It’s getting close to my self-imposed deadline for this week’s Sunday Post and I’m still not clear what I’m writing about. Hang in here with me while I figure it out.

I had lofty goals for today that included making a new spring recipe with homemade gnocchi. I even thought about baking, maybe taking another stab at macarons or trying something different. Turns out the only things I crossed off my to-do list today were buying groceries and a morning (just barely) yoga practice.

It just felt too good to sleep in and then lounge around doing nothing but drink my coffee, catch up with a few people, and scroll on my phone. I did write in my gratitude journal though. I ran out of pages in the notebook I was using so I started a new one yesterday. I was looking through the old one and thought about compiling each day’s list into one long list and seeing what came up most often. I still might do that, maybe make a word cloud out of it. I know coffee will be prominent because I usually make my list as I’m sipping my coffee. As I was looking through these lists I also glanced at the quotes that are on every other page of this notebook and found this one:

“What seem to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”

Oscar Wilde

Ten months ago I would have been hard-pressed to see any way that my current trials were any kind of blessing. After a few months of much bitterness I did start to see through the disguise, and now the mask is completely off. I still feel a lot of disappointment. With myself, in how I’ve handled myself. With him, and how he’s behaved with me and others. But I can’t control his behavior; I can only try to change mine.

This week I went on another date! My date was someone I’ve been having regular exchanges with since January. He doesn’t live in town and we hadn’t been able to connect in person until now. I was nervous as I headed out but I had a nice time. We talked about travel, childhood experiences, work, and very little about my divorce. I didn’t feel the urge to take a deep dive into how that came about and that is a very good thing. It means I didn’t cry. Maybe we’ll even see each other again.

These days I don’t cry very much anyway. I get a little weepy if I start thinking about it but I’m learning to control my thoughts and steer them in another direction. For example, in the car today a song came on and I had it up pretty loud, singing along, until a lyric came made me feel sad. So even though I love this song, I hit the forward button to get to the next song. No need to start crying after my Target run.

Also earlier this week I finally did a cord cutting ceremony. It was a recorded (hypnosis) session shared by a relationship expert that I started following not too long ago. Months ago one of my best friends suggested that such a session would be helpful. Then a few weeks ago one of the daily emails I get (I can’t remember who from) was about this same topic. So when I found this from Rachel DeAlto I figured the universe was trying to tell me something.

During the session Rachel guides you through some exercises during which you end up figuratively walking down a flight of stairs and into the room where you will cut the cord of attachment. I cried as soon as I entered that room. I cried while I cut the cord. But after I left that room and came out of the session, I wasn’t crying anymore. The tears were dry. I felt better.

Now, I’m not saying that I’ve been able to let go completely of my ex-husband. I haven’t. I still feel like I need to have his friendship even when it might not be the healthiest thing for me. I may need to do this ceremony again, maybe a couple of times. But it has helped. I can see that I am better off now. I can see that most likely there are much better things ahead for me. Maybe the love of my life is still out there. Maybe the last ten years were preparing me for him.

Or, maybe, I will discover that I am happier on my own. We’ll see.