BellaOnline Forums Relationships Divorce If I'm so happy, why am I sad?

Kat Wilder: My So-called Midlife
I am a textbook fortysomething divorcee.

I don't sit around and bemoan my fate - the end of a 15-year marriage and finding myself a single mom at midlife. I do everything the self-help books say. I have a full (sometimes too full) and satisfying life. I have a huge network of friends, male and female; I take classes and indulge myself in activities I've always wanted to do; I keep myself fit; I enjoy my son and time spent as Mom; I love my work; I nurture myself and others; I volunteer; I treasure my alone time; I go out; I entertain; I work on my "baggage"; I flirt, date and have an active sex life; I take responsibility for my actions and my life. I'm not bitter, angry, revengeful or needy.

But sometimes, I am sad.

The sadness creeps up on me when I don't expect it, not at the usual Hallmark card moments - holidays, Valentine's Day, birthdays - and not when anything particularly sad or stressful - a romantic tiff or work issues - is going on in my life.

It's not an overwhelming sadness. It's a momentary thing, a recognition of a feeling. It leaves almost as quickly and quietly as it arrives.

But it hit me particularly hard at my son's graduation from elementary school.

As I entered for the last time the school that had been a part of my life for six years, I watched as the young families walked into the building to escort their kids to class, many with babies in tow. I looked at their faces, how happy they seemed, with all the possibilities of what was ahead. I remembered when Rob and I looked just like that when Trent was young, as we chatted with teachers and other parents.

I started to choke up, but hid it as I took my seat in the auditorium next to Rob.

At the ceremony, when the kids I'd known for so long shared their remembrances, I couldn't hold back. No one would have questioned my tears - there were many moist-eyed parents around me. Just not for the same reason.

I feel it sometimes on my own block, watching the young families who have moved in, a few into the very same houses of my dear friends who have changed locales - some to other neighborhoods, some to other states. I see their kids playing and biking up and down the street, selling lemonade, decorating their driveways with fanciful chalk drawings. I see the parents making plans to get together, hanging at the corner together, and it reminds me of when we were the young families on the block, when we had the spontaneous get-togethers and crazy nights of laughter and games while the kids played.

My life was not supposed to turn out this way. I was not supposed to be a midlife statistic. I was not supposed to be a fortysomething Marin divorcee.

Sometimes, I think, "If I could go back in time ..."

Of course I realize that there's just no way to tell how happy my young neighbors are by what they look like as I pass by. Who knows what goes on behind the picket fences and shingle siding? When Rob and I told friends that we were getting divorced, everyone was shocked. We looked good together, we danced well together, we laughed well together. On the surface, we appeared to be the perfect, happily married couple. It often felt that way, too.

Plus it's foolish to be nostalgic for that past. The signs that there were serious problems in the marriage were there all along; I just chose to ignore them, despite the frequent knots in my stomach. If I went back in time, I'd still be heading for divorce, just earlier.

I certainly wouldn't want to be married to Rob again, even with the changes he's made that make him much more of a "catch." He's not a bad person, he's just bad for me. There are no regrets.

The truth is, I am much happier now, mostly because I've taken the time to get to know me and redefine myself. As horrible as a divorce can be, it does offer you the opportunity to look inward and see the role you played in the marriage's demise. If you're smart, you discover the bad behaviors and "baggage" that you brought into it, and learn how to change those - or at least become aware of them so you can stop things before they go down familiar dysfunctional paths or you re-create the same dynamic with a new love. I'd like to think that we could get to a place of self-realization without a major crisis, but I don't know many people - any, actually - who've done that successfully.

And I realize sadness is just part of the human experience, as important and as necessary as all the other feelings.

I am a textbook fortysomething divorcee.

But sometimes, I am sad.

If there were no sadness could there really be happiness?

All emotions bring pain. All emotions are a hindrance. The moment we realise that emotions are a hindrance and pain, and we resolve to rise above them, they are no longer a pain or a hindrance. Stand back. look at the emotion. Do you experience it every second, of every waking moment, of every day? No. Why? because they are impermanent. They are ephemeral. they are - to put it bluntly - a pointless burden.

Let the two impostors Triumph and Disaster go, because they are just the same, as Kipling tried to explain. He was right.

Let go of Happiness/sadness/anger/impatience/envy/pride/greed and you will find yourself much lighter for it!

Conninem, I agree -- no sadness, no happiness. The yin-yang.

But Alexandra, not all emotions bring pain and are a hindrance. Some are just pure pleasure. Of course, when they go away, they're replaced by something else, perhaps an emotion that does bring pain. This is just called "life." I think it's learning to deal with the changes of emotions, embracing them perhaps, that gives us a healthy attitude about the sad-happy of it all.
Thanks for sharing.

There is no emotion that brings pure pleasure, because by the very fact that they are temporary, they are not 'pure'....As you say, "of course when they go away"....and that's the pain bit. They don't last. We can't hang onto them and establish them as pure pleasure, because they are tinged with the sadness of impermanence... 'Pure pleasure' is never suffering from emotion in the first place, but being detached in a state of ingrown bliss....The more you can actually totally come to teems with the impermanence of absolutely everything, including your spouse, your mother, your father, your dog, your garden, your own life....and dwell in the pure pleasure of the single present moment in unattached Joy....Than you know 'Pure Pleasure'. "Life" is everybody's main hindrance. Detach from that, and then you'll know what Pure pleasure is.

Thank YOU for sharing.

With metta,
Alexandra

"Plus it's foolish to be nostalgic for that past. The signs that there were serious problems in the marriage were there all along; I just chose to ignore them, despite the frequent knots in my stomach. If I went back in time, I'd still be heading for divorce, just earlier."

So true...my husband and I are divorcing after 9 years and most people are shocked. They are shocked because we seem to get along so well, because we don't fight, because we seem happy. I guess "seem" is the key word there. We are both not happy, not satisfied and we have become different people over the past 10-12 years. I think we both recognized the problems, but neither one of us wanted to say anything for fear of hurting the other person. Filing for divorce today. It hurts to realize I spend 12 years on something that ultimately didn't work out, but I learned a lot from him and I am finally starting to figure myself out. In the long run, I think we will both be better, happier people.