I am on my way soon to a memorial for a family member who committed suicide. This is of course a somber occasion, and we all have the challenge of the shadow that suicide casts when it is the cause of death. Suicide is a classic elephant-in-the-living-room, right.

An additional dimension to this shadow is that some people believe that the suicide was preventable, and are blaming others or themselves for not seeing this demise on the horizon, and intercepting it.

I’m not an expert in suicide, or suicide prevention. I’m not an expert in people, by any means. But I have been in that black hole that can suck a person in, down to depths that make death seem the only way out. And I know that no one else—even my closest allies—knew how dark I was feeling.

Depression and despair are wily, willful creatures, with well-honed talents of elusion and deceit.

See, depression carries a stigma greater than alcoholism or drug addiction. Feeling depressed is on par with having an abortion; they happen, but are not discussed. They are weaknesses, embarrassments, flaws. I mean really, can you imagine the equivalent of an AA meeting for a group of depressed people? No, really, think about it for a moment . . .

It would be wonderful actually if such a network existed. An alcoholic can pick up the phone at any time day or night, and talk to an understanding human—get help or advice or just a wee bit of whatever to stave off another submission to the disease.

With depression, not so much. There are hotlines that can be dialed when one feels suicide encroaching, but that’s kind of “last straw” you know.

But my lecture today is really more about the ruse of the belief that any of us could have intercepted and intervened with this suicide. Even the “professional” (therapist) of the family didn’t—and based on my direct experience with the wily ways of depression, I argue that even being a “professional” gives no inherent blame for this death.

But there is a lesson for everyone here. Sure, there’s the typical, life-is-precious stuff—and that’s true. But what’s more on my mind is:

Slow down. Look around. Inhale.

And, as much as we can muster, forgive ourselves, and each other.

Peace out.

Artwork: Despair underwater . . . by Miss Cartier and used with Creative Commons license.

In this month’s theme of “saved” and on the eve of the three-year anniversary of my wedding, I am contemplating that thing I was unable to save—my marriage.

Tomorrow is July 7, 2010. I was married on 07-07-07—ostensibly a favorably auspicious date—to a man with whom I believed my life was destined to be entwined. Our wedding invitation was inscribed with a haiku I had written using the word we thought believed our relationship: inevitable.

my heart and your heart
twining our lives together
inevitable

I really believed my own propaganda. It truly seemed that his desires for his life were on point with my desires for my own life. I thought I had found—not the man who would “complete” me but, the man who would encourage me, support me in my unfolding. And I would do the same for him.

Today, I think I still believe in all that, but my (ex) husband has made it clear that he does not. And I tired of trying to sway him, and I let myself become beat down by his need to un-do us; I lost the heart to try and “save” us.

So here I sit today, ten months since our final split, trying to come up with a new direction for my life. I’m having a damn difficult time sorting through my interests and talents and desires to find which direction I shall turn next. And this may sound pitiful, but I still feel broken-hearted, and that makes it difficult to feel enthused.

For now I will sit seaside and watch the sky and water turn the colors of dusk, while the swallows swoop through the driftwood, harvesting their dinners, and I will work on soothing my heart, rather than planning my life.

Having some trouble today keeping faith. Fear. Sorrow. Grief. Emotions and doubts clouding this big-blue-sky morning.

The feelings get all jumbled up and it is difficult to rise above the mess. What is what? That twist in my belly, is it fear? The tension in my brow, is it anger? Or, more fear? The hot spot beneath my breastplate. Sorrow?

The tightness just beneath my ribcage. Emotions? Or just a natural result of six hours of Pilates this past week?

In any event, I am such a frightful mess today. On top of the puzzle of possibly buying a home, on top of the emotional fallout from talking with my (ex) husband last night, on top of some mounting angst for all the undone chores that await me—it is Mother’s Day. And mine is dead.

Thus, my admonishment to myself, Keep On Truckin’.

At lunch yesterday my dear friend, Elizabeth, kicked me.

She picked up my boulders and shined light on the crawly things beneath them. She held my hand kindly, and used it to slap my face.

I treasure a good examination. I am grateful for friends who will say their piece, even if it makes me squirm or brings tears, putting a squeak in my speech.

Elizabeth chided me for watching my (ex) husband’s most recent YouTube posting. She’s right; I know better than to look (I’ve been pretty good about “forgetting” him, but sometimes I succumb to the “train wreck” phenomena and I find myself looking to see what he has been up to).

And she shook laughter loose from inside me, as we imagined evil and silly retaliation techniques.

Then she asked me: what if I imagined my husband had died. Dead. What if he were dead?

Well that made me think. I mean, I hadn’t thought of things that way, really. Of course I have contemplated his untimely and painful demise, but that’s been from a bitter, spiteful, angry, hurt place. Here she was suggesting his death be imagined with something more of a healing function.

What if he had died?

What if my marriage was over because he was no longer living. What if my life with him were over because he was dead?

Her question launched a wave of sadness.

But I thought about it. And told her that the only difference really would be that I would be less hurt by “rejection”. I mean, I would still be suffering the loss of my husband, the loss of my marriage, the loss of my life as I’d known it. But not so much about rejection.

Today, I realize a more important difference.

You know that I have been fraught with anger and hate towards him, and I have been sad about that. And recently I have realized that in my self-protective mode I have been building walls between my life today, and all things about him and my life with him–the good things–and I am sad about that.

So today I realized that if things were different, if there was no divorce and instead my husband had died, I would still be able to love him. The memory of him, the memory of us.

Perhaps someday I will be so whole again, so healed, so spiritually evolved that I will love him. But right now the pain precludes such pretty emotions.

But I think I might take up my friend’s suggestion, and begin thinking of my ex as a dead person. It will be difficult to hate a dead person. And maybe easier to hold onto all the things that I loved about him and our life.

Photo: Case 6917235 by Leah Thibodeau and used with Creative Commons license

Last summer I opened my heart to the garden.

I had finally convinced my husband that the sooner plants go into the ground, the sooner they prosper–and he went to work removing a sidewalk and a giant concrete patio from the property–concrete that was covering up areas where we planned to plant a slew of native flora, including some main trees and bushes.

Actually, I hadn’t convinced him, so much as the redwood trees had convinced him. Little eight-inch sticks of trees that we brought back from the redwood forests (legitimately), which had reached nearly four feet in height in the few years since we had planted them. Splendid growth, and evidence of how things could thrive once planted.

So he set to work breaking and removing concrete; he seemed to love the demands of the chore. And I set to work putting into the ground the pots of plants which I had accumulated, according to our master garden plan.

I was so happy to be finally setting things into the garden, to be imagining it all growing and evolving in the years ahead. And I felt like I was making a deeper commitment to this home, and to my life with my husband. Like it was an act of faith, in our future.

All the while I was oblivious to what was really going on in my marriage. All the while that I thought my husband and I were building this garden together . . . he was elsewhere, in his mind and in his heart. He let me believe we were making a garden together. But later he made it clear that he’d been done with our marriage for some time. And I had to go, leaving our garden behind.

I was back at his house recently to pick up the last of my things there. I couldn’t resist checking on the garden, and was pleased to see the trillium in this photo. It is one of the sweet, rare native plants that I had planted last summer. When I planted it, it really was only a wizened bit of a bulb beside a plastic marker with a name upon it. I didn’t know if it would ever grow, let alone bloom. It had been waiting more than a year to be popped loose from the little, black, plastic pot, and be set free to flourish in real earth.

The trillium, and other plants that I tenderly tucked into the ground eight months ago, well, they are indeed flourishing. It’s so ironic. They are thriving, in his garden, and I doubt that he even knows.

I am not even there, but I miss them every day.

I am ready for this pain to leave. I want to stop hating. I want to return to writing here about beauty.

But the hurt continues. I sit and look out the window at the glorious pink of the blooming cherry trees, and tears stream down my face–I am sad and angry and confused. And I worry a little that this deep emotion will never let up.

My dear friend, Carmi, checks in on me nearly every day, saying, “Good morning. How are you today, my love?” This morning I replied, “I hate my ex. I don’t enjoy being a hater. It hurts. I can’t believe how much I still hurt.”

And Carmi says, “You still love him, that’s why it hurts. You can’t say you hate something you don’t love in some way.”

Oh.

Earlier I made a snarly post on Facebook, my attitude getting the better of me. “I am stunned by how much I still hurt, and am thinking some phenobarbital would be perfect right about now.”

In their comments my friends say all the right things, and I love them for it, but it fails to assuage the pain in my heart, even their encouragement to pursue the Zipless Fuck.

I’ve had that actually (well, not exactly but nearly, and a little inadvertently, but nevertheless). It was great in the moment, but later he gave me the “I want to be your friend speech” which really is a candy-coated rejection.

And rejection is the last thing I need these days, seeings as I am still reeling from this most recent–ultimate–rejection. So I am better off I think, staying away from anything that might include any semblance of a brush-off. So, no Zipless Fucks. No dating, either.

But back to the hate. And the pain.

I am reading a book my friend, Elke, wrote a long time ago. It includes a chapter about healing, and it suggests that I ask my heart, mind, soul, and body what they have to say about this situation. And then, ask them what they need in this moment.

So I ask.

My heart says that she feels cheated and short-changed. And I understand that my heart means cheated out of an opportunity, short-changed of something that was beautiful.

Then my heart pipes up that she wants things to go back to the way they were, when they were good.

I tell my heart gently that that is not possible. We cannot go back. Then she says, “I want him to be happy.”

I sit quietly (with tears still rolling down) and I let this soak in. It is true, I want him to be happy and my sense (my belief) that unraveling our marriage was no particular key to his happiness, well, I wallow in that. (It’s pathetic, I know.) But mostly it makes me sad.

My friends give me (unsolicited) reports of bumping into him at parties and events around our city, and they say, “He looks like hell.” At first–from my hurt and angry place–I gloat at this news. But I realize now that those reports break my heart.

I cannot change the past. I cannot change someone else. We all know that. But these new understandings of my feelings about what was and what no longer is … well, the understanding helps me diffuse or re-purpose the pain. Right now, that’s golden.

Photo: I Hate How Much I Love You by Nawal Al Mashouq and used with Creative Commons License

The divorce was finalized just about 48 hours ago, and the grief is rolling in.

I do not know really, why the marriage ended. The man who was my husband (I am not prepared to use the prefix, “ex”) might be flabbergasted to hear me say that–that I don’t know really why he had to divorce me–but I don’t. We didn’t talk about it much.

And what I do know of his reasons, I think they are dumb. Stupid. And why end a marriage over stupid reasons? And that makes me sad.

But I understand that they are his reasons, and he will feel what he will feel; there is nothing I can do about it. And it is this kind of rationalizing “acceptance” that I am relying upon to keep me making one step in front of the last, to keep me moving along.

I am not doing so well at this moment with the making one step and then another. I would really rather go slip into that bath that I have running, and slip under the surface of the water, and remain there. And be done with it.

Probably it disturbs people to hear that. But right now, it is how I feel. So why not say so?

That’ll change, sure. It has already. My feelings are pure roller coaster–swoop up, swoop down, click click click creep up to a height replete with vista, and whoooosh . . . along down to depths. Again. Again.

The violent hate that possessed me scant weeks ago is dissipating. Hallelujah. And I strive to keep a sweet perspective, to frame circumstances and my feelings in a positive way, even to extracting the good messages from my nightmares.

But. I hurt. All up and down my being, from the tip of my big toenail to the end of those wild, silver hairs on my head, I hurt. I am sad.

I wanted my marriage. I wanted my husband. I wanted our lives together. I still do. In spite of my intellectual understanding that it’s not to be.

photo: widdowquinn and used with Creative Commons licensing

It is 2:38 a.m. and I have been awake now for about an hour, after not quite three hours of sleep. Pretty much normal for me anymore, to sleep a few hours, wake, rustle around, sleep, wake, rustle rustle.

It’s wearing on me.

And I am feeling sad.

There’s this thing that has been happening for awhile. Two things actually. I will wake, and feel a twisting ache in my chest, and a little voice in me says, “My heart is killing me.” And then, my brain clicks ON and starts recounting the reasons I hate my husband.

I do hate him.

I am sure I will get over it (I hope to god I get over it), but this wrenching pain in my heart fuels the hate, and the mid-night recap of the reasons for my feelings tends to spin me all around, and keep me awake.

I am very sad that this is my state of being as this year comes to a close. I am deeply and mournfully sad.

I am also puzzled at what the little voice says to me: My heart is killing me. I argue with the voice, trying to explain the possible ramifications of repeating a message like this … my heart. killing me.

But for four months the voice has said the same thing.

So I close out the year 2009 in a state of grief and sorrow and hate. Indeed I have a good measure of gratitude, and some shining slivers of love. And the care and love that my friends and family have bestowed upon and bedazzled me with have without a doubt sustained me–literally keeping me alive.

But the core of my being–right now, as we speak–is a burning hole of loss.

I have certainly sung the woe-is-me tune, wondering how my husband could be off seeking other women so soon after leaving me, and how could he be reunited within weeks with his former sweetheart.

More and more I attribute poor communication as a big factor in the “sudden” demise of my marriage. I am not without blame here, but really there were few direct peeps from my husband about what was rankling him about our marriage. Such that, whatever had been going on for him must have been gathering and simmering for some good long time–until it boiled over, and he was just done, done with the marriage and on to other things.

I stumbled on an article today that is looking at the flurry about Tiger Woods, and his philandering. The title is a little misleading–What Tiger Woods Can Tell Us About Sex Addiction–when the meat of the article is in the question of honesty

But imagine what it would be like if, for example, someone like Woods could discuss the possibility of having other sexual partners with his wife? What if he could have been honest about his desires? What if they could have negotiated their boundaries and talked about it with each other?

Like I said, I am not scott-free here. There are serious wounds from me biting my tongue about some things that I was perturbed or worried about. And it seems to me that there were a whole lot of things that my husband was perturbed or worried about, that I had no idea of. That I still have no idea of.

It is too bad when people cannot find the wherewithal to talk.

Of course the title of my post calls to mind Sinead O’Connor’s song, Nothing Compares 2 U, and while her lyrics are not 100% apropos for my thinking about my own life right now, the poignancy of her song accurately pulls the strings of my heart, on this, the 3 year, 7 month anniversary of the beginning of my relationship with my husband.