On My Ten Year Wedding Anniversary: If You Would Have Told Me
If you would have told me
my marriage would end in divorce,
I would have laughed in your face.
Or that
on my ten year wedding anniversary
I’d be working from home
alone
no husband coming home
my children in his separate home,
I would have probably called you a liar.
Even if God would have told me
My marriage would catch fire,
blazing into ashes before year seven
I would have laughed,
Letting you know our marriage resembled heaven.
I knew at first sight
He was the One.
I knew within moments,
We’d be together for the long run.
The long run ended abruptly
Trauma from religion erupting
Shaking me to my core
Taking me to battle,
an internal-war—
I knew without most doubts
Our marriage had run its course.
If you would have told me
I set my own life on fire,
I would have called you a liar.
Determined to break the generational cycle
Of dysfunctional marriage & relationships recycled,
Of emotional abuse
Female oppression & hidden depression
My determination to keep my marriage intact had become an obsession.
If you would have told me
My beautiful marriage
—Which started in what Christian’s call purity—
Had to end to save the last ounces of my sanity…
I would have thrown something at you, but probably just pretend profanity.
And yet.
For years before I set fire to my life
I existed in a perpetual state of panic
I was sure someone would find out + label me manic
I hated myself for feeling deep unrest…
I was the most blessed.
But when pressed about how I was doing,
I finally realized
I was dying inside.
Crying myself to sleep in secret,
Complying and committed to be the best mom
and wife,
But something was deeply wrong,
And I could not pin it.
Until I did.
In 2018.
And now it is 2022.
Ten years since we were married,
In front of hundreds of people, + filed through the courts.
Four years since that union
Caught the ferocious flame of divorce.
I’m here.
Divorced.
Mom to three, multiple dads.
Set on an entirely different course.
BUT
Inside me grows the fire,
The fire that once burnt my life to ashes
Now burns inside me as a force
To be reckoned with.
Those ashes beckoned new life,
New birth came forth:
Straight from the uterus,
the strongest muscle in the
female body—
I embody love and freedom and peace.
Abundance.
Ohhhh but damn, this Christian life,
the people from it and in it.
opinions bent around tiny little boxes,
Cemented into “well meant” questions
And statements
Comments and phrases
And biases.
Poison dripping from words and opinions.
Inventing rules,
Regulating marriages + people:
Using bated words like love and care and concern—
not even recognize the weight of their facades of love
Which really just cause pain
And isolate.
But I get it.
Because I was them.
“Divorce is not an option,
But murder is”
It was the pop quiz I didn’t know I’d fail,
And maybe I’m the fool in this tale,
But honestly?
I’m doing quite well,
I feel like I broke out of a life-sentence in jail.
The jail was the religion, of course.
the source of abusive, toxic Indoctrination
Casting God’s creation, people, to earthly damnation
When we don’t fit into the black and white boxes
Like straight, single + sexless, or non-denomination..
Earthly damnation when don’t follow the right rules
Like staying married til death do us part,
Or say the right words,
Like “I asked Jesus into my heart.”
If you would have told me
My marriage would not last,
In 2012, on August 11th
my grooms + my hands in a clench,
wearing a long, tired with lace, beautiful vintage wedding dress…
If you would have told me
I would be the one to express
the end of our marriage
As I danced my first dance,
Tossed my bouquet,
Drove off after the entire day,
Into my honeymoon,
A virgin on my wedding night
I would have looked you right in the eyes,
Smiled brightly,
Maybe with a little spite,
And told you that you are anything you want to be,
but about this? you are not right.
We didn’t call it religion, we called it relationship with Jesus + God.
But as I’ve spent the last four years pulling apart everything I’ve been taught,
It is clear as a sunny day the absolute facade
I fought so hard to live by.
It prepped me and groomed me,
Christianity did,
To be used up and abused
By nearly anyone, in the name of love and selflessness and humility.
But now…
four years of creating beauty straight from the ashes I have the ability
To see the difference between self-degradation, self-hatred… + dignity.
Four years of creating new life,
Straight from the strength of my life’s uterus:
I can keep my own secrets,
Have boundaries without drowning in shame,
Say I’m okay and actually mean it,
And know that in regards to my divorce, religion is to blame.
If you would have told me
I’d set my whole life on fire,
That it would be treacherous,
Full of trauma, loss, and pain…
But the downpour would come,
Raining abundance of grace
And peace,
Deepest Authenticity,
And a confidence that would make me gritty?
I’d have been confused,
But I think I might have been curious.
I may be divorced, a bit bruised,
But damn you guys,
Right now?
I am not confused.
Happy ten year wedding anniversary to me.
