It all started with a pomegranate – a pomegranate and a stack of chocolate bars. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would be standing here in front of a man who was willing to turn his life upside down to take care of me and my three very young children. He handed me a stack of chocolate bars to stock my new, tiny, one-bedroom apartment fridge and a pomegranate because he said, ‘Pomegranates are fun to eat.’
My thirtieth year was not exactly what you would call ‘thirty, flirty, and thriving.’ It kicked off with a miscarriage and rounded out with the diagnosis of a variety of special needs for some of my children. Smack dab in the middle of that, I discovered my (now-ex) husband had been having an affair for about a year. When that news hit, it hit like a freight train. There I sat on the floor of my bathroom, reading the words over and over again. Tears pouring, trying to understand how this could possibly be real. Divorce was a word I never thought would be in my vocabulary and just the idea of it made me feel like I was drowning. The emotional pain of the rejection and the fear of what it meant for my future and the future of my kids was a weight heavier than my broken heart could bear.
There were days I believed it might just be the end of me, crushing me beyond what I thought I could survive. There were moments I thought I was going to just physically die from the pain of it all.
The betrayal and rejection were painful enough, but knowing how my children would suffer felt impossible to me and I was powerless to protect them from it. I was convinced there was no way anyone would want a divorced, thirty-year-old, single mother of three children and I would be alone forever. It was the end of me and the end of the life I’d been living. I thought it was the end of anything and everything good. How could there be a life after this?
The days after were filled with tears. They were filled with grief both for me and for my kids. We moved into a one-bedroom apartment. It was awful and wonderful all at the same time. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’ my kids asked as I gave them their first tour. ‘Sorry guys, that’s it,’ I responded. And yet, we were together and this little space, while small, was ours. The days were also full of long trips to therapy appointments for two of my kids. I was learning how to be a special needs mom and a single mom all at the same time, and let me tell you, the learning curve was large. The kids were learning how to live life as children of divorce, and it wasn’t an easy adjustment for any of us.