the directions. and where our stories take us.

It hasn’t been tidy.

My story. My path to Where I Am Right Now.

And, you know, I hope I haven’t “arrived” – whatever that means. I like to think it’s all just a progression, or a steady arriving or a long road to get to the destination that isn’t here on earth.

Frankly, whether a long marriage or a devastating divorce, sudden singleness or a lifetime of singleness, I don’t know anyone’s story that is actually tidy.

Stories are a mess. They just are. Because people are a mess. We just are.

I have friends who have been divorced for less years than me who are happily and joyfully remarried in truly redemptive situations.

I legitimately rejoice with them. I’m their cheerleader and I’m their fan.

And in what I can only say is the grace and kindness of God, I am not envious of their situation or their story. (Which is not to say that I am not sometimes lonely or sometimes wondering about my own life.)

What I am saying is that I’m okay with the fact that my ending is not the same as their ending. That my five and a half years of single parenting and single living and single coping doesn’t have to end in a new man or a new marriage for me to be happy.

There’s no new man. I mean, seriously, there’s been no man at all. (Three dates in five years, you guys. I am not playing the field. I wouldn’t even know how. I’d rather play in a field. Because that sounds more fun.)

The truth is – I can cheer you on in your new romance, I can congratulate you on your twenty year marriage, I can celebrate at your wedding – all without letting your story shine a light (or cast a shadow) on my own story.

We can all have different endings and be okay.

In fact, we must.

Your light doesn’t have to make my own light dim.

Your happiness doesn’t make my happiness smaller.

Your marriage doesn’t make me more single.

I don’t know what the next chapter in my story holds. I don’t know how it unfolds. There are mysteries there I cannot imagine – and many I would not care to imagine, I’m guessing, if history has taught me anything at all. And many other mysteries too, ones that will make my heart burst with joy and surprise me with laughter and hope, again – if history has taught me anything at all.

I don’t know my story and you don’t know your story either.

I can assume they won’t look all that much alike and that’s alright.

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