6 years and counting
Yesterday marks that I've been divorced for 6 years. And intentionally single for a whole year.
I have a knack for taking actions and decisions that change my life in July, apparently. I started my first job in July too.
But starting from 2022, June became the month. 30th June is Sheol's official birthday, because that was when I first started streaming AI:TSF. I started my new job mid-June. I travelled for my pilgrimage in June 2023. I re-established an important connection in June last year.
It's less than 1/5th of my life and yet 6 years is enough for me to learn so many things I did not as a child.
For many people, and particularly in the West, being a divorcee perhaps doesn't mean as much. Perhaps there is a social burden and stigma to it, but the collectivist cultural weight must seem so burdensome in comparison, especially in the context of an individualistic culture. I cannot assume I know it all, I have only lived my life.
For me, I learned that there is the social stigma and in a place where misogyny persists, it is embedded into the culture, and thus becomes "cultural".
I learned early on that my value is based on whether or not a man will marry me, and treasure me and keep me. So I learned to shape my own self-esteem around that - that if a boy/man should, then I should feel good about myself. That I should mould myself to be the perfect wife. But in a world that also demands capitalist-aligned productivity from women, becoming the perfect wife at home becomes a challenge. I have often wondered if that made me a terrible wife: because I refused to clean up everything that was left by my husband. I refused to serve him water when I just got home, and he was at home the entire time.
But therein I began to explore warmth and love and devotion through my friendships: I wondered, is serving water merely an act of service, or is it to be considerate? What often went missing for me was consideration in the place of devotion. Devotion was often presented as an act of service, something a woman must perform to receive her husband's validation.
So I grieve again - that I was a bad wife because I, in fact, never truly loved my ex-husband and I pretended to be attracted to him. I was in no place to be considerate nor devote myself to him. That was why the marriage failed.
Perhaps in little pockets, I'd say I wasted my time.
But in truth, I could not bring myself to believe that I wasted my time with him. I think it was a necessary journey for me to undergo, because my self-esteem was at an all-time low. It was already low because I was at my first job and I was deemed "incompetent", I then dated someone, ignored any red flags to meet someone else's timeline at life. I don't know when exactly it happened, but I dissociated for the whole of two years.
I simply did not exist within my vessel, except only when I was writing.
That was why I journalled and wrote in my diary religiously at that time of my life. Because if I didn't, my soul would have continued to wander. Holding a pen was the only way to anchor it into my vessel that was breaking in every manner, and begging for safety I couldn't guarantee myself.
In remembering this day, I write this to myself as a toast of sorts. That my soul is now anchored to my body. That I know my heart more now.
That each of us are pursuing joy.