I Have No Idea What I Am Doing

"As I'm building up this house I wonder what of it will stay. It seems you just take things away..."

Lately I've had a great deal of time to reflect on who the last 10 years have made me. There are times that I find myself with the exact same decisions as a decade prior and scoff at the decisions I would have made then. But there's a reason that I know the judgement calls I would have made previously: they're still an option.  I still weigh them against good judgement. I'm one skewed-impulse-control moment away from a poor life choice. That takes away any delusion that my guard can be down. 

Some days it feels like being a man is just like being a child with a well defined inner-scold mechanism. 

There are so many similarities to 26 year old Blake. I still see futures that are irrelevant and ridiculously long and have to reign in all the emotions attached to them. I still make up short term hypothetical situations that can involve me and others that don't matter and I'm frustrated when they don't culminate in the proper hypothetical ending.

But there are differences. I don't care about the futures I build. My mind constructs them too quickly to be stopped, but I have the knowledge that  they are ridiculous. I have learned that I do not want to force those destinies because of the pain involved. Where 26 year old Blake has found the love of his life, 36 year old Blake has turned down 3 dates. I do these things not out of fear but the wisdom that my life supports  hanging out with friends and Bible studies and playing my XBox in between custody of my boys. 

The best part of me that I could offer anyone right now is good company and maybe some Nutella.  

And these decisions, all in all, are the ones to which I believe God has led me. I have the most good friendships I've had in 10 years. I am rebuilding some I've lost years ago. And my relationship with my sons gets only stronger though I see them less. But it's only because I stopped following my own stupidity, my own personally drawn fates. Those have always been failures. I depend on a Spirit-led relationship and the wisdom that comes from 36 years of poor decisions. 

The biggest realization has been realizing that I have had no idea what I am doing. 

"As you're tearing down this house there is only one thing I can say, 'I'm so glad you take away.'"

--Wavorly

On Divorce and Failure

“For I hate divorce!” says the Lord, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty, ” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies." (Malachi 2:16a NLT)

Single and married people alike quickly throw this verse off with ease, sometimes sure of their immunity to it. Both they and their spouse give the effort needed  and would never "overwhelm" the other with "cruelty". They hate divorce just like God does. 

Today I walked out of a courthouse completely defeated. I felt the entire weight of 10 years of failure crushing me. A wave of embarrassment flooded into me as a judge granted the death of my marriage in front of a host of witnesses, some of which I knew and some of which were strangers. Those feelings still wash over me in ebbs and flows. Every bit of this entire process has felt broken and wrong. Right now I have no mixed feelings: I am only bruised and humiliated.

With all due respect, single and married people don't know the entire weight of the process. In comparison, they dislike divorce. Divorced people hate divorce.

But yesterday my oldest asked me what my New Year's resolution was. I paused, realizing I'd made none yet. I was so engulfed in defeat, wallowing so much, that I'd forgotten that my divorce would be final at the beginning of a new year. I thought briefly. "To be honest, I feel like life knocked me down pretty hard last year, son", I said. "It's time to get back up. That's my resolution".  He just smiled and told me that it was a really good one. 

Divorce is the end of a life together. One become two. But if that's true, I can not linger in a dead "one-ness" or in the cruelty of life I feel now.  The test of true failure cannot be how hard I fall, but whether or not I stand back up. 

So, for everyone who depends on me now, including myself, I will rise back up. Busted and bruised, I will not regret my history but I will learn from it. I will move forward with the race I'm meant to run.  I will be a good father, co-parent, friend, son, employee, and any other duty set before me.

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but rising up every time we fall" -- Ralph Waldo Emerson.  

I'm not a failure unless I stay down.

God, help me get back up.