“Divorce is an opportunity.”

I wanted to write a post about divorce, being inspired by an article that my sister shared via Facebook.

Divorce is an opportunity.

Of course, this strikes one as at odd at first blanch, since we know that divorce is full loneliness, horrid pain from loss, and more unintended consequences than you can shake a stick at.

However, like all events that transpire in our life, it too is an opportunity.  An opportunity for growth, which like all opportunities that come our way, we can ignore, and squander, or grasp, and come out on the other side with a new version of ourselves.

Josh 2.0, if you will.

Having finished a year since my separation, I can now look back at the amazing opportunities that this past year has provided, that there is no way that I would have had, if I had remained married.  It’s not that they couldn’t have happened, but my environment and emotional self was not set up in such a way to allow for them.

A year ago, I never would have had the amazing opportunity to travel to Portland this past weekend, where I would eat lunch with a stranger named Rick and discuss an experience he had when he was five, and he experienced an intimate connection with the world; or meet and spend the morning touring around with Leanne learning about her school she started in Africa, and an amazing discussion about place and energy; or met the homeless man who offered me what he had collected so far that morning, when I bought him breakfast.

Ironically, the main issue with divorce is not that we can’t live with the person we were with, rather that we can’t live with ourselves.  So we leave our situation, only to find that we are still there.   I would bet that most people who get divorced, then settle for someone else just so they don’t have to be alone.  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  They should have just stayed married in an imperfect relationship and they could have saved themselves the pain of divorce.  Now that is a squandered opportunity.

Rather, divorce serves as an opportunity, not to find someone else, rather to find ourselves. And commune with ourselves.  And enjoy ourselves.  And just be one on one with the world.

And to patiently wait for that next special person, who has already done the same.

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