Taking off the masks

Earlier this year, I got divorced. I chose the divorce and walked out of a 10 year marriage and an 11 year relationship. It was one of the hardest choices I've ever made and it was the start of a journey that's involved me rediscovering the real me.

I didn't make the choice lightly. Not only was I leaving behind someone I loved and choosing to no longer be in a relationship with that person, but I was also giving up everything in my life and having to start my life over from scratch.

I remember the week after I moved out poignantly. I needed to find a job I hadn't been working since the summer of 2020 and here I was, in the middle of a pandemic starting my life over. What was I going to do? I wasn't even in the right head space to look for a job where I would likely be dealing with people. I needed a job where I could mindlessly do work while processing the pain, shock, and fear I was feeling as a result of leaving my marriage.

Fortunately my friend Victoria had the solution: Doordash. She's a dasher and she shared with me the process for becoming a dasher. It seemed pretty easy to do. I just had to pickup food and deliver it and I even got tips. Plus I didn't have to interact with people too much and the interactions I would have would be fairly non-committal. So I signed up and became a dasher.

Dashing proved to be exactly what I needed. I could pick up food and deliver it and while doing all of that I could also break down in my car and just let out all the tears, emotions, and everything else I was going through. I called it car therapy and in a lot of ways it really was exactly that.

I drove six days a week, and I did it as much to make money as to also give myself a space to go a bit crazy and deal with the depression and sadness I was feeling, while making money. I've always been a practical person, even in terms of how I deal with emotions. While driving alone in the car wasn't exactly meeting with a therapist, it worked as way to create a space where I could express what I was feeling without having it effect anyone else.

I remember one day in particular. I was driving in the car and I started sobbing to myself and expressing how it wasn't fair what had happened. I wasn't blaming anyone in particular, but I was blaming life itself and how hard it can be to live life, make mistakes, and be held in judgment for what you've done, with no forgiveness or understanding offered. Life felt really unfair and as I cried in my car, I felt this raw torrent of emotion go through me. Here I was driving a car, delivering food, with no real idea of what I was going to do with my life or how I was going to pull things back together. I felt like such a loser and I was sure that if anyone were to see me they would just point their fingers at me, laugh and say yep here's an example of a person who can't get his act together.

I couldn't get my act together. I was too wrapped up in my own guilt and depression to do anything but drive and deliver food, and try to work through all the emotions that were going through me. I had to get real with myself and let go of any pretensions I had about myself. I also had to let go of the self-consciousness I was feeling about my circumstances.

One day I talked with my friend Kelli about where I was with my life. I confessed how I felt like such a loser and she said to me, "You've got a place to live, you have a way of making money and you're still writing. Give yourself time to figure out the rest of the answers."

I wanted those answers right then and there, but Kelli was right. I couldn't get the answers any sooner than I was ready for them and I wasn't ready for them. Being ready for them meant that I had to come a place where I could process and let go of the grief I was feeling. Being ready meant I had to accept that I didn't have any answers and that I would come to those answers when I was ready and not before.

Being so helpless, and accepting that helplessness instead of fighting it and trying to make myself be in a different state of being was a challenge, but there was a moment in early August where I was hit with a profound realization. I was going to be okay. I didn't have the answers. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, other than write, but I somehow knew I was going to be okay. I would eventually figure it out.

Shortly after that realization I got a remote working job that's relatively low stress, and I relocated to a new city. I'm currently in the process of applying to grad school, so I can go back and get a degree in counseling. I realized I wanted to keep writing but also find other ways to help people out in a way that is meaningful to me and them.