Heal. Transform. Thrive.

Dancing while the bomb dropped

A couple of weeks ago, the bomb of all bombs dropped.

Divorce.

I hate the freaking word, to say nothing of its meaning and everything associated with it.

It’s a soul-sucking, joy-robbing, energy-depleting state of grief.

I’ve confronted this monster before and managed to thwart it. But this time, I knew I was overpowered.

Just like the other times, I am heartbroken and angry and devastated.

Mostly heartbroken.

I’ve not only lost my spouse.

I’ve also lost my best friend.

I’ve lost his family and friends.

I’ve lost time—so much freaking time—memories, and happiness.

From now on, the anniversary of one of the happiest days of my life will be a day of mourning. Of profound sadness.

(Writing that last sentence has sent me into waterworks. Again.)

I was finally—finally—getting my life back. Finally coming home to me.

I was creating. Learning. Greeting the day with enthusiasm. With hope.

And the kicker?

I thought Craig and I were finally, albeit slowly, finding our way back to each other.

(Cue Col. Nathan Jessup: “Don’t I feel like the fucking asshole.”)

Um, have you noticed that I don’t deal with loss very well?

I was terrified to lose everything yet again.

And yet…

I knew that this time, I couldn’t give in to the trauma. After months of reconnecting to joy and momentum, I couldn’t lose it again just because my life was about to get another ass-kicking.

I needed to do my damnedest to, at the very least, find fleeting moments of alignment, however minuscule.

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For starters, I attended the WriteNow! conference on Saturday, May 16 (sponsored by the Triangle Association of Freelancers and founded by my good friend Don Vaughan), just two days after this all went down.

That I was greeted with hugs from Don and his wife Nan was all the confirmation I needed that I was in the right place.

I wasn’t the social butterfly I typically am at these events. No selfies (too bad; I was having such a good hair day that a woman approached me in the restroom to compliment it). I sat in the back of the room during sessions and away from as many people as possible during lunch.

It was nothing against them. I was running on half a tank, so to speak.

Children’s author Meg Medina was the first keynote speaker, and from the moment she stepped up to the podium and greeted us, I was grateful I made the effort to be there. Especially when she said this:

Better still, just about everything Meg talked about in her children’s fiction craft session applied to the novel I’m writing about characters currently in midlife. I even participated during the exercise she took us through, which I loved.

Another session focused on tapping into emotional action keywords when writing, be it a book or a blog post. The presenter gave an example of a client who wrote a book about how she reclaimed her life following the death of her child.

The emotional keywords were Heal. Transform. Thrive.

The ultimate theme of the book: Create a life bigger than grief.

It’s like the universe was trying to tell me something.

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About a week later, I stayed awake to watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s final show.

During the introduction, Colbert, no stranger to loss and grief, set the tone and intention for the show: Joy.

Throughout his tenure, he called every aspect of the show “the joy machine.”

His final guest: Sir Paul McCartney.

During the interview, Stephen asked Sir Paul if he liked change.

Sir Paul, without hesitation, said no.

He joked about iPhone updates as an example, but I couldn’t help but think of the scene in the reissue of Let It Be, when the Beatles are on the verge of breaking up and a young Paul is staring out, speechless, on the verge of tears.

He wanted the Beatles to be together for the rest of their lives.

Stephen wanted to keep doing the show.

I don’t know that I “hate” change, but I know that feeling all too well.

Especially when the ending is out of your hands.

Mere weeks ago, I was an iPhone before the update.

I sobbed throughout Paul McCartney’s performance of “Hello Goodbye,” Colbert singing alongside him.

Craig and I had seen McCartney live together ten years prior in Seattle. A shared love of the Beatles had been among the first things we’d learned about each other when we became friends.

You know, when we said hello.

Hello, hello? I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello.

The next day, videos surfaced on social media of The Late Show after-party, with Stephen and his wife Evvie surrounded by friends and colleagues and celebrities, dancing as if they were celebrating the beginning of something rather than the end of it.

Dancing while the bomb dropped.

Heal. Transform. Thrive.

Stephen Colbert is the ultimate example of a life bigger than grief.

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I want the direction of this Substack, of my author career—of my life—to be about healing. Transforming. Thriving.

(I mean, I always wanted it to be about those things. But now I want to embody them.)

My new goal: Create a life bigger than grief.

Turn all this loss—especially the loss of the love of my life—into something more beautiful.

For the last ten years, when life got overwhelming, I retreated from writing. I couldn’t find the words.

But Meg Medina, Paul McCartney, and Stephen Colbert showed me a better alternative.

They reminded me that joy is in what endures.

Music.

Art.

Words.

Comedy.

Laughter.

Connection.

They reminded me that for every goodbye, there is a hello.