiscal year for me, although in mid-March I had some work. I can tell you very honestly, and transparently, that I sat in my (our?) closet that day and cried. I did this for about 30 minutes. I just had no idea where my life was headed.
Now let’s talk about coronavirus briefly. A lot of people are confused, scared, and think life is shifting beneath their feet. Social distancing? WTF? No NBA? What the shit? Everything is chaos.
Now, we don’t know where all this coronavirus stuff will end, no. But it will end. There will be, eventually, a return to normalcy. It might be three weeks. Might be eight. Might be a year. We don’t know the timing, but we know that eventually, it will. Might be some paradigm shifts, and we might need to embrace some new realities. But things will be OK.
Things will be OK.
Now go back to me sitting in that closet, crying. That was a bad moment. A necessary moment? Yes. But not a great one.
But things were OK.
Humans are adaptable. We get through stuff.
This post has a lot of potential (perceived?) virtue-signaling, so let me wrap it up: If you are going through something hard, whether that’s your reaction to this pandemic or something more specific and individual to you, just know that it gets better. Believe in that.
Final thing here: right now, I live on a street called Lovell. It’s down the street from a Central Market. Because I like fancy wine and cheese like anyone else, I’ve been going to that Central Market periodically ever since I’ve been in Texas (bout 5-6 years). As a result, I went sometimes with my ex. One night, probably spring 2015 (five years ago), we go to Central Market and drive back to our apartment via Lovell. My ex would have been driving, so I was shotgun. (Right side of the car.) My current house is on the right side of the street.
This is all to say, there was a moment five years ago where I drove past my future home — a home that I would share with another person who I did not even know existed yet — and I had absolutely no idea. I probably wasn’t even looking at the house as we drove by it.
Life changes, and sometimes you have no way of knowing how or when it will. But it’s gonna be OK. Honestly.
Good post…. Important to remember things can always be worst when we’re feeling down and to remember…. we have survived 100% of our bad days already in life and that we can’t change the past, but can influence what happen in the future by what we consistently do daily to improve as a person.
This is the first time I’ve read your blog post. It resonated with me because it was funny, hopeful, and honest. Thank you for the positivity.