Healing My Heart By Growing Gardens....

I am almost divorced - been separated just over a year and have been rearranging my life like mad since all my walls came crashing down 14 months ago... I had everything I asked for from my life and it was truly beautiful - But I felt numb and stuck and angry that I wasn't happy with everything I had - I lived on a 40 acre farm in the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mts. and raised organic vegetables which I loved marketing to a wider supportive community every week from April - November. I was also raising my fiery daughter and my sweet baby boy keeping me connected to other young families living a vibrant yet laid back rural life style. My husband worked hard everyday creating this life for us - gardens, ponds, greenhouses, storage sheds - giving life to a hundred year old farm and for 7 years we built this dream together. But he wasn't satisfied either and there are always more dreams to pursue and in those grey months there wasn't enough between us so he built another business brewing homestead beer. It sounded like a great idea another project and in line with our values of locally grown and produced products for our community. There was a success in it but there were so many challenges and failures too. And we were worn so thin. I was always last on the list. And so it goes - but things seemed to be smoothing out. Both businesses were up and running. Kids were getting older and more independent and I had more to give back. But you never can tell because just as I thought we would make it together and even perhaps reconnect he told me it was over for him.

I am glad now but only in that bittersweet way. I want so much more for myself. Sex was non-existent - our relationship changed tone dramatically really when he put the ring on my finger. For 10 years of marriage there were too little intimate memories for me to hold now. As new lovers we burned hot and fast but it didnt sustain. Yet we chose eachother anyway- maybe I was afraid or didn't believe in the soulmate thing and he had so many good enough qualities to build a life with. I wish I were strong enough to have said he wasn't enough for me. But everyday we were more involved and accumulated more so I stayed. That is what it meant for me to be married. Now I know it was just a bond and the meaning of it was just to tie us up. I can't wait to be free.

So now I am still growing gardens - not on my own land but with students at a University in my farmer's market town. I am teaching and learning how to teach and learning what to learn to set me on a path that will take me further afield. I have dreams again and that has been worth the pain and sorrow in a strange way. But it is tenuous and I am not secure that I'll be able to pay my bills and raise my kids and go to work and school with no one to tuck me in at night. But that is what keeps me going I don't have anyone but me here in the quiet hours.

There are still ties that bind and loose ends but I feel like I'll find my thread. It makes me angry to have to share my kids with someone so hurtful and selfish but they share love with him as children should. They are so young. I want them to understand how deeply he hurt me by all these choices that come down to he didn't love me and feel I was enough for him. He continues to tear at my heart when I see him choose to farm land that isn't ours, to quit brewing beer and throw all the time, energy and money down the drain that it took to get it started up. I don't think I'll ever understand his choices. It seems so hypocritical. Since he couldn't commit to me and my family. Couldn't find a way to find love - I am sure it was there when we met. But now when he has started a new union with a woman who looks a lot like me, has four children of her own at home and was still committed to her husband - another farmer at my market - I just feel sick. I see her children with their father and I want to cry for them - for my kids too. They will all grow up and all come to terms with this but the choices of betrayal and hurt are just heart wrenching. For me really more than these kids. They all have love and will but maybe some innocence is lost in all this? Maybe the fairy tale and romance and idealism of love is gone for children in our society in general. Because my story is common. The fairy tale is the myth.