There’s a lot of tears happening this week.

I’d love to say I didn’t lose my shit at graduation, I’d love to say i didn’t lose my shit on my birthday, I’d love to say that being unceremoniously kicked out of my house by a husband who asked for the divorce in the first place wasn’t a huge kick to the teeth. I’d love to say it was the moment when he realized he wasn’t keeping both dogs, really realized that, that broke me. But I was already broken when that realization happened, and it did so several weeks down the line of heartache.

I took my dog and my cat the night he kicked me out, (comfortably, from Portland, with his new girlfriend), as well as a carload of stuff that didn’t matter nearly so much as the animals in tow. He told me to call him that night, (what could he have said, I can’t help but wonder) and i refused, and he said if I didn’t, I would not be welcome at the house ‘until this [was] all over’. His roommate, the girl living there for free, the girl i welcomed into my my house without pretense or expectation….she took his side. She ‘let’ me come over a few times to get stuff, hovering over me like a wasp on old meat, ever watchful, ever enduringly clearly on HIS side, making sure I didn’t cross the threshold into HIS house. Your squatter is undyingly loyal, former husband, you can be sure of that.

But all this happened months ago, what about now, my loyal reader may ask. Now, it’s burning man season, the effigy itself burned last night. And I am awash in wreckage, floundering in emotions I thought would fade and pass away. I regret my part in the destruction of our love and our life together, however insignificant and however necessary my movements towards independence. I feel deep sorrow for the man I thought he was, even if it was a figment of imagination and nothing more. I possess and covet the potential of that person, something cherished and hard-won, something I thought I earned when in reality it was a handful of sand in a greater mirage. I still love who he used to be, and who, fate be damned, he could have become.

Measure all that against a feather on the scales, and the latter will win. I fought for his soul and he had no part in the battle. He was a deserter long before I knew the fight was lost. So I mull through bodies and discarded armor, crying all the while, looking for one mouth to save, and I find my friendships; bruised and battered but still aching with life. I find my cat and my dog, hidden from the hardest parts, still filled with affection for their person who refused to leave without them. I find my family, waiting with a warm hearth and gentle words and hugs, who never strayed. I found a new path, a new career, with its own share of pain and sorrow, but rewards beyond measure.

I found myself, rising ever so stumblingly from the ashes of our home, our love, our life, our bond, our promises. I found a new woman, skin thin and untempered against the heat and cold, legs weak, body soft, feathers rumpled and new. She is someone I care to know better, and she is what I have to work with. She still cries, low and silent in the sunlight, loud and fierce below the moon. Each tear waters a new tree, a new home. Every drop is filled with promise, and longing, to be better.

Don’t think for one moment that I don’t struggle….that I don’t tear my feathers to shreds in frustration, wishing it were a month, a year, five years from now. I long for the time when I can be a competent mother, a dear friend, a loving partner to someone new. I, however, live in this moment of change and attempt to experience my growth as something both dynamic and present. Something ever-changing, but somehow solid and resolute. I live in the flux of times, I exist as what I am, what I was, and what I could be. I read the words as they are written, by my own hand, and the story goes on.

So here I sit, loyal reader, on the shores of an angry ocean, shivering against the cold of a new day. I thank you for your time and your attention, which I’ve asked for, and your love, which I like to think I still deserve. I will be sunburned and marked with salt before the day is through, and yet I look forward to new moments with the people I care for, who remain despite the carnage and fire. It’s not over yet, not by a long shot. The pain is overwhelming in waves, but I am strong, and I’ve got good people on my side. I wish for a home that doesn’t exist quite yet, but I’m building it, brick by heavy brick. Despite all evidence to the contrary, it will be ok.