Last night I had to take the mandatory co-parenting class that is required to get divorced. One more step forward… It was so sad to sit in a room with 20 or so people who are watching their families be torn apart. This is just not the way things are supposed to be – families are not supposed to be ripped in half.

I have a little less than a month until the divorce is final. And I’ve been thinking a lot about what could be… one last look back I guess. The final tears shed for what I’ve lost.

The one thing that I wrote down from the class last night was this: you move in the direction that you are focused on. I’ve been thinking about what my focus was for the last three years and what it is now. For three years all I could think of is what could be, that maybe Jim would change, that maybe things could be healed, that all I wanted is for things to go back to the way they used to be. When Jim told me he wanted to leave, I was propelled forward. Against my will maybe, but forward. I was forced to look at the world as it was and I was forced to imagine my life being different. That was SO good for me. I started looking at something other than the past and what I was losing and I started seeing the possibilities of what lies ahead. My heart healed so much and so quickly once I started focusing on the future.

Moving forward is such an act of faith, especially when you have been stuck for so long. I still remind myself of the words God whispered to me one morning in the early stages of this: “I know what I’m doing with you.” I clung to those words. I still do. Because I maybe don’t know what I’m doing with myself, but he has a plan.

Now my goal is to decide what that future will look like for me. To choose where I want to go and how I will get there. Never in my adult life have I had the sole decision-making ability over what I want or where I want my life to go. It’s a tall order, but a good one. There is so much freedom in having the power to move your own life. And that’s just what I’m going to do.