How have you been doing in recent months?

First off, please allow me to extend my deepest and most appreciative heartfelt thanks to all those who reached out to me in the months spanning my post about the sudden end of my nearly 18-year marriage and the present day.

Your soul-touching support, compassion, kindness, empathy, relaying of personal stories involving your own very difficult relationship issues and breakups over the years, and so much more have bolstered + helped me a good deal (and still continue to, for that matter).

Secondly, in the midst of everything that has been transpiring in my life lately, I completely forgot that back in the late spring/early summer, I penned and scheduled some blog posts which were originally intended to go live in either July or August.

In the midst of contending with the unforeseen events of July 2022, I ended up bumping them ahead all the way to December and then promptly (and, I think you will agree, rather understandably!) 110% forgetting that I had done so.

It wasn’t until I saw a flurry of new blog comments suddenly come in recently that I realized these long auto-scheduled posts had unintentionally gone live this month.

My bad all the way!

Not that there is anything wrong with sharing these posts now (or at any point in time). There certainly is not.

It is just that I fully intended for my first post since this past July to be a brief life update, not a project share or other type of entry.

Therefore, I sincerely apologize that things played out how they did. Just as I do to all those readers who I know were wondering why a life update post had not happened before I launched back into more of my usual type of blogging content.

With those points said, please allow me to now give you a little overview of how some things have unfolded for me in recent months.

In the time since the post about the sudden breakdown of my marriage, I was very fortunate to find housing for myself and (my dog) Annie.

After a ton of searching and applying to various rental properties across much of the Okanagan and Lower Shuswap Valleys, I was extremely fortunate to ultimately sign a lease on a lovely little townhouse all to ourselves.

It is located in a larger town roughly 25 minutes away from the small, rural community of Armstrong, BC, where Tony and I had been residing since moving there together in early 2018.

Working largely at the same breakneck speed I had undertaken throughout July and early August to get our entire house packed up, spic-and-span clean, staged for viewings, listed for sale, and so forth, from mid-August to mid-September, I quickly unpacked and set up my new home.

It was – and still is – tremendously strange, sad, and foreign feeling for me to assemble the trappings of each room of a house that is simply for myself (and Annie). Every home from the second half of 2004 onward until this summer was one that Tony and I shared as husband and wife.

As the summer wore on, the initial state of mind-blowing shock, the gargantuan sudden upsets to my life, and the intense feelings of unprecedented blindsidedness began to decrease.

Naturally, though, a vast amount of internal pain, grief, longing, trauma processing, and life rebuilding remain part of my daily world and will no doubt continue to for quite some time still to come.

One does not have the proverbial rug of a marriage they cherished and believed would be eternal – coupled, moreover, with the loss of the person they love/loved, valued, cared about, respected, desired, would have done almost anything for, and trusted more than anybody else in the world – pulled out from under them and magically bounce back with the dexterity of a rubber band.

Far from it.

The thought occurred to me recently that my initial unfathomably brutal heartache and emotional/mental/physical/spiritual pain was/is akin to a very serious acute injury. And, you know, in many ways it is.

However, as time leaps ever forward and the disbelief, marathon cries that often spanned or totaled anywhere from 5 – 14+ hours per day in the initial months (I still continue to cry frequently, though especially long periods of weeping are not, at present, as common for me as they were in the summer and early fall), and the bigger picture of the reality that is my current life all came to be, that pain has gradually morphed into a state that could be looked upon more as a chronic illness of sorts.

(As someone who has been a fighter of over 15 different serious chronic illnesses for more than two decades now, I know from which I speak.)

That does not automatically mean this state of internal health and, likewise, that of my life, in general, will remain entrenched in the deepest, darkest bowels of heartache, grief, longing, and endless reflections on the past for all of time.

And yet, that said, one never fully gets over trauma of this magnitude. A loss this hard-hitting, devastating, and brutally painful.

The experience of witnessing the person I would have gladly taken a bullet for walk out of my/our life in the blink of a tear-filled eye.

The dissipation of a future I firmly believed would be shared and treasured together and the overall pain of an ordeal this earth-shattering will remain with me – at least in part – always.

As, personally, I believe these things (and many others related to this year’s events) should.

In surviving the most hellacious, stressful, hurtful, and challenging periods of our lives, we (hopefully!) learn, grow, and come to see life through wider eyes and with an even more tender heart.

In a ton of different ways, I am a radically different person today than I was before the events of this past July.

Many positive changes have happened organically, others were a conscious decision to approach things in a better, healthier/healing light. And plenty more still were a blend of both organic and conscious efforts.

For, never have I hurt more.

Never have I grown more in the span of just a few brief months.

Never have I longed for anyone (Tony) or anything (our marriage) more in my entire life. Not by the length of the universe.

Never have I so bravely taken hold of the reigns of a profoundly difficult situation and been able to re-establish my basic needs (i.e., safe housing) again as quickly.

Never have I yearned to turn back the hands of time and with the crystal-clear clarity of hindsight alter the past (for the better) more than in the wake of this summer’s crushing events.

Never have I been stronger.

Never have I wished more that an event (the – from my perspective at least – incredibly abrupt end of our beloved, sacred, one-of-kind marriage) in my/our life had not occurred (and that it would never have occurred, in an ideal world).

Never, for months on end, have I consciously had to choose quite as hard to some-inexplicable-how keep going when I was certain that death would hurt (me) infinitely less than what I was enduring in that excruciatingly difficult moment.

Never have I pined for someone even 1/1,000,000,000 as much as I do for Tony.

I wake up every day and continue to expect him to be right there beside me (or at least under the same roof). I experience something comparable to a phantom limb-like sensation of his hand in mind, feel his strong, protective arms around my body and his tender lips upon my own.

I hear his gorgeous Italian voice and his wonderfully infectious laugh. Feel the warmth of his soul reverting joyfully in synch with mine, see the wise and witty twinkle in his deep chocolate-hued eyes, listen to him pull into the driveway, snuggle together as we watch our favourite movies and TV series, face each of life’s challenges and positives alike as a mighty, love fuelled couple.

These things and countless others echo throughout my every breath and heartbeat.

With a few exceptions, though (for example, thankfully the two of us have remained on amicable terms and do interact periodically for various reasons, so I still get to see and hear Tony in person from time to time), I am phenomenally, soul-crushingly aware of the fact that they are no more.

And that, in turn, somehow I must – and already am – find(ing) the ability to exist without them. Without Tony as my darling husband, my lover, my best friend, my rock, my soulmate. Just as I must go on without our shared existence.

Both despite and, I firmly believe, because of the highly challenging difficulties of this year, I’ve actually made massive positive strides on the mental health front.

(I have experienced major depression, various types of anxiety, and some PTSD for much of my entire life. Though, mercifully, at this point in time, I’ve almost entirely healed from the latter. )

As a result, ironically, it could be said, I am currently in a healthier, more stable place on the mental health front than I have been in longer than I can precisely recall (think 10+ years – if not more like 20+ years).

From late September (2022) onward, I have begun to experience days of zero depression (often coupled with a huge reduction in anxiety as well).

Zip, zilch, nil, nada. Not a single iota.

I had all but completely forgotten what a state of being completely free of depression felt like.

It is, in some respects, akin to breathing pure air of the cleanest and freshest variety after decades of existing on bottled oxygen.

Not every day is completely depression free (yet?). However, even when that all-too-familiar state of mental being resurfaces, it almost always does so at a drastically lower level than what had become long become my norm for many years.

Whereas countless periods throughout my life were spent somewhere between 7 – 10 on the depression scale (with ten being the highest possible level), these days when it pops up here and there, it does so in the 1 – 2.5, maybe 3, max, range.  

In fact, it is so drastically reduced that I am finding these sorts of vastly lower levels of depression/melancholy have little to no impact whatsoever as far as I can perceive on my internal state, my day-to-day life, my interactions and relationships with others, and plenty of other things both big and small alike.

I routinely stop and marvel at this previously unimaginable change (sometimes it brings me to the point of shedding tears of happiness and gratitude). This current mental health miracle and the renewed zest for life (relative to everything that has been going on as of late) that it has firmly instilled in me once more.

That said, I am very aware that mental health challenges rarely follow a linear path. Be it in terms of their development or, when possible, their treatment/lessening/remission/healing.

Therefore, I fully accept that there may be (and feel that I am now considerably better prepared to face) potential future spikes in my depression, should they occur going forward from this year.

It is safe to say that there are usually myriad factors that contribute to a person experiencing serious ongoing depression (for me, most of my depression has always been situationally caused). And likely there are just as many – if not more – that must go into its reduction for those who experience this very real, very life-impacting mental health battle.

While, OF COURSE!!!, depression is obviously not something one can turn on or off like a light switch (far from it), I do think that in a fair number of instances there are steps that can be undertaken to help lessen its severity.

Personally, I knew that if I had a snowball’s chance of not only somehow surviving, but in time (I hope and pray with every ounce of my being) thriving again, it would be borderline impossible for me to do so while living on my own if my depression + anxiety were raging out of control.

Without the aid of any harmful substances, risky or self-destructive behaviours, or various other negative choices one could opt for, as I started to gradually piece my world back together again, I reexamined not only my life + myself in general but also my mental state.

In doing so, I began to realize there were quite a few mindsets, approaches to life, thought processes, elements of my daily existence, and so forth that were contributing undesirably to my mental health that I could either part ways with entirely or reduce/alter significantly enough for them to further help improve the innermost workings of my ol’ grey matter.

Recently, I wrote something to my dear sister, which I feel fits perfectly in the course of this post as well. Thus, I am going to share it essentially verbatim with all of you as well.

Every now and then, YouTube suggests a clip from the TV show Hoarders to me and I will sometimes watch it when that occurs.

In one of them I saw somewhat recently, a clinical psychologist they have featured many times over the years (Dr. Robin Zasio) said a line that resonated with me immediately: “I don’t know why people have to get so broken to heal, but that’s what happened with you.”

She spoke these words in relation to the hoarder they were trying to help, but I feel like that statement applies immensely to me as well. 

In what surely stands as the most painfully ironic series of events in my entire life, it would take being shattered into billions upon billions of infinitesimally small pieces and experiencing pain so searing it would make swimming in molten lava feel like doing a polar bear dip by comparison to start healing/improving some of the most challenging aspects of my existence. 

The past 5.5 months have been the absolute worst, most difficult, painful, stressful, and heartbreaking of my entire existence by an enormous mile. Virtually nothing of any importance about them has felt right, familiar, normal, comforting, easy, or complete. 

Sometime around late August, however, a thought occurred to me that I had never really had before. 

Just about every time prior in my entire life when something massive had come along that shattered my/our world (or a shattered a solid chunk of it at least), my gut instinct was to immediately scramble to put the pieces back together as close to the way they had been arranged before that event occurred. 

(One example of this is how in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 arson fire, without even stopping to give it conscious consideration, I instinctually thought that I needed to start building up a vintage/repro wardrobe again without pausing to ask myself if that was actually what my heart most wanted to do at that point in time.)

Objectively, I think that this reaction and approach are innate to most humans and that they are not necessarily bad/negative things in many instances.

The thought that struck me like a million tsunami waves crashing into my mind at the same time was, “What if instead of trying to piece back together everything that is shattered, you held onto the best/most important parts and strove to rearrange, remove, or replace, as applicable, the rest?”.

It was – and is – a concept both plainly simple and extraordinarily challenging. And yet, that is precisely what I have attempted – and will continue to actively do – to the best of my abilities.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I could easily fill a book the size of which would give War and Peace a run for its money discussing elements of this year’s life-altering events.

Sometimes though, it is best to know when to put the breaks on for the present moment and I feel like the above paragraphs are a solid place to do just that.

Now, those two (again) completely unintentionally published project share posts + this one itself aside, you may be wondering about my long-term plans for this blog.

I have not reached a point yet in my healing/trauma processing/life-rebuilding journey that would even begin to facilitate engaging in our wonderful blogging community + posting at my pre-July 2022 level again (which averaged 4 – 6 entries per month).

And though my new dedicated craft space has been set up since this September, I have not created a single paper crafting project since before this summer’s devastating events.

I will not make any promises at the moment regarding my blogging plans/schedule in the near to quasi-near future. That would not be fair to either of us.

However, what I will say is that, if possible, I would like to *try* to post at least one new entry here roughly every 4 – 10ish weeks throughout the initial (and possibly longer than that) months of 2023.

So whether I one day return to a similar pre-marriage-breakdown blog posting level or opt to share entries here somewhat less frequently, in the long run, I do intend to put more new content up on this site. Yay!

That is a welcome thought which makes me smile on a great many levels (as does thinking about the day when my MIA paper crafting mojo returns).

Thank you all again beyond words for your kind, extremely caring support and understanding in recent months.

I am certain that this year would have been notably more challenging for me were it not for your thoughtfulness.

Let me wrap up this post (hey, wait, wasn’t this supposed to be a small life update? Evidently, in true Autumn form, I couldn’t stop at just a tiny handful of paragraphs ) by wishing all of you the sweetest, safest, happiest, healthiest, and most magic(k)al of holiday seasons.

Whatever you celebrate, whatever you hold dear, whatever brings you inner joy this month, may these things and many other positives number more for you than all of the snowflakes that will tumble to the ground across the world this chilly season.

Merriest festive season and nothing but the best and brightest to each of you for 2023!

The post A Big Apology to All of my Readers and a Small Life Update appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.

There are words you think you will never hear and others you believe shall never dare grace your lips or fingertips.

For me, this month has been filled with a cavalcade of both.

On the afternoon of July 4, 2022, seemingly out of the blue, my husband (Tony) left me and ended our marriage.

In a matter of a few sentences, he said that he no longer feels romantic love for me, wants a swift divorce, and that our shared home is to be sold ASAP.

Had a meteorite plummeted from the heavens and fallen on my head, I would have been less surprised.

That at least could have been explained by science.

This… this makes zero sense.

Up until the moment that those life-shattering sentences were uttered, I would have told you with the utmost conviction that our love was deeper and our relationship stronger than ever before.

I have never been unfaithful, and I genuinely believe that Tony has not either.

Like most couples, we have had our ups and downs, disagreements and tiffs over the years, but they were usually few and far between (and were normally quickly resolved or simply moved beyond when they did occur).

As far as I know, (up until now) neither of us wanted to radically overhaul or change our lives, move to a different part of the country/world, switch career paths, or anything substantial like that.

There has never been any abuse whatsoever of any kind perpetrated by either party.

Likewise, neither of us has (or has ever had) a substance abuse, drinking, or gambling problem (or any other serious vice or addiction).

Looking in from an outsider’s perspective, I understand that this situation, therefore, makes little to no sense.

Believe me, as the person on the receiving end of the lightning-fast death blow of my marriage, no one gets that better than I do.

I have only vagaries to go on at present and so am just about as in the dark as everyone else right now.

I loved – and continue to love – Tony with every ounce of my being. We have been together since 2004, marrying a mere seven months after we met in October of that same year (a beautiful love story that I detailed here).

Through countless trials and tribulations, times tougher than a kodiak bear, and moments when the only thing that made our happiness greater was magnifying it off of the other person, we stuck together, always growing closer and stronger as a cohesive unit.

I do not know what exactly changed in Tony and I will not theorize as to such publicly.

No matter what he may do or how profoundly he has altered both of our lives, I hold him dearer to me than words could ever fully convay.

Naturally, I have offered to do just about anything to try and fix us.

Considering that I did not know we were in trouble – let alone broken – I cannot overstate how much I would go to the ends of the earth to make us whole again. To try couples counselling, to attempt a trial separation period, to move homes, anything I can possibly think of, but these are not paths Tony is currently open to venturing down together.

At present, the door to my heart remains wide open to the possibility – however slim – of us reuniting. That said, while I keep that door open, please know that I understand and accept that more likely than not, he may never cross its threshold again.

As you might imagine, my life has been completely turned on its head. On top of the mental and physical agony that I am in at the moment, I have been thrust out into the world on my own for the first time in eighteen years.

In the process working at breakneck speed to handle the legal and myriad pragmatic sides of being jarringly separated from the man I believed I would forever call my husband.

Flipflopping between the worst emotional pain of my life and the continued shock that still teeters on numbness at times, I have been navigating the waters of getting my legal affairs in order, searching for housing that I can somehow afford for myself and our dog (who will be living with me) in Canada’s third most expensive housing market, packing up our current home, and getting ready to list our house for sale this coming week.

Gone in the blink of an eye is living in the home we created together following the arson house fire that we experienced in October 2016. A cozy roof and four walls that held not only our day-to-day existence, but innumerable memories of times past paired with scores of hopes and dreams for the future.

A shared vision for our tomorrow that up until twenty days ago, I believed we would long continue to write together on the pages of history. Our hands holding the metaphorical pen in unison that would do so.

But sometimes the inkwell inexplicably gets tipped over or runs dry and the life you envisioned is now one you must mourn so as to somehow – some unfathomable how – find the ability to carry on when every breath, every heartbeat, every waking second hurts like death itself.

For the end of any serious relationship – be it a marriage or otherwise – is unquestionably a form of death.

Sometimes the end is a long time coming.

In others, such as this, it proves to be the most shocking and unforeseen event that may ever happen to a person.

For me, it is the latter (and I am very much factoring the arson fire into that statement).

Tony wasn’t just my husband, he was my very best friend. My greatest source of comfort and support, my rock, my calm in the perpetual storm that is life, my biggest cheerleader, my reason to smile no matter what life threw our way, my soulmate… my everything.

Just as I am certain in my heart of hearts that I was for him as well. If not for the whole, then for very nearly the entire eighteen magical years we experienced together.

I don’t know where we went wrong, because I truly did not believe anything was seriously amiss – let alone (again) to such a profound degree. Perhaps I will never know – the onus of answers lies squarely on my beloved’s shoulders.

Like many of us, I have weathered my fair share of serious challenges and losses over the years. From becoming a multi-chronic illness fighter in my teens to the aforementioned fire and many others, life has thrown so many curveballs at me that I could probably play in the Major Leagues at this point.

This, however, is the swiftest, hardest, and most difficult thus far in my 38 years on earth.

That said, no matter how much the mere act of existing hurts at a cellular level right now, I believe I will find a way to keep going. To start over once again.

Doing so without a penny or an asset to my name, and – due to the severity of my chronic health problems – with, at best, sporadic self-employment. (Note, as per our separation agreement, I will be receiving monthly alimony payments for a number of years provided Tony remains employed, but will still be doing everything in my power to generate additional income so as to meet my most important basic daily living and medical expenses.)

My marriage is over, and I am in the throes of grief unlike any I have ever known. Yet dawn follows even the darkest eve and surely, somehow, I will get through this living nightmare and the indescribable heartache that accompanies it.

Due to the massive number of serious challenges I am facing and tackling at present, it is impossible for me to keep publishing fresh content here right now.

As such, from today onward, I am putting this blog (Witchcrafted Life) on what I hope beyond hope will be a temporary – not permanent – hiatus as I deal with everything that the abrupt and wholly unforeseen end of a marriage entails.

Whether to return (be it at my usual posting pace or a more reduced one) or to simply provide you with an update on how things are going in my life, I will do my best to post here at some point in the coming fall months (potentially October or November).

Much as I will not be creating new blog content (or craft projects for that matter), I cannot realistically see staying abreast of + commenting on other peoples’ sites in the near future. My heartfelt apologies about that to those whose blogs I regularly visit.

As I have told Tony in the wake of this devastating situation, over the course of the past eighteen years we were blessed to share together, all I have ever wanted – and still want – is for him to be happy, healthy, content/fulfilled, and loved.  

Until July 4^th of this year, I believed those things would continue to happen in no small part through our life together.

If Tony thinks he is able to do so to a greater degree in a new life that he creates for himself, then with genuine love in my heart – no matter how much it pains me to say goodbye – I hope that he experiences each of those things all the more and is able to find whatever it is he felt/feels our marriage was no longer providing him with at this point in time.

For every tear that has fallen from my exhausted eyes over the past three weeks (they feel as though they must number in the millions by now), I will forever have the gift of an infinitely larger number of cherished, happy, soulful memories from the course our marriage to look back on with the deepest of gratitude and affection.

There is nothing in existence that I would trade for the years we shared, the unforgettable times we experienced, and those very memories that were forged in the fires of our love.

Thank you, sweet friends, for allowing me to share a few humble paragraphs about this situation with each of you.

Until we connect again, please know that you will be fiercely missed, always appreciated, and wished a joyful summer-into-fall (or winter-into-spring if you are south of the equator).

Abundant love,

Autumn

The post My Marriage Abruptly Ended – Putting Witchcrafted Life on Hiatus appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.