Want some odd tricks to get through divorce? Here’s one. I call it my champagne and gummy bear strategy.
To quote Bill Clinton: I feel your pain.
I know it in the hollow of my heart. You feel like sh*t. Actually, feeling anything would be welcome. You are numb. Carved out. Your well of emotions is bone dry. You have cried. Panicked. Screamed. You’re done. The little bit of strength, belief, or hope that lived inside of you is gone.
It takes the will of God to get you out bed in the morning.
The only thing that got me out of bed was her. My child. I would force myself to make breakfast, drive her to school. I hoped that she didn’t notice that I wasn’t really there. I had become a faded cardboard cutout of myself. If you looked quickly, maybe you didn’t notice. But if you really looked you saw that I was stiff, immovable. Prop me up and I might pass for a real person.
I would talk to myself. Make deals. Cajole. Beg. Barter. I devised tiny, minute rewards. If I get in the shower right now, I can wear those same old yoga pants. If I speak to someone at the school assembly, I can go home and have a whole bag of microwave popcorn! Yippee! If I go for a walk, I can come back and spend one whole hour obsessing about how horrible my skin, hair, stomach, thighs-whatever-looks. And the big one?? If I actually left the house and did all those things; if I pretended for yet another day that I was kinda OK, if I kept marching just a little bit longer, the big prize was mine. Once my daughter was safely asleep in bed at night, I would open a single serve bottle of cheap Cook’s champagne and a package of Haribo Gummy Bears. I’d sit on the tiny twin bed in my teeny weeny guest room where I was currently exiled, and I’d have my own little party. I’d made it through another day! I’d left the house and done my Mom jobs. And I’d be OK for a few more hours. Cheers to me!
I know, It seems kinda stupid that a grown woman can be motivated to action by a bag of gummy bears, but my divorce has taught me that sometimes help comes from some unlikely places.
Maybe my divorce trick of gummy bears or cheap champagne aren’t your thing but this strange trick kept me going.
Find ways to keep yourself going each day. And celebrate your victories.
Got out of bed? Showered?
Didn’t cry for a whole hour?
Time to celebrate and break out the gummy bears!
What tricks did you use to get through your divorce?
xoxo-Rosie
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