Scarf Trick

After deciding to go public with our divorce, the fear was not how people would react, who I would hurt, or whether we made the right decision. I know in my bones that we are honoring our absolute truth. And when you live like that, everything else slots into place – unfolding and unwrapping in brutal and beautiful ways. The hard right ways.

The fear, for me, is based on a lie metabolized over the course of my life. The lie was this:

“You will not survive this world, babe. You haven’t got a hope in hell. Unless you have a man to support you.” 

I chewed it up, swallowed it, and let the data inform my cells. How I grew and developed. What I looked for. How I saw the world. Thinking I was simply distributing a universal truth, starching the letters of the law into my ball gown. 

Until I realized 

no one can make me swallow 

but me. 

So now I have to reach my hand down my throat and pull out the tied-off strand of scarves—one by one. Yank them out of my biology. Separate myself from the myth. So I can become the magic that remains when the lies are stripped from my psyche. Assess the damage, and apply the proper medicine. 

Historically, I have never proven to myself that I can stand on my own two feet. Before my husband, it was my dad. I’ve never been put in a situation where there were no other saviors but myself. But now is my chance. I am standing in the spotlight. Naked and afraid. And alone. Afraid I don’t have what it takes. To make a fresh start. To support myself. To pay bills. To find health insurance. To save for retirement. I am standing, alive as ever, in the fulcrum of no longer and not yet. My soul knows its capacity. My humanness wonders, “What of it?” 

If it is Enough. 

If my work is Enough. 

If I.

am. 

Enough. 

“YES!” I hear. Echo off the walls of my interior, where the fibers of delusion once rested their laurels—absorbing the shock of the reply.