Wow, AJM, that was just...beautiful. What a beautifully written explanation for the whole process, for the death of what "was" and the realization of what "is." I love your iceberg analogy, and the ashes, and all of it. Your insights are spot-on but the way you've expressed yourself is really memorable. Wow.

I will add something that helped me--although I can't claim to have written this. This is a quote from a short story, a new version of Hansel and Gretel that has very little in common with the fairy tale we all know. It's by Francine Prose.

And if you're a guy reading this, just imagine that the unhappy girl is a boy:

"I wondered how often the future waits on the other side of the wall, knocking very quietly, too politely for us to hear, and I was filled with longing to reach back into my life and inform that unhappy girl: all around her was physical evidence proving her sorrows would end. I wanted to tell her that she would be saved, but not by an act of will: clever Gretel pretending she couldn't tell if the oven was hot and tricking the witch into showing her and shoving the witch into the oven. What would rescue her was time itself and, above all, its inexorability, the utter impossibility of anything ever staying the same."

What I can tell you Tad is that I'm at 15 months post-bomb and counting, and while I am sad at the loss of my XH, and some days I'm "down", I love my life. I love my friends. Most of the time I love my family (dad and mom can be a bit tough here and there...). I love my job. I love my writing. I love my resiliency and my rebuilt self-esteem. And I love that there are so many possibilities for me in my future. I have never been as strong in my life as I am right now, and I'm getting stronger by the month. And that took letting go of the notion that I needed XH to have all of this. I have it without him. You can too.

It took a serious effort of willpower to get to this point. You gotta summon the strength to get it and stick to it.

M45
Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11
Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy
"Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying