It didn’t take much. My marriage ended and my life burned down quickly – it felt like it took no more than a single match.

In those first days I awoke to something much deeper than simple heartbreak. Heaviness was there. Overwhelm was there. A sadness so dense it had weight. From the moment my eyes opened each morning I was already back inside it – living something I couldn’t make sense of.

I went to my grandma’s that first night. Sitting in a bedroom the next morning I remember staring at the tiny books she had kept that belonged to us as kids when I heard him say it – “I think we’re done” The finality of it landed. There was no going back.

I didn’t stay in our house because I couldn’t. Without the relationship there was no home inside those walls anymore.

I felt to be the only one mourning. Leaning over the ashes of our life. He didn’t need to be there. He appeared to have lost nothing of significance. I couldn’t reconcile how someone could go from what felt like a devoted husband one day to walking away from that life happily the next. The gap between where he appeared to be and where I was – that was its own kind of devastation.

Somewhere in those early days in the car after a phone call with him that left me particularly raw a question arrived – softly, but with weight.

How do you want to feel when this is over?

I don’t know where the question came from. I just know the answer came back settled and complete.

Proud. I wanted to feel proud.

But having an answer and living it out are two entirely different things. To respond proudly in the midst of what I was experiencing felt completely beyond my capability.

I knew I needed to continue healing my hurt, to process through my pain completely. This was not a step that could be rushed or swept over. I began to understand that I’d have to exist in two places. I’d have to live in my pain but operate from a place I hadn’t arrive yet – a place of healed. Every step taken, every word and decision needed to come from the healed place.

This became the beginning of the thousand small choices.

I looked to my little boy. The boy who also went to sleep with one life and awoke to another. The boy who had the importance of our family unit woven into him from the beginning. I felt the weight of trying to protect some sense of family for him – which meant not tarnishing his dad. Our son was pure. He was going to be left with confusion in this regardless. He didn’t need me bleeding onto him the wounds I felt his dad gave me.

Every other Sunday brought a strong sting of unease and anxiety. Knowing our son was on his way home was it’s own kind of anticipatory dread – like knowing something was about to knock the wind out of you. I knew the first few minutes when he walked in the door were going to hurt. Those would be the minutes when he would come in full of stories, excited to tell me about his weekend.

Kids speak so freely, so unaware of what it sometimes costs others to hear their words. Things like “she does everything you used to do mom” I knew someone was now putting away my dishes and wiping down my table each night. The choice had to be made to dig my nails into whatever was closest to me and listen. To really listen with a heart that was happy he was happy and convey that back to him through my eyes.

The actual drop off brought it’s own heartache. The sight of my little boy with his backpack getting out of the car and moving between two lives. This was never how it was supposed to be. And then there was my own hurt, seeing the silhouette in the passenger seat and feeling the burning once again of how easily I had been replaced. That feeling was too intense. Both to handle as a woman, but also as a mother who needed to be present sixty seconds later for her son after having her heart busted open.

So I stopped looking.

The text messages were their own unique battlefield. The coldness I felt from him I couldn’t reconcile. I had been loved one day and felt like nothing the next. Every message that came through carried that reminder.

His messages were so triggering. I won’t pretend I didn’t struggle – didn’t want to lash out. To say the things I hoped would make him feel something. To make him hurt the way I was hurting. That pull was very real.

But again, the question – How do you want to feel.

I needed to approach communication in the cleanest way. I had to look past any perceived digs or things that hurt my heart. I had to go with the less is more approach. I worked to respond effectively and without emotion. To stay focused on our son and the business we now had together in raising him. I had to not allow myself to re-read texts or get hooked into words. Read, answer, put down the phone and go on.

And then the next situation would arrive. Some days I felt riddled by them. Continual moments that usually asked something of me I wasn’t sure I had. Another situation that required me to go above my hurt and stand steady. Some days I made it, some days I didn’t. But I continued to come back to my question.

Those early choices – made while walking over the coals of my own life were the hardest ones. They slowly got easier with each next choice. Today, I am proud of myself and my walk. Proud of the choices I made.

I walked this path without a map or much of a guide and this is simply the path that felt right to me. I found it by retreating inward and spending time there. Finding what felt true and honest to me. Separating the hurt from the knowing. I share this in hope that something here might help you walk through your own fire.