Category: Doing Divorce

Both of us baby-faced and needing frequent naps, I could have spent the rest of my days with her head tucked safely under my chin and her little sixteen-pound body warming my heart.  At six months into her life, I was finally getting the hang of things and not congratulating myself nightly that she was still breathing. I was now accustomed to the permanent expansion of my heart. Little did I know then that in seven short years, her father and I would be working through a divorce and my plans for parenting with him would be barely recognizable by the

It is too dramatic to say I felt disbelief staring at my sixteen-year-old daughter’s handwritten words.  But it was certainly on the spectrum of stunned. In a rare and fleeting moment of one-on-one time with my busy teenager, she was sharing with me the journal she had been tasked with keeping for her high school writing class. I read the words again: “For me, the holiday season has been hard. With having divorced parents, I don’t think it will ever be easy.  There is always guilt when leaving one parent on Christmas morning to go to the other, knowing that the parent

Where was she now? My rambunctious and sneaky Sophia was nowhere to be found. Still in her footie pajamas, it was easier for her to be stealthy.  I retraced my steps through the house. When I came back down to the living room the quiet was eerie.  I heard the slightest shift of her. From where? Behind the chair? I knelt onto the chair with both knees so I could peer over the back.  In the corner, nestled behind the chair was my two-year-old, her face full of cookies.  She didn’t just get caught with her hand in the cookie

I could tell you a love story. But this is a divorce blog. However, for context and fun, I will write you some of the good bits (with his permission, of course). I noticed his arrival across the outdoor pavilion that mid-August evening where my future fellow law school classmates were mingling and meeting for the first time before our classes started the following Monday. He approached with his big smile outlined by deep dimples.  I was instantaneously smitten. If love at first sight exists, this is the closest I have ever been. He was a year ahead of me in

I left early.  At 6:00 a.m. to get ahead of the day, the traffic, the time zone changes. My route took me through the Willamette National Forest in Oregon while the eastward rising sun kept peeking at me through the forest evergreens. For miles the ducks on a nearby lake were my only company. I pulled out on a lookout spot for Mt. Washington. I breathed in all the peace my body could take. The last two months had left me feeling battle worn and emotionally bruised. I took this moment to be present and told myself to let go.  The tears

I never know how to feel on June 8th.  There are some things for which there are no rules, guidelines, or instructions.  This year’s June 8th would have been my 21st wedding anniversary.  Is it nostalgia, sadness, disappointment?  Does it serve as a reminder of my biggest life failure?  My largest regret? The answer is none of these. My parents are in the process of selling their home.  As a result, they went old-school and held a garage sale.  I dutifully went down to my basement to see if there was anything to purge. My brother and I sorted through

As a child, I was annoyed when other kids colored outside the lines.  I fundamentally did not comprehend how people could not stay in a straight line behind our teacher on the way to the cafeteria. I could spend hours organizing coins, decks of cards, or colors – by strict classifications of size, color, and numerical order. These were early signs of my Type A personality being born. As I moved into junior high and high school, I over-achieved with a jammed-packed activity schedule while working 2 jobs and maintaining Honor Roll level grades.  A crumpling crying feeling would strike if I

She waited for me every single morning to start her day.  First while standing up in her crib with a big smile. Then even when she was a toddler and transitioned to her “big girl bed” (a twin bed), she wouldn’t get out of her bed until I came in to greet her.  Each morning for the first years of her life I would wrap her in my arms, feel her breath on my neck, and we would start our day… together. At seven, when her dad and I divorced, I let go of half her mornings.  I also let

“I need to get this out so you can read it and know where I’ve been, where I’m at now, and where I want to be.” My writing partner recently sent me some draft work to “review and comment” for him. He is writing from a place of self-discovery and his writing is autobiographical in nature.  He is writing difficult and vulnerable memories. At the end of his pages was a letter to his spouse.  I wasn’t sure if I was meant to read it or not, but I knew it no doubt held a deeper level of the hard work he was