"nothingness" does not mean "nothing"

First, an apology. I said last year I was "starting a blog." However, my dear friend Marla noted that it's not a blog if you don't, well, blog. Therefore, I have not blogged, and you may feel duped.

And I have not blogged since August 2009. Why is that? Because I have been going through the throes of a divorce. Let me tell you, it's like another job, really -- there is a lot to do, many papers to fill out, gobs of statements of fact to compose. And that's true regardless of whether your divorce is friendly or not.

And mine wasn't, even though I thought it would be. Even though I longed for it to be. Even though I continued to pine for same as I got the snot beat out of me in one way or another. I kept thinking, "this HAS to get better, right?"

And no, it wasn't the fault of my attorney. She was the real gem in all of this, a person I could trust and share my innermost anxieties with. She was no ambulance-chaser; on more than one occasion she disabused me of the belief that somehow (a) this was going to be a slam-dunk and (b) I would become far richer monetarily because of my divorce. Neither were true; she didn't lie.

But I digress. Since August, when I hired said gem-of-an-attorney, and last week (when we reached a settlement), there has not been a single day in which I was not obsessing about some aspect of the divorce. I won't go into the details, because they are not relevant; rather, the focus of this particular post is about obsession and what happens when the obsessing goes away.

While all of this divorce shit was going on, I also was worrying about the lack of work I was running up against because of the economy. As a consultant, I have to look for work and heretofore that has not been an issue. However, since most of my clients are cities and counties -- and you know how THAT is going these days -- I haven't had nearly enough work for the year.

I then thought I would get creative and use the lax time to work on a paper for my PhD requirements, something that had languished for quite a while. And for a few months, I was applying myself and actually finished the paper, and started on another.

Then, at the beginning of this year, as the divorce stuff heated up, my work plummeted, and the skies turned gray, I sort of fell apart. Well, actually, I became quasi-catatonic. I could not do much of anything -- even though I had a lot of time on my hands.

So I began obsessing about every little thing regarding the divorce. I saw my ex in various places with various new loves. Initially I was devastated; then I became irritable. SHE seemed to be having a lot of fun, while I was in a state of near-constant despair. I reviewed paperwork my ex submitted with a fine-tooth comb. I wanted to know everything I could about what she was doing, so that I could strategize how to respond. I wanted to be prepared for anything thrown at me.

We finally started meeting face-to-face to discuss the terms of a settlement. Actually, it started out with going through volumes of paper, representing 15 years of assets [stuff] that we collectively accumulated, to discern who got what. The reduction of my longest-ever relationship -- my MARRIAGE -- to "who bought that dresser" made me sick. Made me sad, devalued.

The night before one of our last meetings, I lay in bed with my beloved dogs, the sound of their breathing signaling the existence of us, a family. MY family. And all that other "stuff" started to melt away in importance. I heard Alanis Morisette in my head, singing

The moment that I let go of it
Was the moment I got more than I could handle
The moment that I jumped off of it
Was the moment that I touched down.

("Thank U")

I realized then that I didn't need anything, that all of this "stuff" could go away and I would still be here, part of a family. None of it mattered anymore.

Last Thursday, I met with my ex and we reached a settlement. I left the conference room and repaired to my attorney's office, where I started to weep. I felt a strange mixture of sadness, relief, and god knows what else.

The following day, when I thought I would feel better, I felt worse. I cried most of the day -- big, heaving sobs that felt like they traveled back in time to a grief that has always been there. I was now left with this gigantic open space in which obsessing about the divorce was no longer available as an escape. There it was. Nothingness.

I couldn't fill it with too much wine, too much food, too much anger. There were no reams of paper to shove my head into, no books that could carry me to some other land for even a few minutes. I struggled with the feelings I had in my despairing youth of wanting to die. "There's always suicide," I heard a voice in my head say -- and then I would laugh out loud at the stupidity of it all.

Today, a week later, I can still feel the vastness and it scares me. I am afraid of the empty space. I am afraid there is nothing left to me. I am afraid that I have no meaning outside my struggles, and I am afraid I will find a new suffering/obsession to fill up that space. I am afraid being strong, honest, open-hearted and joyful will mean no one will care about me. I feel my identity has been locked in the suffering, and now no one will see me. I am not needed, nor do I need. I am nothing.

And yet...[you knew I wouldn't be a total bag of downers, didn't you?] Yesterday I went for my regular energy healing session with the wonderful CF, and she set me straight: "nothingness" does not mean "nothing." In the vastness, the calm, the "no more suffering about this one thing," there is Spirit. There is Buddhahood. There is the force we cannot see but want to believe is there within us. Some days I believe it, some days not. Today, I will try again.