Divorce can be brutal on your self-esteem, your psyche, and your emotional well-being. It is a hard-hitting, tough experience in which so much of your existence is tested and questioned. In The Gifts of My Divorce, author K. K. Chappell examines her ten-year relationship with her ex and narrates how she survived the first year of the break-up. The Gifts of My Divorce is a story about growth and change, describing how Chappell and her son navigate their way through the first year alone. It is the story of her journey through the labyrinth of her split as she consciously chooses the kind of life she wants to live. It's a story about her role as the victim, as the survivor, and ultimately as the hero of her own tale. In this memoir, Chappell discusses her transformative journey into self and the gifts she discovered after her ex left. This is a story about the human spirit and the potentials that exist within us all; ultimately, it is a story about love.
The Gifts of My Divorce
Navigating through the First Year: From Victim to HeroineBy K. K. ChappelliUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 K. K. Chappell
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-8166-9Contents
Introduction....................................................................viiOw ... That Smarts!.............................................................1Little Red Bag..................................................................15Emotions Run Deep and All Over the Place ... The Tile Aisle.....................23Go to Group.....................................................................29Extreme Self-Care ... Bah-Humbug!...............................................37A Martial Artist in the Making ... Reclaiming Myself............................47Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Whose Fault Is It, After All?........................58The Road Less Traveled..........................................................71Home for the Holidays...........................................................81A Time for Forgiveness..........................................................89From Pissed to Empowered........................................................97Butterflies Are Free............................................................109The End of My First Year Alone..................................................113
Chapter One
Ow ... That Smarts!
Was he really dead or had I just been dreaming?
I woke up one morning with a damp pillow wet from tears, a stuffy nose, and puffy eyes. I was in that momentary fog that happens between sleep and wakefulness when I remembered I had a horrible dream. It seemed as if it went on all night long. I shuddered as I recalled the dream. Ted had died. I remembered quite clearly, standing alone in the pitch dark, choking on a wealth of tears, as I repeated over and over again that I did not get to say good-bye. Between sobs, I kept repeating that I had to say good-bye, that I needed to say good-bye. No one heard me. No one was listening. No one cared. The finality of his death left me bewildered, confused, frightened, lost, and riddled with grief. He was gone for good. There was no one to help me. There was no one to explain things to me. There was no one to hear my pleas. In my dream he was just gone. The tie severed quickly and cleanly, as if with a sharp knife. And I was alone—utterly and completely alone.
Ted and I had been living together in California for the last ten years. We met when I was thirty-four and he was forty-two. I was head over heels for him, as he was for me. He was a handsome, successful, kind, and caring man with an even temperament that complemented my feistier nature. I often teased him about his laid-back California ways, which differed from my intense New York nature, a difference that was the impetus for many lively discussions. It was a match made in heaven! We had an exciting, wondrous, romantic, adventurous first year of dating. It was fun and he was fun to be with. I liked who he was as an individual, and I liked who he was with me. It was almost a year to the day of our first date that we moved in together. As I drove to his place with my two dogs and cat in tow, an uncomfortable knot started twisting in my gut.
The first year was an interesting dance as we found our footing with each other living under the same roof. Ted had been married before and had a young son. We became an instant family. I stepped into my new role as a co-parent with great enthusiasm. I also took over the horse business his ex-wife had once operated, diving in with the vim and vigor that is typical of me. I never once gave it a second thought. For Ted this shift was easy; nothing had really changed except for the addition of me. For me, it was a bit trickier, especially when I found remnants of his old life in the kitchen cupboards, the medicine cabinet, and even the closets. Shadows of his former life with his wife were littered in various pockets of the house. My stomach would instantly knot up when I found things that obviously belonged to her. Why didn't he get rid of this stuff? Why had he left it there for me to find? I took it upon myself to clean up the incidentals, which meant I gave them to Ted to give to his ex-wife. Hints of hurt morphed into anger when I confronted him with the goods. Although Ted never wanted to see me hurt, he could not understand why this bothered me as much as it did. To know Ted is to know his clutter, and while these were meaningless oversights to him, they were daggers to my heart, with truths I invented that equated to lack of loving me, lack of caring about me, lack of thinking about me—just plain lack. I had never been married and could not help feeling as if I had missed a vital step in this new transition. But time has a way of quelling those knotty feelings, as days turned into months, and months turned into years.
We lived busy, active lives, and those first years were good years as we fell into a predictable routine of work and family. I liked it. Gone were the days of our exciting romance, now replaced by the comfort of daily life and knowing someone well. We liked each other and we had fun together. And while I still maintained my independent spirit, I enjoyed this new life of ours. Ted was always home by 6 p.m., which gave me a sense of security that I had never experienced before. On some level I was puzzled by this, because I had never known such constancy from the man in the family. As a kid, my mother was always there, but my father was not. To see a man come home every day, at the same time, baffled me at first, and I looked upon it as if I were looking into the window of someone else's life. Whenever I heard the crunch of his tires in the driveway, a sense of peace wrapped itself around me.
Is this what men do? Do they always come home?
My father left when I was fourteen, although it is fair to say that he was never really around much even before the final departure. He worked in New York City and would often come home for the weekends because it was easier to stay in the city than commute on a daily basis. Although many men did the daily commute, my father chose otherwise. His weekends home turned into every other weekend, then a few weekends scattered here and there, and then no more weekends. As a kid, I would wait and wait and wait for the familiar white Lincoln to pull into the driveway, choosing to stay home most weekends for fear of missing him—hours spent waiting for my father to come home. I always recognized the sound of his car—the gravelly noise his tires made as he drove in, the hollow thud of the car door closing—and instantly a sense of relief filled me because my father was home. Sometimes, I sat faithfully on the stone wall by the main road, counting the cars that drove by while I waited, convincing myself that the next car would be his. But, many times he didn't show, and I would sadly leave my perch wondering where he was. When he was home, I sat in the living room in the worn-out, brown armchair and did my homework while my mother and father talked in the kitchen. Like a sentry at the gate, I sat in my chair. I listened to the murmurings of their conversations, and although I couldn't hear their words, I sensed a distance between them and wondered why it felt as if something was wrong. And why, when my father gave my mother a hug, did hope rise in my chest?
Ted and I had created a life that was full, one in which we were content. I felt safe and loved by Ted. Again, something that was new to me. Trust had never been an easy thing for me. I don't know that I ever trusted any of the men in my past relationships. But Ted was different, I knew without a question of doubt that I could trust him. The fact that he was able to instill this in me when others could not was another aspect that allowed me to step further into this place of being with him. Even when we had our heated arguments, even when our differences seemed so vast and wide, even when we disconnected for a time, we were always able to come back together and find that grounding love. And while I did not always know how to respond to his constancy, he was always there for me. Little did I know that a fortress stood between Ted and me. A fortress I created long ago, and one I would only come to recognize long after our split.
We got engaged at Donner Lake during one of my family reunions. We were sitting outside by the lake when Ted asked me if I wanted to go downtown to do some shopping. I chuckled in response, because Ted doesn't like to shop and I thought it rather odd that he would even suggest it. But Ted was insistent so I drove downtown with him all the while wondering why he was acting so peculiar.
As we walked by the window of a boutique jewelry store, Ted asked me what I liked. I nonchalantly pointed to something, and started to move away from the store, when Ted said we were going inside.
"I want you to pick out a ring."
"Why? I don't need a ring," I said, still oblivious to what Ted was up to.
"I think it's time we got married."
"What!" I responded in utter surprise.
"Now, don't make a big deal of it. I just think it's time and I want to do this while we are here with your family."
I chose a beautiful sapphire ring, which was unique in its design and different from the norm. On our way back to the lake with news to tell my family, my stomach twisted into an uncomfortable knot, the same way it did when I moved in with Ted, but I ignored it once again.
We lived in that space of engagement for the duration of our relationship. Our relationship continued with the ebbs and flows that are a part of any relationship. A subtle distance had grown between us. Was it bad? Or was it typical? Either way, we lived in it. He did his thing, I did mine. We shared. We cared. We argued. But the distance scared me and as a result of that fear, I created more distance. Rather than pull together, I pulled away. Rather than be vulnerable with my feelings, I got angry as I conveyed what I thought was wrong in our relationship and what I thought was wrong with him. ("If you loved me, you would ...") Anger kept the fear away. Anger kept everything away.
I was also beginning to feel insecure about my place in his life. I vividly recall a moment when I was driving home from the grocery store. It was a gray day after another winter rain. As I sat in the turn lane, waiting to make a left, I looked at the little blue house I lived in and thought to myself, I'm like Cinderella, I don't really belong. It's his house. It's his driveway. It's his mailbox. I just live here. Again, I ignored the knot in my stomach.
We had a son when I was forty-one. I had miscarried twins years before, so this was a blessing. A gift. One I wrapped myself in. I loved every minute of being pregnant and I loved being a mom more than anything else I had ever done. Ted built a new room on the house specifically for me and the baby. I had it painted in blues and whites and decorated it with things that would entertain and delight any newborn. It became my haven, and I treasured those sweet, quiet moments that belonged to mother and son. Having my son was the most important thing in my life. Giving him a healthy, stable life was equally as important, because that was not always the case for me growing up.
I come from a big family. Six kids. We grew up in New York in posh Westchester county. It was a great place to be a kid with the outdoors as my big back yard. Our lives were good and as kids we loved it. I was on the swim team, rode my bike all over the place, took riding lessons, hung out with friends at the park, babysat all the best families in the town, and was a happy, energetic kid. That all dramatically changed one day when the phone rang. My mother was in the kitchen, with the phone to her ear, tears streaming down her face. A tickle of fear coursed down my spine. She shooed me out of the room and I immediately ran upstairs to her bedroom and picked up the phone to eavesdrop. There was another woman on the phone. Her tone was anything but kind. She told my mother that my father was never coming home again, that my mother's marriage was over and that my father was now with her.
My stomach twisted into a hard knot. I quietly hung up the phone, took charge of myself and the situation, and went downstairs to see my mother. Dry eyed, I asked her why she was crying. She told me that a friend of hers had died. I didn't push her for the truth, but rather told her that everything would be okay. I gave her space but kept a watchful eye on her. The life I had known was over. With the click of the phone, everything had changed. We went from calm to chaos. We went from riches to rags. We went from a predictable life to one of complete uncertainty. Fear raised its head like a roaring lion and remained a constant for years to come. We eventually moved to California, where we had relatives, and where my mother got a job, went back to school, and raised us alone. I saw my father again, for a few hours, on the day I entered college in San Luis Obispo.
I was happy as a new mom and busy with that aspect of my life, but Ted and I were struggling. We had issues that we could not agree on and in turn resolve. We were losing each other on some level and arguing more and more. There was strife in our lives—a strife that polarized us—as we hurled biting statements, nasty comments, and hurtful words at each other. Nearly at the breaking point, we decided to go to counseling. I can't say I liked it, and I can't say it did us any good. Either I would come out of counseling feeling good about the session and Ted would feel lousy, or he would think we made ground and I would feel pissed off. At the time, I didn't really understand the point of counseling. I was on the defensive and felt a need to protect myself. For me, counseling was more about proving my point, and less about hearing his. In hindsight, I was not ready for this stripping of myself nor was I capable of being vulnerable. My ego was far too involved in being right, because I was being made to feel that I was so wrong. But we continued, and thankfully we were able to come back together and find a common ground. We still had staying power, but we had work to do—a lot of work. The past few years had taken their toll and we needed a fresh start.
We decided to buy a second home in Northern Nevada. Ted had been to the area many times before and liked it. I began exploring the community and discovered it to be a breath of fresh air, and a place where I actually felt that I belonged. I scouted out houses for a couple of years until I found just the right home and property to start anew. Sitting just below the imposing mountains, lay a 12-acre property with green pastures and a big, old farmhouse. At one point in its history, it had been part of a working ranch. The house and the property called to me, and I immediately felt its pull. Ted was still working in California with his eye on early retirement, while I went up to Nevada to begin settling into the house and the community. This was a great family-oriented town and a perfect place to raise our son. While I was excited about the change, and while I knew it was necessary, I was also apprehensive about what this meant for us and our relationship. Would this move change us? Did seeing each other on a daily basis keep us bonded even in our dysfunction, or would we begin to heal in our separateness and grow closer as a result of it? Would the distance give us the space to rediscover what drew us together in the first place or would we grow farther apart? I worried about all of these things, even though Ted reassured me that it would all be okay, that I had nothing to worry about. We had survived thus far, so I had to trust him on this.
And, he was right. We were on the mend in a way that brought new meaning to our relationship. It was a time of healing and a time of rejuvenation for both of us. I went down every ten days or so, and he came up as much as he could. I felt a change in both of us and discovered a new joy in seeing him.
We did this for almost two years. My father had moved in with me during the last seven months of my relationship with Ted. He had Parkinson's disease and needed someone to take care of him, so I offered to help.
The traveling between the two homes became less frequent. Life in our new community, and life with my father, did not allow for traveling every ten days. I had created a new life in Nevada that consumed more of my time, and although Ted and I were still very committed to each other, it was with longer periods of time between visits.
A mutual friend of ours was getting married, so I met Ted in Sacramento for a weekend. We had a great time, not only at the wedding but going out and about in the city. We were in step with each other and it felt good! We went to a restaurant for lunch on Saturday afternoon, and while I was looking at the menu, Ted was looking at me. As if musing to himself, he said, "You're the whole package." No prompting, no pre-conversation, just, "You're the whole package." I chuckled at the randomness of his comment and continued to look at my menu.
It was Sunday. Time to go home. As we packed up to head in our different directions, me back to Nevada, Ted back to California, we stood in the underground parking lot saying our good-byes. I felt close to Ted, connected. He gave me a hug and a kiss good-bye, and then he held my shoulders and simply looked at me. It was a moment or two before he spoke.
"We ought to get married."
Another random comment that took me aback as I looked at him in utter surprise. I felt a new sense of purpose as I drove the long distance home. We had come so far together. We had made it through so much. Peace. Joy. Safety. Marriage?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Gifts of My Divorceby K. K. Chappell Copyright © 2011 by K. K. Chappell. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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