Divorce involves experiencing a range of emotions. Emotions that, for the most part, we’re not prepared for, unless of course we’ve been through it before. Shock, sadness, anger, grief, adjustment, acceptance, and eventually, empowerment and happiness.

In my case, toward the end of my divorce, I was happier than I ever was when I was married, probably because I was trying so hard to keep my marriage together that I never allowed myself to think about the alternative. My husband walking out the door ended up being an opportunity to live a better life filled with more love than I could have imagined.

I really had no idea how much divorce would interrupt my life. I told myself in the beginning that I would just get through it and not let it throw me off course. After all, I had a child to care for, a full-time job, my health to take care of, I couldn’t afford to lose focus. Ha! Obviously it doesn’t work like that.

Giving myself a break was difficult for me. I don’t mean break-breaks. I had plenty of down time for things like self-reflection, binge watching Netflix, crying into my wine glass, having ice cream for dinner, and what not. I also had support from friends and family. But learning to be mindful of those swirls of emotions, accepting that everything was going to be ok, and that I couldn’t control it all, that was a hard adjustment.

I didn’t want my life to go back to the way it was, I understood what needed to happen, it’s just that I wanted it all to happen right away. I wanted to be ok and functioning at the top of my game again, immediately.

I think I made it worse on myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have just taken it easy and given myself more space to heal, I don’t know. Instead of trying to figure out my next career move, the house payments, updating my benefits and will, basically anything and everything you can put on a to-do list, maybe I should have just taken a chill pill. I had a good excuse, right?

It’s just not in me. The harder I fought to regain who I was, and importantly, the woman I wanted to be, the harder it was to let go of the aspects that made me, me. I am an ‘always on the go’ person. I love checklists and feeling accomplished when the world around me is in order. I don’t know an other way to be. Whether it’s good for me or not, I’m driven. And as challenging as it was to keep up that pace when my mind and body would not cooperate, I am so relieved to finally be on the other side and back to my old self, a little more each day.

I suppose one of my greatest fears was that in the process of divorcing my husband, I would lose myself, and that made me the maddest of all. I couldn’t let that happen. So maybe the fact that our emotions drive us can be a good thing in the end.