A New Beginning.

I am beginning anew.  This is revelatory for me.  In order to understand why I need to relate some background information.

I realized only recently that I have been stagnating for some time.  I was in a sort of limbo state after the termination of my 9 year marriage.  At first I was determined to recapture the "essence of me" and make a fresh start.  Little did I know, at the time, that I was merely experiencing the first of the stages of grief:  denial.  I buried myself in my work, taking on additional assignments and working longer hours.  I focused on new friendships and the "up side" of being single.  I began dating again... well, sort of.  Little did I know that it was, at best, a house of cards set upon a sandy shore with the tide rising.

That was nearly 18 months ago.  The inevitable happened, naturally.  I fell victim to the anger that began seeping in.  Anger at my ex-wife for destroying my life and the lives of my children.  Anger at my family for meddling in my business.  Anger at the seemingly brainless girls I would date who just didn't understand what it was like to be a divorced father in the state of Utah.  Anger at God for putting me on this path of destruction with such surety.  Mostly, however, anger at myself for not being the man I knew I could have been and even still was not.  Anger gave way to bargaining and bargaining to depression.  I was in a state of near constant misery during my waking hours and would long for the dark hours when I could loose myself to the quiet bliss of sleep.

I thought that I had arrived at acceptance finally.  I was comfortable being alone, or rather, I had made myself okay with the possibility of never having someone else.  I forced myself to be alright with not seeing my children every day and with becoming a seemingly secondary part of their lives.  I forced myself to be alright with my aimless career and absence of any real plan for the future.  I had stopped planning for things and instead focused on getting through the next 24 hour period.  It just seemed simpler -- and perhaps, safer that way.  I thought I had it wired.  I was able to manage the longing for human connection that had, in all reality, been absent long before my marriage ended.  I was able to tolerate the bitterness I felt for the woman who had so totally stolen my heart and then so utterly destroyed it.  Looking back now, it seems almost unfathomable what the human spirit can come to accept as normal.

Not long ago, I had occasion to do a personal inventory.  I made an accounting of my life thus far and what I could show for it now that my original life's plan had been obliterated.  I realized I was not happy.  I wasn't even content.  I was merely enduring -- tolerating my days as best I could.  I resolved to make a change.

First and foremost, I realized that I could not do it alone and I turned to God for help.  I could almost hear the creaking of my unused joints as I fell to my knees and asked what I must do to no longer feel the pain that had become my life.  I have always been a spiritually sensitive person and when I felt the tender pangs of love wash over me, taking with them the bitterness, pain and tolerance of sorrow that I had come to know so well, I knew that my prayer had been answered.

This was several months ago and, though I am not where I want to be yet, I am well on my way to realizing a measure of happiness.  They say the true measure of a man is determined not by the heights to which he rises but how he responds when he falls.  And so begins the account of a new adventure.  More to follow.