How are you… *really*?

I was chatting with a good mate yesterday, who said “I’ve been reading your blog [diary], but still want to know how you’re doing… how you’re really doing”.  I shared some thoughts then which I realise now haven’t really made it into this diary, but which definitely deserve a milestone marker.  Writing these wrestles down is a part of processing them, and it is a part I have not done well.  I hope to be able to look back over these notes after the ride is done – and detect a healthy trend of processing and of improvement.  And that can’t happen unless my mate’s question is answered here.

** This prompts a probably-timely reminder; I’m writing this diary (blog) primarily for my own purpose, to help process personal tragedy and grief. Any interest to others is actually secondary rather than the main reason for writing (but no apology if that disappoints!).  It is a practical cheat’s method of keeping those who care (and for whom I care) up to date with crazy motorbike travels, without having to keep two diaries when I find one diary more than hard enough. So if the navel-gazing that follows brings on a bored yawn, please just jump across to Netflix and move on! **

I’ve discovered over these last two and a half years – and felt even more deeply since my divorce became inevitable late last year – just how much my nuclear family was foundational to my sense of purpose, and even to my identity.  Take family out of the equation, and everything else has become for me tasteless, colourless, meaningless, yawning gulf.  It seems strange to contemplate that contrast in the context of the tension in our marriage, but there it is.

18 months (I think) back, I was ambushed with a sense that I must “release” my wife.  I argued with God, knowing that couldn’t be right.  It couldn’t possibly be right.  “Until death do us part” doesn’t leave much room for moving on, or for releasing another to do so.  But the conviction to “release” only deepened, in a way that I’ve come to recognise as wisdom with which I should not trifle.  Long-story-short (really! quite long!) I now recognise I saw it somewhat upside down initially, but after some distinct correction of my understanding in November 2021 I have looked since to find peace in God’s resolution of our brokenness rather than in my own attempt to “fix” our relationship.  I’m a fixer by nature, so that “release” of our broken relationship has been – and continues to be – an against-the-grain challenge.

Over a similar period I’ve also deepened a conviction that marriage really most definitely is “until death do us part”; not set aside for “inconvenience”, or following “too many fights”, or “so the kids can find peace” or because the marriage is “broken beyond repair”, or because “it was a mistake to begin with”. And not even Jesus’ Q’n’A with the Pharisees about divorce in Matthew gives an out – ask me about it if you don’t believe me.  I record those convictions here, recognising that I am recently divorced myself (perhaps by my fault but not by my choice), and that I’m in good company of many – many – whose marriages have fallen apart.  Every one of those will have a unique story with a common thread of deep and abiding pain.  And I’m sharing this conviction – please remember! – in a personal diary that I’ve simply put on a blog as I process my own journey.  It is a “mirror into which I am looking” not a “rock that I am throwing“ (thanks Dale Stephenson for that helpful contrast).  Divorce is the tragic statistical reality of our age, in a “no fault” culture that has walked away from the counsel of the Bible.  The divorce contrasted with my conviction renders me “a married man without a wife” and “a family man without a family”; and is, to materially understate, distinctly inconvenient.  But it is what it is.  Kathryn knows that if she were to decide to bring our family back together there is no “decision” for me to make, as we remain married before God, despite the Judge going above her pay grade to declare that we’re divorced.  “What God has joined, let no one put aside.”  Government paperwork is now erroneous, suggesting that we are no longer husband and wife.  (If it matters enough to invest an hour of your time in this uncommon perspective, let me know and I’ll point you to the resource I’ve found most helpful and influential.  Otherwise let’s move on and if necessary we can agree to disagree. 😊)

Even as I write all that it sits definitely as more philosophical or theoretical than as answering the question “how I am really”.  But it is necessary background, setting up the stark, dark juxtapositions that can’t otherwise be understood, and that lead to the answer to my mate’s question.

How am I really?  I am in a dark place, and feel trapped, hopeless, useless, lost; a directionless failure.  I can deal with failure and with dark, tough places to an extent – and I feel I’ve had more than enough practice over a few decades.  But I’ve usually had at least a direction to pursue better, whereas the emptiness and juxtapositions above leave me without even a direction to pursue here and now.  Lost.  Empty.

That is in fact the entire reason for my “ride for hope”.  That, and my God and I are both adventurous spirits so this ride is a good way to invest in our relationship.  It is an attempt to shake off rhythms, expectations, duties, cultural norms, perspectives – hopefully for just long enough to dust myself off and reframe.  I need to find a positive posture into my darkness, and eventually even perhaps a small torch.  I need to sift through how to be healthy in God, with an identity that withstands calamity, that does not depend even on those nearest and dearest to me.  I suspect that’s where “releasing” Kathryn comes in, although that understanding is still very much a work in progress.  I know (head knowledge) that God is sufficient for all my needs including the deepest relational and intimacy needs.  But there’s still some significant surgery to be done before that works its way the very long 12 inches down from head to heart.

I am reasonably confident that a posture of praise and thanks sits at the start of addressing these heavy topics – not only as the end result of possible success.  And I have a lot to be thankful for.  I have a roof over my head (even if that’s just a tent at times), food in my belly (usually quite edible), freedom (even if not yet travel to Timor Leste), an incredible circle of friends who care deeply for me (and vice versa – you’re doubtless the ones still reading this long navel-gaze!), and an unshakable hope anchored beyond this life (regardless of how well my hope within this life fares).  I really am thankful for all of this rich blessing, and I know I need to lift my gaze to this treasure and to God’s love, rather than sulk in the corner about what’s broken.  Very much a work in progress.  I aim to finish the ride in a better place than I’ve started.

How am I really?  I’m ok at one level.  But mostly just “existing”, waiting on God for some sense of direction and healing.  I’m hearing nothing at this stage, and waiting isn’t yet one of my core competencies.

Being stuck in Darwin is a bit frustrating.  But the reality is that to whatever extent it is meaningless sitting around in the humid heat doing not much, the alternatives seem just as meaningless without my wife and kids.  That’s the sense of “lost”, and that is what I’m hoping to rediscover on the road.

My mate asking last night about how I’m doing said as the conversation neared an end “I [he] can feel a blog post brewing”.  Right he was (as he almost always is).  I think this diary entry pretty much captures the essence of that conversation.

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