The parent thing. A marriage separation.

"Did you tell anyone yet?" he asks her while I am in the kitchen making tacos.

"What are you talking about?" in her constant state of annoyance at him.

"About you know, the parent thing."

"Oh, no."

"I did," he whispers, "today, but I think she totally forgot already."

I say from the kitchen, "Hey, I wanted you to know that your best friends know, their parents told them. If you wanted to talk to them."

"About what?" he wants to know.

"About the parent thing."

"Oh cool."

And that was that. Just another layer to what they are trying to understand of the separation of their parents who have spent the last 21 years together. We are all going slowly. No one is falling apart or confused. We have all been somehow knowing this day would come in our souls for about 2 years. Or maybe I just like to tell myself that. But I do believe that how slowly Patrick and I have unravelled our togetherness has been what is keeping us solid.

I love Patrick deeply. He me. We may be choosing to no longer walk together the way we have but both of us view it as a step forward. As movement. And we longed for this movement. Stuck sucks. It hurts everyone that it touches.

For the last few years we have learned so much. We have broken addictive patterns that hurt us. We have learned a new language to communicate. We have been sad and lost and joyful inside the pain.

Two years ago I knew I wasn't happy. I knew he wasn't happy. And for two years I have prayed and prayed and prayed to find the guidance to help me follow the right path towards happiness and thriving together.

I kept thinking I could fix it, make it all better. Change it. Control it. Be OK with it. Then a few months ago I felt a death inside of me. The only way I can explain it is to say that I knew that I was allowed to let what was have its own death so that we could have a beginning. A rise. I had not been willing to let something that was ready to die go. I held on tighter than anyone ever has. My vagina suffered from pain from all the holding. If I let the holding go from the most tender sexual part of my body, if I let the death move through me out of my pelvic floor, I had no choice but to let all that I was holding onto go with the pain.

Two years later we are now restructuring how we are a family, staying guided by only love. It is our only desire inside of our slow twist apart.

There are days when I can't breathe. When my heart feels like it might not make it. When I want to be medicated so I can sleep. I go back to my prayer. And my texts from my friends. And the way my six year old looks at me like I am the most beautiful person on the planet. I know that these kids will find thier own path inside of a change that they cannot control. I feel proud as hell that they are witnessing two parents who are not fighting or filled with hatred but surrending to the choice that love sometimes asks us to make in letting go. So that we can begin.

I am in the place right now of lots of coffee, too little food on a nervous stomach and a flood of faith. I feel happy inside the pain of all of this. I feel this crazy amount of joy because I know that we both can now thrive in ways that I have yet to reach and look at.

My focus now is on finding rhythm for the kids and for ourselves. My gratitude that The Loft is here to wrap us in its cocoon of beauty and pulsing is beyond what I can say. To already have a home to go to that the kids know and love feels like divine planning. Which of course it was.

I am struggling a bit with focus. My work is my lighthouse. The women who circle with me, who lift me when they think it is me lifting them.

The space between is gorgeous and scary. Fear guides my next steps. It forces me to insist on reality and asking for what I want.

My next step is a massive night of visioning. To make a board filled with dreams I haven’t allowed myself because being stuck is nowhere to find dreams. More fear. Believing I deserve the things that play inside my spirit.

I am 40. I am inside of a marriage separating.

Every day lived has been walking me to this moment as every day does for each of us.

I desire safety and a wild edge. I desire heat in my belly, the way tequilla dances inside. I desire peaceful sleep when the time is right. I desire such happiness for our family that is redesigning. I desire to become what I have not been willing to let myself dream.

“Hey babe, give me a kiss, I’m heading to The Loft. Dad will bring you to school tomorrow.”

“OK, can I please have just 30 minutes on my iPod?”

“Yeah. Cool.” And so we begin.