My Second Novel... and my Divorce
As a lot of you know, I've been married before... he was very controlling... very... that's all I'll really say about the nature of this relationship. We were separated for along time after the divorce.. a year of which (after we both gave up on the marriage counselor and admitted defeat) I never saw him or talked to him once. I've always intended my first book to be a prep book, to learn from so that when I went to write the one that mattered, I'd have the skill for it. In the end, I think I'm glad I've done this.
My next book is going to be so much more personal than this one. It's going to hit a lot harder to home for me. Frankly, I'm afraid to write it. The following was the first chapter, I wrote this the morning I went to meet my ex to sign the divorce papers. I hadn't seen him face to face in over a year. It was written for the book though... I hope you enjoy. Maybe some of you going through divorces right now might be able to relate.
Some of you who think I'm so productive, focused and with it should know that about a year ago, this is what I was going through. I had no idea.
Spoiled for length...
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
My journey had finally brought me to where so many trips bring a person, back to the start. It seems the ending could only take place here. All those miles traveled and I never really got away from this place. Home. It lived beneath my skin as a gentle itch or nag, pulling me back. It crept into my heart with that subtle need to do what's right and face one's problems. I had nearly completed my rebirth, but I had one final tie to my old life to cut. Here I was a new babe scissors in hand, ready to snip snip at the umbilical cord and release myself from that last comfort of my old womb: the prison that had kept me captive so long.
Some people wondered how I could go so long keeping this tie binding me back to the roots that had once destroyed me. The truth was I didn't know how to live in a world without that safety blanket. As much as I wanted to burn it to the ground and everything that it represented, it stood as a shield between me and reality. A dirty window distorting a sense of the future, the past, the present and it kept me from being only as I could be seen. My little secret kept me from being completely predictable.
As long as there was a bit of unfinished business in my past the fact that I had no future seemed irrelevant. But the second I closed that chapter down all that would be left would be a blank page waiting for something to fill it. And me left with only a big question mark in my mind. Blinded by the hope and limitless possibilities of the future, I would be left to wander crying out for some sort of direction.
So why would I come back and resolve such a tiny problem only to create such a big one? A mark of hope, a goal, an understanding that the future would not be a barren waste land of so many options that I would never be able to decide what to choose. No, I had learned there was something worse than not knowing what you want and that was to know what you want, but still be stuck in a rotting tomb as good as dead for all the control you have over achieving your desire.
I often wondered what it would be like seeing him again: my captor of all those years back. How would I feel? Anger? Relief? Pity? I still didn't have an answer. But soon I would. That is if I could distinguish one feeling above any other. I imagined that seeing him would be like being hit by a tidal wave of emotion, the under tow bringing me so deep into my psyche that all sense of self and time would vanish in the suffocation of the water crushing my lungs.
I splashed cool water on my face in a gas station bathroom. Dingy yellow tile floor, permanent stains on the weathered countertop. It was once white, now yellow and brown blotches coated its cool surface. I smiled. This bathroom would not make my list.
I looked in the mirror as the fresh beads of water trickled slowly down my face. My ocean blue eyes staring back at me strong, determined, fierce. It was only the flush of my skin that betrayed the storm that raged within my belly making me nauseous. I thought of what Stoph would say, out in the car. "The value of doing something is determined by how much you fear doing it. By conquering the fear, you cut away the dead pieces which cling to you, dragging down your soul."
After today my soul would lose an anchor and soar so high and shine so bright people would mistake it for a star. My lowly body will be left only to stare up at it in awe and wonder how such a weak frame could set such a beautiful thing free. That is, if I was able to overcome this fear: the fear of the unknown. Could I complete my rebirth? Could I take that final plunge, cut off that final tie, pull the trigger, burn the bridge? Could I kill off that last bit of my old self? Watch it die? That weakness? Could I do it? Even if it meant a brighter future, a cleaner soul, a new story to write, a possible happily ever after? Or would I find safety in the known and fail as a human being.
Today I would see.
Fuck. I've come so far in the last year. I'm so proud of myself. And I have so much higher to soar. I think I will cry every day I write that book, but when it's done... wow. I'm not strong enough for it yet. She's an amazing character, she is though. I have to feel completely reborn before I tell her tale though. I'll get there though. By the time I'm ready to start my next book, I'll be there.
♥,
Rizzy
But yeah, even I have to be in the mood for sap. Mostly it was her voice that blew me away.
Boy aren't we a bag of sunshine?!